The Outdoor Hands-on Museum at RIT
A series of 14 outdoor installations around RIT's campus will tell the story of RIT in a way that is immersive and engaging to passersby on campus. Each site has a tower, a unique footprint, and a theme: ranging from Space to Community to Balance.
More about Metaproject 14
What is Balance?
The basic forces of the universe are a push and a pull, but neither can be sustained at an extreme. Eventually, equilibrium is reached. A point of balance lying still at the perfect center, in a moment of peace.
A relationship is established. A scale reveals a disparity or an equality between the weights.
Balance seeks equality, at a human scale. Applying pressure to a single actor disrupts the entire system; an invitation of change. It forces the community to investigate their relationship with each other, to identify the point of compromise between them, in order to sit at rest.
Balance, in every step.
A relationship with the self.
Balance, with the whole body.
A relationship between the self and the world.
"We want Realism's wealth of experience and Symbolism's depth of feeling. All art is a problem of balance between two opposites."
Cesare Pavese
Balance in Play
An exploration of playgrounds, outdoor installations, and sculptures that are rooting in balance.
Ideation focused on bringing together visual balance and physical balance, and investigating symmetry and form.
Several rounds of ideation were tested by peers and reviewed by a panel of judges, consisting of RIT staff affiliated with RIT's Strategic Plan. The judge's criteria included Idea, Constructability, and Maintenance. Many of the design decisions were led by these principles, with a growing emphasis on simplicity, standard playground references, and cost reduction.
Balance on a simple fulcrum.
Balance expanded to two axes.
Four Swings
A mixture of a swing set and a seesaw, this installation brings together four people to play with balance. The movement of one seat will affect the movement of another, in a test of collaboration as each seat is a different weight.
Four Swings is made out of recycled, Flo-Coat galvanized steel pipes, standard to playgrounds. The vertical supports are anchored two feet into the concrete below, and recycled tire rubber keeps the ground safe.
Four Swings in Detail
The process book, detailing the dimensions, required parts, and engineering of the 4 Swings.
