Carousel for Companionship
Carousel for Companionship is public installation in downtown Columbus, Indiana featuring a rotating platform that is manually operated by community members to facilitate public programming, performances, and play.
Agency
Could Be Design
Practice Area
Client
Landmark Columbus Foundation
Industry
The Challenge
In response to recommendations outlined by James Lima Planning and Development in their 2021 downtown activation study of Columbus, Indiana, the Carousel for Companionship provides a spectrum of activities to appeal to multiple constituencies as they traverse downtown Columbus at different times. It also addresses a range of scales of spatial impact:
At the city-block scale, the carousel doubles as a community stage for performances during market days along 4th Street, when the street is closed to vehicular traffic allowing large audiences to congregate. The supergraphic mural calls the community to gather at the site, and gives passersby permission to linger and hang out.
At a program scale, the carousel can be rotated towards the flanking walls of the plaza to create an intimate performance space, more suited for a poetry reading or an acoustic set. The mural graphics on the wall and ground surfaces generate the sensibility of an urban room, defining space through precise geometries and bright colors.
At the most intimate scale, the carousel’s ability to gently rotate allows it to enliven an un-programmed, typical Tuesday with interactive play. The dynamic and ever-changing relationship among visitors, the rotating carousel, and the mural beyond creates an optical game that encourages everyday cooperation and conversation. The human-scaled nooks and apertures provide intentional space for personal moments or impromptu chats with friends.
While the project is specifically commissioned for a temporary biennial, it activates an underutilized lot in the heart of the city’s downtown area and creates a vibrant public space for the community to enjoy for years to come
Project Vision
The Carousel for Companionship is a community-driven installation that invites visitors to interact with a shared platform flanked by vibrant murals, encouraging collective movement, performances, and play. The Carousel and murals feature abstract but familiar geometric shapes, sampled from the city’s iconic architecture, including Bartholomew County Public Library (I.M. Pei), Cummins Corporate Headquarters (Roche-Dinkeloo), Irwin Union bank (Eero Saarinen), and First Christian Church (Eliel Saarinen). These “supergraphics” sync into and out of optical alignment with the carousel as visitors spin it in place or as visitors circulate around it, generating dynamic views from multiple vantage points.
The installation also tests and advances a longer-term design research project at the intersection of architecture and graphic design entitled “Supergraphic Landscapes.” Specifically, the strategy demonstrates the capacity of public art and urban-scaled graphics to not merely “decorate” the city, but to reorganize its deep-seated structures and amplify identity, access, and belonging in public spaces. As a Supergraphic Landscapes proof-of-concept, the Carousel for Companionship exemplifies the role of graphically-driven social infrastructure to activate ubiquitous underutilized lots and “in-between” spaces found in cities throughout the American Midwest.
Silhouettes of Columbus’s iconic architecture huddle to shape the carousel and its backdrop. References include Eliel Saarinen’s First Christian Church tower, visible in the distance.
Brian Griffin for Could Be Design
The light table includes interactive LEDs and an embedded camera. Three different modalities explore properties of color, distortion, and shadow.
Brian Griffin for Could Be Design
Design + Execution
The project was designed via a series of participatory engagements with local residents and stakeholders and executed on a limited budget with the help of community members, blending top-down and bottom-up planning. Like a barn-raising, the “Rock ‘n’ Rollers,” an ad-hoc group of 20+ community members, participated in site preparation and mural painting. The community workday also served as an informal forum for discussing visions and civic aspirations for downtown Columbus.
Supergraphics, inspired by the city’s architecture, animate the plaza’s walls and ground. As the carousel spins or visitors move, the graphics shift in and out of optical alignment.
Brian Griffin for Could Be Design
Carousel for Companionship doubles as a community stage for bands, spoken words, and dance. Performers can reorient the stage inwards for intimate gatherings or outwards towards crowds along the street.
Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation
Unlike a typical playground merry-go-round, the Carousel for Companionship is intentionally difficult to spin alone, encouraging cooperation. Groups and families quickly learn that working together produces faster, more adventurous rotations!
Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation
Unlike a typical playground merry-go-round, the Carousel for Companionship is intentionally difficult to spin alone, encouraging cooperation. Groups and families quickly learn that working together produces faster, more adventurous rotations!
Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation
Taken together, the carousel, supergraphics, and performances offer a locomotive landscape that celebrates the power of shape, color, character, and sound to generate a public platform for community building.
Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus Foundation
Project Details
I love how this project transforms something so simple into something deeply meaningful. It’s joyful, generous, and full of heart—turning a vacant space into a vibrant gathering place that invites connection, play, and shared experience. It’s a beautiful reminder of what design can do with very little.”
Bold and eye-catching, this public installation is a seemingly simple mix of graphics and community building interactives that packs a big punch.”
Design Team
Joseph Altshuler (principal)
Zack Morrison (principal)
Amir Zarei (model-making assistant)
Collaborators
Ignition Arts (physical fabrication firm)
Andrea Jablonski (muralist)
Columbus Area Arts Council
Office for Downtown Development
Columbus Museum of Art & Design
Let’s Grow Garden Club
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Fine & Applied Arts Illinois School of Architecture
Photo Credits
Brian Griffin; Hadley Fruits (photography); Joseph Altshuler (director), Hadley Fruits (videographer)
Open Date
August 2023