The Bucky Bar!

Geodesic dome made from umbrellas leads to spontaneous public street party in Rotterdam (NL).

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

The Bucky Bar!

A spontaneous street party in winter?
Last Friday evening Feb. 19th the Bucky Bar -a temporary public building designed by DUS architects- was launched. The dome bar made entirely of umbrellas, seemed to appear suddenly out of nowhere around a lamppost in the centre of Rotterdam. The fully equipped bar, complete with DJ and drinks, was built directly on site. Approximately 300 visitors danced despite the cold under the umbrella roof, until at 2:00am when the police ended the party, as there was no permit.

The Bucky Bar is part of a series of five unsolicited positive proposals for the future of the city of Rotterdam, that DUS architects in collaboration with SUA (Studio for Unsolicited Architecture) launched on Thursday night by modifying official municipal billboards by pasting their own ideas over the top.

The Bucky Bar was first in the series to be realized, made from the most common and yet most unusual of building materials: umbrellas. The title refers to the great American inventor, Buckminster Fuller, who demonstrated how minimal energy geodesic domes could open a way to a more environmentally sustainable future. Could an umbrella dome to lead the way to a more socially sustainable future? The Bucky Bar is a full-scale model of such a future. It shows the power of space for spontaneous gathering, for improvised shelters to host conversations, debates, games or even parties.

Quote of the night: “when is the next party?!”

The Bucky Bar is a project by DUS Architects and the Studio for Unsolicited Architecture, produced to coincide with the opening of the Architecture of Consequence exhibition at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi).

DUS is a young and ambitious architecture office that works according to the slogan: “design by doing”. DUS often builds scale 1:1 models in the public domain which function as site-analysis, design test case and social condenser. Architecture built from daily recognizable objects with minimal budget, but with maximal social value. Some interventions appear only one night, but remain eternal worth in the collective memory of the visitor.

DUS architecten / Hedwig Heinsman
hedwig@dusarchitects.com
www.dusarchitects.com + www.nai.nl

The Studio for Unsolicited Architecture (SUA) is a new initiative of the Netherlands Architecture Institute that takes a pro-active approach to the production of architecture. The SUA promotes practical architectural solutions for the city which may not have a definable, client, brief or site.

The Bucky Bar!