Treedom

The City of Alberobello, in the Puglia region in the south of Italy, invited YokYok to install the Treedom for the Light Festival 2023.

The Treedom is a social installation for public space. It shapes a geometrical forest acting as a simbolic signal and offering benches and bar counters for the people. It is about a small architectural landscape evoking ‘‘il bosco’’ like the forests that were present in the ancient times of the city. Designed for a public square, it has been adapted to the slope and the pavement using local stones from one of the numerous quarries of the region. This mineral addition makes a link with the local architectural history, based on the first ressource of this karst region: the limestone. This abundant ressource of the area is at the origin of the famous Trullo architecture, which made Alberobello a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The woodwork has been done with a team of builders on site and by night during one of the hotest weeks of 2023. It is structurally simple and low-tech. Vertical poles, horizontal benches, stones weights, and a lot of triangulations above made by a bunch of boards. The result is a strong structure designed for people and open to the public.

The benches and bar counters have a structural role. They link the poles together and stabilize them, avoiding people to move them at the lower part. The installation has no foundations. It is directly put on the paving which couldn’t be drilled through, as being part of UNESCO protected site. Finally, they create social spaces for encounters and a labyrinthic circulation that invites people to get lost and experience the installation from inside.

The installation lies in two elements:

– a luminous canopy, acting as a signal and symbolic silhouette
– a functional ground level, to rest and socialize

The lighting of the installation is composed of 34 fluo T5 tubes supplied by the French firm Sammode, specialized in architectural lighting.

The concept of the plan is simple: connect all the poles together with at least one bench or a bar counter and leave the square free to circulate, thus remaining inclusive and accessible to disabled people. Small spaces are created to foster encounters and discussions.

The stones make the space a bit more chaotic and bring a natural touch to this labyrinthic geometrical forest. They have a structural role, to weight the installation and stabilize the pole bases in the direction which is not secured by a bench. These simple construction principles make the project economical, local, dismountable and re-usable.

YokYok designs for people. Creating encounters & social interactions are focus points considered essentials in post-covid times, to disconnect from screens, to enjoy authentic moments. YokYok believes that people need to keep a physical contact with space. Simple constructive details & materials like stone, wood and warm light can help to it. Here, just woodwork, elbow grease and confortable benches to sit on. A tribute to low-tech. Finally, the Treedom is nothing more than a place to meet.