By Celsias
An alley in Melbourne, Australia recently underwent a temporary transformation in to a pop-up lounge/playground by City Leaks. Working solely with reused milk crates they created PlayMo, a space which encouraged urban dwellers to explore and contribute something personal. The name is a reference to the iconic creative children’s toy, Playmobile.
Milk crates are a fantastic material for many reasons; they are structural, light, modular and they have an iconic role in Melbourne’s cafe image and laneways. We believe that familiarity to a material plays an important role in engaging with it.
PlayMo uses 3 different types of crates. Black = platforms, Grey = stairs, Green = movable. The green crates provide the undefined random element; people rearrange their seats or even build small stairs themselves. There hasn’t been a single day where we found them in the same place. We found artworks, plants, toys, pillows, new crates and received hundreds of letters. We even found that people had constructed a bin so that (they) could be kept clean.
