Pause, Melbourne Design Week

Switch off, tune in, zone out.

For Melbourne Design Week 2019 we invited the public to surrender phones and digital devices and enter a giant bubble for a solitary moment to pause.

We collaborated with a team of international specialists to engineer this physical installation and sensory experiment, which could only be experienced one person at a time – a luxurious, personal moment.

By disconnecting from devices for five timed minutes of digital-free tranquility, people could focus on what they could see, smell, feel and hear – avoiding the temptation to capture it on social media – and enjoy a rare moment entirely to themselves.

Over seven days, hundreds of visitors immersed themselves in the installation with nothing to do but let their minds wander. We asked them to tell us what they felt when they were alone in the bubble.

Client

Melbourne Design Week

Location

Wurundjeri Country
Melbourne, Australia

Status

Temporary

Year

2019

Collaborators

Hassell、Eness、Arup、MPA、AllSense、3Dinflate、Kvadrat Maharam

Design team

Amanda Callaghan, Ben Duckworth, Bronwyn Pratt, Chen Tang, Gina Engelhardt, Greta Stoutjesdjik, Ingrid Bakker, Jeremy Schluter, Kyal Erdman, Nathania Widjanarko, Prue Pascoe, Rebecca Trenorden, Rob Backhouse

Imagery

Victor Manuel Vieaux

“A moment of total calm in the midst of a chaotic party in the heart of the city. Joyful. More please.”

Pause visitor

“A single rare moment of calm – transitioning through morning light, evening light and the warmth of the fire light. Beautiful.”

Pause visitor

The inflated bubble’s form was all about enveloping visitors in a seamless white space – a visual ‘nothing’ where sight takes a back seat to the other senses.

An airlock ‘portal’ built by MPA helped visitors make the transition into ‘Pause’, fully disconnecting them from their busy urban surroundings. A black space – devoid of any light – heightened the anticipation of what was ahead.

Opening the door to step inside, visitors triggered a custom smell-scape by Allsense, a sound-scape by Arup and a light-scape by Eness. With their timing in sync, these elements formed the essence of the 5-minute experience – a rare chance to hit the ‘reset’ button in a fast-paced world.