Along 14th Street hard surfaces and utility outcroppings tend to displace moments for repose and interaction. FREE FLOW initiates a provocation by exploring how a ‘softening’ of these surfaces and urban utility “outcroppings” might shift the balance toward a more generous and inviting public realm.

Pillow Culture proposes a series of ten to twelve pillow-like interventions that start at the eastern end of 14th Street, along Avenue C by the Con Edison traffic entry, and terminate at the Highline overpass at West 14th Street. Utility outcroppings  support these FREE FLOW cushions that evoke geological forms -suggesting a new, softer terrain along 14th street. In softening the existing streetscape, FREE FLOW cushions range from the tiny bollard cushion to the Yellow Colossus at the western end of NYC’s Highline.

A FREE FLOW cushioning of existing infrastructural elements acknowledges: standpipes, defunct telephone booths, bus shelters, street lights, protective bollards for parking meters and fire hydrants, subway handrails, bicycle stanchions, tree guards.

FREE FLOW cushions can be deployed in many urban scapes and can be fabricated using fluorescent, weather-resistant, street-grade materials - at once referencing the color coding of traffic signage and signaling to the pedestrian to ‘sit here’, ‘touch this’, ‘lean there’, ‘look there’, ‘steal this’.