A piece that transforms stone (a thing) into an object, using a primal state of the human condition: childhood and play. Linking them is the force of gravity, operating over a body to transform the stone into a slide. The transformed stone appeals to the moment when climbing things create a mixture of fear and inevitable desire, culminating in an experience of sliding down. Speed without the need of physical coordination, a fact, not a talent.

A Thing, not an Object, by ELEMENTAL

Architecture costs a lot; hence the importance to design buildings able to stand the test of time. We are in the search for the physical, functional and aesthetic timelessness typical of things, not objects. A thing, unlike an object, does not have a project. A stone for example, if of the right size and form, is a bench when one sits on it (an object). But when you stand up and leave, it becomes a thing again.

In order to transform a stone (thing) into an object, we chose a primal state of the human condition: childhood and play. To link them we chose an inevitable force: Gravity. Gravity acting as pure weight on matter and gravity operating over a body to transform the stone into a slide. Our proposal appeals to that moment when going on top of things is a mixture of fear and inevitable desire for small children. Height is gained by a kind of diagonal crawling, where hands, feet, elbows, knees, belly and almost the whole body participates, through its tactile more than its motor skills.

And when they finally make it to the top, gravity plays its part again: sliding down is an experience of speed without the need of physical coordination; a fact, not a talent. The way we are treating matter is itself a primal operation: subtracting not adding, as it was done with the first human tools. This is not a nostalgic treatment of matter; actually the way to carve the stone was only possible by using state of the art technologies. It takes a lot of knowledge to be simple.