Synopsis
Interval is a permanent artwork across two locations on Bristol’s well-known King’s Street. Made from Corten steel and ceramic tiles, the artwork used archival planning documents as a starting point to create a new place for people to gather in one of the city’s most historic locations.
Ken Borg (Studio Mothership) and Jono Lewarne (City Edition Studio) work across multiple disciplines and collaborated on this new public artwork. Interval was commissioned by Bristol City Council as part of King Street street scene and greening works and delivered in partnership with Bristol BID and LDA Design.
Description
A building’s blueprint articulates an intended future, a plan on how space should be organised, built and occupied. An interval, by contrast, suggests a space between events, a pause for reflection, an opening for unexpected encounters.
Taking the historical expansion of the city as its point of departure, Interval draws on the visual language of architectural blueprints to explore the relationship between urban planning and lived experience. King Street, one of the first streets built outside city walls and conceived as a merchant street, has evolved into a centre for entertainment, socialising and collective life. Its transformation reveals the ways in which the purpose and meaning of a place are continually renegotiated through time.
By bringing the precision of the blueprint into dialogue with the unpredictability of everyday life, Interval considers the city as both a designed environment and a space shaped by human presence.
The structures take the form of informal spaces for rest, play and performance, creating opportunities for pause, encounter, and creative expression.
Project team:
Interval was commissioned by Bristol City Council (Economic Development in collaboration with Arts & Cultural Development) as part of King Street street scene and greening works and delivered in partnership with Bristol BID and LDA Design.
With thanks to all partners and the project team:
Structure fabrication: Benchmark Design
Ceramic tiles production: Digital Ceramics Ltd
Tile installation: JP Ceramics
Planting: Blaise Plant Nursery
