CAN URBAN EXHAUST AIR, UNSEEN BUT UBIQUITOUS, BE PUT TO WORK TO CREATE A PUBLIC EXHIBITION? 

New Yorkers produce a lot of hot air. Exhaust from buildings, infrastructure, and vehicles flows like an invisible river, untapped but ready to be put to work. Wontons propose to use this plentiful resource in the most straightforward way; proposed for Streetfest 2012, exhaust from New York City food trucks would inflate spatially complex modular shelters, giving shape to a ubiquitous but unseen resource.

Wontons create space without fully enclosing it, they give form and provide shelter while openly engaging the city. White on the outside, the primary colors on their bellies glow at night. The prevalence of waste air in the city means that Wontons are adaptable to almost any site. They are an opportunity for civic engagement and education - not didactically, but usefully - providing a visual analogue of the living, breathing, city. 

Wontons was conceived and designed with IAI - a collaborative effort between P.R.O., Future Expansion Architects, and Benjamin Smoot.