Project by George Guu
STEAM-TANK collects two age-old urban icons of Manhattan as found objects and re-assembles their impressions into a new pop-up type. The rooftop timber watertanks and the leaking steams from grounded manholes together form STEAM-TANK. Elevated from the streets, the structure invites passers-by to inhabit and transcend the spectacles, conveying the utilitarian nature of both elements that have long served the city’s development. The act of grafting allows a bodily experience of these infrastructural existences at once – one formerly high up and inaccessible, the other ubiquitous but unapproachable. The timber tectonics are kept; the steam is harnessed and re-appropriated for spontaneous uses, creating localized climates for heating or cooling. It is unsure if the timber-tank and steam will persist or vanish. They might be important memory or of no use. STEAM-TANK offers a different, approachable registration at this point of time, carrying the spirit of the old while welding new relationships.
