Hoegaarden Urban Oasis
2005/07/20

The Hoegaarden Urban Oasis is an interactive outdoor installation that challenges the relationship between urban and natural environments and looks at the effect this manipulation of space has on city dwellers.

The installation was conceived and implemented by osa_london (the Office for Subversive Architecture) and is sponsored and inspired by Hoegaarden. The osa is a collective of architects, renowned for their public space projects and their signature mix of urban architecture, art and the unexpected. A recent project called INTACT saw the osa transform a redundant railway signal box in London’s East End to look like a suburban family home.

‘Some people refer to us as guerrilla architects but guerrilla is taken from the Spanish word "guerra" meaning war. It’s something destructive, but what we do is always constructive. It’s about environment and about changing spaces by using positive images’ says Bernd Truempler from osa_london.

With the Hoegaarden Urban Oasis, osa will create a living piece of nature in the heart of the city. This installation will form a physical and mental oasis for urbanites to step into, interact with and unwind from city life. Like most of the osa’s work, the piece sets out to make people re-evaluate their urban environment by confronting them with strong natural elements.

This urban experience will be open to visitors over the course of 1 week to interact with and enjoy. The installation will take the form of a natural pub that grows out of a turf carpet. All the top surfaces including the Hoegaarden bar will be covered in grass and some of the tables and chairs will be at different stages of growth. Signs around the installation will read; “Keep on the grass” and the jukebox will be playing sounds from nature as opposed to the latest chart music.

Karsten Huneck from osa_london says, ‘As soon as we heard that Hoegaarden was aiming for a conceptual approach to transform an urban landscape, we were immediately attracted to the project. We want to make people aware of a particular public space by changing it in unexpected and unusual ways.

Phil Rumbol, Marketing Director of Interbrew UK says: ‘Hoegaarden is a naturally unfiltered wheat beer that includes natural ingredients such as orange zest and coriander. With the Urban Oasis campaign we wanted to communicate that nature keeps people connected to a more natural way of life. We liked the OSA’s approach to art and decided to commission them to create a piece that reflected Hoegaarden’s natural personality.’

Venues
The Arena
Broadgate Circle (next to Liverpool Street Station)
London EC2M 2QS
20 July – 26 July

Piccadilly Basin[1]
Dale Street
Northern Quarter
Manchester M1 2HG
3 August – 10 August
(in association with Urbis - www.urbis.org.uk)

Hoegaarden Urban Oasis - urbanoasis@cowpr.com

The Office for Subversive Architecture - www.osa-online.net