Heartwalk was the winner of the fifth annual Times Square Valentine’s Day Heart Design Competition that invites emerging architecture and design firms to submit proposals for a public art installation. The 2013 competition was organized by Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, and the Design Trust for Public Space. Heartwalk draws inspiration from the collective experience of Hurricane Sandy and the love that binds the City’s citizens together during trying times. Built entirely from wooden planks salvaged from New York and New Jersey boardwalks that were severely damaged by Hurricane, the installation wraps around the visitors, providing a moment of pause amidst one of the country's busiest public spaces. The salvaging process entailed working with city officials to identify sections of boardwalk that would need to be rebuilt so damaged material could be repurposed. Boards were then gathered from four locations and transported to SITU Studio’s workshop in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Screws and nails were removed, salt and sand was washed away, splintered sections were trimmed off and the boards were cut to size. A number of the boards that make up the interior of the heart were planed on one side to expose the beautiful red grain of the Ipe timber that lies under the weathered gray patina. Finally the boards were assembled into triangular sections of varying size and installed in Times Square. In conjunction with the installation we collaborated with H|D Made to create an Instagram gallery of crowd-sourced photographs at Heartwalk. Visit the gallery here: http://www.heartwalktsq.com.
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