PSSDs: Personal Space Softening Devices

Bushwaffle are playful personal inflatables that transform the urban surface from hard to soft, impersonal to intimate, businesslike to social. By placing the power to generate urban forms in the hands of the individual user, Bushwaffle invite new forms of social interaction, collaboration, improvisation and play. Bushwaffle require no expertise to use and explore.

Bushwaffle are a public amentity, designed to supplement the urban hardscape with a soft, inviting alternative for seating, structure, socializing—and pleasure. Given the limited resources of government and the difficulty in determining changing public needs and tastes, Bushwaffle offers a semi-privatized and self-determinable solution to urban furnishing—they allow the public to buy and deploy their own soft, mobile street furniture.

Bushwaffle are also entirely kid-friendly, their bright color and playful shape encourage cooperation and play among friends and new acquaintances. While not approved as a flotation device, Bushwaffle float, slide, roll and bounce, and are easily moved by a large enough crowd, even when in formation.

Bushwaffle is a Rebar project.