Urban Hugs by Stefano Boeri

URBAN HUGS is a dedicated hugging area. An area where people can escape from their social interactions and hug each other for a few seconds. A place where people leave outside their urban loneliness and hug someone: a friend, a stranger, a lover, a son, a grandparent, a florist, a bartender, the boss, a policeman.

URBAN HUG is a place to get together, accompanied by Piero Salvatori’s cello. A fenced area where people can hug other people, protected from the city traffic, but not excluded from urban life, thanks to the tree trunks from Friuli’s woods. For the Fuori Salone del Mobile 2017, Stefano Boeri Architetti has created a prototype of a public space designed to house and promote the hug gesture.
URBAN HUGS is a variation of Radura (the fenced area made of wood cylinders installed in the Ca’Grande yard in 2016) that will be realised for OIKOS in collaboration with the Filiera del Legno del Friuli in the honor yard of the Pinacoteca di Brera (via Brera 28, Milano). A wood made micro architecture that defines the physical border where people can stop and isolate themselves from everyday’s rhythms. The prototype of the “minimal” place that is both an open installation with a permeable perimeter and a personal and intimate place in its use. A place for two.