Fort Buku / Vitamin Water Living Wall

Design/Build Team & Winning Installation Buku Music & Arts Festival 2013 - 2014

Fort Buku is a moveable and inhabitable sculpture built for Buku Music & Arts Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana. Composed of moveable pieces, the fort is a massive hammock that spans between two 40’ shipping containers and faces the main event stage. The two containers contain branded installations and roof access with views of the festival grounds and the Mississippi river.

I was a team member in the design development, detailing, and construction phases. I cast glass blocks, helped cut and weld the steel for the staircase, created standard welded connection details, and worked with producers and volunteer architecture students to engineer the structure to pass safety standards.

In addition to working on the construction of the modular fort, I was part of a small team that was selected by Vitamin Water to design an interactive installation that activated one of the two shipping containers.

Design, Construction Administration / Management

Vitamin Water - Living Wall

The Vitamin Water Living Wall utilizes the 3 interior walls of an up-cycled shipping container as canvas for an interactive light installation using recycled plastic bottles. Simple and easy to disassemble, 3-layer wall systems were set up to black out the room, covering 10 powerful LED lights directly behind. A pattern of circular cuts through two layers of plywood and slitted memory foam allowed festival goers to plug-in their empty vitamin water bottles and transform the container walls into a canvas of light, making patterns and writing names, much like a giant Lite-Brite. The accompanying installation was a system of pressurized pipes with water that glowed under a blacklight. 4 people race to pump their cistern as water races across the container walls & ceiling.

I was a Design Team Member and the Construction Administrator for the Build-out & Installation, working with volunteer architecture students and local professionals.

Project Credits

Buku Team: Raven PMG, Christopher Berends, William Nemitoff, Miles Kozatch, Max Katz, Thomas Ferrer, Jonathan Sharp Fort Buku Project Manager: Christopher Berends Living Wall Installation: Miles Kozatch, Christopher Wells, CJ Gassam Client: Winter Circle Productions x Vitamin Water