Simple Made-Up Machines is an inefficient system for building, operated by outsized and outrageous workers. It is leisurely, roundabout, luxurious, and entertaining. Like a Rube Goldberg machine, it sets chains of events in motion. But it is non-linear: distractible and spontaneous, sometimes repetitive and additive. It is built and lived in at the same time—construction and habitation inspire each other through festive improvisations.

The components of the machine are housed in a scaffold-fence structure, and set in motion by larger-than-life gures of fantastically femme construction workers. The structure makes room for visitors to join in the work, through active rearrangement of the components, or interaction with the builder- gures, or through more leisurely interventions (sitting for rest or conversation, reclining, leaning). The work site is theatrical, welcoming, celebratory, and experimental.

Simple Made-Up Machines was a collaboration between Bad Little Brother and Peggy Noland.

This proposal received an honorable mention from Materials and Applications for its 2019 Open Call, “Staging Construction.”