An installation by SLO Architecture has been unveiled in Camden, New Jersey, which repurposes 3600 facemasks into a dynamic façade and pavilion. “Turntable” will sit as a 6-month-long installation in Coopers Poynt Waterfront Park, facing the Delaware River and downtown Philadelphia, infusing reflections on history, waste, and public space in a post-pandemic world.

The installation occupies a site which, during the 18th century, served as a critical infrastructure node for land and water-based transport along the Delaware River and the now-buried Windmill Island. From the 1980s until 2010, the site also served as a prison, thus separating the public from the waterfront. The design team’s vision was for an installation which invited activity back to the site, while also reflecting on the thematic history of unearthing, rediscovering, and reconsidering.

SLO Architecture’s design features a dome made from thousands of the familiar blue facemasks used by the general public throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a second skin formed from thousands of cut two-liter soda bottles solidified by chicken wire. Using wind energy captured by the thousands of soda bottles, the dome gently spins above a circular steel/plywood colonnade, enticing visitors to approach from all directions.  

Inside the installation, a diffuse-lit environment is created by the mask-based façade system, interrupted by an oculus open to the sky. The space is imagined as one where the people of Camden can come together post-pandemic, contemplating issues central to the pavilion’s commentary, including illegal waste dumping, the history of Camden, and the post-pandemic future of public space.

“Turntable rethinks the cycles of Camden’s history as the city comes together again post-pandemic,” says SLO Architecture. “Recouping used quotidian plastics held individually in the hand or worn on the body and then thrown out, Turntable redefines the discarded as a latent collective material to harness Camden’s potential energy ahead.”

Turntable was commissioned for “A New View,” an initiative by Camden’s Coopers Ferry Partnership funded by a Bloomberg Cities Challenge grant, which is transforming six highly visible spaces along the city’s public transportation corridors from eyesores used for illegal dumping into multi-purpose community forums. These converted spaces will host dynamic temporary installations and creative programming through October 2021 that will provide a new view to the more than 65,000 people who travel through Camden daily, and its 77,000 residents.