We are active Brook­lyn res­i­dents in our early twen­ties and start­ing col­lab­o­rat­ing together as close friends in col­lege. Cur­rently Tara Zabor works in the arts and Lexi Tsien-Shiang works in architecture. 

Why were you inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing in The Putting Lot? Does it relate to work you’ve done in the past?

Putting Lot grabbed our atten­tion because the dri­ving con­cept was com­pelling and fresh; pre­sented a chal­lenge not only in requir­ing our com­mit­ment but in its ambi­tion to make an impact. We wanted to cre­ate a com­mu­nity not only between teams but with the larger Bush­wick com­mu­nity. Empty space and cycles of rede­vel­op­ment are a real­ity sur­round­ing us. Inter­ject­ing seemed a pow­er­ful move, espe­cially with a time­line that would require sweat, toil, and the o-so-often ham­mered fin­ger. The project relates to our work indi­rectly, but it has allowed us to expand on past themes we’ve dealt with and pushed us beyond the bound­aries of our typ­i­cal medium.

What is the inspi­ra­tion for your design? How does it relate to urban sustainability?

The hope behind Last Gasp is to por­tray a tran­si­tional stage in Bushwick’s neigh­bor­hood devel­op­ment by sink­ing a sym­bolic rep­re­sen­ta­tion into our past. Shoot­ing off a house (sunken into the ground) into a unknown and emerg­ing land­scape plays on cycles of rede­vel­op­ment. We wanted to design-build a course with the pur­pose users inter­act­ing with it and with each other.

What else would you like to see in an empty space in the city?

We’d like to see empty lots hav­ing uses beyond being land­fills. Empty space as putting lots, empty space as orga­niz­ing tech­niques, empty space as grounds for fos­ter­ing inter­ac­tion and incu­bat­ing ideas.

Do you have any child­hood mem­o­ries or good sto­ries about minia­ture golf?

The course I most remem­ber from my child­hood was at the Jer­sey Shore and involved a 40-foot Paul-Bunionesque fig­ure­head stand­ing over it. It no longer exists. Mini-golf is an implicit part of sum­mer­time and child­hood itself. It con­tains won­drous places (cas­tles, wind­mills, and pirate ships).

What do you hope to see at The Putting Lot this summer?

Two res­i­dents of the apart­ment over­look­ing con­struc­tion on the Lot came down to help. They’ve been there pick­ing away and lev­el­ing dirt. Oth­ers have come by just to say hello, in amused con­fu­sion as to what we’re doing. This kind of inter­ac­tion and involve­ment is moti­vat­ing. It’s what the Putting Lot is pow­ered by. Every­day the team gets big­ger and the goal for the Putting Lot is that much closer to being real­ized. We hope dif­fer­ent peo­ple con­tinue to cir­cu­late, use the space, get ideas from it, and meet new peo­ple there. Most impor­tantly, we just hope every­one (orga­niz­ers, artists, neigh­bors, and put­ters) will leave the Putting Lot beaming.