Meat Pal­let is an award-winning col­lec­tive of young artists resid­ing (mostly) in Bush­wick. We are inter­ested in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary works that alter com­mon spaces into some­thing more mys­te­ri­ous, mag­i­cal, or provoking.

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

We were espe­cially excited about The Putting Lot because it is an oppor­tu­nity to do some­thing in and for our neigh­bor­hood. We were also pleased that it would be actu­ally phys­i­cally built, by us. In var­i­ous con­fig­u­ra­tions we have par­tic­i­pated in other com­pe­ti­tions (2nd place in White House Redux, 1st place in ARCHDL IV, Design Vil­lage, etc), but none of these were local, and none of these were built. 

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

Our design was inspired by Pachinko, the Japan­ese game that com­bines pin­ball and a slot machine. We thought it would be neat to expand it out to the dimen­sions of mini-golf. The slots or microen­vi­ron­ments that the ball trav­els through rep­re­sent con­tem­po­rary and pos­si­ble Bush­wick land­scapes. Also, turn­ing the design ver­ti­cal onto a wall was an oppor­tu­nity to reduce our foot­print while max­i­miz­ing our usable space, invit­ing the user to return to his­toric green Boswijck.

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

We would love to see other com­mu­nity takeovers of dis­used, derelict pri­vate space: com­mu­nity gar­dens, play­grounds, art­spaces, pyra­mids, pet archi­tec­ture, nar­nia, etc.

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

Sev­eral of us are from Sacra­mento, CA. David, Han­nah and Justin remem­ber going to a minia­ture golf course/arcade called Scan­dia near the I-80 express­way. There is a cer­tain magic to minia­ture envi­ron­ments cre­ated entirely for plea­sure. Han­nah was always dis­ap­pointed when the holes lacked func­tion­al­ity, like a win­dow to nowhere. Justin keeps rav­ing about this putt-putt place called The Palms which appar­ently used to have giant con­crete dinosaurs and palm trees. By the time Han­nah moved to town it was an aban­doned lot filled with busted con­crete, creepy relics and shaggy, dis­eased Nor­Cal palm trees. Now the lot is crappy con­dos, also named The Palms. Laura, who is not par­tic­u­larly good at golf, likes the spon­ta­neous and acci­den­tal hole-in-ones that can hap­pen to any­one at any time. She remem­bers get­ting a hole in one on that vol­cano level once, even though it is usu­ally a par 16. 

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

We hope to see this effort bring the diverse ele­ments of the com­mu­nity together in a place to have fun, as well as to pro­vide a vision for alter­na­tive use of aban­doned space. We hope that The Putting Lot will serve as a local hangout.