Open­shop, founded by Adam Hayes and Mark Kroeckel, is a design stu­dio in New York City com­mit­ted to Deep Play. For Open­shop, design springs from solu­tions and the meth­ods that drive them. It is about putting good things out in the world in a respon­si­ble way and tak­ing plea­sure in the process of doing so.

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

For fun! Our work is about ideas that grow out of meth­ods of mak­ing. In that sense, for us
the approach to a whim­si­cal and fun hole is the same as any project we undertake.

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

Our approach grew out of nos­tal­gia for the impos­si­ble hole-in-one that’s nearly impos­si­ble, but
equally impos­si­ble not to go for. For us, sus­tain­abil­ity was about using dis­carded ele­ments.
Rather than an overt state­ment, the idea was to use these ele­ments in a way that makes them
seem nat­ural rather than overtly sus­tain­able. In our view, design should be sus­tain­able
because it makes no sense not to. It’s a core ethos, not a mar­ket­ing strategy.

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

Any­thing! In today’s pro­foundly liti­gious, bureau­cratic world it is all too hard to just cre­ate
sim­u­lat­ing con­tent; be it per­ma­nent or tem­po­rary. It is often in the gaps that the most excit­ing
moments occur is it is not quashed.

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

Not really…

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

Peo­ple… lots of peo­ple… Our pro­posed hole is fan­tas­ti­cal to make it mem­o­rable but ulti­mately
sim­ply about tak­ing time to see where we really are and for a moment to care about that more
than any­thing else.