Gimme Shelter: Implications of the Simple and the Humble in a Cardboard Fort in Context

Abstract

A small cardboard ‘fort’—four low walls and a roof—was used by a team of design students to investigate the relationship between technology, purpose, and meaning. Placed in a busy hallway in a University setting, the simple structure was intended to provide a space for users to respond to a written prompt. It was the structure itself, however, that elicited the strongest reactions, revealing a longing for childhood and a desire to be sheltered from the complexities of their everyday experience. This paper attempts to make connections between such responses to notions of physical simplicity, humbleness, and self-imposed isolation.