Test-E

The cast stone TEST-E planter has a striking oval shape, sharpened at each end to lighten its presence in alignments. The texture of its flanks includes diagonal linear grooves that reduce the apparent weight of the cast stone while at the same time acting as a transition to the verticality of the plants growing in it. TEST-E can be supplied in two dimensions, either 1.2 or 2 metres long. By installing several aligned modules of this planter, it can be used as a vegetated boundary between roads and pavements to obviate the need for bollards or pivots. Architects Albert Viaplana & Helio Piñón tackled this function in the design of TEST-E in 1998 in conjunction with Escofet for pavement edges in Barcelona´s Eixample District. This street furniture is part of the A-E-I-O-U VOCABULARY COLLECTION. A-E-I-O-U VOCABULARY Collection Starting with the vowel A, which symbolises the users who enjoy these items, architects Helio Piñón and Albert Viaplana have articulated the VOCABULARY collection, composed of TEST-E, LLUM-I, GAT-O and BANC-U. The hint embedded in the compound names implicitly contains the idea of creating a new vocabulary of components for the modern city. The authors explain that they are an expression of the individual response by each one to the same issue: the confrontation between the neutral gravity of fluid concrete and the potential tension when adapting to different purposes. Through its section, BANC-U expresses the way it contrasts the gravity of the base against the levity of the bench; the LLUM-I sits on the ground and grows with the flow of the artificial light until it finally falls to the ground; GAT-O is perhaps the best expression of the struggle between these two opposite forces: a mass of stone emerges from the ground, curving like a cat’s back in a defensive posture; and TEST-E narrows on the plan until it loses the sense of a dimension, marking the space like a small boat full of plants or flowers.