Hat-Mask for Monument Magazine’s “Create-a-Date”
The Hat-Mask Project was developed as a collaboration between PHAB Architects and Alexander Lotersztain, upon a request by Monument Magazine to design a temporary shelter for their regular “Create-a-Date” segment. Our “temporary shelter” solution is a template to create a hat-mask from a page of the Monument magazine. Below is a summary of our conversation, and collective thought process:

“…a temporary shelter… shelter…what IS shelter?… should we do a homeless shelter? everyone does homeless shelters …and then there’s emergency housing…bus shelters… I’d like to shelter from the ROYAL WEDDING!…from POLITICS!…from those PEOPLE ON THE BUS… if I was a kid, I’d like to shelter from my PARENTS! …What do we really need to shelter from, here in Brisbane?…Isn’t Brisbane the place where you live outside?”

Our design for the hat-mask captures two ideas about shelter.

As a hat, it offers short term physical protection from the sun. (We imagine wearing the hat while sitting in a public park reading MONUMENT magazine.) At the same time, the design works as a mask to provide visual privacy and ‘shelter’ by shielding one half of the wearer’s face from view. (This feature is expected to be most useful when wanting to hide from someone sitting too close to you on public transport.) The hat-mask is also reversible to allow the wearer to choose which side of their face they wish to conceal.

As a combination of hat and mask, the design proposal raises more complex questions of shelter, beyond mere physical protection. Like all items of clothing, it covers and shelters our physical body, but it also provides us with a disguise, and an emotional sense of protection from the outside world.

Project Details
In Collaboration with:
Alexander Lotersztain
Completion Date: 2011
Client: Monument Magazine
Photos: PHAB / Alexander Lotersztain