The last couple of weeks, I spotted two places where the main subject is: a slide! And not one of those for your children, but really big and scary slides, built in existing buildings. The first one I spotted was the one in the mall in Shanghai. To make people more relaxed from being tired with shopping, they built a 53-meter tall slide, which makes you go from the fifth floor directly to the lower floor. The slide is very steep and in 16 seconds, it’s over.
Another new slide will open on June 24th, in London, in the Arcelor Mittal Orbit tower. This tower was build in 2012 in honor of the Olympic Games which were held there during that year. There’s a restaurant on top of the tower and now, an artist has been asked to make something with it. His plan was to make a super slide which is intertwined with the tower, two works of art becoming one. This slide has a so-called corkscrew and in the last meters, you will reach a velocity of 25 km/h.
Now where are those slides coming from? And why are only grownup people sliding off these things? I think this comes from the fact that we desperately seek for distraction. The world gives us so many interesting things, but also a lot of unnecessary things which our brains must cope with. Then it’s nice to literally let your problems and thoughts slide away and experience a short moment of joy and adrenalin. Of course, this is also interesting from a human movement point of view. We seek new and exciting ways to go from place to place and are also looking for interesting possibilities to improve mobility in the cities of the future. So maybe, we’re all sliding away in a couple of years. Besides, it’s nice for the men who have to wait for their women while shopping, in the case of the mall-slide.
So, are you ready to slide away or don’t you think this is the reason why slides are emerging everywhere?
owlbewatching 