Seating for Socializing (SOS) is a temporary urban experiment designed to study how inexpensive improvements can attract and retain public space users and positively shape the social character of the district.

This project explores the role of alternative bottom-up strategies that aim to promote people participation in public spaces by studying the effects of placing informal seating cubes in public open spaces. In details SOS consists of 27 low-density polyethylene seating cubes contained in a metal cube box with overall dimensions of one cubic meter. Due to its compactness, SOS can be easily moved and transported to different sites by using a small vehicle such as a van. During the intervention, the people have to interact with SOS by taking the cubes out of the box or by moving the cubes already distributed in the space by other users. Once installed in a public space, SOS acts as an external stimulus by providing a social bond between people and encouraging them to talk and interact with each other.

These dynamic actions allow the one-cubic meter of cubes to assume infinite spatial configurations thereby creating a mutable and flexible space. The playful component generated by the interaction and self-construction of the space may represent a moment of social aggregation.