Hou de Sousa's proposal for the 2015 Folly Competition at Socrates Sculpture Park was selected as a Notable Entry.

Mochi was inspired by the many lives of its site, which was once an abandoned landfill and illegal dump-site, but then reclaimed by artists and the surrounding community for public use. We chose to work in this vein, and sought ways of breathing new life into a material typically dismissed as valueless waste. 

The project consists of 6,000 discarded plastic shopping bags (the same amount NYC wastes every 15 seconds) draped over a bird cage structure of pvc pipes. As part of the recently passed NYS Plastic Bag Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling Act, large retail stores are required to collect used plastic bags for recycling. We propose to utilize this free resource as a construction material.

The mock-up was assembled by fusing together several plastic bags with a hot iron, which recast the flimsy one-use bags into sturdy waterproof sheets. We then cut, paired, and heat-sealed the borders of these sheets. The resulting pockets can be filled with air, water, soil, insulation, etc. much like stuffing a ravioli, pillow, or mochi. Stitching multiple mochi together with grommets produces a thick, but flexible, membrane easily shaped into complex surfaces.

The project grew from the idea that all materials have inherent strengths and advantages, and it’s critical to imagine new potentials and expanded applications, thereby shifting the perception of their usefulness. Mochi is just a single example of this approach. 

Organized by The Architectural League of New York and Socrates Sculpture Park, Folly 2015 is an annual competition among emerging architects to design and build a large scale project for public exhibition at Socrates Sculpture Park.