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Notable architects design mini-golf holes for London Design Festival

Architects

Notable architects design mini-golf holes for London Design Festival

Visionaries like Paul Smith, Mark Wallinger, and the late Zaha Hadid all helped in designing the course, which will be integrated into London’s Trafalgar Square.


By Mike Chamernik, Associate Editor | April 25, 2016
Notable architects design mini-golf holes for London Design Festival

Architect Paul Smith designed a mini-golf hole using the steps of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Image courtesy London Design Festival.

The London Design Festival launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for one of the craziest mini-golf courses ever made.

The plan is to turn London’s Trafalgar Square into a colorful course this September. Notable designers, including Tom Dixon, Mark Wallinger, and the late Zaha Hadid, each get to create a hole of their own. 

Eight holes have been designed for the mini-golf (known in the UK as "crazy golf") course, and they all feature much more than a windmill and a turf incline. Dixon’s hole integrates pneumatic tubes; players must navigate Wallinger’s circular maze; and Hadid designed a curvy, dual-level hole that traces the shadow of the square’s Nelson’s Column. The entries are bright, creative, and, to many putt-putt golfers across the universe, at least a quadruple bogey.

Paul Smith is the project’s visionary. The architect has held other events at Trafalgar Square over the years, including life-size chess and a robot show. Smith’s hole calls for a set of 10 multicolored stairways. The other designers who took part in the project are Camille Walala, Atelier Bow-Wow, HAT Projects, NEON, and Ordinary Architecture, the latter of which envisioned a hole where a player hits their ball into a large pigeon and watches it roll through its digestive tracks.

 

 

The project’s goal is to amuse both adults and children, and teach the public about the future of design. 

The course “will attract a wide, public audience, and inspire the next generation of creatives,” as its Kickstarter puts it. “Thousands will be able to play the course, and millions more will watch and enjoy this experience, both in the square and through media.”

A little more than $5,000 has been raised thus far. There are still 42 days left to reach the $172,862 goal. 

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