If you’re a fully-grown adult wishing you could still dive into ball pits or play with marble runs, design duo Snarkitecture makes it possible and cool to do so with their stark, surreal all-white installations. You’re not being immature, you’re taking part in an artistic process! The Brooklyn-based artists are best known for experimental environments investigating the unknown within architecture, often making use of unexpected materials like inflatable tubes and stiff white foam. Here are 9 of their most playful projects.

Ball Pit

The National Building Museum in Washington D.C. has been transformed into a ‘beach’ with the addition of nearly 1 million recyclable translucent plastic balls. Visitors are invited to dive into the 10,000-square-foot installation, which “encourages exploration and interaction with one’s surroundings, and offers an unexpected and memorable landscape for visitors to relax and socialize within.” White beach chairs and umbrellas line the ‘shore,’ offering a vantage point from which to observe adults frolicking like 5-year-olds in a McDonald’s playground. The installation will remain in place until September 7th, 2015.

Dig

Armed with helmets, chisels and pick axes, Snarkitecture dug their way through a solid block of architectural foam from inside the Storefront for Art and Architecture at the entrance of the Design Miami Pavilion in 2012. A combination of installation art and performance, the project had visitors watching the designer duo as they excavated a network of tunnels and inhabited them for a month in a sort of human ant farm. “Dig was an experiment between the precision of the architectural plan and the looseness of the unknown,” say the designers. “The installation and performance explored the intersection of primitivism and contemporary architecture; the complexity of the final surfaces and form suggested a digital origin and concealed the simplicity of a space made entirely by hand.”

Parking Garage Air Ball

1111 Lincoln Road, an ultramodern parking garage by Swiss architecture firm Herzog de Meuron, became the setting for a high-design game of airball with an installation by Snarkitecture and fashion retailer Alchemist. Titled AIRBALL, the interactive installation is “a custom environment designed by Snarkitecture that draws on familiar objects and materials from the visual and spatial world of basketball, while interpreting them through a unique and creative lens.” Visitors to the all-white arena located on level 5 of the car park could compete side-by-side while looking out over the Miami skyline.

Cave

COS stores collaborated with Snarkitecture to create a surreal cavern sculpted from thousands of paper-thin fabric sheets at Milan Design Week. Hung from the ceiling at various heights, the strips create a luminescent chamber echoing the aesthetics of the fashion brand’s Spring/Summer 2015 collection, drawing visitors in from street level and transporting them to an intimate showroom. Navigating the small hollows within the dangling fabric was a sort of adventure, a pause between the chaos of the external world and the soothing retail space. 

Drift

Hundreds of sausage-like inflatable tubes were sandwiched within a light metal frame to create an undulating temporary space for Snarkitecture’s ‘Drift’ pavilion at Design Miami 2012. Echoing the materials used for the tent itself, the vinyl tubes dripped down from overhead like man-made stalactites to create an interactive and contemplative environment filled with filtered light and punctuated with occasional views of the Miami sky. “The rising landscape becomes a beacon for visitors approaching Design Miami/ while the excavated cavern presents a moment of exploration before entering the fair.”

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Snarkitecture 9 Fun Installations Pop Up Shop Designs

Before a new form of architecture can be executed on a large scale, it has to be demonstrated through smaller structures, making temporary pavilions an ideal way to experiment. These 14 pavilions represent novel and often radical designs and construction methods, from carbon fiber structures woven by robots to living architecture made by silk worms.

Evolving Pavilion Made by Silk Worms

Nature and technology work together on a pavilion that grows and transforms like a living organism. The Silk Pavilion by the MIT Media Lab features a basis of silk threads made by a CNC machine, which grows into a cloud-like structure with the addition of natural netting from dozens of silk worms. The worms were essentially deployed as a biological ‘printer’ to create the secondary structure on top of the geometric base. If the sculpture were to remain in place indefinitely, it could reproduce on its own, with new generations of silkworms constructing up to 250 additional pavilions.

Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto

This 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto is a contradiction in form, translucent yet solid. 20mm pipes are arrange din a lattice form to create a cloud-like appearance, inviting visitors to enter and climb the framework.

Abstracted & Faceted Bloomberg Pavilion

Looking like an oversized piece of paper origami, the Bloomberg Pavilion by Akihasa Hirata is actually inspired by a tree and constructed from pleated metal. “I wondered what would happen if the walls were to keep growing upwards and present an uneven surface like ‘pleats’. Pleats resemble a tree in the way that they spread out and capture the sun and I felt that they would produce a bright, impressive exterior. I also thought that the space beneath this surface would present a relaxed atmosphere, similar to that of tree shade that would be an ideal quality for an exhibition space.”

Carbon Fiber Pavilion Based on Beetle Shells

This incredible carbon fiber pavilion inspired by the lightweight shell encasing the wings and abdomen of a beetle was woven by a robot. Installed at the University of Stuttgart, the ICD/ITKE Research Paviliion 2013-14 was fabricated using a custom-built system of robotics used to create a series of modular fiber-composite components. Says team member Marshall Prado, “”It offers not only a unique architectural expression and spatial experience, it is also extremely lightweight and resource efficient.”

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Experimental Architecture 14 Boundary Pushing Pavilions

The ultimate in portability, inflatable structures have long been used as temporary housing for all sorts of functions – but did you know there are inflatable pubs, tea houses and research labs? Some are sophisticated designs, using the air as an architectural element or even as insulation, while others bring on the kitsch with puffy plastic pews and airhead angels.

World’s First Inflatable Portable Pub

(images via: elite choice)

Those bounce houses look like so much fun, don’t they? Unfortunately, most of us adults don’t get to enjoy them due to weight limits – but there are other inflatable fun houses that offer entertainment of a different sort. This inflatable pub can be constructed in just two hours and brings a kitschy atmosphere that tents just can’t provide, complete with faux paintings on the wall and a real fire exit right through the pub’s fireplace. Sadly, there’s no bouncing involved, which would actually come in handy after a few drinks.

Arctic Drifter Research Lab

(images via: lesbetes.com)

The wind could blow this incredible inflatable research lab around like a beach ball and the crew inside would remain upright and comfortable due to an inner roll-cage. Designed to simply drift along the land on its exterior ‘air bags’, the Arctic Drifter by Studio Les Betes is truly a passive observer of the continent’s landscape and wildlife.

Blow-Up Church

(images via: inflatablechurch.com)

If you’re traditional enough to require a church wedding but eccentric enough to find an inflatable chapel acceptable, there’s simply no choice but to have your very own blow-up church delivered to the site of your preference. A company called Innovations Xtreme produces this highly unusual structure, which comes complete with pews, an organ, an altar, candles, a gold cross and angels flanking the door – all made of plastic filled with air. At night and from a distance, the church looks surprisingly convincing.

Bubbletecture Pavilion

(images via: upprojects)

Providing a comfortable, portable, good-looking venue for outdoor events can be a challenge, but this inflatable ‘Bubbletecture’ pavilion has got it covered – literally. The mobile space is easily inflated or deflated and is completely enclosed allowing waterproof, bug-free, climate-controlled entertainment that is also transparent, letting sunlight in and providing a view of the setting.

Crazy Conference Tunnel

(image via: rachelkso)

Inside South Korea’s Olympic Stadium during a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 1988 Olympic Games, which the country hosted, this structure caught the eye of an American visitor with a camera: an unusual inflatable tunnel, reportedly used as a conference room. The tunnel stretched the entire length of the 100-meter sprint and sort of resembles a worm or centipede with its segmented body.

Golf Ball Tea House

(images via: design addict)

Kengo Kuma’s golf-ball-textured, amorphous blob of a building is a long way from the serene wooden structures that most of us associate with Japanese tea houses. But step inside this airy inflatable and you may find that the domed white walls and ceiling have their own sense of peace and relaxation. Tatami mats and an electric stove make for a minimalist setup, but built-in LED lights give it a little something extra at night.

Diamond-Grid Eco-Pavilion

(images via: various architects)

Far more visually striking than a mere tent, the ‘Renaissance Pavilion’ by Various Architects features a diamond-grid pattern of inflatable tubes that inflate in under an hour to reveal a public event space unlike any other. The 100% recyclable pavilion isn’t just super-portable, it also generates its own energy in an innovative way – by mounting solar panels on the shipping container used for transport, and wind turbines gather additional power on-site.

Air-Pumped Palace

(images via: innovations x-treme)

Is the inflatable pub just not quite big enough for your needs? Perhaps nothing less than a palace will do. Well, they’ve got that, too. Because nothing says ‘luxury’ like air-filled plastic.

EURO Experience Tour: World’s Largest Inflatable Tent

(images via: daily vienna)

The world’s largest inflatable tent was deployed in 8 host cities around the world during 2008’s EURO Experience Tour, part of the Euro Cup festivities. Inside the tent – which resembles a pair of grounded UFOs – was a 140-seat movie theater. The tent measured about 45 feet x 130 feet x 200 feet and weighed ten tons.

Cutty Sark Enclosure

(images via: hugh pearman)

How do you protect a priceless antique ship while restoring it, without moving the ship itself? Put it in a bottle. That’s what the Grimshaw architecture firm proposed in 2004 for the Cutty Sark, currently permanently ‘dry-docked’ in London. Grimshaw imagined building a giant inflatable enclosure around the ship so visitors could still peer inside and watch the restoration. Ultimately, Grimshaw’s design changed drastically, ditching the inflatable concept for canvas sheets and a wooden frame, and neither design would have done anything to prevent the 2007 fire that nearly destroyed the ship.

Air Forest Pneumatic Pavilion

(images via: mass studies)

Like a sail, the Air Forest pneumatic pavilion doesn’t need to be pumped full of air artificially; it simply catches the wind. This shimmering design by Mass Studies, covered in little silver circles that reflect its environment, stays inflated using passing wind currents. Anchors keep it from taking off into the sky, but the whole structure changes as often as the wind itself, shifting with each new breeze.

Inflatable Facade Acts as Insulation

(images via: ruiz geli)

Not all inflatable architecture ideas have to use air for the entire building. This design by Enric Ruiz Geli updates an old disused building in Barcelona with an inflatable facade that doesn’t just beautify the structure, but actually regulates sunlight and temperature. The skin is made from chambers of a plastic called ETFE which expand and contract as the sunlight changes throughout the day.

Placeholder Icebergs at Stalled Construction Sites

(images via: woods bagot new york)

International design firm Woods Bagot New York has a cool solution for all of the stalled construction sites around Manhattan: put ’em on ice. Their concept for inflatable iceberg structures hides eyesores and proides functional temporary space. From WebEcoist: “Made of translucent high-tech plastic fabric stretched over modular steel frames and inflatable faceted roofs that give them the ‘iceberg’ shape, the structures aren’t just for looks. They can be used as functional temporary spaces for retail or entertainment use and are surprisingly well insulated despite the thinness and ephemeral qualities of the materials used.”