Big ideas can be traded anywhere, from coffee shops to college lecture halls.
British artist Craig Barnes offers a slightly more unique option: a retro-chic orb — one of 100 made in the 1960s— that Barnes himself has refurbished.
It's called a Futuro house, and it's a come-all venue for thinkers and visionaries that sits on the roof at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, where it will stay until next September.
Over the next year, visitors are encouraged to come discuss the world's biggest issues in a space perfectly fit for forward-thinking.
Barnes' love of Futuro houses goes back to his childhood, he tells Tech Insider.
It wasn't until years later, on a 2013 visit to see his extended family in Port Alfred, South Africa, that he happened upon a weathered metal structure that looked oddly familiar.
"I was sure I'd seen it in a book," Barnes recalls. "So I started researching the history of it and quickly found out it was a Futuro designed by the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen."
Barnes bought the house on an impulse, quickly getting to work on the refurbishing process despite having no idea where he would put the thing.
"You know, I don't live anywhere that's big enough to store it in pieces, let alone put it together," Barnes says. "So it was a kind of logistical roller coaster ride of a challenge since then."
Luckily, he got in touch with someone in early 2014 at Matt's Gallery, in East London, where they offered to host the Futuro house as part of a six-month exhibition.
To outsiders, the house looked like a spaceship touching down on Earth.
The house, otherwise known as Futuro 22, is built to accommodate roughly 30 people, Barnes says. Fully furnished, it weighs between six and seven tons.
Even in its short run at Matt's Gallery — the house was open to the public for only three months out of its full six-month stint — it'd already generated crazy amounts of buzz.
Questions abounded: What is that thing on the roof? Are we in trouble? That paint color is lovely, where can I find it?
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