Roll up your sleeves, skirts, and slacks, slip off your socks and step into Punctum's Public Cooling House - a unique public gathering place for beating the heat.
Containing individual cooling pools, exploring traditional cooling practices and presenting an unbeatable line up of performers and speakers, Punctum's Public Cooling House draws from simple and ancient evaporative cooling techniques, and presents a variety of 'water works' by local, national and International Artists. Sessions also include conversations with enlightened professionals managing 'bodies of water' on how we might contend with a water tight future. Punctum's artistic director Jude Anderson, who is responsible for the concept and production says: "Like a waterfall, clear visions of our water and energy futures help leaders make decisions which flow on to ensure our regions and towns flourish, and as citizens and individuals we continue to survive and thrive. The Public Cooling House has come about through some fascinating and sometimes very serious conversations with leading scientists, engineers, artists, researchers, and local suppliers concerned by our water future. Whilst playful and entertaining, the Cooling House is also a very real application of some traditional, ingenious cooling techniques like the Coolgardie Safe. It's a response to how we can all play a part in ensuring responsible use of energy and water supplies in uncertain times. It invites everyone to experience what we can find together when we take a plunge into our relationship with water."The project and its program has also come about as a response to the past 15 years in our region where we have directly experienced the increasing ferocity of heat extremes. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts that over the next 50 years the number of days over 35 degrees in our region will more than double from an average of 10 a year, to 20.
How can we build knowledge, resilience, and connect and respond in inclusive, ethical, and humane ways?
Punctum's Public Cooling House is a contemporary interpretation of nomadic desert architecture which combines ingenious cooling systems such as the Coolgardie Safe and Syrian wind catchers with flat pack low impact design.Videos