At the 2025 UIT Festival in Tartu, Estonia, the Prague-based SKULL studio has unveiled an innovative temporary installation called 'The Floor is lava soft!' that completely transforms a mundane car park into an unexpected interactive playground. The creative intervention, led by Czech artist Matěj Hájek, creative strategist Pavel Krajčík, and photographer Bet Orten, replaces the typical hard surfaces of asphalt and parked vehicles with soft straw bales, fundamentally altering the urban landscape's texture and purpose.
The installation creates a striking contrast to the rigid urban environment by introducing an element of unexpected softness and playfulness. The result is a curious intervention that actively invites passersby to engage with the space in multiple ways – touching, jumping, playing, sitting, gathering, or simply pausing to experience the transformed environment. This creative approach effectively blurs the traditional boundaries between everyday infrastructure and dedicated spaces designed for play and recreation.
Founded in 2020 by Matěj Hájek and Bet Orten, SKULL studio has established itself as an innovative laboratory of ideas, concepts, and creative visions. The collective's multidisciplinary approach unites expertise from various fields including art, design, and technology to create interventions that are both playful and socially engaging. Their philosophy centers on challenging conventional thinking about space and function, where sculpture becomes a gaming element, landscapes transform into playgrounds, interiors evolve into works of art, and photography transcends traditional boundaries into comprehensive image-making.
With 'The Floor is lava soft!', SKULL studio demonstrates its core ethos in action by directly challenging the rigidity and predictability of urban environments. The intervention is deliberately ephemeral, humorous, and deeply human in its approach to reimagining public space. By replacing typical urban materials with organic straw bales, the installation creates a tactile environment that can be adapted and changed by those who use it, making each interaction unique and personal.
The project's title playfully references the popular children's game 'the floor is lava,' where players must avoid touching the ground by jumping from object to object. This anomaly of softness in an otherwise hard urban landscape encourages people of all ages to engage physically with the space, whether through active play or passive relaxation. The installation successfully turns the city itself into a canvas where softness interrupts hardness, and where play has the power to transform everyday life experiences.
The design team for the project included Matěj Hájek, Ondřej Kobza, Tomáš Beník, Aneta Kůšová, and Karim Samy Awwad, with photography documentation provided by Mana Kaasik. The collaborative effort represents SKULL studio's broader mission to create temporary interventions that challenge people's perceptions of urban space while fostering community interaction and engagement through the simple yet powerful concept of creating spaces where play is not just allowed, but actively encouraged.
