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Over the past few years, landlocked cities across Europe have been setting up temporary beaches to offer their residents a summer’s day on the sand. From Paris to Budapest, these urban beaches have been quite a hit with the locals. Now, a new project by Rotterdam-based HUNK-design in cooperation with IDEddy is offering cities an alternative to moving large amounts of sand. The Flying Grass Carpet, which will debut in Amsterdam on May 10th, is a grass carpet of adjustable size, measuring at most 58 by 32 meters (or 190 by 105 feet). It’s a movable meadow made of various colours and types of artificial and natural grasses, from golf green to tennis red, arranged to resemble an Oriental rug. The designers’ aim is to create a temporary patch of green in Europe’s concrete jungles, giving city dwellers a place to hang out, play Frisbee or have a picnic. After its week-long residency in Amsterdam, the pop-up pasture will land in Aachen, Germany before moving to Rotterdam, and its owners are happy to schedule in other cities, too. This one should inspire urban planners and event organizers worldwide, as well as artful entrepreneurs who can no doubt come up with variations on this theme. And, although we’re not in favour of blanketing the world with ads, we can’t help but notice that a grass carpet would be a great canvas for advertisers 😉 Email: info@flyinggrasscarpet.org