Architect Sean Godsell has installed a new project for the Melbourne Fringe Festival depicting the bus shelter as a refuge for the homeless, who could find there a space blanket and bed down for the night, as the bench lifts up to reveal a woven steel mattress, and the bin built into the hoarding hosts blankets.

Besides, the bus shelter would be a gallery for struggling artists. Each Shelter exhibited features paintings, sculptures, poems and digital images by the Artful Dodgers, who come from a Jesuit Social Services program for young people affected by homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness.

Previous Godsell’s designs explored homelessness: the Future Shack is an emergency housing module made from a shipping container, and Park Bench House converts a park bench into a shelter with sloping roof and woven steel mattress.

Godsell has called on Melbourne to “design the homeless in” to the city rather than try to get them out as do some councils in London and Paris who have installed studs on park benches and placed seats with armrests in underground train stations to prevent anyone sleeping on them.

From Archinect.