Out To Dry

Roughly 20 billion plastic retail hangers are landfilled annually in the United States due to garment-on-hanger (GOH) production, in which overseas clothing manufacturers package garments on hangers before shipping them to retailers. These plastic hangers, along with the other common types of hangers, are frequently rejected from material recovery facilities and sent to landfill due to their physical and material properties. The Out To Dry pavilion seeks to expose the wasteful practice of GOH production by proposing the collection, manipulation and agglomeration of the iconic tubular plastic hanger into a double-sided bandshell that can serve as a backdrop for events in a public park. By 3D printing a plastic strap, the polypropylene hanger can be bent into a shape that allows for the assembly of sixteen hangers, using standard bolts, into a cubic module. The modules are connected to each other with a secondary 3D printed clip.