Design by: Albert Viaplana & Helio Piñón

GAT-O is an urban boundary in granite grey cast stone with an acid-etched waterproof finish. Its geometry emerges from the pavement, curving with the same plasticity as a defensive cat's arched back. Its flat 20 x 60 cm. base facilitates ground level installation, only requiring the replacement of three 20 x 20 cm. paving blocks. It can be aligned lengthwise or crosswise, depending on the separation rhythm required to optimise the organisation of the town space. It is set parallel to the direction of the pedestrian circulation to prevent it from becoming an obstacle.

Architects Albert Viaplana and Helio Piñón designed GAT-O in conjunction with Escofet in 1988 as part of the A-E-I-O-U vocabulary collection, composed of TEST-E, LLUM-I, GAT-O and BANC-U.

The composition of these names implicitly contains the idea of creating a new vocabulary of components for Architects, the letter A in the series, to use in the modern city. The designers explain that each item is an individual response to the same issue: the confrontation between the neutral gravity of fluid concrete and the potential tension when it is adapted to different purposes.

Through its profile, BANC-U expresses the contrast of gravity on it's base against the levity of it's cross section; the LLUM-I sits on the ground and grows with the flow of artificial light until it finally falls to the ground; GAT-O is perhaps the best expression of the struggle between these two opposite forces: a mass of stone emerges from the ground, curving like a cat's back in a defensive posture; and TEST-E narrows until it loses its sense of dimension, marking the space like a small boat full of plants or flowers.