The Beep Beep Bubble Wash transformed 50 sheets of cardboard into an interactive, human-scale car wash for the inaugural Pop-Up City at Virginia Beach Town Center. Designed and constructed by WPA team members, friends and family, the single-day installation invited 600 visitors to select handmade cardboard vehicles and travel through a playful sequence of smoke bubbles and interactive car-wash elements.
Photo courtesy of Mario Gandia – Hanbury Design
Pop-Up City grew from AIA Coastal Virginia’s Pop-Up Parks program, an annual initiative that WPA has helped with since its inception. Previous installations have activated spaces in Norfolk and Virginia Beach through community charrettes, storytelling and hands-on fabrication. Pop-Up City expanded that model by bringing six local architecture firms together to create a temporary streetscape within Town Center.
Photo courtesy of Mario Gandia – Hanbury Design
The Bubble Wash created an open and accessible experience centered on movement, imagination and shared discovery. A wide passage accommodated visitors of different ages, sizes and abilities, while repeating loops encouraged participants to experience the installation at their own pace. The familiar car wash typology was exaggerated through scale and material, turning an everyday experience into an unexpected piece of temporary architecture.
Developed through a collaborative sketch process, the Bubble Wash demonstrated design as an active process of exploration and adaptation. The design for WPA’s Pop-Up City structure centered on creating a playful, experiential installation that encouraged people to move through, interact with, and remember the space.
Photo courtesy of Mario Gandia – Hanbury Design
A modular system of full- and half-size cardboard blocks formed the structure, with open sections that allowed wind to pass through and circular cutouts that reinforced the Bubble Wash motif. Interactive elements including bubbles, lightweight cardboard cars, a bubble curtain, and movable car wash features intended to create movement, light, and shadow, adding energy and discovery throughout the experience.
Rather than prioritizing architectural form alone, the team leaned into creating something engaging for attendees of all ages. Sustainability also shaped its construction: the car wash was designed around 50 sheets of cardboard, with connection points secured using recyclable tape so the installation could remain fully recyclable. Working with these two materials introduced practical considerations around humidity, temperature, warping, wind, and durability, requiring the team to balance the temporary structure’s environmental goals with the demands of an outdoor installation.
The wind ultimately became part of the experiment itself, testing ideas that had been developed indoors against the unpredictability of an outdoor setting. Rather than diminishing the installation, those challenges made the design process visible to the public, showing the team adapting, problem-solving, and taking creative risks in real time — an inventiveness that was integral to the spirit of a temporary Pop-Up City.
Set against the brick and mortar retail and office spaces of Virginia Beach Town Center, the Bubble Wash offered a playful demonstration of how design can activate public space, introduce young people to architecture and bring a community together. The installation received the event’s People’s Choice Award and was covered in WAVY, MSN, AOL and Yahoo and 13News Now.
