Airgrounds were a new genre of air structures comprising soft, responsive ‘event structures’ that the public could physically interact with. They represented an artistic research into the possibilities of an expanded, interactive and responsive architecture, which was also lightweight and modular.

The Airground Mattress took the shape of a very large mattress, a rectangular envelope made from reinforced PVC fabric that was tightly inflated with air and held together with internal ties. This design prefigured the now ubiquitous inflatable ‘jumping castles’.

An important characteristic of the Airground was that each person's movements would affect the behaviour of the structure as a whole, and thereby the dynamics of other participants’ experience. It was the invention of a sculptural medium that could physically stimulate, embody and express human interactions and interrelations.