Designs with a bounce

WALKING ON AIR: From left, August Lehrecke, Levi Bedall and Matthew Muller are co-founders of Pneuhaus, a design and entertainment company that constructs large-scale, inflatable architecture designed to engage audiences. / COURTESY LEVI BEDALL
WALKING ON AIR: From left, August Lehrecke, Levi Bedall and Matthew Muller are co-founders of Pneuhaus, a design and entertainment company that constructs large-scale, inflatable architecture designed to engage audiences. / COURTESY LEVI BEDALL

(Updated, July 1, 5:11 p.m.)
Pneuhaus, a three-partner design and entertainment company, argues inflatable architecture is more than the bounce houses commonly seen at children’s birthday parties.

The Providence-based business constructs large-scale, inflatable architecture meant to engage its audience, but on a more informed basis.

“You don’t interact with inflatables all that often. On our end we’re pushing it as a craft and a way to experience space differently,” said August Lehrecke, one of the company’s three co-founders.

Pneuhaus, which is approaching its two-year anniversary, has built 12 inflatable structures to date, most of which have been installed in and around Providence; materials average between $2,000 and $3,000 per structure.

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Lehrecke added that while the company has ideas for spaces yet to be constructed, it also accepts commissions.

“We need to fit our designs into the market that does exist,” he said.

Enter Joe Gebbia and the Burning Man music festival, an annual concert series that takes place in the Nevada desert.

Gebbia, a Rhode Island School of Design alum and Airbnb co-founder as well as chief product officer, visited the school’s campus and became interested in Pneuhaus after seeing one of its projects. In summer 2014 he met with the team and commissioned it to design and build a structure for the 2015 Burning Man festival.

The Pneuhaus structure, which was approved by the festival administration, stood out from all the others, remembered Lehrecke.

“Material-wise [our structure] was pretty innovative. … People plan all year to build massive, metal structures with pickup trucks, and ours was collapsible, fit in the back of a U-Haul and was built with human power,” he said.

Audience reaction also made the structure stand out from the pack, said Matthew Muller, another co-founder. “Everyone reverted into a childlike state and were romping around on the structure. It was the ideal scenario.”

Since Pneuhaus’ success at Burning Man 2015, the company has committed minimal time to marketing itself in order to gain new commissions, said third co-founder Levi Bedall.

“Projects lead from one to another, the company has grown organically through interest in each successive commission or project,” he said.

In fact, Bedall explained, the biggest challenge for the company in the past two years has been tackling business basics.

“We’re all designers and we weren’t ever trained in business, so we’ve been stumbling through what businesspeople learn in school, [such as] accounting and the proper certificates and permits,” he said.

In addition to being invited back to Burning Man to build a structure for the 2017 festival, Pneuhaus is looking forward to designing and building rental domes that can last up to five years and adhere to federal disability standards. •

Airbnb co-founder and chief product officer Joe Gebbia was misidentified in an earlier version of this story.

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