The "Urban Punch Love" project (2005) represents a seminal disruption of municipal austerity, reconfiguring urban furniture as an extroverted, humanoid actor that prioritises tactile engagement over detached intellectual reflection. By deploying a bulbous rubber morphology supported by resilient spring-loaded legs, the work effectively collapses the ontological distance between the spectator and the object, establishing physical interaction as the primary civic programme. Within the context of the contemporary plaza, its vibrant red epidermis and comic physiognomy serve to transform sterile environments into stages for proxemic play. This "urban companion" transcends the decorative function of traditional street furniture, actively hosting sociality and resolving the semiotic ambiguity that frequently undermines contemporary placemaking initiatives. From an urbanistic perspective, Lloveras introduces a "micro-scale of care" into the rigid structural density of the city through the serial multiplication of these "gentle sentinels." These figures—while formally identical—acquire a unique patina through local use, privileging spontaneous choreography and communal conviviality over institutional control. This approach aligns with a tactical reclamation of space, where the choice of resilient materials allows the object to absorb both physical and emotional impacts, thereby modelling a city that reciprocates human affection. Ultimately, Urban Punch Love functions not as a mere plaything, but as a robust ethical proposition: a form of "furniture that loves," wherein civic belonging is forged through tactile acts of attachment that coalesce into a resilient community fabric.
