Designer Gitta Gschwendtner explains how historic underground tunnels inspired her installation of seven ladders bridging the street in this movie we filmed about the Seven Designers for Seven Dials aerial installations curated by Dezeen.

"Each one of the apexes pointing towards the Seven Dials monument used to house a pub and the pub cellars used to be connected with vaults and underground tunnels to create handy escapes should the need arise," says Gschwendtner. "I was very interested in taking that escape overground and creating an aerial escape across the street."

Her configuration of seven ladders connected haphazardly above the road was inspired by cat ladders and fire escapes on buildings.

Dezeen commissioned seven young designers to create seven installations to hang above the streets of Covent Garden during last year's London Design Festival, and Gschwendtner's Aerial Escape installation was located on Earlham Street.

Movies we've already published from this series include Faye Toogood talking through her installation of 49 worker's coats and Dominic Wilcox describing why he chose to string up a row of bird cages.

Gitta Gschwendtner also contributed a special edition from her Bodge Bench series to Dezeen's Stepney Green Design Collection - watch her talk about the project here.

Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.

The music featured in the movie is a song called Blue Sapphire by Remote Scenes. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about design by Gitta Gschwendtner »
See all more about Seven Designers for Seven Dials »
See all our coverage of London Design Festival 2012 »