Author Archives: Francesco Vedovato

Saturday Night Fever

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Friday November 4, 2011

‘Limelight: Saturday Night’ is an interesting project which explores the possibilities of the city as a stage by replacing streetlights with theater spotlights and turning every passer-by into the next performer. Instantly turning city life into a show, the project features spontaneous performances by citizens, somewhere between spectacle and surveillance, as the creators explain: “The spotlight attracted [...]

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From Hacking To Trust: An Interview With Scott Burnham

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Monday May 16, 2011

A few weeks ago, during our experience in Milan, I had the chance to talk with Scott Burnham in the context of an open conversation on design organized by the Design Academy Eindhoven. The theme of the meeting was Trust, the title of the latest research project run by Premsela and Archis, which you can [...]

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Cool Ideas

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Tuesday April 26, 2011

In the context of the Festival of Ideas for the New City, a gathering of independent cultural projects for Manhattan showing the potential of the creative community to imagine the ideas that will shape the future, Urban Omnibus is presenting a series of clever posters entitled ’50 Ideas for the New City’ a nice series of retro-style [...]

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Public Design Festival 2011: A Report From Milan

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Thursday April 21, 2011

Deep down in the suburbs of Milan, a campsite is situated under a highway. It’s the Public Design Festival, an initiative promoted by Esterni agency, which aims to spread knowledge and sensibility regarding themes related to public space. Happening in various areas throughout the city of Milan during the famous Salone del Mobile, the Public Design Festival [...]

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There's A User For That!

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Tuesday April 5, 2011

In the minds of a new generation of smartphone app developers, the city is luckily absorbing a great amount of effort and tons of hidden information that are being revealed thanks to the work of creative minds collecting data from institutional sources or from the citizen themselves. It is interesting to notice which path a [...]

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QR Storytelling

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Saturday March 26, 2011

140 Years have passed since the happenings of the Paris Commune, the governance experience known to be the first historical assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution, that briefly ruled Paris between March and May 1871. Despite the relatively short life and the limited geographical range of the experience (the governance [...]

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Escape The Cameras

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Wednesday March 16, 2011

Having to deal with surveillance cameras in our cities is becoming more and more obvious nowadays, and while citizens are becoming used to the presence of these devices, artists and activists are constantly denouncing the intrusive role of the nearly-ubiquitous CCTV systems. It is interesting to notice how the practice of surveillance is growing without [...]

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Complaining Has Never Been So Easy

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Wednesday March 9, 2011

Do you have a noisy neighbor? Someone who always stresses you out with loud music? Young students celebrating chaotic parties? If you feel ashamed calling the police for such a matter, there is a new way of delivering your message to who lives around you: the online complaint directory of NYC 311. 311 is New [...]

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Community Mapping

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Thursday February 24, 2011

Thanks to hundreds of community-sponsored open space project sites, New York citizens have historically joined together to grow plants and set up green areas on empty lots, keeping up with the great efforts taken by Liz Christy and Green Guerrillas. ‘Community garden’, a term which expresses traditional dependency of two life forms, brought together by [...]

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Abandoned But Not Forgotten

By Francesco Vedovato | Published: Friday February 11, 2011

The financial crisis has left hundreds and hundreds of abandoned buildings, taken from their inhabitants or built and never even filled with any human being. The voice of citizens asking for social projects at these places is growing and, despite being mostly private, the presence of these structures is being continuously questioned by the public. [...]

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