Trends
Cell Phone Storage Van For Brooklyn High Schoolers
Safe 'n' Secure Cellutions LLC sounds like a name of a high-end corporation but is in fact far away from it. It's a small business run by Jhonn de La Puente through a custom made whole on the side of his van. What does he do? He stores cell phones.
Wanted: Coolhunters For A Future Brabant
Pop-Up City is looking for savvy students and professionals to form a team of coolhunters that will search for inspiring innovations, ideas and trends in the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant.
Fly Over London In An Emirates-Sponsored Cable Car
Airline carrier Emirates offers a special 'flying' experience to Londoners and visitors of the British capital as the company has teamed up with Transport for London (TfL) to build and operate a cable car service close to the city's O2 Arena.
Nike Launches On-Demand Laser Beam Street Football Pitch
Over the last years, Nike's campaigns have proven that the sportswear brand seems to take its role in the urban environment seriously. About a month ago Nike launched another neat concept in Madrid: an on-demand laser beam installation that turns any public space into a street football pitch.
Candy Bar Explains It Once Again: Bucharest Is Not Budapest!
Did you know that Bucharest is not Budapest? Although there are plenty of differences between the capital of Romania and the capital of neighboring country Hungary, it seems to be hard to not confuse the two cities. That's why the Romanian candy bar brand ROM came up with a campaign to make clear once and for all that Bucharest is something different than Budapest.
Smart Billboards Double As Urban Furniture
IBM has launched a clever series of billboards that double as urban furniture. Three different billboards that promote the company's People for Smarter Cities program are designed to sit on, to take cover under when it rains or to pull your bags over instead of carrying them.
Sidewalk Billboards Double As Furnished Walls For Houses
HomePro, one of the biggest household hardware and furniture stores in Thailand, came up with a rather remarkable ad campaign. As a part of the recently launched Other Side campaign, the company designed and created sidewalk billboards that double as walls for small houses.
Trend 1: Spotify The City
One of the most interesting developments in the last years is the shift from ownership to access. Music service Spotify is a good example of this change that will eventually turn around the economy. We don’t buy CDs any more, but a monthly Spotify subscription gives us access to all the music in the world without owning it. Exactly this focus shift is also introduced in the way cities are organized and developed. The city gets 'spotified'.
Trend 2: Secret Urbanism And New Exclusivity
Bottom-up, open data, open source, open design, co-creation, crowd-sourcing. The last years have been marked by a trend of openness that's driven by the geeky side of Internet culture, and driven further by things like the economic crisis and the democratic deficit. Whether it's about WikiLeaks' struggle for open information or the attention for participatory urbanism, we all go 'inclusive'. However, there's no culture without counter-culture.
Trend 3: The Reinvention Of The Post Box
Waiting for packages sucks big time since urban lifestyles are more flexible than ever. As the fixed address is slightly becoming an old-fashioned concept, the post box of the future will be movable in terms of space and time. New-style post boxes take different shapes and forms, pop up where needed, and don't require a direct link with home addresses. Several companies around the world are working on futuristic concepts that redefine the post box, and make parcel delivery processes fit with modern lifestyles.
Trend 4: The Factory Moves Back Into Our Houses
After years of industrialization, digitalization and outsourcing of labor, we increasingly feel that we're losing what life 'really' is about. A process of detachment with normal daily life has made us economically vulnerable. Increasing numbers of people feel disconnected from the making process of stuff they use on a daily basis. They do not only want to bake their own bread again, but they want control over production processes of more and more products that are used at home. Does doesn't only go for food, but also for other stuff that we all use on a regular basis. The result is that we start to have our own little in-house factories.
