Trends
Trend 8: Location, Location, Location!
2010 was also the year of the definite breakthrough of the check-in. Foursquare, the most used location-based service, grew from 500,000 users in March to 5 million users in December. Predicts Mark Krynsky from Checkin Blog, “I, along with many others, feel that this will be one of the hottest sectors in tech over the […]
Trend 9: The Reinvention Of The Co-Op
The term 'co-op' and its principles are all over the Internet. It gives expression to a new trend in which people focus on working together instead of being in competition. In the game industry co-op games ask players to work together to create something fun, instead of killing other players. This tendency of working together has made a step from the Web to the urban space over the last years. People in cities around the world are looking for new ways to express their collective needs on a neighborhood level. One of the best examples of new forms of cooperative thinking in public areas are the urban agriculture initiatives. Groups of people reclaim public land and set up a co-op to organize costs and rewards. An appealing initiative is the Seattle Farm Co-Op, a community-based project supplying urban farmers in the Seattle area.
Trend 10: Food In The Cloud
It was the year of the web restaurant. This concept of home-based cooking services is emerging worldwide, being part of a trend addressing sustainability issues in a crisis economy. Last year Springwise wrote about the strongly related ‘sellsuming’ trend (“selling is the new saving”) covering several initatives, such as Book of Cooks, a US-based online marketplace that helps consumers […]
London’s Cycle Super Highways Get Barclays Blue
Worldwide governments have to economize, which generally means there will be less money to spend on the city's public spaces. Here on Pop-Up City we are very much interested in new financing strategies concerning public space. Would it, for instance, be possible to give world-leading brands the opportunity to invest in public spaces while giving them some brand visibility in return? Usually only talking about such an idea leads to angry faces and automatic defending mechanisms. Generally, brand involvement is considered something bad in the urban planning community. It seems to be completely normal that local governments sell all empty walls for advertisement space in order to earn some extra money, while at the same time it is not done to ask brands to get involved in public space design... even when the community could get something worth-full in return.
Nano Inside: The Supermarket Of The Future
Eatable software, liquid glass, wine of which its taste can be altered with micro waves, a Twitter implant, invisible security spray and much more. All these ‘nano inside’ products are presented today, at the debate-provoking NANO Supermarket. For the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven (23-30 October), Next Nature launches the NANO Supermarket: a mobile supermarket exploring the […]
Puma's Flex City
Apparently connections between brands and spatial interventions are succesful, considering the rise of the pop-up stores. The formule though seems to change slightly from using temporary empty spaces to a more profound architectural strategy. Complete new flexible constructions are set up with the singular issue of promoting a brand. PSFK comes up with the new […]
Things Get Micro
Previously we wrote about different initiatives which fit perfectly into the trend of micro-business, like Wonga‘s instant mini-loans and VeggieTrader, the marketplace for backyard farmers. Trendwatching.com refers to the closely related trend of ‘sellsuming’: “A recession-induced need for cash, and an ever-growing infrastructure enabling individuals to act as (part-time) entrepreneurs, are fueling concepts that help ordinary consumers make […]
The Emergence Of Coworking, Part 2
In my article of last Saturday I described the emerge of location independent working and the phenomenon of coworking. In this article I’ll come up with three examples of coworking spots. First of all: Coworker.nl, which was started by web kids Robert Gaal and Alper Çuğun. Coworker.nl is a very nice Dutch website which provides […]
The Emergence Of Coworking
The classic model of industrial development is characterised by a time-spatial concentration of work. In the past centralisation of labour created not only a dividing line between work and non-working, but also a stronger segregation between urban and rural areas (urbanisation, ‘sleep cities’). Moreover, this model caused a huge intensification of commuter traffic. Albert Benschop, social scientist at the University of […]
The Future Of Postal Administration, Part 2
On Thursday I wrote an article on innovation in the world of postal administration, explaining the fresh idea behind the initiative of Zumbox, which delivers paperless mail online, from street address to street address. But how about packages? It can be hell to wait for a package to arrive. Most of the times you end […]
The Future Of Postal Administration
Innovation is slowly taking the old-fashioned postal services to a next level. Companies like Zumbox come up with new ideas for distributing mail, breaking the borders between paper and digital. Zumbox delivers paperless mail online, from street address to street address. What used to only be sent as paper mail can now be sent without […]
Are Coffeeshops The New Offices?
Just a great picture from our friends of Je Hoofd Loopt Om, taken in Berlin. The photo illustrates a major development of more and more people getting footloose; a simple laptop is the only equipment they need to do their job. Place doesn't matter, time doesn't matter. An office doesn't have to be an office.
