A Hanging Garden Of Orphaned Christmas Trees
Brooklyn-based artist Michael Neff invested some time to collect a number of Christmas trees to create a temporary hanging garden under the Brooklyn-Queens Express Way.
Trend 2: The Rise Of Social Selling
Social buying (Groupon, Living Social, etc.) seems to be a giant 2011 trend, but we predict 'social selling' to be the entrepreneur's answer in 2012.
Starbucks Drive-Thru Container Coffee Shop
Starbucks has opened a new drive-thru shop in Tukwila, Washington, in December last year. The drive-thru is made from old shipping containers and forms part of the LEED Certified Cafés, a series of sustainable bars run by Starbucks. Starbucks wants to encourage green architecture and building to reduce energy use and operational costs. “The container drive-thru is […]
Trend 3: Paint The City!
Paint has proven to be a great way to spice up boring, ugly and unsafe cities. Over the last years we’ve seen a remarkably high number of urban color injections at a remarkably wide range of places in the world — from bus stations in Bratislava to favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Many of these […]
Trend 4: Brands Love Future Cities
Last year the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels was signed to introduce Audi to the world of urbanism and architecture. Audi, that launched the Audi Urban Future program, needed a key figure in the world of architecture to help the brand explore this discipline. Audi is not the only company. The car brand competes with loads of other […]
Stickers, Kids And A White Room
For the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, artist Yayoi Kusama created a truly fantastic do-it-yourself art installation for children. The installation, entitled The Obliteration Room, is part of Kusama’s Look Now, See Forever exhibition that runs from december 2011 till March 2012. “What happens if you give a thousands of stickers to a thousands of […]
Trend 5: Modular Hospitality
The next hotel is modular. In 2012 people want to sleep in the middle of the woods, float in the sea or relax in a snowy landscape. Good ol’ hotels that consist of one solid piece of concrete with rooms in it connected by a central hall just don’t do it any more. Over the […]
Trend 6: The City As An Interface
Apple launched its intelligent software assistant Siri in August last year. Resulting from decades of research at SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence Center, Siri uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services. The service is even able to adapt to a user’s individual […]
READYKEA: A Modular Exhibition System Made From IKEA Products
READYKEA is a modular system for a mobile exhibition created by architect Antonio Scarponi. For the DADA New York II: Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism exhibition by Adrian Notz and Philip Meier at DADA House, Scarponi used only two IKEA pieces (Trofast and Antonius) to create the entire exhibition concept. READYKEA is a modular system […]
Trend 7: Design For Animals
Increasing numbers of designers and artists seem to be concerned with animals. Over the last years we’ve encountered loads of projects that extend design principles to the world of animals. Sometimes to improve living conditions for animals or help to preserve a species, sometimes because a designer bird house is prettier to look at. Several […]
Trend 8: The Peer-To-Peer Economy
Don’t we all have loads of stuff we don’t use most of the time? Why not share it with others and make a little money? Over the last years we’ve seen the launch of lots of initiatives that aim to stimulate people to rent out their temporarily unused assets to others in return for a […]
And The Winners Are…
Last year Philips organized a competition to find great ideas for the livable city of tomorrow. Three winners have been announced. They all receive a great money prize to make their ideas happen. With this competition Philips aims to support good initiatives for cities since the company develops new technologies and products to improve cities. […]
Trend 9: The Revival Of Psychogeography
Psychogeography is hot. Guy Debord, founding member of Situationist International and the man who coined the term in 1955, defined the phenomenon as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals”. In fact, psychogeography is the art of strolling, or just about […]
Trend 10: Urbanism Made To Like
The city seems to be too boring in the eyes of many and that's why new playful urban interventions will overload the urban landscape in the coming time. New generations of grown-ups want to experience the city as a playground and designers slowly get to understand this. Whereas street artists and non-commissioned urban interventionists started to experiment with these kinds of interventions over the past years, now also governments and brands aim to be playful in public space by creating and injecting urban play elements.
