The Origami Phone Concept
For being light, strong and recyclable, cardboard has been used a lot lately in architecture and design. The Chinese designer Chengyuan Wei also chose this humble material to revisit the phone design. Composed of simple components, the Origami Phone unfolds from flat into a minimalistic 3D handset. Simple and functional, a good design lesson. The […]
Broccoli House
“I couldn’t build a tree house for my son”, says Minneapolis-based graphic artist and T-shirt designer Brock Davis, “so I built him a broccoli house instead”. Davis used balsa wood, a craft knife, glue and, of course, broccoli, to create this dreamy miniature tree house. The result is a nice piece of instant happiness. If you […]
This Painting Is Not Available In Your Country
How does an artwork spread on the Internet? We have often argued that an increasing amount of creative work is produced with the Web in mind. An urban intervention, for instance, is nice for the hundred passers-by who can touch it and feel it, but the real masses will be reached when it is getting […]
Studying The (Ruling) Urban Operating Systems
There is an old Bengali tale (there might exist similar tales elsewhere too) of how the shoe got invented. Long long time ago, before shoe was invented, there was a king who got sick of his feet getting dirty everytime he goes somewhere. So he ordered his ministers to wrap the whole earth with cloth, […]
The Emerging Trend Of Japanese Maid Cafés
At Home is an interesting ‘maid café’ in Tokyo. It is located in a regular apartment complex and completely furnished as a regular home. Maid cafés in general become increasingly popular and could be considered a new phenomonon in Japanese nightlife. A while ago I discovered a couple of new Japanese culture and style blogs. […]
A Midsummer Night's Folly
Dear Londoners, pay attention! There’s a collective of young artists, designers and architects that is working for you: they are named Assemble and their aim is to find a new life for neglected urban public spaces by turning these into some unexpected, creative happenings. In one of their projects of last year, they turned an […]
Lego Bus Stop Shelters
In order to promote good old Lego (who didn’t grow up with it?), the Malaysia-based office of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather came up with a neat series of three bus shelter advertisements, entitled ‘Whale’, ‘Caterpillar’ and ‘Monster’. Every ad is a unique piece that completely consists of Lego bricks, and was made in collaboration […]
Volkswagen Hovercraft
The 21 year old Chinese designer Yuhan Zhang has designed a prototype hovercraft car for the consumer market. The Volkswagen Aqua should introduce the concept of the hovercraft to a mainstream audience. And how can you do this better than by creating a new Volkswagen? The Aqua is a good alternative for a SUV pulling […]
Anthony Marinos (Loosecubes) On Co-Working
Here on Pop-Up City we are very interested in different mobile and flexible work concepts. How do new footloose offices operate? How do co-working spaces work? What kinds of new networks and spaces do matter? And, after all, how does this affect the city? We got the chance to speak with Anthony Marinos from Loosecubes, one […]
Nike Sportswear Ice Cream Truck
Mobile food vendors could be considered an integral part of the urban program. And they are hot. Hot enough to be turned into flexible urban marketing tools. PSFK reports a video teaser promo of an ice cream truck in New York City initiated by Nike Sportswear, that not only serves ice cream, but also the […]
Urban Agriculture, Part 1: The Community Gardens
In 1932 Frank Lloyd Wright presented the so-called Broadacre City in his book ‘The Disappearing City’. “The Broadacre City, where every family will have at least an acre of land, is the inevitable municipality of the future… We live now in cities of the past, slaves of the machine and of traditional building. We cannot […]
Turn Off The City Lights And Gaze At The Stars
With all the ambient light and the pollution of modern cities, delightful moments when you can lie and gaze at stars are rare. Régine Debatty from We Make Money Not Art spotted a lovely project that will delight the Londoners. The Urban Stargazing installation by the French product designer Oscar Lhermitte “focuses on bringing back […]
Washington DC’s Decentralized Restaurant
As we already described in ‘Trend 4: Pop-Up Everywhere’, the popularity of pop-up food concepts is growing, whether it is about pop-up restaurants or flexible food sellers. Of course, street vending is not a new phenomenon. Nevertheless, more and more mobile food concepts build their brand by smart use of social media. Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter […]
Wahwah.fm Turns You Into A Walking Music Station
Wahwah.fm is a fresh and unorthodox smartphone app developed in Berlin. Aiming to be the "Foursquare for sound" on TechCrunch, it lets you listen to your music library or a playlist created on SoundCloud and broadcast it at the same time through your (mobile) Internet connection. Conversely, you can tune into the music that people around you are listening to, enabling you to discover new music by listening to broadcasts from other people. Wahwah.fm turns its users into walking music stations, enabling them to transmit sound streams simultaneously to and from their direct environment.
Sofia’s Monument Of Modern Icons
Thanks to Urban Shit we stumbled upon this great artwork in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. An anonymous artist has paint-brushed the Russian Red Army soldiers into a more contemporary scene. The artist must have thought that a statue of popular superheroes and cartoon characters is perhaps more interesting for people living in this time. We […]
