The July/August issue of Monocle focuses on the urban, including their ranking of the twenty cities with the best quality of life. But also included in the issue are a variety of interviews, essays and proposals for the future of the city, what it means to be an urban dweller and insights from those who are responsible for planning, developing, building and inhabiting the cities we create.

Monocle's website, also provides many of the magazine's features in video and animated formats.

You have until August 2007 to check out the Global Cities exhibition at the Tate Modern. The exhibition is introduced with the revealing statistic that for the first time in human history, more than 50% of the world's population now live in cities. And according to the United Nations, this number is set to rise to 75% by 2050 contrasted with only 10% of the planet's population living in cities a century ago.

The exhibition approaches this context by looking at the social and spatial conditions in ten major cities across the globe including: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. These cities are explored, compared and contrasted using five thematic perspectives: size, speed, form, density and diversity.

Six commissions are also presented in this exhibition, including works by Fritz Haeg, Nigel Coates, Nils Norman, Richard Wentworth, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid. The Tate Modern's website also has included a fair amount of information including stats and videos also shown in the space.

Continue reading "Global Cities at the Tate Modern" »

Here are some links focused on the convergence of atoms and bytes…

Yellow Arrow
“Yellow Arrow is a symbol that means ‘there’s more here: a hidden detail, a funny story, a crazy experience.’ Each arrow links to digital content to real location, creating a new map of what counts. When you post or find a Yellow Arrow, the way you see that spot will change.”

SuperHighStreet
SuperHighStreet is “a world first offering Virtual Shopping on Photo-Realistic, Interactive Streetscapes including London's Oxford Street, Portobello Road, Richmond Upon Thames, and Fifth Avenue New York arriving soon.
Superhighstreet.com delivers the sights & even sounds of real world shopping, minus the hassle. Just walk down the road using the scrollbar or your cursor keys, click on a store door, and you're immediately transported inside their online shop.”

Mobot
“The leader in mobile visual search technology, Mobot connects consumers using any camera phone on any wireless carrier to brands, mobile content and commerce. No complex codes, navigation or changes to cross-media campaigns are required.”

Google Digital Billboard Ad Network
“The idea is to tie billboard advertising in local malls to actual products for sale nearby, much like the company’s flagship Google AdWords/AdSense network that handles contextual advertising on the Internet.
The patent filing, first reported by New Scientist magazine, describes a way for retailers to put categories of products up for purchase in the vicinity of a display device.
Advertisers may upload advertisement messages to a server specifying information such as budget, price per impression, preferred billboards and/or other constraints. One or more keywords or other descriptors are specified for each advertisement message,” according to the USPTO filing…”

IKEA Interactive Bed Projection
A video of a sleeping man is projected into a bed at the IKEA store in Sweden. When someone touches or sits on the bed, the man slowly rolls off. Reminiscent of Studio Azzurro's amazing installations using projected performers to interact with visitors. A lot more could be done with IKEA's experiment taking some cues from the Italian studio's lead. Also see Tomoko Hayashi's 'mutsugoto' or 'pillow talk' for some inspiration.

The Future Laboratory held their Spring Trend Open Day 2007 on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at the London College of Fashion. The day-long series of presentations, speeches and networking sessions yielded more confirmations than surprises. Many of the themes presented built on the group’s research from the past couple of years, validating old trend directions with fresh examples of innovative companies and trend-setters.

While there were too many trends, themes and case studies to list here, some major take-aways from the day included:

Design with a capital “D”
Consumers are becoming design literate. They are willing to pay for quality and even invest in designed pieces. Design has become the hottest form of arts & culture consumption. “Design is having a contemporary art moment”. Supernormal designers are prioritizing quality over fashion; the design approach here is not to dictate or dominate, but to thoroughly engage the consumer.

ThirtyfiveUps
The Bridge Generation have the wants and attitudes of the Boomers and the tastes and flexibility of the Millennials. These Localistas prioritise networking with friends and starting families but are also Serial Hedonists constantly chasing their dualistic dream of wealth and happiness.

Brand Value
Consumers want value and successful brands must communicate a clear, single message about the value they offer. Advertising must stop telling and start doing; advertise by example, by demonstration. No where is this message more in focus than in the dramatic shift in attitudes toward the environmental state of the planet. Fear, concern and outrage are no longer sentiments reserved for the fringe. Mainstream consumers are increasingly inquisitive and critical of corporate claims and practices. Key themes include: organic vs. sustainable, carbon obesity index, conscience culture and apology marketing.

2.0
Connectivity is the norm. Children are now growing up in an Always-on Culture. While Web 2.0 is delivering a socially networked and highly interactive web experience, Office 2.0 is extending this platform to the workplace with self-scheduling, remote working and project-based activities creating new economies and business models. Television 2.0 will give consumers the ability to tag, build and broadcast their own tv stations. Immersive Living blurs the line between the digital and the physical with the embedding of data into bodies, leading Second Lives in virtually architected spaces and the GPS mobile phone becoming the universal remote control.

Continue reading "Spring Trends 2007" »

On my way to Arup’s offices today I passed a McDonalds that I’ve passed a hundred times. But rather than instinctively scanning beyond the small corner restaurant in search of more unconventional, urban eyecandy, I found myself staring into its windows with curiosity and intrigue.

In place of a big, red, plastic McDonalds sign with a massive, plastic, yellow set of ‘golden’ arches, I found myself viewing a squared-off, steel, clean façade with clean glass windows. Simple, white McDonalds lettering was displayed next to a small, glowing set of golden arches neatly nestled in the corner of its rectangular frame.

Peering into the restaurant, the interior reminded me of a Wagamama, the Asian, minimalist restaurant known for its stark interiors consisting of long, wooden benches and a lengthy slab of wood for a tabletop. And prominently situated at the entrance of this restaurant was a glowing, glass and steel showcase, proudly displaying Happy Meal boxes and combo deals; neatly composed and spaced on the shelving as if part of a museum exhibition.

The showcased products, minimalist interiors and slick exterior vaguely reminded me of the renowned interior designer Masamichi Katayama’s Foot Soldier store in Tokyo. Foot Soldier is a shoe store in Tokyo that presents its collections on a factory-like conveyor belt set behind glass in the centre of the shop. The shop’s owner, Nigo from A Bathing Ape has artfully created an experience commanding premium prices for t-shirts, shoes and accessories in part through Katayama’s engaging interiors. The showcase in McDonalds seemed to be edging toward this kind of context. Given the shift in perception and demand for healthier foods, could McDonalds have decided to tackle this by choosing to showcase its products rather than apologise for them? There are even small signs at the entrance clearly listing prices and ingredients of its food.

Connecting Katayama’s retail interiors to a McDonalds in London seemed even less ridiculous when considering the work that Katayama has done for Uniqlo in New York. Uniqlo’s ambitious New York flagship store is set to compete head-on with the likes of the Gap; differentiating itself through the message that ‘value can be glamorous’. The Uniqlo/Katayama collaboration uses a playful and minimal design approach to present a large volume of product; “showing a lot of [units of product] emphasizes its volume and therefore affordability”. Check out an article on this collaboration from Metropolis Magazine.

An interesting take on design-led environments for mass producers with low cost positioning… Should McDonalds explore this message even further in their restaurant designs?

Continue reading "McDonalds Makeover" »

While in blogger time this article is already old news, I find its message to be quite timely! The Economist published an article just before Christmas called “Post-modernism is the new black – How the shape of modern retailing was both predicted and influenced by some unlikely seers”.

As indicated by the title, the article attributes many recent capitalist innovations to post-modernist theory. The author argues that while the Pomos (Post-modernists) were vehemently opposed to capitalism, 'they gave modern retailers, advertisers and businessmen the tools’ to reinvent it.

The argument asserts that both post-modernism and capitalism put the restoration of the individual’s choice and power at the centre of their approaches. Indeed many successful brands have been built by people raised on the post-modern idealism of the 60’s (think Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Vivienne Westwood). This spirit of rebellion and ‘liberation’ has given the individual (consumer) the power to be critical of messages, behave in contradictory ways and change their mind about their preferences.

The article cites the reinvention of Selfridges as an example of the successful implementation of a post-modernist strategy in a retail environment. Chaos, non-hierarchy and spontaneity have replaced uniformity and compartmentalisation. The department store’s eclecticism reflects that of its customer’s. The post-modern ‘fragment’ is the capitalist ‘niche’.

While the stores of the past based their merchandising strategies on ‘edited choice’ for a mass market, the retailers of the future are sprinting to offer unlimited choice to a ‘mass of niches’; in some cases to the point of empowering customers to even create their own products.

This new, empowered consumer can now curate major parts of their consumption, or in post-modern terms, can ‘be the artist of his own life’. They buy individual songs on iTunes instead of albums at the record store, record their personal running workouts on their trainers and print their own t-shirts.

While the ‘consumer’s rebirth as artist’ presents challenges to less nimble and more globally uniform brands, it also represents an enormous business opportunity. Google paid $1.65 billion for a little site that through video, enabled people to turn their lives into art for others to see. What would be the department store equivalent…?

Continue reading "Shopping and philosophy" »

Beauty & the Brand
Brands are the source of great debate and focus, not just in economic and social contexts but also technological, environmental and political. Defining the word is probably even harder than deciding whether you love them or hate them. And while I guarantee this blog will offer plenty of conflicting perspectives on the subject, I still find it useful to offer a starter definition: a brand is a collection of beliefs drawn from the customer’s experience with it.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other
Yes, this definition of brand is self-referential. Brands are subjective things! Which leads me to the title of this blog - ‘narrativity’. Often referenced in film theory, narrativity explores the relationship between the narrative presented by a creator and the narrative interpreted by the consumer. This concept goes a long way to understanding why and how brands illicit the reactions they do.

Brand & The Built Environment
The built environment plays an incredibly important role in the way a brand narrative is presented and interpreted. The more established and defined examples can be found in retail, hospitality and entertainment; often described as shopper or visitor experiences. However, brand narratives can also be found in art & cultural spaces, urban centres, healthcare facilities and educational institutions among others. The goal of this blog will be to track and discuss the relationship of the brand narrative to these built environments.

Now on to blogging…