« What will the future be like in urban areas and how will we move around? These questions have always driven the smart brand. With the « smart urban stage » we are bringing leading thinkers from relevant areas together to discuss visions of urban life with them », says Marc Langenbrinck, Managing Director of the smart brand and Head of Sales & Marketing smart.
It was in mid September 15th when I’ve got a call from Armad Behar who was one of the five curators for Smart urban stage exhibition in Paris. He kindly explained me that my project MyWay was selected to participate in the competition for ‘Smart Future Minds Award’ in the category Design… Wonderful!
MyWay was the final project of my studies I did at ENSCI in Paris. The concept discusses about the question of transparency and privacy in the city. It talks about the life within architecture, its movements, behaviors, … The objective was to make this life visible and exposed, therefore I needed to find the way to turn the building inside-out. I proposed a graphical portrayal on the outside of a building that reflects the movements taking place inside. The visitors become the ‘designers’ of this interactive-facade and are invited to create their own scenario in their navigation-trail through the building.
Twenty years ago, the famous French architect Jean Nouvel said « The future of architecture is not architectural ». And today we see architectural constructions gradually changing into interactive, dynamic and reactive interfaces. The result is a de-materialisation of physical constructions, because any building, ancient or modern, can take on its visual identity that shows on the outside the activity and the dynamism that exists on the inside.
The final event in Paris happened on October 15th on the banks of Seine. Everybody gathered in this amazing futuristic structure where I was finally able to discover the selected projects in details and discuss with designers. As expected most of the them had strong futuristic visions and concepts as for example the the Jiang Bin project called « Ecotopia » that represents ecological architecture as a living machine that can be transplanted into the heart of the city and function as an Eco-Community.
The project I found most interesting (the final winner) was « Cabines Résologiques » from the industrial designer Peter Charrié. He proposes to reactivate the artifact we all know well – phone booths – and use them as information relays in public spaces offering different functionalities as research, orientation and coordination services.
I have left the building excited and glad to know that Smart created a strong international interdisciplinary platform where future minds can present their projects to the general public and have the opportunity to make their visions a reality. Very Encouraging.
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