When I was living and working in London I was exposed to the rich potential of temporary retail and restaurant spaces; affectionately known as Pop-Ups.
One of the best on-brand executions I’ve ever seen was for Anthony Berg chocolates. To reconnect their brand with generosity, the Danish chocolatier opened the world’s first chocolate store where you couldn’t pay with cash or credit cards, just good deeds. Each box of chocolate came with a price tag colored in Anthony Berg’s signature pink (the pop-up shop helpers were decked out in pink too). Instead of a dollar amount, each tag had a generous gesture for the consumer to perform for a loved one, such as ‘serve breakfast in bed’. In lieu of cash registers, consumers checked out using iPads - a process which involved making a pledge on facebook to fulfill the deed (brilliant use of facebook to promote the pop up and brand).
I think that temporary spaces speak equally to a refined sense of entrepreneurial agility, the rise of DIY culture and the unpredictability of life in the 21st century. There’s a kind of inherent democracy to the pop-up; a dimensionless, elastic, deterritorialized designers dream.
We live in a world that moves easily from 2D to 3D and back again. The physical and digital are becoming ever more seamless. The brain is trained to see volume in a flat sketch and to discover a structure behind the volume found in an architectonic drawing.
I’m interested in new ways of working and inventing techniques that blur the lines between binaries. Let’s reimagine commercial expression and the consumer experience while we make the most of our underutilized urban infrastructure.
At the start of the 21st century, the world is a cacophony of different cultures, struggling economies, ubiquitous mass media and hyper technology. Old structures disappear and are replaced by a longing for synergy that flourishes with a new worldwide means of content, community and communication.
Brazenworks Hear Here Pop Up Radio Project for KALW
In the new economy, binaries are really continuums, and the opportunities live in the grey areas between analogue & digital, culture & capital, public & private, science & art, nature & technology, local & global.
As disciplines continue to merge, and consumers become ever more sophisticated, what are the implications for the practice of design and our collective urban experience? How might we leverage the pop up to improve neglected environments and underutilized spaces?
If you have any other examples please let us know.
