The Phonebox Project

Reappropriating forgotten public spaces in the city through storytelling. A project to reclaim the telephoneboxes of London to build stronger communities and make walking in London even better an experience. Part of Storary (A storehouse of Stories) lab run by ICR. www.comeconspire.com

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In other news.

PhoneBoxes in Birmingham to dispense icecream!

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The PhoneBox Project :: A Report (of sorts)

Read the Project Document for The Phonebox Project, HERE.

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From analogue to digital

The PhoneBox Project came to life with one particular concern in mind. 

How often, while creating smarter and more engaging urban landscapes do we need to resort to the use of the digital medium? What is a smarter city anyway? It is, ofcourse driven by big data. It works better with a stronger response platform so as to tweak its workings to be better tailored to needs and living choices.

However, a smart city also re-engages people with the things they've overlooked in the past. The joy of digital engagement is that very often, physical structures do not need to prop up in our landscape to define newer interactions. So there's more information and lesser clogging of physical space. However, we've often debated the use of smartphones on the street and how, somewhere - in order to interact with the city you live in, you literally do need to LOOK up. 

To look at the city around you and not constantly stare at a screen. To observe and take in the smaller pleasures of every day, the wail of the sirens (we so hate in London), the trees that have stood witness to time, the myriad architectural styles and that odd corniche detail you missed when you last passed by.

Everything about a city and its multiple layers is information, and everything tells a story. 

It is in this choice to keep some of the interactions analogue, where we demand the encounter be all about needing to stop, read and take a moment - is where we've seen magic happen.

Of course, there's only as much time someone has, to stop.

Of course they'd miss some of it.

And of course, they'd want to explore beyond the immediate surroundings the analogue installations allow us to talk about.

It is here, that we switch to the screens. To technologies we've embraced and communication channels long established.

On these screens inside Solarbox, sit secrets about the neighbourhood that you'd have to walk towards to discover. You cannot see these places spoken of, from the box.

The captions tell you a little secret about something close by, somewhere you could walk to, when you walk away from the SolarBox having charged your phone. It may be enroute to where you're headed or close enough for a detour.

All secret places sit within a 10-12 min walk from the box. Upon scanning the QR code, the user can find directions over Google Maps to the spot, having read a little about the place on the screen.

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New Collaboration :: SOLARBOX and ICR (The PhoneBox Project)

We're collaborating with Solarbox as their Community and City Engagement Partners to bring disused phonebox structures back into the lives of London through stories and secrets.

Solarbox is a social enterprise funded by UnLtd, LSE Entrepreneurship and Siemens led by the affable Kirsty Kenney and Harold Craston to turn phoneboxes into solar charging points for mobile phones on the go. It's a simple idea that London's needed for a while now!

Our work at the studio is centred around making meaning and the PhoneBox Project ties in simply into the SolarBox fold. Our installations of stories on the glass as well as screen captions allow the user to discover the neighbourhood and its histories while they wait for the phone to charge.

There's many and more to come! Watch this space.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-10/03/solarbox-london-phone-chargers

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There are dumb ways to use smart technologies and the city of London just pulled the plug on one of them. The scuttled trial project involved trash bins outfitted with devices that were collecting data via Wi-Fi from smartphones passing by.

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The PhoneBox project evolves with a new collaboration

We're delighted to announce our new collaboration with Solarbox, a social enterprise set up by Kirsty Kinney and Harold Craston. Solarbox seeks to turn London’s telephone kiosks into solar powered public charging points for phones. 

The first box is coming soon and the launch is on the 1st of October. We shall be working with Solarbox as their community and city engagement partners.

Watch this space for more!

[oahficw]

As city dwellers, we’re prone to believing that the good life is found on a desolate beach far from the cacophony of any urban environment. Cities, to their credit however, actually make us much happier than we might otherwise believe.

Pierre Herman on the urban secret to happiness. (via thisbigcity)

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Tammy Chrzan’s coming to our walk that continues after the London Festival of Architecture has wrapped up. We’ve got new dates for July and August. Why not have a look here?

In the meantime, a leaf out of Tammy’s blog. 

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Closely inspecting K2s on our recent,very rainy walk. The telephonebox walk of London returns next week!

[sociology-of-space]

Consequently, under contemporary circumstances, the urban can no longer be viewed as a distinct, relatively bounded site; it has instead become a generalized, planetary condition in and through which the accumulation of capital, the regulation of political-economic life, the reproduction of everyday social relations and the contestation of the earth and humanity’s possible futures are simultaneously organized and fought out.

'What is Critical Urban Theory' - Neil Brenner (2009)

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We began with identifying structures in public spaces that were seemingly overlooked. This project has allowed us to reclaim and repurpose, doing our bit to make London a smarter, shareable city.

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London Ramblings #5: An Early Morning Stroll in Covent Garden

Yannick Pucci writes of a morning spent working on the TelephoneBox Project 

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Pictures from our walks in June during London Festival of Architecture. 

[humanscalecities]

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A book we look forward to getting our hands on. We're wholly inspired by the response to our phonebox project and hope we can gather support from the London City Council to transform this into a permanent public art project in the near future.

Urban acupuncture, by Jaime Lerner (forthcoming book)

During his three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil in the 1970s and ‘80s, architect and urbanist Jaime Lerner transformed his city into a global model of the sustainable and livable community. From the pioneering Bus Rapid Transit system to parks designed to catch runoff and reduce flooding and the creation of pedestrian-only zones, Lerner has been the driving force behind of a host of innovative urban projects. In more than forty years of work in cities around the globe, Lerner has found that changes to a community don’t need to be large-scale and expensive to have a transformative impact—in fact, one block, park, or a single person can have an outsized effect on life in the surrounding city.

In Urban Acupuncture, Lerner celebrates these “pinpricks” of urbanism—projects, people, and initiatives from around the world that ripple through their communities to uplift city life. With meditative and descriptive prose, Lerner brings readers around the world to streets and neighborhoods where urban acupuncture has been practiced best, from the bustling La Boqueria market in Barcelona to the revitalization of the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, South Korea. Through this journey, Lerner invites us to re-examine the true building blocks of vibrant communities—the tree-lined avenues, night vendors, and songs and traditions that connect us to our cities and to one another.

Urban Acupuncture is the first of Jaime Lerner’s visionary work to be published in English. It is a love letter to the elements that make a street hum with life or a neighborhood feel like home, penned by one of the world’s most successful advocates for sustainable and livable urbanism.

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Engaging citizens

A thought crossed our minds today. Wouldn’t it be pretty awesome if we could regard unused public structures across the world as a point of information dissemination for more active citizenry and awareness. What if, this little initiative by us- to tell stories of architecture around these structures like the phoneboxes were to go viral? We’d be chuffed, alright (hell, yeah!)- but pretty excited about the possibilities it may present in every different context.

www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2014/6/19/livable-cities-are-becoming-science-civic-engagement-still-art

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Some of these phoneboxes really smell. They’re fetid. For icons loved by tourists and Londoners alike, sometimes you really don’t want to even touch them. We’d like them to be accessible. We’d like to introduce an element of play through these signs. We think it would make them safer and nicer ‘places’ to interact with.