OVERVIEW

Fig: 1 – Abandoned Streets due to quarantine - An impression.

PREMISE

As our future mega-cities are defining themselves every day with bustling streets and soaring skyscrapers, a city still craves for many things but mostly - an identity. The 21st century from its onset is rapidly changing how we live and how we perceive the definitions of a city rampantly. ‘Urbanscape’ is the manifestation of the built environment of cities. It not only refers to the configuration of built forms but also the elements that define interstitial spaces. However, what we see today is the progression of ever-increasing skyscrapers that dominate the memories of a city, overpowering smaller elements.

Built-mass may define the image of the city, but public life defines its inner workings. This competition is an endeavour to turn the tables on how urban furniture works in cities. From changing them to a mass-produced piece of utility to a more thoughtful in terms of their presence. To root them more on originality and utility, build more interesting relationships between these and the people who come in interaction with the furniture pieces.

Fig: 2 – City developed more for vehicles and less for pedestrian - An illustration

BRIEF

Urbanscape: Streetbeat is a step forward that seeks to bind the concept of urban identity and the furniture that makes the city fun to be in. It aims at creating elements that connect the dots to make the daily life of the city groove like music notes in very subtle ways. After the pandemic the will to go out on the streets has reduced considerably it will take more effort

The challenge here is creating a single piece OR a family of furniture for the desired city with common features in concept/form/colour/design that needs to be derived from the city into consideration. The location of these pieces of furniture also matters, by analyzing key spots where they could be meaningful to the city as well.

The goal of this competition is to give birth to furniture concepts that sprout from the city’s identity instead of industrial convenience. This would be possible in the following three steps.

Fig: 3 – An active market street in an urban area pre-pandemic.

THE STREET BEAT

1. Choose a locality: The selected place should be an urban condition. The city selected should preferably be Your city, where you live or really acquainted with in terms of its working and qualities.

You can also choose a city which you always wanted to design for but to understand the energy of the city, the experience is always more helpful.

2. Establish the Rhythm: Use a piece of music or create an item of furniture that embraces music as its function entirely. You can pick a song, or a genre, or an album, and synthesize music qualities relevant to the place of choice. You can also pick an artist rooted to the place to make the design outcome more relevant to the place. And there are many ways you can include music in the furniture similar to above.

3. Create the furniture: The idea is to use music as an element to design The furniture pieces created, can be chosen from a broad category of street furniture categories described in the following sections. These can be chosen by preferences of the designer or its affinity/use/compatibility to the city.

There is no additional merit associated with the kind of choice of the categories but the design input of the participant and its merging from step one. You can use hybrid categories that may solve crucial spots of the city and at the same time define its image at large.

GOALS

Objective: Create a tangible/intangible piece of furniture that brings music to daily lives. You can pick anyone or multiple of these furniture typologies and develop a design based on the brief. The key qualities expected in the furniture pieces are:
space identification: Identify a space for your urban furniture in the city.

Modularity: Design a modular piece of furniture that is industrially replicable.

Space Identification: Identify a space for your urban furniture in the city.

Robust: Develop a furniture piece that can withstand years of use in the public realm.

Fun: Induce an element of fun within the furniture element through music in design or music and linked interactions.