Free_range_umbrellas
Community, improvisation & mobility
A participatory experience that inspires transient social collaboration and re-casts pedestrians as source of innovation in unfolding techno-social situations
The world we live in…
Walking is the most human form of mobility, indicating social energy in a community. Pedestrians are often faced with car-centric mobility landscape, fragmented and discontinued by low density of relations to surroundings and each other. Not only it creates more dangerous environment for pedestrians, but also breaks the continuity of human relations.
When we walk freely in a city, we connect human interests, the influence of presences, transient social relations, and meaning of behaviors to the surroundings, weaving a network of serendipitous encounters. The sense of “being able to walk continuously without disruptions” foster the concept of walkability and livable neighborhoods.
Human experience “the walk” emerges through moments, through mood, and through atmosphere. It’s a set of affordances that make pedestrians feel safe, related and welcomed, rather than physical infrastructures or installations.
What if we intentionally probe a news form of benevolent social intervention?
What if we introduce a participatory object as a social signifier of perceived affordances supporting walkability and sense of social presence?
What if we design a participatory experience that inspires transient social collaboration and re-casts pedestrians as a source of innovation in unfolding techno-social situations of the collaborative city?
Free_range_umbrellas are playful, highly visible, luminescent, street-smart, analog/digital, participatory tools. These street-smart-tech umbrellas are tools of social collaboration, they communicate pedestrian presence, intent and right to cross the street. Deployed with participation of local community, in simple containers attached to lampposts, in stretches of road too far from designated crosswalks.
Their behavior and patterns are also in perpetual conversations with one another. These umbrellas are programmed to recognize each other and instigate playful exchanges of rhythms and colors. These interactions, form patterns, inviting our imaginative collaboration. They’re built to create an evocative and perceptual collaboration for people to participate actively in social energy of their city.