Ideas we are considering.

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Systemic Racism & C19

Right now, we are grappling with deadly flaws that have been designed into our society’s infrastructure. Our country is: (A) seeing the truth of how society has been designed and structured, (B) understanding for the first time the full extent of how interconnected we are with one another, and (C) wading through broken pieces of our infrastructure (social, health, economic). This is massively impacting our present --- the great pause that C-19 has forced us into, now presents us with time to meditate on how we want to shape our future. Inherently we can not return to how life was before March 2020 -- so what future do you want to move toward?

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The Public Realm

The public realm extends beyond the physicality of our built world— the public realm is a collective consciousness which is experienced through the built world.

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The Power of Perception 

Our perception influences how we understand the world around us and how we interact with it. Strategies can be deployed to alter perception of place without any direct physical intervention in the place itself. If perception of a place changes, does not the place itself change? Accordingly, altering public perception of what is and what might be possible, can be a uniquely tactical and efficacious method for initiating massive change in the concrete stock of reality.

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The 'Spirit'

When defining a narrative, we’ve found success by tapping into the innate to identify and gain insight behind reasons for specific behaviors and opinions. Whether this be an individual person, sector, place, etc. This intelligence paired with market research and business objectives provide a ground upon which we craft positioning and messaging. 

As the project evolves, this 'spirit’ becomes a shared space for all those whom engage it -- and either you are keyed into it or you are not. 

For designers, it should provide a point of reference for how an offering should: look, sound, taste, and ultimately ‘feel’. For the end user, it should be subliminal thus hitting the gut and ultimately driving engagement.

At Culture Forge, getting to ‘the spirit’ has become a rewarding way to investigate, define strategies, and build consensus among internal stakeholders.

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Place is a Perceptual Intersection

The word 'place' is loaded with complexity -- by deeming something a place it becomes fixed and thus monumental. If a place is not understood as a place then what is it? -- insert imagination here -- Yet places become places when people believe in them -- but the implications of 'placeness' in terms of fixity are negative, though in terms of 'belief' in a place such as civic engagement and pride are positive. 

Place is embedded in perception and perception is embedded in one's personal history, cultural history, and the media. The depth and resonance of place on a psyche and a culture is what excites us. More than a physicality, place is a perceptual intersection.

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Social Epidemics

All of us, anyone who participates in society (and even those who do not) are infected by social epidemics.

In scientific terms, an epidemic is a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease where many people are infected at the same time; in non-scientific terms, a sudden, widespread occurrence of a particular phenomenon.

In his book The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwel describes those who shape and spread social epidemics. His writing suggests that humans are very sensitive to context, that our external environment plays an exceedingly important role in how we behave and who we are. Very subtle changes can have a profound effect. The visual communicator creates messaging through images; the architect creates space through form, the architect of landscape creates experience through registration of process. Together there is great potential for shaping cultural narratives. 

All aspects of the city compose a holistic ecology. Those who inhabit the urban environment compose a collective consciousness; they are the producers of space in the Lefebvrian sense. This phenomena should be viewed as fertile ground to the landscape architect, an intangible territory of collective conscious where foundations can be laid prior to physical construction. (And with half of the world’s 6.7 billion now living in urbanized settings, the territory is significant.)

Perception is a powerful tool. Our perception influences how we understand the world around us, how we interact with it. Our perception of reality dictates what we build, how we build, and for whom. In other words, our perception of reality dictates future realties. Architects, politicians and dictators have long recognized the power of perception in defining reality, leveraging it through a multitude of means towards various ends.

Indeed, strategies can be deployed to alter perception of place without any direct physical intervention in the place itself – and if perception of a place changes, does not the place itself change? Accordingly, altering public perception of what is and what might be possible, can be a uniquely tactical and efficacious method for initiating massive change in the concrete stock of reality. 

If these social epidemics exist – and perception becomes the affected cells – then how can the architecture of landscape host the disease? Groundwork for opportunity forms while physical surroundings blur into subliminal and our society moves deeper into the interface. This line of questioning calls for an architecture that will change state, like water, responding to the armatures existing networks provide. 

At Culture Forge, we investigate the individual’s interpretation of their context to understand: How sense of place manifests and how do urban and social networks influence one’s sense of place? 

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Brand + City = Public Space?

The form of the city influences its citizen’s experience because the city operates on multiple scales: physically, sensorially and cognitively -- thus imprinting upon perception. What, where, when, and how could a brand be inserted into this experience? How could a study between: pathways of movement, spatial conditions within the urban environment, and networks that create the city lead to pinpointed opportunities for brands to engage their audience? How could these branded experiences respond to time of day, season, scale of space, and density of crowd? Do they form along a line? Create a pool? Change an auditory condition?

Indeed brands currently do utilize aspects of the urban condition as a medium for communicating with their audience e.g. subway advertising and the occasional pop-up but this query calls for investigation into the opportunity for brands to utilize the urban landscape to engage and ultimately create a dialogue. Engagement is of-course more useful for brand because it is active as opposed to strictly communicating which is far more passive.

If this relationship could afford brands unique and unexpected ways to engage their audience -- what is the pay-off for a city and its citizens? By offering its public infrastructure to commercial brands for brand engagement the city would charge premium dollar for this real estate. Hence putting money back into the municipality and driving further creation of this public infrastructure. With this said, regulation is also key. I can’t imagine citizens embracing the notion that market capitalism is taking over their public space. But then again this is take over is rapidly happening. What are the limits?