Public Space
The Public Realm
The public realm extends beyond the physicality of our built world, rather —the public realm is a collective consciousness which is experienced through the built world.
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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?