The third edition of Nokia’s The Way We Live Next conference took place yesterday in Espoo, Finland. Nokia’s blog, Nokia Conversations, reports on a few of the keynote presentations: Nokia’s vision of the future by Heikki Norta, Nokia’s Head of Corporate Strategy Smart ecosystems sits at the centre of our mobile life five years from now. That’s what Nokia’s head of corporate strategy Heikki Norta outlined this morning when he talked about what life will be like in 2015. During a short video, we saw how a combination of devices and services worked together to de-clutter life. This comes from a background that’s seeing the relationship between consumers and brands evolve from a monologue right now through a conversation and into a continuos relationship. The idea is simply to help users manage their lives better and enable them to create, share and get the most out of life. - Read more - Download presentation The opportunities for the future by Oskar Korkman, Nokia’s Head of Opportunity Identification in Consumer & Customer Insights Trend research plays a key role in understanding what’s going to happen in the future. Creating an understanding of how people’s needs are changing and evolving helps create a clearer idea of where the opportunity for next generation products and services. Oskar Korkman is head of opportunity identification in consumer insights at Nokia and today he shared some of his thoughts for how we’re going to evolve. For Oskar, it’s all about relationships, with everything from strangers to plants firmly in his sights. - Read more Some other presentation downloads: - Multiplying our efforts by Henry Tirri, SVP, Head of Nokia Research Center - Communities creating Computers – Computers connecting Communities by Peter Schneider, Head of Technology Marketing, Maemo Devices, Nokia - Communities of the Future by Purnima Kochikar, VP, Head of Forum Nokia & Developer Community - Go mobile with cash by Teppo Paavola, VP, General Manager of Mobile Financial Services, Nokia

See also this article in Wired UK.

Technology is giving us the means to co-create the future

Juliette Powell

Author, speaker and technologist Juliette Powell sees the true significance of social media technology in the new kinds of collaborations we are able to forge that offer the potential to create a new kind of future. Powell believes that the ability to connect with people who previously did not have that opportunity will add tremendous value to government, business, and media undertakings.

via Ideas Project

If advertising is a firework, social media is a bonfire.

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires

View more presentations from John V Willshire.

Post Digital Marketing 2009

Post Digital Marketing 2009

View more documents from Helge Tennø.

A Culture of Sharing: the HCD Toolkit by IDEO

IDEO partnered with International Development Enterprises (IDE), Heifer International, ICRW, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a toolkit for applying Human-Centered Design to inspire new solutions to difficult challenges within communities of need.

The Toolkit is divided into four sections:

The Introduction will give an overview of HCD and help you understand how it might be used alongside other methods.
Download the Intro Guide.pdf

The Hear guide will help your design team prepare for fieldwork and understand how to collect stories that will serve as insight and inspiration. Designing meaningful and innovative solutions that serve your customers begins with gaining deep empathy for their needs, hopes and aspirations for the future. The Hear booklet will equip the team with methodologies and tips for engaging people in their own contexts to delve beneath the surface.
Download the Hear Guide

The Field Guide and Aspirations cards are a complement to the Hear guide; these are the tools your team will take with them in order to conduct research.
Download the Field Guide
Download the Aspirations Cards

The Create guide will help your team work together in a workshop format to translate what you heard from people into frameworks, opportunities, solutions, and prototypes. During this phase, you will move from concrete to more abstract thinking in identifying themes and opportunities and back to the concrete with solutions and prototypes.
Download the Create Guide

The Deliver guide will help catapult the top ideas you have created toward implementation. The realization of solution includes rapid revenue and cost modeling, capability assessment, and implementation panning. The activities offered in this phase are meant to complement your organization's existing implementation processes and may prompt adaptations to the way solutions are typically rolled out.
Download the Deliver Guide

Also check the article by Alissa Walker (Fast Company)

The Sputnik Observatory ( http://sptnk.org ) is a new project by Jonathan Harris

It's the result of a two-year collaboration with New York-based Sputnik, Inc., an organization that documents contemporary culture through intimate video interviews with hundreds of leading thinkers in the arts, sciences and technology, covering a wide range of topics.

The central premise of the Sputnik project is that everything is connected to everything else, and that topics and ideas that may seem fringe and even heretical to the mainstream world are in fact being investigated by leading thinkers working in fields as diverse as quantum physics, mathematics, neuroscience, biology, economics, architecture, digital art, video games, computer science and music. Sputnik is dedicated to bringing these crucial ideas from the fringes of thought out into the limelight, so that the world can begin to understand them.

Conducted over more than ten years and previously unavailable to the public, the interviews within the site chronicle some of the most provocative human ideas to have emerged in the last few decades. The site itself aims to highlight the interconnections between seemingly disparate thinkers and ideas, using a simple navigational system with no dead ends, where every thought leads to another thought, akin to swimming the stream of consciousness.

Enjoy!

Tech Trend: Social media takes to the streets

In an article for Computerworld, Paul Lamb suggests that we are transitioning from online social media to an era of social mobile media or “SoMo”.

“Social media is literally on the move. While useful for anonymous and asynchronous communications, computer-based social media is rapidly becoming old school. In comparison, mobile social media is personal and dynamic — and more closely tied to how people engage in the real world. SoMo not only provides us the freedom to meet each other where we are, it also gives computing a distinctly human face.”

Read it: Social media takes to the streets

Posted using ShareThis

Highline Opens in New York

30 feet up in the air and 10 years in the making, New York City’s newest park: Highline is a wonder in urban development and an example of how to meet the changing needs of society. The Highline was 1.45 miles of suspended railroad track that was built in the mid-19th century and then discarded in 1980. In 1999, a community-organized non-profit formed to start plans on saving the tracks from demolition.

Check thehighline.org for a complete listing of events.

Make $3 Million on Twitter

Twitter is currently not monetised, at least not by Twitter itself. But Dell tell a different story. This week they revealed that they have made a total of $2 million in sales thanks directly to @DellOutlet, and a further $1 million in sales that started on Twitter but were completed elsewhere. What is the secret to their success?.

Dell sells refurbished computers through @DellOutlet and has about 600,000 followers. The way it uses @DellOutlet is quite simple. They message their followers with deals, special offers and discounts. This is a form of real-time coupons - Dell can alert people to offers and discounts as they arise. And change the offers immediately when they sell out.

People love a bargain, they love feeling that they are the first to know something, and they love a personal connection and interaction. It is the combination of all three of these in @DellOutlet that makes it so successful.

• Dell’s approach to Twitter fosters a personal connection - rather than have a single corporate Twitter account, they segment their followers by having different accounts for different customers with different needs and interests. Those following are interested in what that particular Twitter account has to offer and will feel that it is meeting their needs.
• The use of a real-time update system like Twitter allows for offers to be promoted when they occur. It offers an immediate notification of any offer or discount and as such those who follow @DellOutlet are the first to know about deals.
• Through @DellOutlet, people can find out about genuinely good deals.

By Matt Rhodes via FutureLab

I Got an Envelope

Ben Muller has a nice project called I Got an Envelope, it is a social experiment that does not involve twitter, facebook or any other social networks. People leave empty self-addressed envelopes in random places, hoping that someone will come across the envelope, fill it with magical things, and send it back to the owner.

Cute

Find a job via Twitter

Let's call it embracing new technology. FashionIndie.com is looking for a new Style Editor and they don't want to go through the hassle of using Craigslist to find them. So they are only accepting resumes through Twitter.  In order to apply, submit your best personal style pic with @fashionindie in your tweet. They'll feature the best photos on FashionIndie.com and contact you if you are selected for the job. If hired, you'd be responsible for dressing awesome and taking photos of yourself for FashionIndie.com.  Here's the official Twitter Release.  We're searching for a Style Editor. Resume = Ur Best Style Pic. Twit your style pics @fashionindie to be considered. Best will be featured. For more on FashionIndie.com, be sure to visit FashionIndie.com.

Social networking sites as business tools

A recent contribution by Russ Nelson of Conifer Research is worth reproducing here:

Enough adults now have profiles on social networking sites–about 35%–that the fear or ick factor is going away.

As a result, social media/web 2.0 technologies are slowly being legitimized as business tools to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity (in part by reducing the amount of email). In my mind, it’s really interesting how technology is now being developed by and for consumers and then trickles into the business world. For so many years, it was the other way around (email, computers, cell phones, etc. all began as business technologies).

putting people first

link this week

Do we really need architects, your new home from a web site not a studio?

The behavioral change's killer app: Obama, the Science of Change and Behavioral Economy.

Simplicty becomes a selling point: foodmakers emphasize uncomplicated ingredients

Also, India potential for luxury, but not yet: A combination of global downturn, domestic red tape, regulatory hurdles and a thriving trade in smuggled goods means it will be a long time yet before India becomes big business for Europe's luxury retailers, experts said
Wealthy Indian shoppers have long preferred to buy their designer handbags, sunglasses, clothing and shoes abroad, avoiding Indian import duties of up to 45 percent which are another impediment to growth.

America New Found Optimism: Americans have grown more optimistic about the economy and the direction of the country in the 11 weeks since President Obama was inaugurated, suggesting that he is enjoying some success in his critical task of rebuilding the nation’s confidence, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Try GE adventure, science is fun.

Frugality to outlast the recession, according to WSJ:

Some companies are already repositioning themselves for a more frugal consumer. "The current economic conditions have created a fundamental shift in shopping behavior," Kathryn Tesija, Target Corp.'s executive vice president of merchandising, said in a recent conference call with investors. "We are allocating more shelf space to nondiscretionary categories" like food, health care and baby products, she said, and drawing attention to the store's low prices. "Guests won't come to us for everyday necessities if those necessities aren't priced right."American consumers are traditionally resilient, and may yet return to their old ways. But the borrowing boom of the early 2000s ended badly, and the searing memories may shape consumer attitudes for years.

And what about enjoying chocolate without its calories: try inhaling it with Le Whiff

Le Grand Pari pour un Grand Paris

Winy Maas, MVRDV team:
Image: MVRDV Grand Paris

Capa-City
more infos













Roland Castro, Ateliers Castro/Denissof/Casi team:
Image: Atelier Castro Denissof Casi

The right to urbanity part I, part II












Finn Geipel, LIN team:
Image: Linn Finn Geipel-Giulia/Andi

Ville légère, Ville distendue

















Bernardo Secchi and Poal Vigano, Studio 09 team:
Image: Studio09 Bernardo Secchi Paola Viganò

Ville Poreuse, more infos












Jean Nouvel, representative of the Ateliers Jean Nouvel/Michel Cantal-Dupart /Jean-Marie Duthilleul team:
Image: Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Paris, les renaissances













Antoine Grumbach, Agence Grumbach and associates team:
Image: Antoine Grumbach

Paris, Rouen, Le Havre: Seine Métropole







Christian de Portzamparc, Atelier Christian de Portzamparc team:
Image: Atelier Christian de Portzamparc

Rhizome City, more infos







Djamel Klouche, AUC team:
Image: L’AUC

La métropole héritée












Yves Lion, Groupe Descartes team:
Image: A. Grondeau

20 cities, more infos












Sir Richard Rogers, Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners/London School of Economics /Arup team:
Image: Roger Stirk Harbour Partners

more infos
Les Armatures Métropolitaines

Where: Paris, France - Cite de l’Architecture
When: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - Sunday, November 22, 2009

An exhibition presenting ten scenarios for the Paris metropolis
For the first time, Musée de la Cité welcomes the ten visions of the future of greater Paris to its collection of casts of French monuments. The exhibition design by 2004 NAJA (Nouveaux albums de la Jeune architecture) award winner Jean-Christophe Quinton presents ten contemporary installations in a historical itinerary, giving each team the freedom to make the most of their space to present their proposal. This approach gives rise to ten different ways of presenting ten research and development strategies.

“Le Grand Pari de l’agglomération parisienne”
Exhibition held from April 29 to November 22, 2009 at La Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine - palais de Chaillot
1 place du Trocadéro – 75116 Paris
Open every day 11am to 7pm. Late-night opening Thursday until 9pm.
Closed Tuesday - entry fee.

Exhibition presented with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication/Department of Architecture and Heritage, and the City of Paris.

via Le Grand Pari, Bustler,Cite de l’Architecture

Merci: a concept store that is good for the planet

All new, all beautiful. The creators of Bonpoint start to go into fashion and bio deco business with a bio-store concept, nearly 1,500 m² which has opened its doors on the 5th of March. The fashion addicts can find designer brands such as Swildens or Forte Forte as well as Jerome Dreyfuss or Isabel Marant. You can find everything here! In addition, with their stand to protect the environment, we’ll say Merci to the creators of Bonpoint for protecting our beautiful planet.

Merci
111, boulevard Beaumarchais
75011 Paris
France
T. : +33.1.42.77.10.38

via Hoosta

Photo credit

global march with Uniqlo

With H&M hitting Japan last September, UNIQLO is battling its toughest competition yet. At the same time, it is aggressively expanding its international store network in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing. With its latest global campaign, put together by GT Tokyo it aims to connect with people across every age group, in every country that the brand is available… a very ambitious task.

UNIQLO March is an online ‘presentation’ format showing a group of 33 people spanning a wide range of ages, sex and occupations marching across the screen. Footage was filmed with an ultra-wide RED ONE lens, never used for online content before. The lens allows video footage of scenes covering more than 50m in length. Viewers can interact with the marching group to make them run, walk backwards or wave at each other.

By clicking on an outfit that they like, users can see a profile of the marcher and get taken directly to the online store to purchase any of the items the model is wearing. Users can also choose to keep their involvement online as an icon in a virtual Google Maps march through the streets of Tokyo or apply to take to the ‘real world’ streets as a model for the next element of the campaign.

via Contagious Magazine

www.uniqlo.com/march

A glimpse ahead: the Microsoft Office Labs

Microsoft just published a series of videos where they envision the future of work and life in the year 2019. From their websites, the Microsoft Office Labs:

Take a step into the future and get a glimpse into how technology may transform the way we live and work in the years ahead. Explore some of our concepts for how leading edge technologies might be used in real world settings – such as health care, manufacturing, banking and retail – over the next 5-10 years.

via The Customer Experience Labs‏

Here is the video that summarizes the different future visions.

Video: Future Vision Montage

Travel + Leisure Design Awards 2009

Via Travel + Leisure

Design and architecture shape every aspect of the travel experience, from airports and museums to hotels and luggage. For T+L’s fifth annual competition, an esteemed jury chose the very best in 15 categories.

Here the list of the T+L Design Award 2009 winners:

Best Retail Space: Puma City, various locations; designed by Lot-Ek.

Best Large Hotel: Mama Shelter; Paris; designed by Philippe Starck.

Best Small Hotel: Hotel Aire de Bardenas; Tudela, Spain; designed by Emiliano Lopez and Monica Rivera Arquitectos.

Best Spa: Hideaway Zighy Bay; Zighy Bay, Oman; designed by Six Senses Resorts & Spas.

Best Restaurant: Delicatessen; New York City; designed by Anurag Nema in collaboration with Mark Thomas Amadei.

Best Museum: CaixaForum Madrid; Madrid, Spain; designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

Best Cultural Space: National Opera House; Oslo, Norway; designed by Snohetta.

Best Public Space: TKTS Booth; New York City, designed by Perkins Eastman.

Best Transportation: Beijing Capital International Airport, Terminal 3; Beijing, China; designed by Foster and Partners.

Best Bridge: Jerusalem Light Rail Train Bridge; Jerusalem, Israel; designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Best Travel Fashion: Trench coat, Norma Kamali Collection for Wal-Mart; designed by Norma Kamali.

Best Camera: Mino Flip Video Camera.

Best Travel Accessory: Melissa Shoes; designed by the Campana Brothers, Zaha Hadid, Alexandre Herchcovitch and Vivienne Westwood.

Best Travel Gadget: SteriPEN Journey LCD Handheld Water Purifier.

Best Luggage: Hydro Sports Water-Resistant Backpack, T-Tech by Tumi.

Read the whole article at Travel + Leisure.via Butler

Shelter Creativity in Dubai

The shelter is a new hang out place for the creative community in Dubai. An innovation campus that allows ideas to exist in a creative environment. International participants who are working in the Emirates on a project basis can operate from the shelter through the shelter short lease program and can fill the application form below. Offices are fit out with the top of the range internet connection, a dedicated landline, printing facilities, a meeting room as well as an available secretary to arrange meetings and manage schedules.



the shelter
t +971.4.375.8078
f +971.4.429.0566
e frontdesk@shelter.ae
p.o.box 11370
Dubai, UAE
Shelter Map
The Shelter

Sjakket Youth Club / PLOT

By Nico Saieh

Architects: PLOT = BIG + JDS
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Client: Sjakket Youth Club, Realdania
Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels
Collaborator: Julien De Smedt
Project Leader: Sophus Søbye
Project Architect: Sophus Søbye
Contributors: Bo Benzon, Christian Dam, David Zahle, Julie Schmidt-Nielsen, Kathrin Gimmel, Louise Steffensen, Mia Frederiksen, Nanna Gyldholm Møller, Nina Ter-Borch, Ole Elkjær-Larsen, Ole Nannberg, Olmo Ahlmann, Søren Lambertsen
Constructed Area: 2,000 sqm
Project year: 2007
Budget: US $3,880,000
Photographs: Vegar Moen

How do you create something that even street kids would find cool?

By converting a run down factory into a base camp, the immigrant youth are given an alternative place to go off of the streets. Sjakket serves as a community centre to mainly immigrant youth, and as such it serves a significant role in the area, because it keeps the troublemakers off the street and activates and educates them. Sjakket is situated in one of the outer lying neighborhoods of Copenhagen, in an industrialized neighborhood which is mainly populated by lower income households and immigrant families. It is densely populated with older building blocks, but also embossed by the fact that it is surrounded by more industrialized businesses.

The exterior gables and structural walls were subject to strict rules of preservation. The generous barrel vaulted spaces of the former factory are given new functions - one filled, the other emptied. A half pipe sun deck is wedged between the two vaults. This raised terrace is in many ways a secret oasis for the kids. Accessed from the raised terrace is the ‘Ghetto Noise’ sound studio which bridges over the two vaults, like one of so many containers which are so ubiquitous in the surrounding harbor landscape of Copenhagen. The studio is the only architectural addition, as well as Sjakket’s icon announcing the centre’s presence upon the industrial skyline of Northwest Copenhagen.

One of the vaulted spaces is gutted to make room for a vast sports hall, whereas the other accommodates more intimate program. The vault to the south opens up entirely to the courtyard beyond through three large industrial sized garage doors extending the interior into the urban realm. The centre’s multi-functional character is best illustrated through the varied use of the vaulted spaces, one is held completely empty for sporting events, whereas the other one can be used for activities, such as concerts or communal activities. The areas between the vaults is reserved for the kitchen, bathrooms, and sports equipment storage.

The refurbishment of Sjakket’s main purpose is to create a place that serves many different functions and age groups, but most importantly could make a positive, bright statement that would serve the area. By listening to the centre’s users and leadership as well as surrounding neighbors the focus was set on integration rather than alienation which many immigrant youth feel in their new home.

The buildings are renovated in a way to incorporate as much of the existing buildings as possible and overlaying a futuristic and bright environment for the young people who use Sjakket. The former industrial buildings serve as a backdrop to the more current urban street culture as seen in the preserved graffiti and the rich use of color throughout the building. Instead of removing the graffiti, it became a source of inspiration when figuring out the color scheme. The exterior windows each have a different tone of color spanning from red to blue. Thus through color a bridge was built between the generation of graffiti and the generation that is guiding them through Sjakket’s activities.

plan 0

plan 01

plan 02

east elevation

north elevation

south elevation

west elevation

section 01

section 02

section 03

via archdaily