The New Public

Fig: 1 - Public Spaces are an integral part of our lives since inception (Credits-Jan Antonin Kolar)

IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC SPACES

Public spaces are an intrinsic part of our Urban lives. As more people come to live in cities, the populations of cities get increasingly diverse. People from various economic, cultural and religious backgrounds coalesce in the city in order to pursue their own individual aspirations. 

To transform this rich cultural amalgamation, into strong and diverse communities there is a need to establish opportunities to mingle, engage and exchange. A healthy public space is able to provide the urban fabric with these opportunities and more. 
Unfortunately, as the pandemic swept across our globe, these public spaces and opportunities for public interaction were severely impacted, logically so. But at the same time, the world saw the development of a novel typology of public space.

Across the world, exterior parts of homes such as balconies, porches, terraces transformed with a new public purpose in mind. 

Fig: 2 - Our lives are now controlled by an external factor, thus making curbing the social/public interactions we had (Credits-Tina Witherspoon)

THE PRE-COVID PUBLIC SPACE

As people began using their balconies and terraces as their new spaces for public interaction, a new form of public engagement emerged. A form where one managed to engage despite being limited to the confines of one’s home. This brings us to consider, what if these spaces were indeed designed keeping in mind their potential to create public engagement in a community. 

What if balconies did not just accidentally act as public spaces but instead were designed to encourage music like in Italy, express gratitude, like in New York or even practice Zumba like in Blainville. Maybe one could even play sports on balconies.

What if we could reimagine what balconies and window sills can be used for in an attempt to not just support our present well being but also ideate for future possibilities? 

Fig: 3 - Can our isolation give rise to new possibilities? Can public spaces be extended and envisioned from our own spaces? (Credits-Olena Kolomiets)

NEO PUBLIC SPACES 

As some countries begin to emerge from the pandemic while others continue to grapple with it, it might be intriguing to consider the value these new public spaces provide. What if our city balconies were really designed by keeping in mind the opportunities for public interaction they provide? What if these examples of the new public space could help shape the future of our cities and by extension the future of the urban community?

Brief: The challenge here is to visualize a future where balconies would act as our new Public space. 

The design must support means of communicating as well as reimagine what public interaction may emerge as. The design can be inspired by the emerging uses of balconies as public spaces, or propose a future vision of interaction. 

OBJECTIVES

• Reimagine: Reimagine spaces familiar to you such as balconies, terraces, front porches, as potential spaces to engage publicly
• Engage: How does the designed space offer opportunities to engage with the community
• Function: How do the designed spaces successfully offer a more public function while still being connected to the private home. 
• Visualize: Represent your imagination regarding the potentials of this novel public space typology in a visually cohesive and well-communicated form.  

DELIVERABLES

You have to deliver a graphic/visual outcome representing the given theme, based on the following outlines. The images should be of size [2800px x 3200px] in portrait or landscape digital format (JPEG only). The graphic may be entirely hand-drawn and rendered, digitally created, or a combination of both. The usage of photographs, stylized/credited or otherwise, directly is strictly not allowed. 

The use of lassoed graphics lifted from an existing image is limited to half of the total graphic. (The guidelines are indicative, and are placed only to reduce plagiarized artworks – any infringement detected or reported will be notified, and may be removed from competition if found guilty)

The list of deliverables are:

1.    Title
2.    Subtitle
3.    Artwork x 3 
4.    A few process images
5.  Additional cover image of 2000px x 1000px
6.   A statement in about 100 words supporting the artwork - You can attach this as an additional image below your artwork.