Transforming pedestrian crossings into playful moments

1 Nov 2016 02:47 PM

A playful intervention at pedestrian crossings has won the 2016 international Playable City Award run by digital creativity centre Watershed in Bristol.

Playable City makes us question the interplay between people, technology and place, and to see this relationship in a new light

Peter Madden, Chief Executive, Future Cities Catapult and one of the 2016 Playable City Award judges

The UK-based design and technology consultancy Hirsch & Mann, who will transform everyday pedestrian crossings into multi-sensory experiences, were selected from 81 applications from 34 countries.

This is the fourth international Playable City Award, which invites artists, designers, architects, technologists and creative practitioners from all over the world to propose new and distinctive ideas to respond to the theme Journeys.

Hirsch & Mann’s Stop, Smile, Stroll uses pedestrian crossings to bring strangers together for a serendipitous shared moment, interrupting the tedium of our everyday mundane ‘stop and walk’ routine.  

The judges were particularly excited about their emphasis on co-creating pedestrian crossing experiences with local communities, with ideas that may range from a 30 second party to a moment of quiet reflection.

I love this project because it shows how something we all experience in cities – waiting for the lights to change – can be transformed to bring a smile to peoples’ facesPeter Madden, Chief

Executive, Future Cities Catapult and one of the 2016 Playable City Award judges

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