Nourish a city with creativity

In 2017, Zhou Hongtao, a professor at the School of Design and Creative of Tongji University and a special professor of "Oriental Scholars" in Shanghai, just returned to teach. As one of the main planners of the "Four Ping Space Creation Action", in order to help the Siping community update the style and stimulate vitality, Zhou Hongtao first lived in the community, and then strolled around the corners of the community.

He found that there were many "old villages", many schools, many elderly people, and many children in the district of the street. Although some infrastructure in the community has become aging, this does not stop residents' love for life. How to transform this love into a source of vitality that makes the blocks rejuvenate, Zhou Hongtao and his team have continuously visited residents and tried to find a way to find out questions.

Later, Zhou Hongtao accidentally found that there were no less than ten public telephone booths on the road to daily. Inspired.

Liberation Monday: How did you think of changing these public phone booths into art museums?

Zhou Hongtao: In 2017, after I went to work in Tongji University, I started to promote the "four -level space creation action" with colleagues and students. This is a continuous project for our design creative college and the deep linkage of the Siping community. It is done in the first phase of the first phase. I hope to use the design to update, improve the life of the residents, and use art to improve the quality of the community.

We use some idle space provided by the community to make temporary exhibitions. The stairs and convenience facilities in the corridor of the residential corridor have also become the object of our creativity. We have also done a lot of workshops to chat with residents. I want to see what other places need to be adjusted in the community.

After talking all the way, I found that the art museum and gallery are relatively weak community resources in the Siping community. Because the art museum is critical to the aesthetic education of primary and secondary school students and college students, when I see those public telephone booths in a semi -idle state, an idea appears in my mind: or change these telephone kiosk into the "telephone booth art museum "Bar?

I immediately made a proposal for the community, hoping to use this art museum project as a section of the "four -level space creation action". The community feels that this plan is good and the response is more positive. Under their promotion, we soon took it up with China Telecom, and the three parties sat down to discuss the feasibility of this project.

Liberation Monday: How did this project progress later?

Zhou Hongtao: In 2017, there are still more citizens who use IC cards to call public phone booths, more than now. Therefore, when the three parties negotiated, the telecommunications raised several questions. First, if we use this space, will it affect the use of the phone. They later calculated traffic and found that the total amount was not much. From our perspective, we are also willing to compensate this impact. Second, another necessity in the existence of telephone booths is to call citizens to call emergency calls. Once it is made into an art museum, what should I do if it affects people's use in emergency?

I compromised on this issue. After further inspections, I found that on our designed activity routes, in addition to the telephone single pavilion, some telephone booths belong to a fully closed double pavilion -style telephone kiosk. Or choose one in the dual pavilion to do the project? In this way, another pavilion can still be used. This solution was recognized by telecommunications.

The issues that are concerned about telecommunications also include: do exhibitions for telephone kiosks, what to do if too much personnel gather; should the advertising bar on the outside of the pavilion need to use it; whether to use electricity during the exhibition process, how much to use, and when. After the exhibits, whether the pavilion will be locked; will the interior decoration will cause the pavilion to cause unscrupulous "damage", how the possibility of recovery is, and so on.

In fact, in the later operation, one problem was solved, and another problem came out. A large number of details need to be considered. Fortunately, everyone came back and forth for several rounds, and most of the doubts found proper solutions. In this process, the community has done a lot of coordination work, which is very helpful to us.

Liberation Monday: The public phone booths you choose are standard cubes of 1 meter × 1 meter × 2 meters. What is the actual effective space that can be used?

Zhou Hongtao: The actual use space can be limited to the inside of the telephone booth, or it can be extended to the periphery of the phone booth. For example, when the "Four Plaza Space Creation Actions" opened, we chose a double pavilion telephone booth to perform performance art performances. From the radiation of these two pavilions, the actor's performance space can be expanded to 8 square meters to form a "small stage" centered on the telephone pavilion.

Some exhibitions are placed with a half pavilion, some set up transparent acrylic partitions in the interior, and some use three walls inside the phone booth as small exhibitions. Once, our students simply put a creative chair designed and existing in the phone booth. It can be said that although this space is not large, but the plasticity is very strong. As long as we dare to think and try, we can always find a way to combine creativity and telephone kiosk.

At the beginning of signing a memorandum of cooperation with telecommunications, we expect that the entire "telephone kiosk art museum" event can be about 1 year to 1.5 years. Unexpectedly, this series of exhibitions were running for several years. There were no major security problems in the entire process in the later period. Everyone's feedback was good.

Along the way, our core concept has never changed. That is, I hope that our creativity can get out of the ivory tower, out of the art hall, and out of high -end places, and let more public see in some kind of "small and refined" way, bring the entire community, bring the entire community, bring the entire community and bring the audience from wider regions to bring out audiences from wider regions. nourish. Liberation Monday: Can you copy this road now? If there are more people doing such plans, will it be contrary to what you call "small and fine", but you can't give everyone too many surprises?

Zhou Hongtao: Actually not. On the one hand, telephone booths belong to a relatively standard modular space. In the era when this parameterization design is prevailing, designing in a modular space can still have a lot of possibilities waiting for us to continue to break through and realize.

On the other hand, the demand for each community is not the same, and it can even be said to be very different. What the designer needs to do is based on the characteristics and needs of the community. The space where the telephone booth is located into a node that can be concerned about people can communicate and connect people.

Our cities need more humane interfaces. Our community needs to retain some public welfare infrastructure. Our citizens are eager to be more cute and energetic in the neighborhoods they live. From this perspective, there are many, many stories and creativity around the public telephone booth.

- END -