The department is thrilled to announce its partnership with a New York City challenge described as “the first of its kind in the world” with a “unique opportunity to set the bar for forward-thinking communications infrastructure.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday a challenge to reinvent New York City’s payphone kiosks across the five boroughs. Announcing the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge:
Today the City of New York manages over 11,000 payphones kiosks across the five boroughs – and we know that with the rise of mobile phones and digital media, the way that New Yorkers share information is changing rapidly. In order to modernize our powerful communications infrastructure, the City of New York is hosting Reinvent Payphones, a public design challenge that seeks to rally urban designers, planners, technologists and policy experts to create physical and/or virtual prototypes that imagine the future of pay phones.
As part of this effort, the City is inviting students, urban planners, designers, technologists, architects, creators, and legal and policy experts to build physical and/or virtual prototypes, imagining a new public utility through payphone infrastructure.
The competition period runs from December 4 through March 5, 2013. For more information, datasets, and resources, review the site.
We’re excited to see the ideas that emerge! For information on how to get involved with MFA Interaction Design and this challenge, please reach out to interactiondesign@sva.edu.
