Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.
Professional Winner
- Project Name: The Extrapolation Factory
- Designers: Elliott P. Montgomery and Chris Woebken
The Extrapolation Factory is an imagination-based factory for developing future scenarios, embodied as artifacts for sale in a Brooklyn 99¢ store.
The project is comprised of two parts, a workshop and a pop-up store-exhibition. "Factory workers" translated future forecasts into unique scenarios, each inspiring a future 99¢ store product-concept. Workers fabricated these future products, including packages that revealed its inspiration story and sources that support it.
The products conceived in the workshop were shelved in a Brooklyn 99¢ amidst items already available. Store regulars and invited shoppers strolled the aisles, conversed with strangers, and purchased futures that spoke to them.
- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?
We were looking through our futurescope, searching for potential attractions to be built at Coney Island, and accidentally caught a glimpse of the Core77 Awards list.
- What's the latest news or development with your project?
The Extrapolation Factory is focusing in for our next two projects. Later this year, the assembly lines will start churning out future souvenirs for the City of New York, followed by synthetic biology-enabled services.
- What is one quick anecdote about your project?
We loved working with the owners and employees of the 99¢ store, who allowed us to install the speculative products in their shop, and helped us out along the way. As an exchange, we agreed to design and install seasonal window displays for their winter holiday and Valentines Day sales. We never imagined we'd be doing window displays when we started this project!
- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?
For us, the most exciting moment was the actual experience of strolling the aisles of the fully installed store. Stocking the shelves, and then seeing the fictional products next to the real ones conjured a surreal feeling that we didn't get in our studio, and could never be replicated in a gallery.
View the full project here.
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