public space « Candy Chang

urban planning, signs, public space, design, Helsinki, print, NYC, public installation, Africa, music, law & order, Asia, India, New Orleans, public space
The Trucks of the Sidewalk Riffing off the ground signage dividing bikes and pedestrians in Helsinki… a more nuanced edit by anonymous on my block on Uudenmaankatu…	Clothes Make the Building Cape Town Cameron Highlands Maputo	With Great Safety Comes Great Drunkenness It’s Josephine’s birthday and we’re dancing at Siltanen and sometime in the a.m. we decide to move the party to Redrum. Some people take taxis (although nothing in Helsinki is far) and some people bike. Andreea and I walk and one of the first things we see is a drunk guy on the other side [...]	Please Honk Driving etiquette turned around – trucks and autorickshaws in India actually ask drivers to honk at them with some pretty elaborate bumper signs. It’s the lazy man’s driving strategy – “Ima keep driving like this. If you have a problem with it then toot.” You can imagine what kind of ruckus this causes in traffic [...]

Pebbles After Helsinki’s first big snow, the City sprinkles pebbles on the sidewalks to give pedestrians grip over the ice. How many pounds or kilograms of pebbles they must have, I’m not sure, but they continue to add more after each snowfall until the Spring (who am I kidding, Summer) when they sweep it, store it, [...]	How to Find Rats Bangalore “Have you sold any today?” “Yes, to that restaurant over there… Don’t go there.”	Public Shame Some storefront windows in Johor Bahru, Malaysia feature surveillance video shots of shoplifters as a warning to others and a form of public shame. Makes me wonder about the upshots of surveillance and if Helsinki can do the same for all the drunk people who pee on the streets…	Free Maps Finland offers free local maps in choice public spaces like Helsinki’s train station and outside of Turku’s tourist office (above, demonstrated by the lovely Suvi). Just push the button and out pops a handy guide and a welcoming feeling.

Elevator Ride “You know, after people complained that elevator rides took too long, someone had the clever idea of putting mirrors on the walls. People didn’t complain after that.” “Oh that’s clever, so people had something to — oh, we’re here.”	Jugaad with Paper While in India I learned a new word – jugaad = making do, being resourceful, getting your MacGyver on. Sometimes this comes in seriously retooled forms like a floating bicycle by Mohammed Saidullah to fend off flood waters and cross the river. Other times it comes in small details like these magazine pages and flyers turned into [...]	Post-it Notes for Neighbors Real estate revealed Public installation transforming a storefront window into a neighborhood resource	Sidewalk Psychiatry Self-evaluation in transit Stenciled questions on the sidewalks to aid pedestrians deep in thought

Community Chalkboards Flexible local platforms Public chalkboards to improve information-sharing between residents in a Johannesburg township	Hello Neighbors Local information-sharing A study about neighborhood communication in public space through flyers and online forums	Recovery Park and Guide Facilitating drug rehab Helping female recovering drug addicts in Vancouver through a temporary park and resource guide	Mobile Air Quality Data for mobile devices Invisible health data made visible through interactive maps and augmented reality views on mobile devices

Local History by SMS Local history on the go 200+ stickers in public space with codes to SMS for instant local history on your mobile phone	Pedestrian Timeline Local history on the streets Stenciled timeline on the sidewalk to bring the history of Governors Island to the streets	Restroom Map Notepad To find relief for us all A notepad of public restroom maps posted in NYC subway stations	A Nice Place for a Tree Promoting green sidewalks A street campaign for more tree-lined streets in Chinatown

Ginormous Rubber Duck Big fun at the waterfront A proposed installation enticing all to test the frisky waters of the East River	Brooklyn Bridge Signage A study and proposal for wayfinding on the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway	Open Doors I’m back after an intense and enlightening month of ethnography field research in Asia and Europe. Still thinking about all the people who’ve touched me over the past weeks and parsing through over 3,000 photos (I’m a good Asian!). Lots of thoughts and observations to trickle out over time, but as a start, trains with [...]	Project Moustache Stick it to outdoor ads Sticker campaign subverting outdoor advertising with the distilled mark of the people

I’m a TED Fellow! I’m so happy and honored to be a 2009 TEDGlobal Fellow! Yay! The inspiring conference features some of the world’s biggest thinkers and doers and I’ve spent many mind-churning hours glued to my laptop watching videos that include Bonnie Basler on how bacteria talk, Malcolm Gladwell on choices, Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia, Kwabena Boahen on a [...]	California Dreamin’ Etherea record store, NYC When played enough times, songs will become forever bonded to a particular place and time in your life. Bel Biv Devoe’s Poison reminds me of my parents’ home (it was the radio, not them ha). Giorgio Moroder’s The Chase reminds me of my first NYC apartment. Nico’s These Days takes me back [...]	Drinking from our water features A fresh-water fountain in Chamonix, France What does it take to trust your tap water? My doubts started as a child, when the family refrigerator was consistently stocked with a store-bought gallon of water. And that was Ohio. There are places where suspicions are seriously grounded like a hostel in Nairobi, where the water ran yellow [...]	I’m on the Urban Omnibus! NYC’s Architectural League recently launched an inspiring online project called the Urban Omnibus that showcases design and activism in the City. They were kind enough to feature my thoughts behind my Post-it Notes for Neighbors public art project. Check it out here! Big thanks to Cassim Shepard and the Omnibus family!

Snow Graffiti Snow tagging in the UK (hat tip to Melinda). Usually street art leads to the branded version, but not this time, as far as I know. Neat idea, especially in Helsinki, hmmm… Image from Springwise.com	Weird Bench Formations in Helsinki Small talk turned into performance art…	Manimal House Always an NYC holiday highlight – Bergdorf Goodman window displays (by David Hoey and Linda Fargo).	Data Walk I’ve got a bag of proposals that may never see the light of day, but they can live on here for funzies and future inspiration. One of these is Data Walk: Bringing Demographics to the People. According to data from the 2000 Census, a particular block east of Allen Street is 50 percent more Asian [...]

The Important Project James Reeves and I have come up with a new project called The Important Project that addresses political issues through research, writing, and design. Right now we think elections, chalkboards, and people are important. This may change. Check it out, read about important things, and add your thoughts to fun surveys and polls!	Street Appliance Art At first I passed by the photo of the fat man throwing punches and thought it was just an awesome anomaly, and then I saw there were more artsy boxes throughout Helsinki. I couldn’t find any online info on it, but my friend Tiina translated the labels and it’s some kind of partnership between the [...]	Mapping and Mobile Technology The other day I hung out with my friend Jesse Shapins, who co-created the cool personal-story-sharing-through-mobile-technology public art project Yellow Arrow, which inspired my local-history-sharing-through-mobile-technology public art project Cripplebush Ghost Tour. He’s currently getting his PhD in History and Theory of Urbanism and Film and Visual Studies at Harvard and just finished teaching an interesting [...]	Yay for Community Chalkboards! During the past month in Global Studio in Johannesburg, I’ve been working with the non-profit Diepsloot Community News to help improve ways residents can communicate within the township of Diepsloot. Inspired by a community chalkboard model in Liberia, we installed a local community chalkboard so residents can have an accessible platform, share info on a [...]

The Pedestrian Timeline If you’re venturing out to Governors Island in the next few weeks, you should check out my Pedestrian Timeline! It’s part of the Figment public art event on Governors Island June 27-29. Landmark events in the island’s past are stenciled with temporary spray chalk directly onto the ground so you can get your walk on [...]	Last Season in Global Studio I’m excited to head out to Johannesburg next week to be a part of Global Studio for the third year! While I was getting my Masters degree in urban planning at Columbia University, I had the opportunity to participate in the program, where international interdisciplinary students, academics, and professionals come together to collaborate on community-based [...]	Post-it Notes for Neighbors I’m back from Asia and rolling right into some public art action. I’m proud to be part of Windows Brooklyn, a community exhibit pairing artists with storefront windows in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods June 14-22. My storefront: vintage furniture shop Yesterday’s News at 428 Court Street at 2nd Place (which happens to [...]	Comfort Island For a place where real estate is king, New York City sure knows how to take the paradise out of islands… Riker’s Island is home to one of the largest prisons. Randall’s Island is home to a mental hospital and sewer treatment plant. Hart Island is home to the City’s cemetary for unclaimed bodies. And [...]

Designer Scaffolding Went to the inspirational Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit at the Guggenheim and was equally impressed by the thematic outdoor scaffolding to match Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic curved concrete building, currently undergoing renovations. Classy touch.	Public Space for the Public I posted the visual introduction to my thesis on improving neighborhood communication because it’s been on my mind and I’m a dork. In a built environment where citizens’ flyers are illegal yet businesses can shout about their products on an increasing number of public surfaces, how can public space be better designed so that it’s [...]	The Sims at the Beach On Punalu’u Black Sand Beach in Hawaii.	Gary Coleman On a Wall In Milan, Italy. In 2007.

Alice in Google Maps Wonderland This clever public art piece was created in Berlin by artist Aram Bartholl. His project Map takes the Google map marker and blows it up into real space. It’s nerdy internet mapping + Claus Oldenburg! Photos above from Bartholl’s site datenform.de.	To Russia With Maps My public art Hours Away is officially part of the Koltsovo International Airport in Russia. Neat! Photos above from www.artpolitika.ru.	Some Street Performers Pack Light… …and others don’t. The Egg Man. Capetown, South Africa.	Someone’s Mark on Pubic Space At Pier 40, Hudson River Park. Hee hee. Transforming the word “permits” was particularly visionary.

Riding With Despair Prohibited My Sidewalk Psychiatry project has gained some more attention recently, thanks to Boingboing and some great personal sites. Emotional prodding in public space also reminds me of this fresh project from the ’90s. Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister often references it as one of the few art/design projects that has “touched his heart.” Mimicking the standard [...]	This Would Be a Nice Place for a Tree Chinatown is a land of good food, colorful shops, and fresh produce. It is also a land of about three trees in a ten-block radius. The sidewalks may already be packed with produce-unloading delivery boys and boxy, bag-toting Chinese ladies, but we’ll gladly make way for some quaint, tree-lined street action. To jump-start the Great [...]