SmartCharge Digital Streetscape: Integrating mobile phones more urbanistically through streetscape interventions

Mobile phone technology is rapidly changing our world, how we interact with one another, and our built environment. This thesis investigates how we can integrate mobile phone technology more urbanistically.  There is a tendency for designs of this kind to be a short-term artistic gesture that do not interact with their surrounding environment in either a long term or meaningful way. This thesis argues that the ability of a design to outwardly impact its environment should be considered; rather than sustaining the common belief that design installations only act as a momentary or disposable implementation. It will examine how design can reinvigorate a space and be absorbed into a city’s everyday routine, in a way that it allows it to become permanent and valuable to the streetscape and the community.  This thesis focuses on our dependency on mobile phones by exploring how these devices can overlap with the urban environment through a streetscape intervention. Choosing to test the design of a recharge station across different sites will allow the investigation of the design’s ability to be adapted into different city environments. These stations will be developed with the intention of creating social hotspots that could have a positive outward effect which impacts their urban setting and surroundings. Ultimately these installations will allow us to become digitally and physically connected with society and our city.