IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 17

Another pop-up facilitator connecting people and brands
is miLES, a start-up on New York's Lower East Side that Fast
Company dubbed "AirBnB for Storefronts." miLES helps
match brands with underused or vacant storefront spaces
for installations. The miLES team originally came together
to respond to an OpenIDEO design challenge aimed at
restoring the vibrancy of cities. Led by architect Eric Ho,
the team includes other designers, as well as event
producers and real estate professionals. Ho, who The New
York Times called the "Pop-Up Activist of the Lower East Side"
previously worked at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and
Thomas Phifer & Partners, and is also the co-founder of
Architecture Commons. He's imbued miLES's work with
a strong social angle, and made rebuilding the community
through pop-up events and partnerships a central part
of the company's focus.
The miLES approach shares similarities to PinkCloud's, in
that the organization is proactively and dynamically filling
empty commercial space while landlords wait for the right
long-term tenants. (Currently, miLES maintains a roster of
fourteen spaces available to clients for pop-up events.) But
miLES has taken a step further with its next venture, the
"Storefront Transformer," a project Ho says will make it
easier than ever to temporarily lend out space. Successfully
funded through Kickstarter last fall, the Transformer is
a "pop-up in a box," a 6ft cube pod that can be transported
and subdivided to fit through a standard door. The pod
includes shelving, partitions, tables, seats, lighting, WIFI,
power strips, speakers, projectors, even a PA system.
"The Storefront Transformer is a kit-of-parts," Ho says,
noting that different parts of the kits can serve as seats and
tables, display units, walls, and even stages. "It's a basic
template to build ideas on."
While miLES thinks the Transformer has huge market
potential, they see it as a first step toward creating different
prototypes for a variety of markets. But the key, Ho says,
"is always in the execution."

"Pop-ups," Ho says, "are a creative
tool for architects and designers to
interact with clients. They provide
a great opportunity to observe how
users interact with space, furniture
and design-without months or
years of design phases."

Indeed, for all of the incentives that pop-ups offer in terms
of rainmaking and expanding portfolios and business
models, their most valuable asset may be their ability to be
used as a testing ground for design ideas. While strategic
marketplace positioning, entrepreneurship and connecting
with new clients are great incentives to pursue pop-up
projects, they're business, not creative, motivations. When
it comes to staying competitively ahead, designers have long
understood that the key to innovation is the ability to
approach problems in new ways, and sometimes solving
problems others haven't even identified yet. A great
designer changes the way we think and our approach to
what we do. The pop-up's agility and ephemerality allows
both clients and designers to move further outside their
comfort zones, investigate new ideas and push themselves
to imagine new solutions.

"With pop-ups, there's a lot more
room for experimentation," says Eric
Tan. "You can test out things that
clients might be reticent to do if it
was a five or ten year project. There's
more freedom in the design."
That freedom may be the definitive reason the pop-up
market is so exciting to designers-it supports exploration,
while mitigating the consequences.
"Pop-ups are a prototype playground for designers to test
the market and get feedback," Ho says. "It's something that
traditional architecture and design don't offer, and gives
a lot of leeway for creativity."
A decade ago the idea of a pop-up space alone was an
experiment. Today, it's set the stage for numerous
innovations. Beyond allowing firms to stay relevant, it's
created opportunities for them to be pioneering.

PERSPECTIVE

17



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014

Contents
Contributors
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
Viewpoints
Pop Goes the Marketplace
Beyond Programming
Startup Design
RFP: Decoded
The Power of Narrative
Inspiration
Colophon
Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Cover1
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Cover2
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 1
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 2
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Pop Goes the Marketplace
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 12
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 16
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Beyond Programming
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 20
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 22
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 24
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 26
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Startup Design
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 30
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 34
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - RFP: Decoded
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 40
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - The Power of Narrative
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 46
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 48
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 50
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Inspiration
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Colophon
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 54
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - 55
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2014 - Cover4
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