NYC Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge Entry by FXFOWLE

In our last post, we published the six finalists and category winners of New York City's ambitious Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge. Here is now the award winner in the "Creativity" category, the concept "NYC Loop" by New York architects FXFOWLE, in more detail. The design team was composed of Mark Bearak, Karen Bookatz, Luis Bustamante, Jonathan Coble, Haley Cohen, Christina Galati, June Kim, Patrick Koch, Brandon Massey, and Seiji Watanabe.

Project Description from FXFOWLE:

Project Brief:

In a post-digital world, where digital tools and services are seamlessly blended with analog ways of life, the New York City pay phone is a physical reminder of the role that physical infrastructure and public access points play in the development of communication systems. The existing condition of the city-wide pay phone system has created a latent opportunity to rethink the relationship between a new, and more technologically-relevant, pay phone design and the city’s vibrant public space.

The NYC Loop:

While the NYC Loop will serve as an access point to the Internet and a hot spot for enhanced mobile technology, it will simultaneously support the public space that makes NYC a unique place in which to live, visit and do business. The NYC Loop will provide a gateway to global communication networks – its sinuous and cyclical shape evocative of worldwide communication itself – while being firmly rooted in the unique character and function of the city’s diverse neighborhoods.

The designs were judged in five categories (NYC Loop won best Creativity): 

Connectivity: Ability to connect New Yorkers and enable communication, including for safety and emergency purposes 
Creativity: Originality, innovation and quality of idea 
Visual Design: Including visual appeal and user experience 
Functionality: Flexibility, versatility, scalability, accessibility and sustainability 
Community Impact: Support of local residents, businesses and cultural institutions

The jury was comprised of:

Andrew McLaughlin, Entrepreneur in residence, betaworks
Majora Carter, CEO, Startup Bos
Jason Goodman, CEO & Co-Founder, 3rd Ward
Ben Kaufman, Founder & CEO of Quirky
Nancy Lublin, CEO, dosomething.org
Beth Novek, Founder of the White House Open Government Initiative

The NYC Loop design team said: “NYC Loop combines a beautiful, contemporary payphone with a uniquely tailored public space that can be chosen to suit New York’s diverse communities. It provides sound harmonizing technology as well as a smart screen for making calls and enhancing personal mobile communication. The Loop also features a responsive projector that creates an “information puddle” on the sidewalk with which any passerby can interact—an amazing opportunity for local artists or as a means of generating revenue from advertising space. The iconic design of NYC Loop and the relationship of its public space units to the city’s neighborhoods will become an integral part of New York City’s urban identity.”