i said violated, not stop

Ok so we won’t be actually getting a blip airport on Cockatoo Island, but what an ingenious campaign to disseminate an architectural proposal. Architecture student Mitchell Bonus used trading cards in consumer goods to spread the idea in to collective cultural consciousness.

The style of his pitch, however, was strategically ingenious, well worth both study and emulation elsewhere.

Acting on the assumption that, if you want to see a new building or project take shape, then you have to stop relying on design competitions, architecture blogs, or industry publications to get the word out – that is, you need to find another way to convince the public that your design should exist, making its material realization seem more like an afterthought – Mitchell created a series of trading cards, modeled after sports cards.

He then sealed, laminated, and stuck the cards inside bags of potato chips, cigarette packs, and boxes of morning cereal.

The idea was thus that people would open up a bag of smoky bacon-flavored chips and find an architectural proposal awaiting them.
Inside their morning oat bran would be a trading card-sized vision of the future. Falling out of the cigarette box as they light up on the sidewalk would be a portrayal of some strange island future yet to come.

♺ Geoff Manaugh on Bldgblog / Worldchanging.