*Please note: Other projects are being included in this new site during 2019 fall.
Project Name: NaturePod
Client/Sponsor: Interface
Date: Dec. 2015
Team: Berger Ebbi, Nourhan Hegazy, Jennifer McDougall, Prateeksha Singh, Dr. Stuart Candy (SitLab)
Objective: Interfaced approached us to orchestrate a guerrilla intervention at IIDEX (Canada’s largest Architecture and Design tradeshow) that would aim to shift the current conversation in the industry from biomimicry (the copying of nature) to biophilia (the physical incorporation of nature into the built environment).
Outcome: The team worked w/ event organizers, IIDEX, to guise as a fictitious Toronto based brain-tech research laboratory called ‘Axiom Labs’ that was inaugurating the demo of its first product in a line of nature-inspired corporate wellness units. The personal wellness unit called “NaturePod” was marketed as the latest must-have for corporate wellness rooms- with short 1-2 minute virtual nature simulations that promised an immediate reprogramming of mental stress and fatigue aimed to boost employee productivity.
My role: A heavily collaborative project, I was involved in the entire project lifecycle- ideation, project development and execution. Other than being an actor in the installation, I contributed to the design of the experience flow, content research, voice-over work.
Mpathy Insights: Our culture of tech-infused instant gratification lies to justify simulated nature as a comparable stand-in for real nature because of its convenience. If we see both as interchangeable it makes the individual and institutional effort needed to preserve the natural environment that much harder to push for.
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