A Glass Front

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Brand Watch, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Apple, Architecture, Art, Steve Jobs, Technology, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine July 2014

Apple Inc. changed the meaning of bricks-and-mortar with their spectacular, award-winning glass-and-steel flagship stores. We take a look at the architectural face of the brand

Clear glass, one crisp bitten virginal apple and a cult following to rival a pop star. Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, Inc. was a renowned stickler for design. There was no way he would retail his beautiful phones, computers and ‘haute couture’ tech gadgets in a shoddy showroom. While the majority of the showrooms exist in malls in a minimalistic steel-and-glass décor, Apple’s flagship stores have won numerous architectural awards, especially the one located on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, New York City. This particular one, open 24/7, 365 days of the year, has an iconic glass cube structure, which was completed in 2006 and revisited in 2011 to the reported cost of $7 million and $6.7 million respectively. The glass panes were replaced and fitted with larger ones to reduce the number of visible seams…because only one company in the world would care that much about judging the product by its display area.

Glass cubes, glass stairways with engineered precision, round glass elevators, glass bridges…and an inverted glass pyramid for the one at the Louvre; it is obvious that Apple loves the clarity and simplicity of glass. It’s as if Jobs wanted to provide a see-through looking glass to his products; a pedestal or shrine to the revered goods that should clearly be visible to anyone passing by. And there are many, who come to stare, openmouthed at the larger-than-life stores. The one on Fifth Avenue, for instance, is one of the most-photographed structures in the city, which is saying a lot! Despite the reverence towards steel and glass, you wouldn’t be hard-pressed to find instances where the Apple stores utilise and work around the aspects of the buildings’ original architecture – as seen when it maintained the romanticism of Paris in its Opera store.

Travelling the world with Apple: from 40,000 square feet of retail space in London; a huge, offset stainless steel frame holding the iconic glowing apple logo in Beijing; rooftop grass with a skylight visible to surrounding buildings in Boston; a big steel tunnel in Chicago; and a towering glass cylinder and spiral stairway in Shanghai, we arrive at Apple’s Grand Central Station store, which wraps around the station’s terminal from a balcony position, making it one of the largest Apple stores in the world. And while it’s not a big deal to open a store in a mall or an airport, evidently you need to be the cat’s whiskers to be given access to the Carrousel du Louvre, the underground shopping area in Paris, where the inverted glass pyramid is now as much of a talking point as Dan Brown’s imagination.

While the architectural firms Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) and more recently, Foster + Partners have a heavy hand in the engineering and designing of the stores, Apple has patented or filed patents for their most original designs, such as the cube and the cylinder. Steve Jobs’ name is listed first on those patents. There is even a technical patent for the engineering behind the complex glass and hardware system. Last year, in an effort to drive the success post Jobs’, the current CEO, Tim Cook, hired Angela Ahrendts, the person behind Burberry’s transformation into a symbol of global luxury. She’s been busy reshaping Apple’s physical and online retail efforts so that they both achieve a parallel cult status.

Steve Jobs masterminded the concept of retail and brand experience, hiring people specifically to drive this strategy. The high-profile retail stores, developed by Jobs, the Apple retail team, designers Eight Inc., architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and structural engineers Eckerlsey O’Callaghan have become among the most recognised brand expressions in retail. In fact, the one at Fifth Avenue beats Saks, Best Buy and Tiffany & Co by a mile in sales per square foot per year. With the ‘Genius Bar’ concept, customers can set-up their products or receive technical advice, while the chic stores create a sense of sharp intellectualness – a person breezing in would automatically feel part of an elite and clever gang. After all, Apple could be credited in part with making smart, cool.

Ever seen the lines in front of American booksellers before the next Harry Potter installment was due? Apple store openings have it bad. Followers and Apple-lovers (they exist in drones) line up early in the morning or even the night before to watch history being unveiled in their town. Some have more mercenary desires like the potential giveaways. The recent Apple store opening in Istanbul promised the first 4,500 entrants free T-shirts. Three thousand shoppers waited in line for the opening of Apple’s Sydney store in 2008. Alternatively, outraged Chinese Apple fans threw eggs at the Apple store in Beijing after sales of the iPhone 4S were cancelled! Wonder what is likely to happen when an Apple flagship store hits the mean streets of Mumbai?

Sleep Smart!

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Art, Literature & Culture, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Sleep-tracking Apps, Technology, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine, April 2014

Have you ever considered that you can easily monitor yourself while you sleep and pore over the graphs the next morning over coffee? You may be tossing and turning and you don’t even know it

If tracking your daytime activities, footsteps and heart rate isn’t enough, there is sleep-tracking software for the overly anxious. Where beauty sleep used to be about a cup of your favourite brew, a riveting book, and some peaceful shuteye, suddenly it’s all about light sleep, deep sleep, disturbed sleep, and detailed graphs and notes on all of these. Can I get a good night’s sleep without knowing if I’m getting a good night’s sleep?

You can wear a SleepTracker wrist watch, place a Beddit ultra-thin film sensor in your bed or use your pedometer like the uber cool FitBit or the Jawbone Up to track your sleep patterns as well as measure your activity through the day. The latter is quite effective and more accurate, as the new generation of pedometers is a more evolved species of fitness trackers. Not only do they make you mindful of your activity level, they come with computer software accessible via the Internet or your mobile (as an app) giving you the ability to constantly monitor the overall health of your physical lifestyle.

Who needs a doting mother when you have a smartphone? Apps like Sleep As Android or Sleep Bot (only for Android phones) and Sleep Cycle (for the iPhone) watch your sleep cycles and can also gently wake you up when it’s the best time to rise according to your sleep cycle. The Android apps also note sound waves while you sleep, recording if you snore, talk in your sleep, or help you diagnose sleep illnesses like sleep apnea. You are, however, encouraging wireless phone activity very near your body while you sleep.

Either way, these graphs are pretty dramatic – they tell you exactly when your sleep was disturbed (road noise, partner snoring, baby waking up, bad dream?), for how long, and how many hours of a clean deep sleep you ended up getting. Whether it encourages you to strive for a good night’s rest or increases your stress about not getting a good night’s rest is debatable. What it can do is suggest the elimination of sleep disturbances and therefore allowing you to be more productive when you are awake. It can also motivate you to sleep longer and earlier to reach an optimum sleep goal.

But for someone who sleeps fairly decently (taking into account our current lifestyle) and is naturally aware of the possible roadblocks to a restful night, it would seem like one more area of our lives that we choose to monitor in detail. Is it really something worth losing your sleep over?

The Little Black Pill

20 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Art, Literature & Culture, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Digipill, Technology, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine, March 2014

If your smart phone keeps you awake at night, it’s found a psychoacoustics way of making you sleep better, lose weight and find a man, too

Lamenting over the pace of life and therefore the lack of sleep with a friend brought the Digipill to my attention. He discussed it with so much passion, willingly became the butt of so many jokes, that I decided to see what he was going on about. He raved about the ‘Sleep Deeply pill – available for a night of rest.’ As described on the iTunes App store, ‘This soothing hypnotic lullaby will rid your mind of tension so that you can give yourself permission to drift into the welcoming arms of sleep.’

So, these ‘pills’ are accessed via the Digipill App (available for free on the iTunes Store); you get one complimentary ‘pill’ to try after which you need to buy any subsequent ‘pills’ to stock up your ‘cabinet’. The Digipill is a specifically crafted audio, which runs for 15 minutes to half an hour. As described by the makers, ‘psychoacoustics allow you to unlock your subconscious and change your perception.’ You choose the pill that you’d like most, preferably use headphones for more focused sound, and sit back and let the ‘pill’ take over your mind.

‘Each Digipill has been uniquely formulated using specific blends of sound and language to gently engage and activate more of the mind. This makes it easier to bring about change, build new habits, and promote an overall sense of wellbeing,’ says Brian Colbert, the psychoacoustic director of Digipill (Digipill.com).

The ‘pill’ is targeted to real-life issues like weight loss (Slim to Thin, prescribed for motivation), becoming more attractive to the opposite sex (Babe Magnet or Man Magnet, prescribed for irresistibility and passion respectively), quitting smoking, and the fear of flying. The ‘pills’ can be prescribed for confidence, self-discipline, achievement, perseverance, and even for closure/ moving on! The technique can be used for something as simple as a ‘T-break’ for relaxation, ‘Sanctuary’ for a clear mind, ‘Imagine’ for creativity, or to approach natural highs not unlike that of some physical pills, with ‘Trance Tripping’ prescribed for ‘exploration’. I must admit I was sorely tempted to try that one.

While it’s obvious that the soothing voices have a long-lasting effect on the listener, it’s mildly hypnotic nature triggers a happy result. While it’s not likely that a listener can feel sexier or more passionate or more confident after a session with these ‘pills’, it’s true that they do induce a good night’s rest and tend to leave you happier and more relaxed. There have been vastly differing reactions online to the audio – from finding it ‘creepy’ and the voice sounding like that of the Dark Lord to ‘loving the brogue and it being like Irish slam poetry for relaxation.’

There is a cautionary warning that one cannot drive or operate machinery after using these ‘pills’, but the makers are quick to reassure us that by not using binaural beats and using ‘unique techniques’ these ‘pills’ don’t fall in the category of ‘digital drugs.’ The fact that these ‘pills’ exist is definitely a comment on our state of mind; but what is one more app to sort out the problems started by apps in the first place?

A Noisy Trend: Coffitivity

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Art, Literature & Culture, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Reviews, Technology, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine, February 2014, Technology

There’s a new app on the market that accurately replicates coffee-shop murmurs while you work to help your creative juices to flow

Some like to work in silence, but apparently it’s an anathema for those who like feeling the heady buzz of sound. In an increasingly connected world, it seems that people are feeling more disconnected and alone. From quiet cubicles to work-from-home dens people don’t like to work in isolation. So to circumvent this, young professionals have taken to Coffitivity (coffitivity.com) like an only child takes to company. The online app provides three kinds of background noise. ‘Morning Murmur’ (a gentle hum to get the day started), ‘Lunchtime Lounge’ (bustling chatter of the lunchtime rush) and ‘University Undertones’ (the scholarly sounds of a campus café).

The noise that would be strange and annoying to someone who is passing by your workstation is actually strangely comforting while you work. While you would expect it to destroy your ability to concentrate, it actually soothes you and helps you focus better. Its tagline actually says, ‘Enough noise to work’! Their positioning relies upon research that states that ‘it’s pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space’, while a ‘loud workspace can be frustrating and distracting’, so they provide a perfect mix of ‘calm and commotion’ to replicate the environment in a coffee house. The sounds include those of clinking cups, cash registers and murmurs of conversation floating around you. It’s kept soft and muted in the background, is never invasive and a perfect sensory accompaniment to the steaming cup of your favourite brew.

With the strong coffee house culture flowing into India from Europe and America, many business meetings and discussions are held over a cuppa at a coffee shop. There is a pervasive ‘social’ feeling that allows for a discussion that isn’t held within a bubble. You don’t feel cut off from the world, you feel that you are a part of the world. There is a relaxed and casual attitude to a work discussion that you don’t get in a closed-door conference room.

While it forms a clever replacement to music that some people prefer while working, and it grows on you as you have it on, all I can say is that for someone who can be the most creative in silence, I felt a sense of relief and a lightness in my head when it was switched off. And really, nothing can replace the soft chirping of a real bird in the background….

A Noisy Trend: Coffitivity

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Publication: Verve Magazine

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Coffitivity, Technology, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine, February 2014

There’s a new app on the market that accurately replicates coffee-shop murmurs while you work to help your creative juices to flow

Some like to work in silence, but apparently it’s an anathema for those who like feeling the heady buzz of sound. In an increasingly connected world, it seems that people are feeling more disconnected and alone. From quiet cubicles to work-from-home dens people don’t like to work in isolation. So to circumvent this, young professionals have taken to Coffitivity like an only child takes to company. The online app provides three kinds of background noise. ‘Morning Murmur’ (a gentle hum to get the day started), ‘Lunchtime Lounge’ (bustling chatter of the lunchtime rush) and ‘University Undertones’ (the scholarly sounds of a campus café).