A box holding ‘digital mementos’ is the winner of the make-a-thon ‘Make/Florence,’ a four-day contest to invent a new souvenir for Florence.
The Pico Box holds not only physical souvenirs collected in Florence but digital ones, too. A quick-response code engraved on the bottom of the box and a memory card enable users to keep a ‘digital memory’ of their holiday in Florence—photos and videos taken on a smartphone—as well as their physical souvenirs in the box itself. The Pico prototype is wooden, cut using a laser and decorated with designs evoking the Duomo’s façade.
Named for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a Renaissance philosopher famous for his memory and public discourse, the Pico Box was designed and produced by a team—Jessica Russo, Alessandro Panichi, Irene Barnes and Flavia Luglioli—ranging in age from 22 to 33.
Runners up included the Ubo, an interactive cube that, at a touch, displays photos of one’s time in Florence; Toc, an interactive notebook that records the sounds of the visitor’s favourite places in Florence and locates them on a map; Pippo, a book connected to a GPS app that enables visitors to discover the city’s hidden gems; and Floreskin, a leather bracelet engraved with symbols each representing a place in Florence that, when connected to an app, trigger a slideshow on a smartphone.
Make/Florence was judged by Fondazione TEMA; MIT Mobile Experience Lab; Associazione Osservatorio dei Mestieri d’Arte; FabLab Firenze; UDOO, Istituto Europeo di Design Firenze; CNA Firenze; start-up company Maketank; and the Re/Active project.
