Parascope
What would daily life be like in a future Malmö with less cars? In an attempt to engage its citizens in a discussion on how to redesign the city to fa- vour other means of transport, the City of Malmö collaborated with Unsworn Industries. We created the Parascopes – public viewers that show future panoramas based on citizen proposals.
>Parascopes resemble traditional scenic viewer binoc- ulars but instead of showing the here-and-now, they display visualisations of how things might be in the fu- ture, in a particular place. By changing the orientation and tilt of the Parascope you can peek around inside panoramic visualisations of a particular spot, and com- pare them to the present reality. A set of buttons allows you to switch between di erent visualisations, zoom in, and view a short text about each panorama. Para- scopes are designed to help people imagine, compare, and discuss many potential futures. Each Parascope therefore shows several varied, and sometimes contra- dictory, visions.
The Parascopes are used regularly in Malmö, and were displayed and experienced at World EXPO in Shanghai 2010. In 2011 Magnus Torstensson and Erik Sandelin were awarded Region Skånes Designstipendium.
