Space V: A Space-Vending System for Future Wellbeing in the City

Abstract

The project investigates the commodification of space through constructing the narrative and user experience of a space-vending urban destination for everyday wellbeing. It imagines a near-future lifestyle where people purchase space usage for different activities through a vending system, the operations and experience of which facilitated by digital technologies like web apps and augmented devices.

The vending system as we typically know it take various forms of selling goods and objects, and hovers between an infrastructure of utility and a place of experience. The commodification of space as a business in recent decades identifies temporary space provision as their primary product – think capsule hotels, co-working spaces, public storage units and car-rentals. The variety of provisions involved can readily support an individual’s day-to-day life in the city. They can sleep, store, work, travel, eat and shop all measured by the minutes and hours in these commodified space services.

A space-vending system offers flexibility, personalization, privacy and affordability, making it a well-suited alternative to contemporary fitness centers – currently a primary option for wellbeing activities in the city. While the fitness centers create a biased view towards wellness that centers around physical perfection, stimulates anxiety through its exhibitionism culture and places economic barriers to wellbeing through its membership model, Space V, framed as a space-vending service product, has the capacity to promote a more holistic and accessible approach towards wellbeing by supporting on-the-go private usage of spaces for both physical and mental wellbeing.