Since its birth, a series of contradictory urban design provisions facilitated the appearance of ephemeral buildings and the conversion of Paral·lel into a dense area for leisure and entertainment. Many new directions in entertainment, culture, and even politics originated on this street and quickly spread around Europe. It was a meeting point for intellectuals, entertainers, and people in search for a good time. Paral·lel was for everyone, and it catered for it. People had freedom in the street; they were able to move about comfortably and without obstruction. But as the city grew bigger and traffic substantially increased, the spirit of Paral·lel got run over by motorized traffic.
Today, almost a century later, we need a street that would respond to the ever changing demands of its users in a dynamic and versatile way. People should be able to generate activity on the street rather than limiting it to indoor venues and periodic festivals. The streetscape needs to change to respond to that specific activity. It has to be flexible and able to facilitate, advertise, and connect different activities at the same time.
The Plug & Play stations allow people to find out about events and concerts on parallel. Plug in events and street performances themselves, and get discount tickets for upcoming performances. The stations are interconnected and people can get real time activity feeds from different parts of the street. The interface analyses the real time information coming from the street and takes all necessary action. These stations are linked to swarms of quad-copters that are dispatched whenever an activity is taking place. These drones with their agile capabilities are very effective at multitasking they can operate separately or collectively, in a decentralized system. They are capable of reverting traffic away from events in a more effective way than conventional traffic lights. They can work together to light up events on the street, project videos, and spread broadband connection to large scale gatherings. The drones will guide people to areas of interest, and relay the information back to the stations for reassessment. The drones can even guide you home on a late Saturday night. We would like to say “The sky is the limit” but it’s not.
