Melina Bertsekas:
An interactive, colorful display of flowers that allows the passerby to envision and create their own unique bouquets. A table with a bouquet arrangement able to be altered by the passerby through moving pull tabs holding vases.

As gentrification has slowly made it's way through Central Square, one flower shop has stayed resilient. For 89 years, Central Square Florist has been a respected family-run business that has an incredible catalogue of flowers and services, that today simply needs publicity that catches the attention of the newest generations. Build-A-Bouquet does exactly this! With this beautiful stand, passerby is able to select the flowers they desire most and design their own personal, unique bouquet! How, one might ask? Build-A-Bouquet is a three-story table that displays vibrant and colorful flora, and the top ring showcases movable arrows to the center containing different flowers. The customer simply pushes in the tabs of the flowers they love, and the flowers move to the center! Build-A-Bouquet draws in a more excitable audience to a well-loved Central Square cultural landmark, helping a long-running community business continue to flourish through the hardships of gentrification. Build-A-Bouquet and watch Central Square blossom! :)

Ethan Donaldson:

An interactive, colorful display of flowers that allows the passerby to envision and create their own unique bouquets. A table with a bouquet arrangement able to be altered by the passerby through moving pull tabs holding vases.

A simple pull-tab device that allows people to experiment with different flower orientations and arrangements. A flower display table designed to allow passersby to experiment with different bouquet arrangements by pushing and pulling tabs. The short round table is supported by wooden dowels, which holds up a pull-tab board holding small vases. The table has a tube encircled around the legs to give more balanced support. Below the pull-tab board is a small support-tray for vases (filled with flowers) to slide over. The bouquet display exists because it is a way to attract people to a small business in an era of gentrification, rather than going to a main-stream flower provider, possibly the Whole Foods down the street, or an online flower provider. The project engages the loss of small businesses, and wants to stop gentrification that will cause such. The project helps not only the store owner and employees of the shop, but it also helps the residents of Central by helping it keep its feel of a traditional city neighborhood run by the people that live there, instead of out-of-town owners. The project changes the way people display their products, as well as the way people interact with them. The unique style could inspire another user-friendly interactive Ad. One question that arose was "Is there anything that exists like this already/what is it doing for the atmosphere" The flower shop will be the main consumer of the product, but theoretically anybody, displaying small objects, could use this for advertisement. The mechanism is all in pushing and pulling out tabs filled through the tube-slot, with the item on display. The device is set up for the best user experience because it forces the user to (literally) see the product in different light. The atmospheric perspective you get from it is unique in a user-experience lens. With flowers on display, the bouquet display forces the user to consider different formations and think about the most appealing arrangement. Smell, color, texture, and size can all be factors in making the most optimal bouquet, but also the angle its looked at can be important too, hence the need for it to be walked around and viewed in the round.

First Video

A video of the owner of University Stationery Company, Gail Seidman, opening our project!

Nick Brief:

All throughout the world and especially cities we see graffiti or street art all throughout the buildings, alleys, and other places, these works of art give these cities character and a more urban feel to them which they may have lacked in the past. In Cambridge MA, this creativity is celebrated in a place called Graffiti Alley in Central Square. This alley is the only place in New England where people can legally spraypaint whatever they please on the walls. Many people feel inhibited by the open-ended invitation to create; The Spray Paint Mount allows them to express their creativity within certain parameters. Spray paint cans are positioned on a platform that moves on a track system to allow the user to paint freely in a controlled environment. 

This project works in tandem with Grafitti Alley. It will enable the user to position the spraypaint cans and paint freely on the wall in a horizontal fashion. This project came from, looking at the alley for the first time and seeing all of the different creations all over the place all throughout the alley and thinking about how ordinary people walking through the alley could add to this historic location in Central Square positively. The overarching goal of this project is to help local people become more creative by giving them a jump start into the world of spray paint.

Max Brief:

The world of art is one of beauty, but not everyone is given the opportunity to participate. The spray paint mount opens up this possibility for people in Graffiti Alley, an alley in Cambridge, Massachusetts where it is legal to spray paint on the walls. The project brings people to the world of art by giving a free opportunity for anyone to spray paint a creation. To do this, it has to be taken into account that most people using the project are not well versed in spray painting techniques.

 The final prototype attaches to a pole using circular clamps. At the highest clamp, there is a rail system attached horizontally. The spray paint canisters are within an open-topped cylinder, which is connected to the rail system so the canisters can move horizontally. The project can teach people how to express themselves in different ways. Finding new hobbies can be hard, especially since it sometimes feels difficult to find one that may be enjoyable, but with this creation, people are given the opportunity to stumble upon a possible hobby. Art supplies are expensive, and a lot of people do not have that kind of money to spend on them, so being able to give back to the community by installing this tool is a great way to give new opportunities to those who are less fortunate, but want to enjoy the art of spray painting.

This project is an example of how people can make more interactive art throughout the whole city. Those who will enjoy this project the most are people who need to release some energy, as painting is a great coping mechanism for many. The technology of the project is innovative because visual art does not usually incorporate manual and mechanical work together.  The colors of the mechanism have a soothing effect on them, and blends into the alley well: making sure that the alley’s culture does not get damaged.