Shanghai Smart Booth by 100architects

Shanghai Smart Booths is the result of 100architects’ second collaboration with the Shanghai Branch of China Telecom, the state-owned Chinese telecommunications company, after our previous Orange Phone Booths, where we did an exercise of turning these old relics into modern functional urban furniture. This time we went beyond that...

> The Orange Phone Booths in Shanghai by 100architects
> Mă Way by 100 Architects

Project's description: Once essential technology that played a great role in connecting thousands of people across cities and countries, phone booths these days are disappearing from the face of the cityscapes. The city of New York, for mentioning one, bade its farewells to the last free-standing phone booth on May 23, 2022.  Unable to meet the demands of the rapidly changing daily communication needs of urban dwellers, the phone booths that are still standing in Shanghai are seen as telecommunication relics, forgotten, neglected, and sometimes sadly mistreated.  

The new Shanghai Smart Booth is a unique type of urban artifact powered by solar panels on its roof, a sophisticated design that demonstrates the infinite potential of creative thinking about the urbanscape and public realm.

Equipped with a variety of new features, these technologically upgraded versions of old iconic Shanghai phone booths cater to the needs of the progressive tech-savvy population of Shanghai as much as to the safety needs of the elderly who may still remember using phone booths for their primary function.

In addition to a free three-minute phone call, these new, yet traditionally red, digitalized phone kiosks offer around-the-clock Wi-Fi hotspots, 5G transceivers, wireless charging for mobile devices, as well as USB connectivity, touch screens with city maps and easy one-click taxi-hailing services. A panic button along with such artificial intelligence features as face recognition is meant to assist the elderly and tackle an alarming problem of elderly people going missing in China.

Designing with practicality and functionality in mind, we couldn’t leave the fun out and slotted in a selfie wall that will be surely favored by selfie kings and queens, providing this booth with a new fun way to interact with its users.

To revamp the old booth while yet keeping the aesthetic soul and recognizable features of the old version (rouge red color, sloped hat on top, boxy shape), the defining features of our new design became soft lines, rounded edges, minimalist smooth surfaces, and functional thoughtful details. The addition of a pinch of color-contrast between the outer red layer and the inner black meandering stripe contributed to inject strength and power to the contemporary statement wanted to be made.

Such integration of functional upgraded digital features in the contemporary look and feel of the new China Telecom phone box is an effort to make the phone booth an essential part of the cityscape again, and a part of the collective urban consciousness, a place to connect and interact, a place to recharge, slow down and have a cup of coffee, to take a shelter from rain or sizzling heat, and most importantly, a place to create a link that connects phone booths with the past, present and future of this city's history. 

Design: 100 Architects (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Client: China Telecom
Location: Shanghai, China
Size: 2,000 units
Project Management Team: Matias Hernandez, Jenny Fan, Eva Jiang
Design Team: Marcial Jesús, Javier González, Mónica Páez, Lara Broglio, Ponyo Zhao, Keith Gong, Cosima Jiang, Michelle Aldora, Jango Zhang, Yuntong Liu
Photography: Rex Zou
Video: Lalo López