Design Challenge and Design Ideas

The instant and temporary nature of the festival serves to be the biggest challenge as the intention is to appear almost overnight in the city’s locations. The designers also have to create pop-up structures in collaboration with a food producer, creating a pavilion that captures and embodies the ethos of their collaborator. This collaboration enriches the design as it gives the designers more to explore, communicate and along with their challenge to respond to the context, this multi layered brief is designed to give the festival a responsive, engaging and informed experience.

How the brief was fulfilled

The festival created a pop-up HQ in the courtyard of Backwater artist group, cork printmakers and the Lavit gallery. This main location created the base for a talk and event series surrounded by a rich creative and artist context. The courtyard and stage design allowed the festival to manage the various events and talks while adhering to covid-19 protocol. The collaborators for the 2021 festival were: Play Nice and Currabinny, Cook Architects and Ballymaloe foods, Alan Macilwraith and Good Day Deli, Maser and Crawford Gallery Café, and Wilson Architects and Naturally Nourished and finally, CCAE and Blackrock Castle Café.
The designers created bright, interactive and thoughtful pavilions which were built off site and assembled in their locations the night before the festival started. Each pavilion was activated by the food producer with food sampling, demonstration, etc. creating an immersive and educational aspect to the structures. Design POP is a unique festival that was created as a response to the city of Cork. The combination of architects, designers and food producers creates an original and diverse festival experience.

Collaborative Design

Design POP is an architecture, design and food pop-up festival that celebrates creativity, collaboration and Cork city. Design POP exposes the public to architecture, food and design through a series of architectural pavilions, events, talks and conversations over one weekend. The festival is made up of 6 collaborations and an events programme. The collaborations consist of 6 designers working with 6 food producers to create temporary structures in various locations around Cork city. The collaborators need to work together to create a design that speaks to the ethos of the food brand and responds to the context of the pavilion. The designers need to choose the materials, colours, design details and intention of the pavilion which are all to reflect their collaborator’s product. The collaborators create all aspects of the experience for example, how best to welcome the public into the space, what experience they want the public to have, how the pavilion is interacted with and so forth. This collaboration enriches the overall festival and creates original and contextualised pop-up experiences that are
completely unique.