Increasing membership and brand awareness through experiential branded cultural events open to the community.
CLIENT
American Institute of Architecture; Architecture & Design Festival
LOCATION
Portland, Oregon
PROJECT(S)
Form, Function, Fashion
Body Building
ROLE
Cultural Producer/Art Director: Christine Taylor
Challenge
Create experience-based cultural events that support the voice of the architectural profession and act as a resource for members of the American Institute of Architects' Oregon chapter. (PR) Each event should speak to the cross discipline design influences that occur between the larger creative industry.
Each project must:
• Serve as a catalyst for change
• Serve as a resource for architects to teach and learn
• Connect Oregon's community of architects
• Bring brand awareness to those outside the AIA community
• Sell out of event tickets + profit from raffle - proceeds benefit AIA Oregon
• Increase memberships
Insights
Personality types who pursue architecture are often bent on deconstructing and rebuilding ideas and systems they come into contact with, and they tend to employ a sense of perfectionism and morality to their work. I understood that our experiential marketing events would be under scrutiny - so they needed to be elevated in concept and nearly perfect in their execution while encouraging play.
• Architects need to unwind and have some fun.
• They also need to meet creatives outside their place of work.
• They spend a lot of time at work, so events need to serve a purpose to get them to engage.
• Architects have a natural thirst for knowledge and the new.
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Here's What I Did
'Body Building' Interactive Art Exhibition
"Architecture’s utilitarian focus is on built space to house objects, everyday items and people. It is multifunctional. Clothing, conversely, has one key purpose: to cover the body," says the event's promotional materials. "The way in which it can be done varies from designer to designer as well as from user to user. Here there is an equal interest in the individual and the collection. They only need a human form to bring them to life in everyday wearing."
'Form, Function, Fashion' Runway Show + Raffle Benefit for AIA
The fashion show focused on how we compose the immediate space around our bodies. It was about the structure of built space regardless of scale. Taking its cue from other design disciplines, the show explored a broader understanding of how the human form and proportion influence design. Does fashion build upon Louis Sullivan's notion that form follows function or does ornamentation have its rightful place enveloping our bodies as we move through architectural space?
