idle gaze 065: in search of ungrammable spaces

This theme isn’t just confined to bookstores; it sprawls throughout our urban fabric, notably into the realm of generic coffee shops. Both scenarios – bookshops and coffee shops – underscore a broader trend: our tastes and preferences, once diverse and eclectic, are being molded into a uniform, digitally driven aesthetic.

In this realm, what wins is... See more

As anything scales too effectively – from restaurants and ad agencies to social networks and search engines – the market opens for more non-scalable alternatives. Once Starbucks opens on every block, we crave the artisanal coffee shop. There's the identity piece of it, where we want some degree of distinctiveness. But there's a practical side too: ... See more