Could the solution for homelessness lie within the walls of the advertisements that line busy city streets?
Design Develop, an architectural design firm in Slovakia, thinks so. The firm recently launched The Gregory Project, which aims to help homeless people by transforming inside of billboards into livable spaces.
The idea? Take billboard ads, which are expensive to construct and maintain, and make them functional and cost effective. How? By using the outside to promote products—as well as homelessness awareness campaigns—and the inside as a housing option for people with nowhere else to live.
The “homes” would utilize the existing triangular structure of the billboards to create two rooms: a combined entrance hall, kitchen, office desk, and bedroom, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet and shower. The structures require minimal maintenance costs, which the agency believes could be paid by the rental costs of the outward-facing billboard.
The architects told Designboom, “If we take the electricity cost needed for the billboard to keep it lit during night and we try to optimize it by X percent, we find that this saved energy could fully cover all those interior usage needs.”
What do you think, PR Daily readers? Can billboards help make a difference with some of the world’s most important social issues, like homelessness? Could the public perception of advertising change with social good campaigns such as this one?
Design Develop, an architectural design firm in Slovakia, thinks so. The firm recently launched The Gregory Project, which aims to help homeless people by transforming inside of billboards into livable spaces.
The idea? Take billboard ads, which are expensive to construct and maintain, and make them functional and cost effective. How? By using the outside to promote products—as well as homelessness awareness campaigns—and the inside as a housing option for people with nowhere else to live.
The “homes” would utilize the existing triangular structure of the billboards to create two rooms: a combined entrance hall, kitchen, office desk, and bedroom, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet and shower. The structures require minimal maintenance costs, which the agency believes could be paid by the rental costs of the outward-facing billboard.
The architects told Designboom, “If we take the electricity cost needed for the billboard to keep it lit during night and we try to optimize it by X percent, we find that this saved energy could fully cover all those interior usage needs.”
What do you think, PR Daily readers? Can billboards help make a difference with some of the world’s most important social issues, like homelessness? Could the public perception of advertising change with social good campaigns such as this one?
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