Pan Studio

Hello Lamp Post is a playful SMS platform, inviting people to strike up conversations with familiar street furniture using the text message function of their mobile phones. All street furniture have unique codes for maintenance purposes; Hello Lamp Post utilises this existing infrastructure, making it core to the experience of encouraging people to leave located messages and stories for each other. People text the objects unique code and name to an advertised number, which ‘awakens’ the object, prompting it to ask the person a series of questions that become more personal with every response.

Hello Lamp Post ran for the first time in Bristol in 2013 and throughout the summer thousands of residents and visitors shared their thoughts and stories with streetlights, parking meters, bridges and boats in the city, with over 25,000 text messages sent by players in just 8 weeks. The project has since been commissioned in Austin, Texas and Tokyo.

Hello Lamp Post was originally developed for Watershed’s Playable City Award 2013