The platform and app were created by a local company called megaversewho worked closely with Niantic, the San Francisco company behind pokemon go. The virtual artworks were created by two other local firms: All Universal and human study. The impetus for the project can be traced back to a single building located right in the center of Sheffield. The John Lewis department store had been an anchor in Sheffield since the 1960s, when the building was still known as the Cole Brothers store. And then the pandemic hit, the store closed, and John Lewis pulled out of the building. “It signals a huge onslaught of pain and frustration,” says Mark Mobbs, the city’s place brand and marketing manager. a resident said The Guardian that the closure felt “as bad as a death in the family.”
What the locals didn’t know was that the council had bought the building (which had by then been designated as a landmark) and made grand plans for its revival. In fact, it was right in the middle of a £470 million (around $580 million) regeneration project that will bring new living spaces, offices, cultural venues and dining areas to the city centre. “But because all that change is being planned, and the general public doesn’t know the ins and outs of it, it seems like the stores have left town,” Mobbs says. In other words, the big narrative amongst the locals was that Sheffield had lost its spirit.
To shake things up a bit, Mobbs was commissioned to design the kind of name-brand fences that make a construction site look a little more cheery for the duration of the project. But Mobbs wasn’t kidding himself about the impact such messages would have. “Anything I write, I feel like people can easily criticize it,” he says. “If you try to tell people something positive, it could create the opposite reaction, and the only way I’ve seen to transform a narrative around a place is public art.” But rather than static works of art, Mobbs had something more dynamic in mind.
Enter “Look up!” The project quickly moved from an intervention on this building to a city-wide attempt to re-engage residents with their city. On the roof of the old John Lewis Building, for example, Universal Everything designed a parade of colorful, building-like characters with little dots for eyes. And at the city’s Central Library, which has an art gallery, Human Studio featured a gray cat named Hank, who slowly emerges from the roof to become almost as tall as the building he sits on, then looks at you with nonchalance. quintessentially feline.
Sheffield is not the first city to harness technology to strengthen people’s engagement. In 2018, the Olmsted Park Conservancy of Buffalo, New York converted two newly installed signs into “augmented reality portals” to show visitors what two parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted would look like if they were still in existence today. And earlier this year, the city of Phoenix, in collaboration with Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, developed an augmented reality app treasure hunt that allows visitors to learn more about the city’s past and future at half a dozen locations in the city center.
In Sheffield, the team developed the art trail at four key locations in the city, all within a radius of approximately one mile. (After all, it is meant to be a walkable trail.) The John Lewis Building is meant to be a “beacon of change,” says Mobbs. The University building can help surprise future students on Open Days. And the Central Library, located in the city’s theater district, just “made sense” as a stop on the tour, Mobbs says. The team plans to expand the art walk to include more buildings soon.
You may be wondering why all the virtual art appears on rooftops when so much city life happens on the street. For one thing, Sheffield’s hilly topography makes it easy for people to appreciate AR-enhanced rooftops from various vantage points. But most importantly, Mobbs says, when you put a piece of art on a rooftop, “the sky is your canvas.”
It’s also a solid Instagram post.
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