Episode 27: What AirBnB's Backyard project might mean and other tangential topics

Fireside Chats with Empathic Futures Lab

Christian and Chris step back into the news cycle (or at least the news cycle at the time that this was recorded rather than the time of release) to discuss AirBnB's recent announcement of their Project Backyard. Not much new has come from AirBnb since that initial press release.

We start the discussion by talking about what AirBnB is and what it means to produce "authentic" experiences in the real world through a digital application. We then discuss why AirBnb might get into the physical nature of architecture and what that might mean for the industry of architecture. We conclude by diving into how successful AirBnB might be in creating new architecture, how that architecture might affect the places that it is located in, and what all that data collection might mean to the people who live in that architecture.

Spoiler alert: we think they will do a good job on the actual physical product. Jury is still out and if it'll be good overall or not.

AirBnB best instagram experience referenced in the episode:

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/362343

AirBnB/Samara Backyard:

https://samara.com/