Breaking the Conventional
Challenging traditional notions about home and community in Beijing’s 798 Arts District.
Background
Beijing is home to Airbnb’s second largest design office. As part of our efforts to differentiate Airbnb as a design-led company in the local market, we created a brand moment for Chinese creatives by bringing our experiential Airbnb Design—Talks program to Beijing.
We landed on developing an activation featuring Beijing-based celebrity architect Shuhei Aoyama, a locally respected Japanese creative. We brought his point of view to life through an expansive multi-room exhibit in UCCA one of China’s leading independent galleries of contemporary art. The exhibit showcased how Aoyama uses architecture to break preconceived notions about home and community in response to China’s evolving nuclear family structure. Film, photography, food, industrial design, and physical space were the primary vehicles we used to create interactive methods for the audience to understand the artist’s perspective. This included commissioned footage of Hutongs to immerse the audience in historical architecture, creating replicas of his minimalist homes at various levels of scale, and introducing street food vendors into the experience to capture the traditional flavors of Beijing. The event concluded with Beijing’s Airbnb Head of Design Vivian Wang drawing the parallel between how Aoyama and Airbnb break conventions around home to innovate in communities. Localizing the concept through the naming (青山周平——打破常规), language, and culturally relevant design was essential to our success.
Results
Notable designers, creative influencers, and media were invited. Overall, we surpassed our goals with a 125% attendance rate and 300+ person waitlist. The event received 2,097,000+ livestream views, 1,567,472 likes on Yizhibo and 161+ positive press hits from leading lifestyle and design publications including INTERNI, Elle Decor, ZCool, Vogue, iFeng etc. This was particularly significant as our first brand activation in a new market.
Core Team /
Vivian Wang (China Lead), Sarah Goerzen (Producer), Echo Yang (Press partner) and UCCA (production agency).
My Role /
Project lead and strategist