Thou Ārt™

Have you built, funded, joined, or lived near a pop-up city? Do you want to understand how these experiments relate to network states and future institutions? Learn more, share your story, and get involved. thouartofficial.com/research/popup…

We’ve opened surveys for our Pop-up City Research Initiative. We’re building a public-good, community-informed research report on pop-up cities, using systematic methods to make cross-case comparisons. Whether you participated in a pop-up city as an attendee, operator, or partner, you can find your role-based survey here: thouartofficial.com/research/popup… Candidate focal cases include Zuzalu, Edge Esmeralda, Network School v2, Burning Man, and others. Each focal case receives a dedicated case profile, cross-case comparisons, and positioning on the report’s landscape map. The final public good report will feature 8–12 focal cases from an initial candidate pool of 15, which may expand; cases that do not meet minimum data thresholds will be included as comparator references rather than full profiles. More about the initiative: thouartofficial.com/research/popup… This is independent research. No affiliation or endorsement is implied for any referenced candidate case. Our analysis draws on surveys plus formal interviews to date with 71 stakeholders across 48 pop-up cities and relevant organisations, and this dataset is still growing. We also conduct on-the-ground fieldwork at select pop-up cities, with additional interviews ongoing. Questions, feedback, suggestions, support, or bug reports: research@thouartofficial.com cc @denisalepadatu_ @thouartstudio @crecimientoar @James_of_Arc @burningman @EdgeEsmeralda @formacity @infinitacity @Mars_College @ns @themu_xyz @proofofretreat @_zanzalu @ZuBerlinCity @zuitzerland @zucity_japan

iOS App Design for authentic.tech

Full case study thouartofficial.com/casestudy/proo…

Web & Motion for @proofofretreat

@JulianGilliam @proofofretreat 🏝️

im currently at @proofofretreat

@proofofretreat Full case study thouartofficial.com/casestudy/proo…

Brand Design @proofofretreat

As of January 15, we have officially interviewed 41 participants and unofficially spoken with 100+ people across the pop-up city/network state space. Our initial goal was to conduct 40 interviews before synthesising insights, identifying patterns, and forming hypotheses to inform the design of a large-scale survey, while continuing interviews toward 50+. As we move forward, we’ll continue the scheduled interviews and ongoing conversations with many supportive key stakeholders, while beginning work on the survey, from developing the right questions to selecting the appropriate tools and distribution strategy. We’re aiming to launch the survey in February, and ahead of the launch, we’ll be thinking carefully about survey design and participant incentives, and will share more details soon. If you have ideas to contribute, would like to help, or are interested in taking part, please feel free to reach out and sign up via the participation form linked above. While writing to share this milestone with those who’ve taken part in our study, I also want to express my gratitude for the genuine interest and support from so many kind, open, and passionate people in the space. Thank you so much.

Since last November, Denisa and I have been running a mixed-methods research initiative on pop-up cities, network states, and other intentional communities, tracking patterns across cases to improve their operating models.

Thread by Denisa Lepădatu, co-lead at Thou Ārt Research, providing further context on the study. x.com/denisalepadatu…

Have you built, funded, joined, or lived near a pop-up city? Do you want to understand how these experiments relate to network states and future institutions? Learn more, share your story, and get involved. thouartofficial.com/research/popup…

@proofofretreat 🙌🏼

Pop up Village: Jan 15 - Feb 15

@contra another collab hackathon?👀

Can you guess what's happening this week?👀

7/ What an exciting time to be building as a designer. Thank you, @figma and @contra, for the opportunity to learn Figma Make and connect with a vibrant, talented global design community.❤️ (more hackathons pls) We’re here for the next chapter of Figma Make and AI tools, where designers and creative founders can ship faster and build serious businesses as tiny teams and even as solopreneurs. #FigmaMakeathon #FigmaMake #DesignToCode #BuildInPublic #UIUXdesign

6/ After hundreds of prompts—trying, failing, succeeding—here’s the honest state: Pros > Wireframing is very fast and broadly complete, even from simple prompts > Animations are easy to implement Cons > Delicate UI consistency is still tricky; small issues can eat a lot of time > Structured/broader health-data modeling has limits in mock > Maps/GPS API integration hasn’t been smooth; repeatable minor errors happen Bottom line (right now): It’s still hard to implement a complex, logic-heavy app purely from a Figma Make file, but the fast animation and mockup capabilities are genuinely useful.

1/ Last September, we joined the @Figma Make-a-thon (powered by @Contra). $100K prize pool and 10,000+ participants worldwide. The scale was wild, and the work was inspiring. We didn’t win, but we learned a lot that we think will help designers, vibe coders, and anyone who loves to build. Our designer, Nura (@nura485620), is sharing our journey and the key takeaways we have hard-earned through hundreds of iterations. → #FigmaMakeathon