At first glance, it looks like any other metal shipping container. But “Portal & Piazza,” a pilot project of Stanford’s Town Center initiative, is equipped with immersive audio and visual technology and placed to serve as a gathering space for classes, performances, and events.
The Office of Community Engagement (OCE), in collaboration with the company Shared Studios, which has a network of similar vessels in locations around the world, brought the custom-fabricated container to campus this fall. It will remain in use through the end of the quarter.
“There are so many ways our campus community members could use this unique space,” said Jordan Gray, OCE’s director of community engagement. “It’s been a great resource for creating connections on and beyond campus.”
How it works
The space is designed to be used in two ways. In “portal” mode, the container is closed. Up to 9 users at a time can step inside and speak face-to-face with someone in a similar, distant portal – places like Rwanda, Brazil, South Africa, or Mexico City – in real time. Floor-to-ceiling screens make users on the other end appear life-size as if they were in the same room.
In “piazza” mode, the container’s side wall opens, and it transforms into an indoor/outdoor space for small-scale events of roughly 50 people, such as book talks, poetry performances, and mini concerts. The location was chosen because of the potential to attract and engage passersby. DJ Society used the space to perform a set during last month’s Reunion Homecoming.
The Portal & Piazza is a shipping container that functions as both a window into other worlds and an open-air gathering space. | Andrew Brodhead
What people are saying
Tomás R. Jiménez, professor of sociology in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a founding co-director of the Stanford Institute for Advancing Just Societies, recently hosted a faculty talk in the portal during which he and a few students met with refugees in Uganda to discuss immigration, mental health, and global conflict, among other issues. He said that reading about someone’s experience or about research that documents larger trends and patterns doesn’t always give students a nuanced understanding of it.
“So much of what we do in the classroom requires some imagination and opportunities to get close to the issues we’re studying can be few and far between,” he said. “The opportunity to connect with a refugee camp in Uganda from Stanford, as we did, is virtually impossible without this portal.”
Jiménez said the portal provides a more personal experience than video calls. “Because it’s in an enclosed shipping container, you’re really focused on the people on the other side of the screen, and you experience them differently because they're larger,” he said. “In this case, the portal extended the classroom experience to the refugees in Uganda.”
Stanford community members can chat with people in similar portals in other countries. | Andrew Brodhead
Upcoming ‘activations’
On Nov. 20, from 3 to 4 p.m., the King Center on Global Development and Guilherme Lichand, assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), will host a portal discussion called “Global Dialogues: Transforming Lives in Brazil’s Favelas.” He and attendees will connect with members of the Instituto Família Chegados in São Vicente, Brazil.
On Nov. 21, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., campus community members can meet artists, entrepreneurs, and change-makers from Makers Valley in Johannesburg, South Africa, and discuss how they are mobilizing locally to create a global space for innovation, creativity, and catalyzing collective action to reshape their community.
For more upcoming activations open to the campus community, check the Portal & Piazza page on the Town Center website. Stanford community members interested in using the space can contact Jordan Gray.