Urban Barnacle is a modular urban vending and public structure that attaches to a street pole (light post or stoplight), and is self powered by solar, which enables entrepreneurs and the public to power up mobile devices (which allows for credit card processing). Urban Barnacle activates vacant public spaces, creates seating, supports entrepreneurial activity, and brings color and foot traffic to dull or underused streetscapes, particularly along the Mid-Market corridor.

Urban Barnacle was conceptualized, sketched, prototyped from cardboard, and demo’ed on the street during a weekend-long urban prototyping hackathon supported by Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and TechShop. Teams did not know one another or have an idea before the weekend started, and kicked off by meeting like-minded creators, and doing a need-finding mission in the neighborhood. Urban Barnacle was created by a team of designers, entreprenuers, urbanists, architects and solar engineers.