The Familiar Stranger is a social phenomenon first described by the psychologist Stanley Milgram. Familiar strangers are people we observe regularly but without interaction, people who share the same morning commute for example. These strangers lives overlap enough to constitute a relationship.
We may facilitate hundreds of these relationships everyday without our knowledge. CCTV, blogging and social networking provide an ever expanding, digital landscape for this phenomenon. What if we embraced this, not as a part of a sinister surveillance culture, but as a way of satisfying a real human need?
The glass facilitates a familiar stranger relationship by allowing the auditory observation of your neighbours.