Stronger than Stigma® is an organization created by—and for—millennials dedicated to eliminating mental health stigma. We helped create and design its signature brand activation event and space, The Living Room, a safe pop-up installation space for people to negotiate the challenging topic of mental health.

From its inception, The Living Room was meant to be a moveable feast for the mind. It is a pop-up experience that appears in new cities with new interactive design pieces and decor culturally attuned to its urban audiences.

In the spring of 2022, The Living Room set up shop in the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Castano Group knew it had to create mental health set pieces that not only filled up the empty gallery space but also matched the expectations for engagement that SoHo visitors and residents have come to expect from the fashionable shopping and arts destination. For this iteration of The Living Room, creative execution also had to pair with quantitative research goals. To that end, Castano Group collaborated with a mental health researcher from Harvard University to ensure that the pop-up’s design was appropriate and instructive for researchers.

Physical design elements were combined with digital and interactive elements to create unique conversation pieces that sparked discussions and introspections about mental health issues. Among the highlights of the SoHo pop-up installation space was the Say It Out Loud Cloud, where visitors could anonymously upload their own mental health experiences into the “cloud,” and others could listen and watch as the recording activated LED silver linings in even the darkest skies. Castano Group also created Millennial Blues, a mixed media collage that asks us to explore and reinterpret everyday items in our life and how they relate to our mental health. Iridescent vinyl, strategic lighting, and forced perspective were elements that guided a unique photo booth. There were also digital projection pieces in the space that were humorous and introspective.