Download - UrbanIxD Summer School - Introductory Slides

Welcome to the UrbanIxD Summer School

Michael SmythCentre for Interaction DesignEdinburgh Napier University, UK@michael_smyth

Sunday, 25 August 13

The UrbanIxD project concerns the Research of, and Design for, the point of contact between people and urban technologies.

We are building a network of researchers working on urban technologies from the human perspective.

We have partners in UK, Italy, Denmark, Croatia


The UrbanIxD project is working towards the production of a research manifesto of future research directions.


One of the stages in this process is why we are all here in Split, at the UrbanIxD Summer School, #urbanixdsummerschool.


Seams and Boundaries in the Hybrid City

The Hybrid City is an environment that comprises both the tangible and the virtual.It is a place where data resides at the boundaries of the physical and the digital.


What are the products and services that citizens of the near future will use to create and consume data in the Hybrid City?


The goal of the Summer School is the production of fictional concepts that explore the active role of citizens as designers, users and inhabitants in the emerging Hybrid City of the near-future.

The outputs from the Summer School will feed into a series of exhibitions and events planned for 2014.


We live in a world where everything seems possible and as a consequence have lost the sense of wonder.

Branko Lukic, NonObject, MIT Press (2011)


Where do these moments of design inspiration come from?


Critical Design acts as a catalyst or provocation for thought (Anthony Dunne, 1999).


Critical Design centres on the design of tangible future scenarios that humanise the future and reveal needs, values and priorities.


UN Habitat report on populations moving to cities - just

over 50% of the world's population now live in cities.


In Europe the figure is over 70% Europe is a dense continent and the major lived experience of people is an urban one.


Europe is the region with the highest

Internet penetration rate in the world 75%,

followed by the Americas 61%.

In 2011, more than 70% of European households had access to the Internet at home.


But this is an average - The regional differences in Internet access within the EU were large, from

26% of some areas of Bulgaria, to 95% or more in areas of the Netherlands.


The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.

William Gibson, The Economist, 2003


The city is a mesh of heterogenous networks. Not just official governmental, institutional and commercial levels but also as a mesh of hybrid human networks.


In 2011 there were 741 million mobile phone

subscriptions in Europe. That's 1.2 SIM cards per person.

The average age of first phone ownership is 7 years old.


More than 70% of homeless people in London own a mobile phone (Kwon & van Boeijen, 2012).


The vision of Ubicomp is one of seamless interfaces, connecting into invisible, distributed, pervasive and ubiquitous computing


Interactions create data, often personal data relating to individuals, and if our interactions are "seamless" this raises serious questions around the visibility of what happens to that data.


Smart Cities projects tend to take a Big Picture view of systems, considering technology from an infrastructural perspective - the bird's eye view of the city. But this is not how we naturally experience it.


Urban Interaction Design addresses the intersection of people with the data rich city


The Summer School has a focus on learning through doing.

You will learn about Urban Interaction Design through the work that you do as part of the multidisciplinary Atelier Groups that are at the core of the event.


But most of all you will learn from your fellow participants as they will posses ideas and skills that, we hope, will cause you to reflect on how and why, you do what you do.


There will be presentations from practitioners and researchers.


In the Summer School Reader we have included 2 ‘working documents’ from the UrbanIxD project. The first addresses the emerging trends in urban interaction design, while the second reflects on the importance of interaction design for smart urban living.


Each piece hints at directions and themes that you might like to consider, they reflect our thinking in this nascent field.


The Summer School is a chance to go beyond the limits of design definitions, to re-think what design is today and to explore the role it plays in society through critical design practice.


For 9 days in Split, you have the opportunity to regain your sense of wonder. It is a chance to seek out those indicators and signs that just might provide insight into our shared urban futures.


A possible place to begin is at the marginal zones of the city, the space between and beyond buildings where data ebbs and flows with time and place.

This is a place where citizens seek to understand the urban environment through situated interaction.


The Summer School is just the beginning of our journey.


Download - UrbanIxD Summer School - Introductory Slides

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