The Project

UrbanIxD (urban interaction design) is a 2 year European project that will build a research network around the domain of data-rich urban environments, focusing on human activities, experiences and behaviours.

Urban Informatics

A transformation is taking place in how our cities work. Cites are being laced with sensors and mobile technologies that are generating a myriad of urban informatics experiences. A digital landscape overlays our physical world and is expanding to offer ever-richer experiences. In the cities of the future, computing isn’t just with us; it surrounds us, and it uses the context of our environment to empower us in more natural, yet powerful ways.

Critical Design

By employing a Critical Design methodology the UrbanIxD project will provide an opportunity to re-think what intelligent connected communities of the future might actually look like. It will question the premise of the smart city and will develop a community of researchers with a shared commitment to the foregrounding of the human experience in the field of Urban Interaction Design.

If you would like to be part of this community and want to shape the vision of the future city, then join the UrbanIxD network.

Urban Interaction Design Summer School, August 2013

The UrbanIxD project Summer School in Split, Croatia was an interdisciplinary interaction design event. There was a line up of inspirational speakers, and participants worked in groups lead by experienced atelier leaders. At the end of the week, the work, inspired by a critical design/design fiction approach, was presented as an open exhibition.

UrbanIxD Summer School: August 2013: Full details about the work and the projects.

The summer school reader: the document to accompany the Summer School event.

www.citydatafuture.eu

The Exhibition & Symposium

The City | Data | Future exhibition is a culmination of the work that has been carried out over the two-year duration of the UrbanIxD project, in particular the work of the UrbanIxD Summer School held in 2013. This exhibition continues to tour until 2016. A symposium was held at the launch of the exhibition in Venice.

The City | Data | Future exhibition presents a series of visions depicting what it might be like to live in a near future city saturated with data. Each piece questions what this might mean for our changing relationship with the city and its citizens. What might it mean to live in a city where everything is measured, and crowdsourced opinion holds sway? How might this affect our own judgment in the face of such quantification and what does this mean for the creation and consumption of personal data? Will the city of the future protect us or will it monitor us? Will it provide shelter so that we can decide with whom we share our most intimate thoughts? As we reflect on the value we place on data, what new rituals might emerge around our need to share?

During the UrbanIxD project this exhibition was presented in Croatia, Italy and Denmark, and further presentations are planned for 2015 and beyond. A catalogue is available to accompany the exhibition, in both print and online versions (link).

For more details about hiring the exhibition, see the website at: www.citydatafuture.eu