Press Release date: 6th February 2013              Download as a pdf file

UrbanIxD project launched: Interaction Design Summer School announced to take place in Split, Croatia

UrbanIxD: Designing Human Interactions in the Networked City 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

Split Summer School

Plans are under way for a unique Summer School to take place in the beautiful and historic town of Split in Croatia this year. This will be an interdisciplinary, workshop style, event hosted by the Department of Visual Communications Design, Arts Academy, University of Split. The team in Split has been running interaction design workshops - Interakcije - for eight years. There will be a line up of inspirational speakers, and participants will work in groups lead by experienced atelier leaders. At the end of the week, the work created by the participants will be presented to the people of Split as an open exhibition. 

The Project

UrbanIxD is a Coordination Action project, running from 2013-2014, for the European Commission under the Future and Emerging Technologies programme. This Coordination Action will define a coherent multidisciplinary research community working in the domain of technologically augmented, data-rich urban environments, with particular focus on the human activities, experiences and behaviours that occur within them (Interaction Design). 

The Project is run by partners in four European institutions: 

  • Edinburgh Napier University, UK 
  • University of Aarhus, Denmark 
  • Telecom Italia, Italy
  • University of Split, Croatia

For more information email:

The Coordinator, Dr Michael Smyth

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