15 Mar 2017 | 5pm | Media Architecture and Placemaking | Ava Fatah

As more sensor networks and technological interventions are installed in our cities, novel interactive technologies are potentially transforming public space and the way we experience cities, which raises questions around their role in shaping placemaking. In this talk, Ava will explore engagement with and through situated media technologies within the urban context and how they may augment our relationships with people around us. Ava will discuss the approach taken by the Barlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London (UCL) in a recent project in collaboration with the mixed reality lab at the University of Nottingham. With a team comprising an unusual mix of architects, interaction designers, computer scientists, anthropologists, makers, artists, and a film maker, the project adopted a unique iterative approach seeking to investigate how networked media displays located in urban space may benefit public life.

Considering an urban design perspective, and emphasising the involvement of local organisations as key partners in the creative development process, the team has iteratively developed, in close collaboration with local communities, a design framework to support emergent conditions. The aim is to integrate displays placement, content creation, local interactivity and distributed connectivity that will embrace local communities as active agents and enable collective interactions through a network of four public displays connecting two urban sites in Nottingham with two in East London through a webcam and video panels.

Through urban play, and the focus on bodily engagement – using the body as  interface; a set of experiences is created that enable participation. Through a longer exposure of people to the setting, a sense of community awareness started to emerge ranging from recognising the most prominent group to having general knowledge of people who interact.

Examining the extensive data provided helpful indicators as to how people relate to their built environment and other people around them. Various aspects emerged that encourage interactions in connected urban places, allowing individuals to express emotions, performative interactions and play and even intentions that could provide an insight into individual’s and communities' desires.

Ava Fatah is Reader in Media Architecture and Urban Digital Interaction on the MSc Architectural Computation (formerly Adaptive Architecture and Computation), The Bartlett School of Architecture, where she leads two studios: ‘Body as Interface’ exploring the body as a design material, extending in term two towards the city context in the ‘City as Interface’ studio, which engages with the social agenda and the various aspects of participation in the networked city.

Ava's research in Architecture, Interaction Design, and Ubiquitous Computing has the overarching goal of developing a framework for the integration of digital media (situated and mobile) and architecture. She is the Principal Investigator of the 'Screens in the Wild’, which explores the potential of networked urban screens for communities and culture through the development of an integrated network of four interactive public screens connecting different cities in  UK and the founder of Living Media Architecture Lab, which offers a unique longitudinal research and a living lab environment since 2011 in the UK.

Currently she co-leads ‘Whose Right to the Smart City’; an International Research Network around engagement in the city that critically address the smart city agenda, in India, Brazil and the UK, allowing unique prospects of international collaborations with centre of excellence in research for the Digital Environment. Ava is a chair and a member of the organising committee for the Media Architecture Biennale (2012, 14 in Aarhus and 2016 in Sydney). She is a member of the Placemaking Leadership Council (US) and serves on numerous Interaction Design, Media Art & Architecture and HCI international conference programme committees.