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Not just pretty lights: using digital technologies to inform city making

Published: 01 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

The 21st century city is faced with a myriad of social, political and environmental complexities. The increasing global urbanisation puts pressure on the various spheres of government as well as on citizens to continuously redefine and manage public assets and spaces - often built for social contexts that no longer exist. While top-down approaches have arguably failed to engage and motivate communities in meaningful ways, bottom-up initiatives have also proved difficult in promoting lasting impact on official policies. The democratisation of digital technologies provides new opportunities for citizens to organise themselves around local issues. These complexities galvanise communities around a civic debate about the present and future identity of the places they live in. Yet, it is still fairly challenging to balance community expectations, on one hand, with transparency regarding the complex decision-making processes inherent to public administration, on the other. In this paper, we present common approaches to placemaking. We then discuss new forms of digital placemaking and illustrate their application through four interventions we ran to investigate digital technology adoption for community engagement initiatives. Based on those scenarios, we investigate: (1) the shifting role of digital technologies as tools employed by individual groups to create placemaking initiatives, and (2) media interventions that inform and bring decision makers at the top, and citizens at the bottom together into more collaborative and focused city making efforts.

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    MAB '16: Proceedings of the 3rd Media Architecture Biennale Conference
    June 2016
    84 pages
    ISBN:9781450347495
    DOI:10.1145/2946803
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    • MAI: Media Architecture Institute

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    Published: 01 June 2016

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    Author Tags

    1. HCI
    2. community engagement
    3. media façades
    4. pop-ups
    5. small scale displays

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    • University of Sydney
    • MAI
    MAB '16: Media Architecture Biennale 2016
    June 1 - 4, 2016
    Sydney, Australia

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 27 of 68 submissions, 40%

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    Cited By

    View all
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    • (2023)Interior Media Architecture: Using Social Media as a Tool for Data Informed Design SolutionsProceedings of the 6th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3627611.3627614(28-37)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2023
    • (2023)PosterTalk: Expanding Participatory Agency in Public Survey Platforms via Middle-Out GatekeepingProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3595984(2573-2592)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
    • (2023)Sustainable decision-making game for the next generation of smart citizensIOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science10.1088/1755-1315/1196/1/0120871196:1(012087)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2023
    • (2023)Techno-optimism and optimization in media architecture practice and theoryDigital Creativity10.1080/14626268.2023.220077034:2(88-102)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
    • (2023)Digital placemaking, health & wellbeing and nature-based solutions: A systematic review and practice modelUrban Forestry & Urban Greening10.1016/j.ufug.2022.12779679(127796)Online publication date: Jan-2023
    • (2022)Augmented Placemaking: Urban Technologies, Interaction Design and Public Spaces in a Post-Pandemic WorldInteracting with Computers10.1093/iwc/iwac03735:5(637-649)Online publication date: 19-Dec-2022
    • (2022)Insights into placemaking, senior people, and digital technology: a systematic quantitative reviewJournal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability10.1080/17549175.2022.207672117:4(525-554)Online publication date: 24-May-2022
    • (2021)Storystamp: Evaluating the impact of a place-oriented approach for placemakingProceedings of the 5th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3469410.3469433(205-209)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
    • (2021)A place-oriented approach: from field knowledge to design frameworkProceedings of the 5th Media Architecture Biennale Conference10.1145/3469410.3469420(100-110)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
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