The Right to the Sustainable Smart City

Environmental concerns have driven an interest in sustainable smart cities, through the monitoring and optimisation of networked infrastructures. At the same time, there are concerns about who these interventions and services are for, and who benefits. HCI researchers and designers interested in civic life have started to call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action to challenge state and corporate claims. This paper contributes to an emerging body of work that seeks to involve citizens in the design of sustainable smart cities, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. We present a study involving co- designing Internet of Things with urban agricultural communities and discuss three ways in which design can participate in the right to the sustainable smart city through designing for the commons, care, and biocultural diversity

Chapter Dentro il museo: creare esperienze culturali in realtà aumentata

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences

3D laser scanning built heritage: St Boniface's Church as a teaching experience

The use of new technologies to record existing architectures is increasing as they become cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Among them, 3D laser scanning (also known as LiDAR) is of particular relevance for surveying built heritage since it can provide full documentation of the reality in the form of a three-dimensional coloured point-cloud, measurable and with a precision of millimetres, in a short period of time. Although its use is not new, especially in the subject of cultural heritage, its inclusion in architectural education is recent. The quality and comprehensiveness of the data, from which architectural drawings are obtainable at any scale, among other products such as images, videos, and 3D printed models, challenges the traditional way of surveying buildings and can have further implications for architectural studies. This paper reflects on the first teaching experience of 3D laser scanning applied to built heritage at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, which challenged previous uses of this method by capturing a complete building and generating architectural products from it in a few classes. Using the case of St Boniface´s Church in London, the objective of this paper is to account for and reflect on the data obtainable in just one day of on-site 3D laser scanning capture. Framing these products within a brief revision of surveying methods of buildings over time, the paper establishes the importance of 3D laser scanning for recording built heritage. The workflow of on-site data collection, processing and model making in only a few sessions is presented as a way to speculate over new architectural possibilities when the reality is available as-built with accuracy. Approaching an era where almost everything can be captured digitally might have implications for the way the physicality of historic buildings is perceived and preservedess

Educational illustration of the historical city, education citizenship, and sustainable heritage

The Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations (2030 agenda) aim to promote sustainable cities, the need to safeguard cultural heritage, and the importance of quality education. Through different projects, the DIDPATRI research group at the University of Barcelona has developed didactic iconographic models on the historical and heritage dimension of cities. Comprehensible proposals have been made by developing unique techniques and using easily accessible technologies. The working hypothesis has focused on the idea that the models of didactic iconography promote the understanding of the history of the city, and this enables educational actions and contributes to the formation of quality citizenship, aware of the importance of heritage, with a view to the sustainability of urban environments themselves. The components and the layout of the iconographic prototypes tested have been developed with the available technological variables, but, above all, they focus on the conceptual organization of the iconographic contents to show. In other words, it places greater emphasis on techniques than on subsidiary technologies for change. The development of different projects has generated models of empirical effectiveness, which methodologically have contributed to improving, in the key of sustainability, the knowledge of historical urban environments and respect for heritage. The case studies considered in this work are two of the most emblematic developed by the DIDPATRI group: the archaeological site of El Born in Barcelona, and the medieval site of La Seu de Urgell, in the Catalan Pyrenees

Digital Cultural Strategies Within the Context of Digital Humanities Economics

Staying sustainable in the world of cultural heritage is a major organizational challenge nationally and internationally. Due to the global financial crisis the funds available to sustain the operations of museums and libraries become difficult not only to obtain them but also to utilized them effectively and efficiently. The operational costs of museums increase over the time due to exhibit maintenance and acquisition costs. This cost is inversely proportional to the revenues that can be generated. Virtual reality, avatar technologies, virtual worlds, holograms, gaming and gamification can offer creative interactivity and unique experiences with low or no cost to the global visitor and introduce new revenue streams. This paper practically integrates the realization of digital cultural strategies and operations within the context of digital humanities economics that can turn museums and libraries from cost centres to profit centres for the benefit of the humanity and the society

A Study On Representing Cultural Heritage By Virtual and Augmented Reality

Bu çalışma, sanal ve güçlendirilmiş öğrenme yoluyla kültürel mirasın eğitimi, korunması ve sanal öğrenilmesine yönelik genel bir bakış sunmaktadır. Kültürel miras üzerine yapılan çalışmaların, sanal gerçeklik sunarak sanal bir ortamı çoğaltıp, görselleştirip temsil ederek, gerçek dünyadaymış hissi yaratma sorumlulukları vardır. Bu, kültürel mirasın öğrenme açısından önemli bir konu olduğunu ve öğrenmenin, sistemi geliştirenin ne istediğine değil, kullanıcının ne istediğine bağlı olduğunu ortaya koyar. Öte yandan, sanal ve güçlendirilmiş ortamların birçoğu, geliştirenin uygun gördüğü şeyden meydana gelmiş olsa da, öğrenme ortamı sunma ve kültürün korunması amaçlarına hizmet etmeye devam eder (Orta Avrupa Üniversitesi, 2017). Bunun nedeni, sanal ve artırılmış gerçekliğin, kişilerin kültürel ortama ulaşarak öğrenme deneyimi elde etmelerine yarayacak bir araç sunduğu gelişmiş teknoloji ortamında öğrenmenin gerçekleşebilecek olmasıdır. Ayrıca, sistem kullanıcılarının tam olarak neyi öğrenmek istediklerine ilişkin ihtiyaçlarının belirlenmesi ve sanal ortamın nasıl yaratıldığının görülmesi de, söz konusu sanal ortamın öğrenme ortamı sağlama konusundaki başarısının ortaya konulmasında önemlidir. Her ne kadar teknoloji, sanal ve artırılmış gerçekliğin kullanımını kolaylaştırmış olsa da, bu sanal ortamın kullandığı gelişmiş teknolojiye tüm kullanıcıların ulaşamıyor oluşu bir sorun teşkil etmektedir. Sanal ortam kullanıcılarının sanal ortamdaki objelerle etkileşime girme isteği de, sistem geliştiricilerinin çözmeleri gereken bir başka meseledir. Bu tezimde, sanal ve artırılmış gerçeklik ortamının kültürel açıdan eğitim, öğrenme ve koruma fırsatları sunulmasında önemli bir rolü olduğunu göstermeye çalıştım

Chapter Designing VR and AR gamifications for cultural heritage educational escape games

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences

The urban screen as a socialising platform: exploring the role of place within the urban space

In this paper we explore shared encounters mediated by technologies in the urban space. We investigate aspects that influence the interactions between people and people and people and their surroundings when technology is introduced in the urban space. We highlight the importance of space and the role of place in providing temporal and spatial mechanisms facilitating different types of social interactions and shared encounters. An emperical experiment was condeucted with a prototype that was implemented in the form of a digital screen, embeded in the physical surrounding in selected locations with low, medium and high pedestrian flows in the heritage City of Bath, UK. The aim is to create a novel urban experience that triggers shared encounters among friends, observers or strangers. Using the body as an interaface, the screen acted as a non-traditional interface and a facilitator between people and people and people and their surrounding environment. Here we outline early findings from deploying the digital screen as a socialiasing platform in a city context. We describe the user experience and demonstrate how people move, congregate and socialize around the digital surface. We illustrate the impact of the spatial and syntactical properties on the type of shared interactions in and highlight related issues. The initial findings indicated that introducing a digital platform as a public interactive installation in the urban space may provide a stage for emergent social interactions among various people and motivate users to actively and collaboratively play with the media. However, situating the digital platform in various locations, and depending on the context, might generate diverse and unpredicted social behaviours designers might be unaware of. In this respect we believe that the final experience is shaped by interconnection of structural, social, cultural, temporal and perhaps personal elements. We conclude by mentioning briefly our on going work