Eucalyptus: User Controlled Lightpath Enabled Participatory Design Studio

Abstract

A new notion of participation is at stake with advances in technologically mediated work environments. The digitally mediated e-design studio has been around since the mid-1990's and has been employed in various forms in disciplines including architecture/engineering/construction (AEC), industrial design, and the automotive industry. Insufficient bandwidth and insufficiently powerful, crudely coordinated tools resulted in distributed task-based modes of collaboration that did not allow full participation by members of the distributed design team. At the very least, the present “second generation” network severely limits the applications, tools, and modes of communication that can be used in data and visualization intense design scenarios. The emergence of Service Oriented Architectures and User-Controlled LightPaths (“intelligent infrastructure”) herald the beginning of a new age where fully participatory multi-site design may become possible. The networks, visualization & communication tools, Service Oriented Architecture & Web Services, work protocols, and physical site designs of the Participatory Design Studio (PDS) being developed by the authors will constitute one of the first working examples of this future. This paper will briefly outline the “mise en scene” or staging of the technical configuration of the Eucalyptus project, observations and results from the creative activity of the PDS in the context of two case studies, and speculate on the implications for design activity, pedagogy, and a more robust mode of participation.