Intelligent Infrastructure Enabled Participatory Design Studio - Eucalyptus: Collaborating at the speed of light

Abstract

A new notion of participation is at stake with advances in technologically mediated work environments. 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. 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. This paper will briefly outline the “mise en scnei 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.