Matsuda’s Augmented City

August 25, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Filed under Architecture, Augmented reality, SEGD Conf + Expo, Technology

Keiichi Matsuda is a designer and architect who explores physical and digital space — and how humans interact with it — through film. He was a featured speaker in the popular “Tomorrow is Here” session of the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo in Washington, D.C., earlier this summer.

A recent master’s graduate of London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, Matsuda believes architecture is no longer just about physical space, but about the customized synthetic spaces we’ll build with digital information. His short film “Augmented City 3D,” explores how this may work. — P.M.K.

It’s the (augmented) real thing

June 9, 2010 at 9:07 am
Filed under Augmented reality, Digital design, Dynamic Environments, Technology

What do the military, the porn industry, and digital signage have in common?

The application of augmented reality, says Bill Collins, who covered SEGD’s Changing Design, Designing Change conference last week in Washington, D.C. Collins comments on how three young designers who spoke at last Thursday’s “Tommorow is Here” panel are pioneering the transition from traditional architecture to a responsive built environment embedded with augmented reality experiences. Read Collins’ full article for Digital Signage Today here. — P.M.K.

Technology in context: SEGD Conference + Expo

June 4, 2010 at 5:50 am
Filed under Architecture, Augmented reality, SEGD Conf + Expo, Spatial Experience, Technology

Eyes forward: Omnivisu, Berlin (The Green Eyl)

New media and technology — whether in the form of media facades, interactive artworks, or digital wayfinding — are becoming as pervasive in the urban landscape as the air we breathe, and are dramatically transforming architecture and the built environment.

But the sparkle and seduction of technology can’t hide the lack of a good idea. And many of the designers who make technology their signature stock-in-trade admit that it’s not always appropriate.

“With each project we’re asking, ‘How much technology do we need?’ It’s expensive, it’s distracting, and it can be redundant,” says Richard The, a graduate student with the MIT Media Lab and member of The Green Eyl design collective. Much more important, says The, is that the design solution catalyze social interaction.

Low-tech Appeel (The Green Eyl/Richard The)

Low-tech projects like Appeel, which invites participants to interact with round adhesive stickers, can be just as effective as projects that feature expensive, state-of-the-art technology. Omnivisu, an installation at the S/U station Warshauer Strade in Berlin, invited participates to look into viewfinders across the street from the building, and projected their eyes onto the facade. At the Jewish Museum Berlin’s exhibition on food and religion, visitors approached a table set for dinner. When they picked up the empty dishes set on the table, they heard stories about food and ritual.

The was part of a “Tomorrow is Here” panel at the SEGD Conference + Expo, being held this week in Washington, D.C. Other panelists were Keywon Chung, also of the MIT Media Lab, whose recent work focuses on technology that changes everyday objects into interactive devices. Using RFID technology and accelerometer data, her invention creates a way to design toys, gaming devices, and other applications that allow people to “program the reality around us, one object at a time.”

And Keiichi Matsuda, who recently finished his masters thesis at London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, uses the nontraditional medium of film to create new ways to talk about architecture and the built environment.

“The way we construct buildings hasn’t fundamentally changed, but the way we inhabit them does,” he told the conference attendees. His masters thesis was based on the conccept of media and technology as driving forces in the way people now use space, and he shared his short augmented-reality film, “Domestic Robocop.”

Mirror, Mirror (Jason Bruges Studio, 2009, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

In addition to the up-and-comers, conference attendees also heard from the likes of Jason Bruges, one of Wallpaper magazine’s 10 “world-changing designers.” Bruges’ multidisciplinary studio creates work that sits in the space between architecture, site-specific installation art, and interaction design.

Datacloud (Jason Bruges Studio, 2009, Dublin)

A trained architect who worked for Norm Foster before starting his own studio, Bruges’ work often mediates between the natural and built environments using state-of-the-art lighting and technology tools. Bruges’ installations often play back environmental conditions such as wind or temperature, or reflect human movement as content. “Our work is about starting conversations,” he explains.

Thursday was the first full day of conference activities for the annual SEGD conference, themed “Designing Change, Changing Design.” The conference runs through Saturday. — P.M.K.

Wayfinding robots

April 8, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Filed under Augmented reality, Dynamic Environments, Interactive, Technology, Wayfinding

The Spanish bank, Santander, brought in YDreams to create the advance robotic and interactive design for the bank’s visitor center, Cuidad Grupo Santander. The environment also includes an interactive wall that is “aware” and can “adapt.” Robot butlers…the future of wayfinding? (Thanks @wayshowing and @designworkplan!) — S.N.