VIRTUAL Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

The increasing pervasiveness of interactive technologies in public spaces has made responsive and intelligent environments a common feature in contemporary cities. However, the very public nature of those spaces also poses a perennial challenge to their design and prototyping, while making highly difficult to train design students on those activities. Teaching, by definition, demands access to tools and spatial resources, and inherently entails the risks of failing and braking things along the way. This article describes the approach adopted by a postgraduate Interaction Design studio in collaborating with two external partners in designing interactive architecture solutions for shared urban spaces. It discusses the rationale for those partnerships, the challenges involved, the technical approaches adopted, and how constraints such as geographical distance and the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have contributed to innovation in prototyping, management, and teaching strategies. It concludes by outlining a pedagogical model for assisting with scaffolding practice-oriented teaching of multimodal interactive media architecture, along with a discussion of its strengths and caveats.