Activating Spaces: A Practice-Based Exploration of the Role of Interactivity in Public Space

Digital media technologies are shaping the experience of public space. This is even more true as systems evolve that can sense and react to what is happening around them. With this informational reshaping of our urban environment, designers are called on to critically engage and create legible moments in the multiple fluid realities of our cities. This thesis project explores the role that design interventions might have in revealing the plasticity of the built environment and public space. The messages that are projected in public space are made up of content that is shaped by its surroundings, that is to say the reception of a given message is dependent not only on the media or story for its legibility, but also on the constantly changing physical context of the space and its characteristics. This thesis project attempts to discover a methodology for evaluating the delivery of content in relation to the changing physical context of its transmission within space.