Francis Li
IdeaIvrea
with Line Ulrika Christiansen, Shyama Duriseti, Deepak Pakhare, Jason Tester, and Magnus Torstensson

IdeaIvrea is a collection of design concepts that demonstrate how telecommunication technologies might change the concept of mobility and the way people interact with their local community and government. These concepts were inspired by a series of observation experiments conducted in the city of Ivrea, Italy.

The observation experiments were based on the Cultural Probes work by Gaver, et al, at the Royal College of Art. They were designed to capture a glimpse at the attitudes and impressions that the residents of Ivrea have of their own city.

One experiment involved erecting a large map of the city and asking people to place color-coded stickers representing the best, worst, and most identifiable parts of the city. This simple and accessible exercise provided us with interesting information about the city and served as an ice-breaker and jumping-off point for discussions with participants.

Concerns over traffic congestion and the environment inspired the SmartBiker concept, which proposed rewarding the use of alternative transport. A GPS-enabled interactive pedometer tracks mileage to be redeemed for discounts at local businesses while also providing an interface for location-based services such as tourism and wayfinding.

A series of concepts related to soliciting feedback from residents were called New Tools for Citizen Change. Piazza SMS proposed using large digital displays in public plazas to gather feedback on issues. Numeric responses are solicited using SMS text messaging and the results are visualized in realtime on the display. This concept was prototyped using a Flash presentation and a custom SMS gateway.


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