[Book] A City Is Not a Computer
A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Category Architecture & Urban space
Berlin exhibition features Experientia work
The exhibition, curated by ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, presents exemplary built projects and outstanding conceptual models by architects and planners from all over the world
Experientia speaks at EFUS webinar on insecurity at night
On 24 November Elena Guidorzi, research unit coordinator of Experientia, will speak at the EFUS web conference entitled "Reducing and preventing the feeling of insecurity at night", highlighting her experience coordinating the ToNite project.
The Big Home Reboot: IKEA’s Life at Home Report 2020
IKEA just launched its seventh Life at Home Report, exploring how people have grown closer to their homes in this extraordinary year
[Essay] Helsinki Design Lab ten years later
A survey of Helsinki Design Lab's activities 2008-2013, with reflections on the three "bets" that the Lab made and their relevance today.
Visions of the post-pandemic home
Vitra, the German manufacturing company, published this week a "set of hypotheses" on the future of the home, as living spaces are pushed to the limits.
Smart city visions and human rights
Without consideration for all humans inhabiting cities, smart city and technological approaches have the potential to exacerbate socio-economic divisions, corporate dominance, and top-down governance.
Post-it note city
A visit to the smart-city-in-progress at Sidewalk Toronto prompts questions about what it means to "participate" in civic design.
The case for … cities that aren’t dystopian surveillance states
We could decide to treat people as sensors, and not as things to be sensed - to observe Kant's injunction that humans should be "treated as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else".
Boston’s human-centered research to design middle-income housing
In Boston, the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is conducting ethnographic, human-centered research to design middle-income housing that reflects people’s lived experiences, reports the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This includes intensive planning sessions in which residents, designers, and policy…
The time of user empathy
Forbes Product Member, Alec Pomnichowski, describes the parallels between architecture and product development thinking. He asks product-types to be considerate and thoughtful about the ways in which users experience products and find value in them through time. Good architects will…
The Adaptive Reuse Toolkit
The Adaptive Reuse Toolkit – How Cities Can Turn their Industrial Legacy 
into Infrastructure for Innovation and Growth by Matteo Robiglio Policy Paper, September 2016 The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) All over in the world, industrial…
The psychology of scarcity: what behavioral economics can teach design
Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University and coauthor, with Sendhil Mullainathan, of the book Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives (Picador, 2013), talks to Metropolis Magazine’s Avinash Rajagopal…
Remember the people: The foundation for success in 21st C infrastructure
Infrastructure providers are used to focusing on issues of project selection, funding, and regulation. The most successful firms are learning to provide great consumer experiences too. “The consumer experience matters. Infrastructure providers therefore need to tap into the disciplines and…
How city design is adapting to older populations
As cities experience a demographic shift, the need for age-friendly design is becoming ever more critical. From almshouses to driverless cars, the future of urban housing and mobility may just be shaped for and by the elderly. Freelance journalist Alice…
Pritzker Prize winner brings communities into the design process
The radical Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, known for his pioneering social housing projects in Latin America, has been named as the winner of the 2016 Pritzker prize, the highest accolade in architecture. The 48-year-old, who is also the curator of…
Ericsson’s new ConsumerLab report about the smart citizen
Last month, Ericsson published its latest ConsumerLab report, entitled “Smart Citizens: How the internet facilitates smart choices in city life.” The study covers 9 cities worldwide-Beijing, Delhi, London, New York, Paris, Rome, São Paulo, Stockholm and Tokyo-and explores how as…
Creating user-friendlier environments
MIT News describes how Federico Casalegno of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab designs technology environments that keep human experience at the center of user experience. “The director of the MIT Mobile Experience Lab looks to innovate with technology — but…
Architects don’t listen to people
Christine Outram left the architecture profession because, she says, architects “don’t listen to people“. “The truth is, most of you don’t try. You rely on rules of thumb and pattern books, but you rarely do in-depth ethnographic research. You might…
From nice view to amazing journey: UNstudio and Experientia transforming the observation wheel experience
Click on image to view slideshow Recently, Fast Company, Dezeen Magazine and Wired have featured articles about UNStudio’s design for the Nippon Moon, a Giant Observation Wheel (GOW) to be located in Japan that could rival the London Eye and…