Urban Participatory Design through Technology: Birloki System, a Network of Interactive Interfaces

Resumen

By 2050, the UN (United Nations) expects the number of city dwellers to reach 6.3 billion and the balance of humans in cities to rise to about 70%. At the same time, the vertiginous development of information technologies opens up a new world of possibilities to improve the quality of life of citizens. Our research is focused on the possibilities of work in the urban design and public realm that these new information technologies are starting to open up. Based on the concept of urban acupuncture and on the so called u-pad methodology, we create a network of interactive and adaptive points that put together the three fields of technology, design and emotion to create information and activation points on the city. The prototypes of the Birloki system BL1-r01-tp01 and BL1-r01-tp02 are already built and being tested to be operative in the streets of Bilbao (Spain) as a first testbed. The project deploys seven Level 1 (BL1) and 10-12 Level 2 Birloki points over the Old Town (the medieval centre of the modern city (in Spanish: Casco Viejo)), focusing on residents and visitors. They will convey and collect information and data and interact with the users, utilizing combinability, interactive devices, augmented reality, i-beacon technology and others. These data can be collected and re-input in the flow to improve the system and therefore the experience of the user/citizen.