Staging Urban Interactions with Media Façades

Using media facades as a subcategory of urban computing, this paper contributes to the understanding of spatial interaction, sense-making, and social mediation as part of identifying key characteristics of interaction with media facades. Our research addresses in particular the open-ended but framed nature of interaction, which in conjunction with varying interpretations enables individual sense-making. Moreover, we contribute to the understanding of flexible social interaction by addressing urban interaction in relation to distributed attention, shared focus, dialogue and collective action. Finally we address challenges for interaction designers encountered in a complex spatial setting calling for a need to take into account multiple viewing and action positions. Our research-through-design approach has included a real-life design intervention in terms of the design, implementation, and reflective evaluation of a 180 m2 (1937 square feet) interactive media facade in operation 24/7 for more than 50 days.