Projects

The aim of this project is to survey the "mobile computing landscape" in Bath, by which we mean (1) the disposition of wireless communications signals in the city, and (2) the human behaviours associated with the presence of those radio signals. The aim is to complement knowledge of the physical landscape and of the flows of people through it, and to investigate links between them.
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Making space

In Cityware, we explore the relationship between the spaces created by urban architecture and the interaction spaces created by artefacts such as digital devices. Our approach to the design of pervasive systems is underpinned by a conceptual spectrum describing degrees of publicness. This spectrum ranges from private through social to public. Orthogonal to this spectrum, we place three aspects of pervasive systems: the physical setting (architectural space), the technology being used (interaction space), and the information being accessed or exchanged (spheres). The result is a 3x3 matrix that may be used to map out existing technologies and systems and to inform the design of new pervasive systems.

Movement Flow in Bath City Centre

As part of our goal of understanding the city in general and the movement flow in particular, we have carried out spatial analyses and observation studies of the city of Bath using Space Syntax methods.Data about pedestrian movement were gathered using an observation-based pedestrian survey conducted in the study area. Observed flows of people ranged from high flows of 2750-4000 people per hour to low flows of 250 people per hour or less.

Digital Footprints

The relationship between space and people various with why people use the space. Digital Footprints seeks to investigate how tourists and visitors use the spaces created by urban architecture. Urban spaces are frequently populated by tourists with a very different agenda to those that live there. The different seasons of the year show rises and falls in the number of visitors to the city. This means that the influence tourists have on urban spaces can change. Understanding more about how tourists move through a city provides a vital part of understanding the relationship between urban spaces and people. Digital technology can help us monitor, and possibly serve, that relationship.

A key component of any urban dwellers or visitors experience of the city is spatial navigation. People want to know where they are, where they want to be and how to get there. In many cases, people also want to identify places and spaces both to aid navigation and to satisfy their interest in their surroundings. These twin concerns of way-finding and interpretation are particularly important to visitors to a city. In addition, many of the visitors to a World Heritage City such as Bath visit the city as a leisure experience and want to retain and take away with them memories of their experience of the city. The archetypal example is the visitor taking photographs and creating an album when she has returned home. Pervasive technologies offer us an opportunity to provide novel and effective support for way-finding, interpretation and recollection.

Pervasive Systems & the Sense of Place

We have implemented an installation in the form of a digital surface, embeded in the urban environment. The aim is to generate a rich urban experience that can be introduced in various locations in the city. The surface can detect people walking on top of it. In response, it illuminates a series of LEDs (Light Emitting Diode) arranged in a grid. When pedestrians walk over the surface a pattern of lights is generated dynamically following the pedestrians movement over it.

Mobile & Digital Behaviour in Bath

As part of the The Sence of Bath workshop series we have carried out a pilot study in February 2006 to map and analyse the digital and mobile behaviour in the city. The study was conducted in collaboration with the MSc Adaptive architecture and Computation: Digital Space and Society Module, UCL.
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Mapping & Visualising the digital co-presence in the city

Re:constructing the narrative of place: social, physical and digital

We have carried out a study in February 2007 to map and visualize movement flow and digital presence in Bath (based on bluetooth scans) in 9 different locations over 6 time sessions throughout one day. The study was conducted in collaboration with the MSc Adaptive architecture and Computation: Digital Space and Society Module, UCL.

Multimedia blogging

This project focuses on how the internet is used in our private lives, in the form of sharing photographs across the internet. We developed a system which automates the process of transferring pictures onto a PC and then adding descriptions to them.
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Dawn Woodgate joined the project on 1 December 2008.

In January 2008 James Mitchell joined Cityware, working with WP2 (Bath CS and HP Labs).

In January 2008 Jim Grimmett joined Cityware, working with WP2 (Bath CS and HP Labs).