1 Introduction
Since the second half of 20th century, development countries have been under intense urbanization process. Large size cities become the new centralities for the flexible system of production, as the capital started to invest massively in the urban space trough the construction of infra-structure, housing and urban equipments. While cities in the developed world have been experiencing this process since 18th century, in the south hemisphere the late and incomplete urbanization is characterized by large migratory influx from the field to the urban centers, inducing serious socio-economic issues such as lack of affordable housing, slum creation, crime and pollution.
Regarding these newcomers and their relationship with everyday space, they face particular problems like displacement and lack of identity can contribute to undermine the social and political life of the city. In this sense, regionalism, participatory process, community and human-centered design emerged as core concepts both to a new urban agenda and also for an academic framework concerned with the consequences of a fast urbanized world.
Presently, in the so called post-PC era, computing capabilities are increasingly in everywhere within the major urban centers. From cell phones to extensive surveillance structures, from smart glasses to automated home systems, from wearable health assistants to targeted advertising cans, everyday life is increasingly intertwined with pervasive and ubiquitous systems. If the previous spatial experience was defined by topological attributes of a given space, now, the rise of urban computing establishes a hybrid reality mediated by context-aware media and location based services, due the diversity of microchips, wireless networks, tags, sensors and actuators attached to everyday space and objects.
In such a scenario, the aim of this paper is to discuss the possibilities of Internet of Things technologies in the context of people-plant interaction as innovative tools to foster sense of place in public urban spaces. In this sense, different initiatives have already been using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) to similar purposes. The objective of this paper is to present few study cases about how innovation are been applied in the design field, specifically regarding with people-plant interaction.
In this sense, first I will discuss some theoretical background about ICT’s and the design of urban space. The methodological approach here will be a study case. So, I will present three experiences which employ plants and physical devices as interfaces. A fourth experiment, a conceptual early work in progress will be presented. Finally, in order to address some key points in the field, the cases presented will be discussed under the theoretical background.
2 Place, ICT’s and ubiquitous computing
The ubiquitous computing paradigm considers that ordinary objects such as domestic appliances, clothes, shoes, accessories, cars and even urban space have computing capabilities. Although it is not the de facto reality for common citizens even within high developed urban centers, this condition has been guiding studies that consider it the very next stage facing our society.
Many researchers have been studying how ICT’s can foster space appropriateness, empowering people from information consumers to producers, and consequently contributing to a new spatial experience. Paulos et al. (2008) stated that in the case of Urban Computing, there is a difference between a strictly functional service and a tactical practice: while the former can be seen as utilitarian, the latter is a way to add subjective value to space. In this sense, Urban Computing is not focused on simply solving the challenges of social networking in public places, but exploring the much wider gamut of urban life from personal to social, from the solitary to the crowd, from promoting passivity to inspiring activism, curiosity, and wonderment (Paulos et al., 2008).
As well as Urban Computing, there are other related frameworks which employed ICT’s as meaningful ways to promote new urban experiences. McCullough (
2006), states that Situated Computing becomes a tactical movement towards a practice related to the context, anchoring social experience in the territory. Similarly, Greenfield and Shepard (
2007) believes that the emergence of Ambient Informatics, where the information would be freely available to anyone and anywhere and at any time can turn the passive city’s user into active subjects. Also, Shepard (2011) argues that a Sentient City renounces designing the “hardware” of material urban spaces, and instead, calls for the “software” infrastructure to perform new urban experiences, where the city would be able to feel or perceive subjectively the things within it. About this concept, De Waal (
2011), point out that a sentient city could be able to raises shared issues of concern, and such interfaces could be able to promote awareness, engagement and makes users more involved with their community.
In summary, such idealization about ICT’s and the urban space brings the user to the center of the stage, a prominent position where the user is the protagonist, not the space. In this sense, the use of ICT’s reinforced the use of the space and turns it into a meaningful place.
The relation between the idea of place and the use of ICT’s to foster sense of place is still in its infancy①(① Among some Technologies used to promote sense of place or civic engagement, it can be cited augmented reality games, mobile applications and urban displays. As stated by Schroeter (2012) and Valkanova et al (2014), some technologies had already become pervasive among users and does not have the capabilities to grab the user attention.). In this paper, it was chosen to take advantage of gardening because the fact that empirical observation shows that gardening is a widely engaged activity among Chinese people.
Liu et al (2013) states that successful gardens are those capable to provide appropriate spaces and times for the users, even when these users are not spatially connected with gardens. In this sense, a weakening in the spatial connection does not mean a decline in community ties. More than that, this author also agree with previous ones, arguing that space constitute a fundamental means to people as a support to produce sense of community, where all the activities happens. In this manner, community gardening constitutes a connection between space, time and people. Trying to address a gap in the literature about community gardening, the authors focused on the factors that can foster community-building in the context of community supported agriculture (CSA). Their findings pointed that while the symbolism of community supporting agriculture is not lost on people involved at activities, it is the individual embodied experience of a farm or garden that impacts on a deeper level to create psychological and therapeutically results on users.
3 Study cases: experiences in people-plant interaction
3.1 My green pet
This experiment addressing people-plant interaction was conducted by Hwang (
2010), aiming to understand how is children’s perception to plants as living organisms. Although this experiment was not related with the space itself, it also shows possibilities to foster people-plant interactions through physical computing.
The experiment used a plant under low electric current and an Arduino board as a microcontroller to detect different patterns of gesture applied to the plant: stroking, tickling and slapping. Depending on the type of gesture applied, the system output a different sound message. To make the user experience much close with the reality
①(①Another experiment that tried to give plants emotions is detailed by Seungsoon Park et al (
2008), The Emoti-Pot, uses a LED-display to express the plant “mood’ based on sensor capable of sensing gesture, need of water and lighting. While similar regarding showing emotions, this previous experiment could not interact with the users, and mainly, the use of LED-panel made the plant display to the users as an artificial being.), all the artificial parts were hidden inside the plant pot.
Figure 1 “My green pet”, design concept |
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Basically the experiment use electrode as input devices, an Arduino microprocessor for prototyping, while the outputs are performed through LEDs and a wave shield with SD card to play audio files.
Figure 2 “My green pet”, interaction |
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The experiment uses the electrical current to detect when a gesture is applied to the plant, causing different signals accordingly with the type of gesture applied: hit, stroke and tickle. The algorithm filters this variation in electrical current and interprets it, using different profile of reaction to the gesture. In this case, the authors used sound to interact with users.
Findings showed that not only children could perceive plants like a living organism after this experiment, but mainly, they showed increased interest in the interactive plant, spending longer time with it.
3.2 The PLEASED experiment
The second case, PLEASED (2013) tried to demonstrate that the low cost of plants, their pervasiveness and sensing capabilities makes then powerful means to be employed as interface for physical computing systems. In this case the authors have a different approach, using plants as an interface and in same time to act as biosensors. The initial result of the project is an experimental set-up to record an open dataset of electrical activities of plants in reaction to gestures and stimuli.
The experiment can be described as a 3 electrode system placed directly into the plant’s steam. At while, the experiment is still undergoing and the algorithms for classification of different stimuli are under development as well as the integration of measure devices and sensors. Applying stimuli such as cuts, flames, electrical current, chemical and gases, it was possible to create an open datasetin order to construct a fingerprint from the signals generated by plants in reaction to each different stimulus.
Figure 3 “PLEASED experiment”, conceptual design diagram |
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3.3 Table-top community garden
Calderon (
2014) depart from the same point of this proposal when he states that third places are important to anchor our everyday experience. Accordingly with Oldenburg (1982), third places are spaces where people come together to socialize as individuals, being important to create social bridges and strengthen community sense. In this sense the authors tried to understand how ubiquitous computing which turned pervasive in third spaces (large displays and mobile phones) can support the interaction that already happens on such spaces.
In order to understand if collaborative interfaces can both encourage playful conversation between strangers while supporting long-term community interaction, they deployed an experiment in the field. It consisted in a LCD screen, a sofa and a box with plants, altogether supported by sensors, actuators and a mobile digital interface.
Figure 4 “Table-top experiment”(1) physical garden, (2) touchable projection, (3) display, (4) sofa with connected sensors. |
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Users were invited to interact with each other, inviting others to seat on the sofa. When the application senses two users seated, information to water the garden is displayed on the display, where QR-codes need to be scanned in order to activate a touch sensitive interface capable of turning on a water pump. The total number of people who’s watered the garden is also showed on the display.
Findings showed that, even using a relatively well know metaphor (the garden), the users felt intimidated by novel technologies like furniture sensors and interactive displays. Another interesting finding is related with the behavior of the users, whose were interested for other user’s information (name, picture, last visit), pointing that sharing these types of information between them can play an important role to engage users.
Figure 5 “Table-top experiment”; conceptual diagram |
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These experiments, although in early stages and not directly aimed to foster interaction in green public spaces, function as experimental cases of people-plant interfaces allowed by programming codes and electronic devices.
At School of Media and Design at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), a prototype, here called SISYS (simple system shell) is also being developed to test interactive features. The system should be able to recognize inputs such as temperature, UV exposition level, soil moisture and touch. An Arduino UNO microcontroller is employed to process, that will be send to both a water pump and a remote server running a SMS Chabot platform.
The figure 6 presents the conceptual system architecture:
Figure 6 “SISYS”; conceptual diagram |
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The concept diagram shows the different phases of the project, consisting in two stages: first a local input/output system based solely on set of sensors, actuators and the microcontroller, and the second stage consisting on the remote server system responsible to allow the communication between the mobile phone (SMS) and the microcontroller. The image 7 shows the schematics for the stage 1 and the image 8 and assembled functional prototype on this early stage.
4 Discussions
The innovation in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) can have been contributing to advancements not only in hard sciences, but also in social sciences, art and design. In the case of urban and landscape design in particular, physical computing and IoT can contribute to push its boundaries beyond their traditional limits and contribute to new urban experience. The cases presented in this paper can show the possibilities and constraints posed to ongoing experiences in this field.
Figure 7 Schematics, stage 1 |
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Figure 8 SISYS prototype, stage 1 |
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The first experiment, “My green pet”, shows a simple but innovative interface which employs electrical signage to recognize different types of touch. But also, as a remarkably point is the lack of any mobile or desktop interface to interact with the plant. In this case, using gestures, lights and sounds, the interaction can grab the attention of the user in a playful strategy. The second experiment, “PLEASED”, while dealing with the plant as a natural sensor, also uses electrical signage, but rather than aimed on the final user, it can recognize any type of external agent capable of give stimuli to the plant. Finally, the Table-top garden presented is the only one specifically designed to public spaces, although the experiment was deployed in a closed room. Using displays as interface and a garden as a metaphor, this case shows that the interaction between users is the final aim, regardless the way to achieve. One remarkably point here is the group engagement, and how the experiment can foster contact between users.
Regarding the fourth experiment, although it is a work in progress, it aims to be a case (shell) able to host a persona. In this case, sensors should be able to fulfill this empty space with data regarding the plant and the algorithm process the communication between the interface and the user. In this case, the study case points that topics must be addressed and added to the future implementation for proper achievement:
1) Design of a playful interactive device based on non mobile interface.
2) Widening the range of inputs allowing the collection of bigger amount of data.
3) Foster group engagement between strangers.
The SISYS experiment is a work in progress, aiming to implement new methods and tools to foster the urban experience at public spaces. The design of urban and landscapes areas should incorporate in a critic way the innovations and advancements in the field of engineering and IoT in particular. The points added in this paper can contribute to future developments in our experiment and should be reported in the future.
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Figure 1 “My green pet”, design concept
