During November, as the ‘Breda Architecture Month’, a lot of different activities were organised in Breda surrounding the theme ‘expand your boundaries’. Gebouw F (translated as building F) is a centre for architecture, city building and landscape in Breda and participated by organising a series of workshops on Saturday the 12th of November and on the 19th of November. Participants came from heritage institutions like the Breda Museum, creative industries like Electron and B-immotion and the local authority.
Participants of these Urban Sensing workshops were stimulated to think out of the box, to expand their boundaries and so to come up with new stories about the city by using the 7scenes tools.
The workshop was called ‘Design a digital citytour for Breda’. This workshop started with an introduction about the application 7scenes. Participants were explained how with 7scenes it is possible to link photos, videos, sounds and tasks to city locations, and so to create city tours. Participants were really interested in the limits and opportunities of the platform, and a discussion started about privacy.
After walking a sample tour, participants were split into four groups with one theme for every group. Themes were The Invisible City, Heritage: the City as Timemachine, the Temporary City and Streetart. After brainstorming and using a lot of post-its, each group came up with a concept for a digital tour. Ideas were organised and together the group searched for answers on questions like: what is the story? Who do you want to engage? What kind of interaction are you looking for?
Then the concepts were presented to each other.
Invisible city
With these theme, instantly people thought about the social side of the city. People make the city and each city had typical individuals, like a man with a chimney on his bike, or a man with a spectaculair motorbike. This team wanted to create a tour by making these individuals visible, not by approaching them directly, but by marking certain spots in the city as their territory. Users of the tour have their own suggestions and ideas when they think about these personalities, and so can complement their views to the tour. And so mysterious individuals become talked about as in a gossip or a rumour, spreading in the city by word-of-mouth. The team thought of this tour as a way to expand social involvement.
Heritage: the city as timemachine
This group focused on brands. Brands tell the story of the city, and Breda has a lot of brands like Hero and Enka. Brands connect people with each other and with the city, and everyone has its own memory of and connection with a certain brand. The city tour can make brands visible. The team thinks of brands as heritage, but a very accessible form. Everyone can contribute their story about a brand.
Temporary City
In Breda there are a lot of empty places where nothing happens at the moment and where, due to the crisis, nothing will in the near future. The locations disappear slowly from the collective memory, which the team thought was a wrong thing. To do something with these unused locations, the team created a concept with which people can vote for certain options to do with this location. Suggestions can be contributed and deleted and media can be attached. The best idea (or most voted for idea) receives a reward.
Streetart
The starting point of this tour is a picknick basket with certain objects. 7scenes sends the user to locations where a task has to be performed. The users leave objects, trade or take objects to other locations. In this way art is created. The growing process on locations can be exposed on 7scenes. Users create the art and the random passer-by can appreciate it. So, a dynamic artwork is created.
After the first day, participants of the workshop work on the concept at home. Media is collected and texts are written.
The second day of the workshops starts with building the tours. After 2,5 hours of hard work, the groups present the applications. The tour of the Inivisible City has become a quiz where groups have to answer questions with the aid of photo’s. The Heritage group has linked 19 locations with different brands. Later they will add photos and videos. Temporary City linked the tour directly to an existing website about unused terrain, called www.braak.nl. And Streetart starts the tour with a list of objects the participants should bring. Each location contains a certain task with which the art is created.
The workshops were a great start to make urban tours, and after these two days, Breda has four new city tours. Some groups have the ambition to really finish their tour so they can really be played by users. After walking the concept-tours together, the workshops ended and the residents of Breda can have a try.
More information can be found on the website of Gebouw F (in dutch).