Title:
Space specific urban challenges for the design process

Abstract:
Starting with the hypothesis that: ‘the design process and its results can be strengthen by an improved conceptual framework and a better understanding of the potentials and meanings of the space that we design for’ this ph.d.-project will research into: how we can understand, maintain and further develop the potentials of space in the design process.

The field of interaction design is in the middle of a turn towards the urban setting. This raises new challenges because the urban setting is characterized by situations that differ from situations in the work and home contexts that we were formerly designing for. The urban turn also means that the digital layer in urban space is facing an explosive growth as digitalised culture, events and communication moves into urban space and thereby into places that was not originally planed or intended for digital use. Technology thereby becomes a co-creator of urban space and the actions carried out in it.

In accordance with the above mentioned development, it has become relevant for the interaction design field to create a new conceptual framework and to evolve new methods and techniques, what will help designers to meet the challenges that occurs when we no longer designs for well-known contexts, but for the unpredictable life in urban space.

The project is founded in an iterative, empirical structure in which a conceptual framework, methods and techniques will be put forward, examined and adjusted in different research cases.