#responsive environments

Time : 16:30 - 17:30

Weather : Drizzly rain, snowing in morning, wet ground

Today’s Observation

I sat in the window at starbucks and observed the square. Whilst conducting a general observation, I started to notice the way in which people were walking.

I counted the people over the hour and noted that they took two specific paths to get to the royal mile. First path going diagonally across the square and the second path (which seemed to be longer one of the two) going around and up.

Time: 17:00 - 18.00

Weather: Snowing on and off, raining and cold

Initial Observation

Around the main square there are many places, shops - cashmere shop, Starbucks coffee, restaurants - pizza place, bars and pubs. 

Hunter’s Square being behind The Tron Kirk, part of Edinburgh Heritage, a 400 year old building which during the summer functions as Fringe Festival Venue. Many people walking through to reach different places, to the royal mile or back and forth. 

The square is also next to South Bridge road which is a very busy main road filled with other shops, cafes and restaurants. 

There are bike racks where people can store their bikes, only one bike was noted there. 

Wow!  What about the installations like this? 

“Starfield is an installation where a swing is used to create a large interactive starry night. With a Kinect installed behind the swing and video projector, the software creates a galaxy of stars in which the user wanders with the rhythm of the swing.” 

Sounds quite feasible. Have to think about the ideas like this. 

-- Have a look at how it works in the video below: 

Observation 6 - 19/03/2015, 16.20 -17.20

The spot seems to be occupied by tourists again. People are resting and there is not much action here. Looks like there is need to engage people with the space. There are two way I could think to do it: to create something, which will be relaxing type of activity or something intriguing that would make them, reflect. I could try to connect both and make it playful as well.  I need to consider which part of the space exactly I want to use. I thought about the statue but it might be not possible to attach anything to it. The space near to church might be better for it. Maybe I should just use the middle part.

This blog is started a little late in the day. Its purpose is to document my observational study of a certain location in Edinburgh. These observation will then inform the creation (or rather mock-up) of a design fiction for a interactive intervention to be placed in the space, and an accompanying report.

Being from Glasgow and only really knowing my way from the train station to university results in my first challenge – choosing where to observe. I may attempt to use this to my advantage and choose an area on this route. As the location we choose must be observed on different days and at various times of the day being on this route well help as I can leave early for university or leave late it get a hopefully different picture or feel for the location. The coursework states that this should not be undertaken in an area I regularly frequent. That being said, I feel that walking as fast as possible through the area to arrive in time for class with headphones on – does not technically count as frequenting. 

An added benefit of this particular area is how busy it is with commuters at peak times, this should result in some very varied results monitoring at other times of the day.

Philip Beesley, Epiphyte Membrane

That video shows the final product in action. 

Steps performed:

Motion detection camera activated

CCTV camera is activated after signal from motion detection camera

pre-recorded message is played on CCTV camera activation /current message is: 'CCTV in operation'/

custom message can be recorded and then

added to the list and then reproduced