1Introduction

Architecture has embedded media into its surfaces for centuries where classic examples include hieroglyphics in Egyptian temples, stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals, large murals such as the Sistine Chapel, and Baroque church facades. Building surfaces have been used to depict religious stories or information to city inhabitants however rarely has there been an opportunity for the citizens to create their own media on architectural surfaces. Technology has been argued to provide the means through which more people can gain control over their environment and contribute further to the information that can be accessed or displayed on or through the built environment. Building on previous discourse regarding the ability of media architecture to be more open and accessible for the purposes of community engagement (Caldwell/Foth 2014), this chapter explores a particular case study that was designed, constructed and implemented with the intention of allowing city users to participate in the development and creation of media architecture, the InstaBooth.

In this chapter, we first explore DIY (do it yourself) and DIWO (do it with others) phenomena to examine what motivates the DIY cultures, communities, and practices. It is critical to understand the driving forces behind these movements as they point towards a post-neoliberal trend where people actively occupy, shape and influence some of the spaces freed up by government deregulation. An example is participatory placemaking and urban planning that sees people become empowered over their surroundings and contribute to improving their local communities, relationships, and knowledge. It is in this context that we explore the concept of DIY / DIWO media architecture – as a shift of practice exclusive to media and architecture professionals, to one that promotes the interactions of laypeople for their own sake and purposes.

Secondly, in this chapter, we define and discuss our implementation of a DIY / DIWO media architecture example, the InstaBooth. The InstaBooth project provides an opportunity to question the effectiveness of a DIY driven media architecture artefact to see to what extent it impacts on the experience of its users and for what benefit. This case study highlights the challenges and limitations of such an approach in an attempt to provoke further iterations to continue to allow for city dwellers to not only participate but to lead change making in their communities. In terms of the thematic focus of this book, we argue that media architecture uses information and media as a construction material for the creation of citizen led communities of inquiry and practice that can shape city making.

The DIY phenomena is evident in the huge success of such commercial chains as Home Depot in the USA and several prime time reality TV shows such as The Block12(in Australia). Such media and commercial driven entities have capitalised on the fact that individuals are interested in improving, constructing, and designing their immediate living environments. These commercial entities and many more have made the DIY concept into a recognisable and almost brand of its own. However, if we look beyond the somewhat superficial branding of the DIY concept, we see that it is much deeper and meaningful.

The DIY movement reflects the value people place on craft and the skills required to create handmade and bespoke artefacts versus the skills of experts (Gauntlett 2007; Francisco 2007). Web 2.0, participatory culture, and ubiquitous mobile technologies have contributed to people’s ability to do things themselves by allowing them to connect, communicate and share knowledge across the globe to do-it-with-others (DIWO) (Gauntlett 2007; Kolbitsch/Maurer 2006). The sharing and open sourcing of information goes beyond the DIY / DIWO creation of artefacts to include the creation of experiences, technologies, skills, cities, places, governance and urbanism (Caldwell/Foth 2014). We have previously discussed each of these different aspects of the DIY / DIWO movement and categorised them into three different domains (Caldwell/Foth 2014): 1. DIY technical which includes for example fablabs and hacker-spaces; 2. DIY spatial focusing on placemaking such as guerrilla gardening, yarn bombing and graffitti; 3. DIY social which includes the concept of DIY Citizenship (Ratto/Boler 2014) including such events as Park(ing) Day and DIY Urbanism (Iveson 2013).

We discuss the DIY social category in more depth as it allows us to interrogate the meaning and effects of the DIY phenomena in terms of the social and urban context. Ratto and Boler coined the term DIY citizenship as, “a term intended to highlight the diversity of ways citizenship is enacted and performed” (Ratto/Boler 2014 p. 4). It includes the diverse ways that people act as individuals or come together to creatively improve or change their communities for their own purposes. Similarly, DIY Urbanism leads to a bigger picture view of how small or local interventions in urban spaces, such as guerrilla gardening, create new opportunities, meanings, or functions that are linked to each other to transform the overall experience of a city (Iveson 2013).

2DIY Media Architecture

We previously argued that applying the DIY approach to media architecture has led and could lead to a type of media architecture that allows for more laypeople to be a part of the creative process of media architecture initiatives in order to promote community engagement and foster genuine citizen empowerment (Caldwell/Foth 2014). Understanding the basis for DIY and DIWO cultures is a key aspect to the development of DIY media architecture. Examples of DIY media architecture not only aspire towards producing a bottom-up outcome, it is the process, the design, and development that entails a DIY approach and fundamentally seeks to provide a genuine voice or communication means for the local community or the public at large (Caldwell/Foth 2014).

We identified that one of the biggest challenges for DIY media architecture to become commonplace or part of everyday practices is technical knowledge. Other challenges include the design process and governance of media architecture projects, access to public spaces, frameworks, structures, buildings, and policies. We therefore proposed five strategies to help overcome these challenges (Caldwell/Foth 2014):

So why is this important? In part one of this book, M. Hank Haeusler explains that neither content nor technology are the sole answer to successfully creating media architecture that is truly interactive with the public and goes beyond mere entertainment or advertising. He argues that the design process should acknowledge primarily the content of the media architecture, secondly, the space in which it is located, and thirdly, the technology used to create it. Could perhaps applying a DIY approach to the media architecture development be a possible solution?

In an attempt to explore and implement these strategies and answer these questions our team has devised a media architecture prototype: the InstaBooth.

3The InstaBooth

The InstaBooth, as seen in Figure 1, has been defined as a pop-up, multimedia booth designed for the purpose of community engagement. “The InstaBooth provides an engagement and discussion platform that leverages a number of bespoke display and interaction technologies in order to facilitate a dialogue of ideas and commentary. The InstaBooth blends multiple digital and analogue interaction modalities into a hybrid community engagement space” (Johnstone et al. 2015). The InstaBooth is an example of media architecture allowing users to participate and interact with it and each other by writing a note, drawing a picture, hug a pillow, tweet, text, drop a pin, and more.

Based on our previous research and outcomes from conducting urban interventions around Brisbane, Australia, we were able to identify objectives, characteristics, and approaches for the InstaBooth project from the onset. Acknowledging the value of involving stakeholders in the creation and development of their cities is a valuable aspect of architecture and urban design. Through the interactive capacity of media architecture there is rich potential to involve more people in community engagement (Caldwell et al. 2012). Therefore, providing a voice for all people is the fundamental objective of the InstaBooth prototype. Applying a DIY and DIWO approach was critical to all aspects of the design, development, and implementation of the InstaBooth. Response to place through situated engagement (Schroeter et al. 2012; Schroeter 2012; Scheible 2010; Parra-Agudelo et al. 2012) guided the location of interventions. Building on the research of Dalsgaard, Dindler and Halskov (2011) and Kortbek (2008) we designed for engagement and interactivity by ensuring that the urban intervention should be: 1. accessible; 2. easy to use and understand; 3. relate to the context of the space.

In the following sections we will give an overview of our goals, our approach, and the outcomes we achieved.

3.1The Design Process

In response to strategy number 1. Transdisciplinary teams, the InstaBooth project was conceived by a group of academics from the Urban Informatics Research Lab, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and comprised the disciplines of architecture, computer science, interaction design, interior design, urban planning, and business. An international partnership was also developed with academics from the California Polytechnic University (CalPoly) at San Luis Obispo in the U.S.. The initial concept of the InstaBooth as seen in Figure 2 takes the idea of a telephone booth further by implementing a range of interactions that are both physical and digital – originally intended to engage the community on urban design issues.

Implementing design strategy 2. Participatory approaches and methodologies, we undertook a vigorous design approach in collaboration with industry and community partners that employed a series of co-design workshops to assist in the simultaneous evolution of both the architectural design of the structure and the interactive components within it (Caldwell et al. 2016). The co-design workshops, Figure 3, were hosted in the studios at the School of Design, QUT where practitioners, architects, interaction designers, academics, undergraduate and post graduate students were invited to attend. In parallel our colleagues from CalPoly were using a design brief we provided in their architectural design studio. From a set of six different designs produced by CalPoly students we chose one which suited our objectives best and continued to iterate the architectural design of the InstaBooth from there.

During the co-design workshops at QUT a range of off the shelf materials including large sheets of corrugated cardboard, paper, string, tubes, etc. were used to physically prototype different aspects and interactive components of the InstaBooth. Applying participatory design principles throughout the workshops guided the participants promoting collaboration and critical thinking across the different disciplines that were represented (Caldwell et al. 2016). Using the large sheets of cardboard we made a 1:1 scaled model of the InstaBooth structure as seen in Figure 4, which allowed us to use experience prototyping (Buchenau/Suri 2000) to bodystorm the components with non-architects. The large scale model allowed us to use our bodies to get a physical feeling and sense of the space provided by the structure. Participants were able to act out the interactions created for the InstaBooth and test their initial ideas with others. The structure had to be large enough to allow up to three people inside it at once while providing access from multiple directions. The space had to accommodate a wheel chair and be fully accessible for the physically impaired and safe for use by small children. Documentation of the workshops included drawings and sketches, photographs, and videos.

The design workshops allowed the team to make design decisions in an agile manner in line with the flexible and temporary nature of the InstaBooth design that would allow for it to respond to the local context in which it would be situated. The composition of the interactive modules would have to be tailored to suit each location and deployment, therefore the structure had to incorporate a swift exchange of interaction modules. It was critical to allow for a mix of both digital and tangible interactions to be accommodated to the InstaBooth structure with the intention to promote a range of users to interact with it despite their access or knowledge of digital technologies or ability to read or write (Caldwell et al. 2016).

As a result of the workshops, ideas for twenty one different interaction modules were established. Although all of the ideas are feasible and suitable to the InstaBooth, due to timing and funding constraints, only seven have been fully developed and implemented in the InstaBooth to date. The co-design workshops were successful mechanisms to generate interest from participants outside of the initial design team and their contributions have been valuable additions to the design development (Caldwell et al. 2016). The outcomes of the workshops also indicate that there are many possibilities for future development in terms of DIY / DIWO interaction design.

3.2Constructing the InstaBooth

Once the design concept was finalised the final model and documentation for fabrication were created. With the intention to adhere to design strategies #3 and #4, we open sourced the design files of the InstaBooth to enable sharing it with anyone anywhere, and to encourage others to modify and ‘remix’ the design, such as is the case with our partners at CalPoly. We opted to utilise digital fabrication technology such as CNC machining for this purpose. Along with the need for flexibility and agility, a lightweight structure, and the ability to transport the InstaBooth easily, guided the design decisions for construction techniques and material selection. The InstaBooth is constructed using 17mm black Formply, it requires minimal fixtures as the flat pack structure clicks into place using scaled up furniture construction methods. Initially a laser cut scaled model, Figure 5, was created to test the construction system and evaluate the overall aesthetics of the system.

The CNC files were created and machining of the InstaBooth commenced at the QUT School of Design digital fabrication workshop. The notching system used to assemble the structure required double-sided cutting of the plywood. This meant that the CNC operator had to be skilled and knowledgeable to be able to undertake the precision needed to do it properly. This also meant we needed extra time, materials, and resources due to the complex nature of the cutting. This in itself is a major challenge and although the design files can be open sourced it somewhat restricts the ability for reproduction. We acknowledge this as a design constraint of our first prototype and intend to simplify the design to allow for future iterations of the InstaBooth to be constructed anywhere with access to a CNC router in a less complex manner.

The structure, doors, and housing of technology can all be flatpacked and transported in the back of a pick-up truck or in a trailer. Assembly of the InstaBooth structure requires at least two people and can take approximately four hours13. More time may be necessary depending on the configuration of the interaction modules and the type of technology to be used.

4Situating the InstaBooth

During 2015 the InstaBooth was deployed around South East Queensland, and situated into the urban fabric in seven different locations associated with public events for community engagement and consultation purposes. The amount of data collected throughout the different events is extensive and varied. Based on these experiences with the InstaBooth, the following section will respond to design strategy #5 – new design strategies allowing for future tinkering, expansions, appropriations, and remixes – and the question; how can the DIY / DIWOapproach be implemented in media architecture?

As indicated previously the design process employed a participatory and co-design approach (Caldwell et al. 2016). Therefore we argue that the final design of the InstaBooth was the result of a range of stakeholders and participants from different disciplines and backgrounds. This was the first step towards a DIY / DIWO media architecture.

Recognising that the primary purpose of the InstaBooth is to ask questions of the local community by utilising a temporary and creative approach to solicit questions from a range of participants, we found that the focus has to be on:

4.3Interacting with the questions

How are users interacting and responding to the questions?

As previously mentioned the interaction modules of the InstaBooth are digital, physical and tangible, or a mixture of both. The purpose for this is to attract responses from a range of participants regardless of their knowledge of, or access to technology, or ability to read or write (Parra Agudelo et al. 2013). The people responding to the questions are the ones who create the content of the media that is displayed in the InstaBooth, they do it themselves and with each other. Because the content is created by the users, the content is indeterminate, we may prompt the response but we – the project team or the InstaBooth itself – have little control over what the content will look like, what it will say, or how people will respond to it. The project team have shared the responsibility of moderating the comments with the actual users, as they tend to be aware of and remove inappropriate comments. The indeterminate nature of the InstaBooth content provides a unique characteristic, where it is surprising and continually evolving. We have found that people do return to see how it changes over time, from one day to the next.

In each deployment the general public have been curious about the InstaBooth and many people used it. It is helpful to have someone associated with the project or event at the InstaBooth to invite users into it and help answer questions about the booth, how to use it, or the project. From our observations and interviews with participants we can conclude that people generally respond to the questions with genuine interest. The open yet anonymous ability for users to comment seems to provoke honest responses. Many participants have indicated that the overall design of the InstaBooth, the fact that it is open on all four sides and can be seen through it, gives it an overall inviting feeling of openness. The pop-up nature of the InstaBooth appears to surprise and attract people into it.

When asking participants why they used the InstaBooth there are three major trends. There were many people who had something they wanted to say, a particular issue or concern they have pertaining to the place in question, and found the InstaBooth a useful opportunity and platform to share their voice. Secondly some people spent a lot of time going through each interaction and reading other people’s comments and responses. They were interested about what other people had to say and wanted to learn from others. Lastly the third trend is that users were playful and curious. They were attracted by the technology and pop-up personality of the InstaBooth and were interested in experimenting with the different interactions. The majority of users wanted to know what the InstaBooth was about, why it was there and who was going to read the responses. They would engage with the InstaBooth once they realised that their comments were going to be read and assist in creating some change in some way.

As can be expected there were different levels of engagement with the InstaBooth where some people would use all the interactions and do all the questions, some would only do one or two, some would come back to do it later. Some people would simply watch others use it and a few would seek it out and follow it from different locations. There were many people who walked past and would not use it at all. These findings concur with previous experiences of deployments situated in urban public space (Dalsgaard et al. 2011).

Referring back to Haeusler’s discussion (in this book) of the difference between participation and interaction, we acknowledge that the InstaBooth provides a range of opportunities for people to express themselves, and it is through these expressions that an exchange of dialogue often occurs. People have commented on each other’s ideas directly or next to their piece of paper. Figure 6 is an example showing two different sets of handwriting in different colours depicting someone’s comments on another’s response. The dialogue often extended beyond the physical location of the InstaBooth through social media channels and through word of mouth. People congregated around the InstaBooth would start to talk about local issues inspired by the questions being asked and in some instances a sense of community building could be felt.

In other instances, it was observed that people would appropriate the interaction module for their own purpose. Instead of responding to the question being asked they would use the paper to ask their own question of others. During one of the deployments in the Queensland regional town of Pomona, the local yarn bombers, welcomed the InstaBooth into their town centre by decorating it with colourful knitted pompoms and animals, see Figure 7.

The adaptation of the interaction modules also occurred where participants would use the interaction in unexpected ways such as combining one module with another or using the tangible materials in unforeseen combinations or with different intentions. An example of this can be seen in Figure 8 where participants used papers from Print + Talk = Love on the Drop Your Pin interaction, because they felt the need to elaborate and explain their response, which was not an option through simply dropping a pin.

The moderation and control of the content to our surprise has not been an issue. The public have respected the InstaBooth, and it has received minimal vandalism. Negative or inappropriate responses have also been small in comparison to the largely positive comments. During its opening hours the InstaBooth has mainly been supervised or accompanied by someone, and it is their role to moderate the responses. However, we have observed that there have been instances where participants have done the moderation themselves. They have seen inappropriate responses and taken them down so that others would not be offended by the comment. This is an important finding as it indicates to us that the users have taken some ownership of the InstaBooth where they display respect for it, its intention and each other.

5Conclusions

Taking a DIY / DIWO approach to the design, fabrication, and implementation of the InstaBooth has been a useful methodology in creating a media architecture that attracts the attention of users and promotes interaction amongst them. The InstaBooth is largely perceived as a platform for sharing ideas. The strength of the InstaBooth lies in its design and combination of interactions that allow for users to combine different media inside and on the structure. Therefore we have been successful in achieving our main objective of prompting a larger cross-section of the community to respond. Although we have accomplished our primary goal there were challenges that go beyond the usual challenges associated with logistics such as time, funding, and space.

When initially conceiving a DIY media architecture prototype we envisioned the community members coming together to construct or create the interactive components of the actual InstaBooth structure. To this date we have not been able to reach that extent of the imagined DIY media architecture and it is here we must address the challenges associated with creating physical structures in public space. We acknowledge that there is a possible need for curatorial control, and general safety of the public. Also we begin to question the definition of public space, due to the fact that all of our deployments required permission to be granted by city council or property owners. There has not been an instance yet where the general citizens have deployed the InstaBooth when they wanted to, for their own purposes or asked their own questions. Although we can aspire to reach this level of citizen control over a media architecture such as the InstaBooth, the reality is that such physical and technical interventions require certain levels of management, knowledge and interest. The InstaBooth has limitations in that it requires access to an electricity and wifi source, and is not completely weather proofed impacting on the locations in which it can be placed.

There are many lessons that have been learned through each deployment from our collaborators and users. The InstaBooth asks questions of the people, and we have found that asking questions in a positive manner has helped promote positive responses. Also acknowledging that the information collected through the InstaBooth will inform some element of change. The InstaBooth works best in public space versus inside buildings. Signage and descriptions are required to inform participants of the expectations, the purpose of the InstaBooth and each interaction module, and inviting them to use it. The principal finding is that the communities we engaged with are seeking alternative avenues to have their say on a wide variety of issues ranging from the future of their city to gender equity. People are interested in learning from one another, sharing their ideas, and having a voice in creative ways.

The findings from evaluating our deployments of the InstaBooth show that the potential of media architecture goes beyond just combining information, media and physical infrastructure as a new form of construction material. Aristotle’s famous saying applies: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In the so-called ‘Age of Access,’ we still face many challenges and boundaries not just to accessability but also to usability, usefulness and impact. Quantity of data does not imply quality, and thus with more sources of content, spread via more digital media channels, to more people, we face the problem of information overload. Foth et al. (2015) point out that corporations such as Facebook and Google have deployed sophisticated filters and recommendation systems designed to help us navigate the otherwise bloated social mediascape. The content displayed on Facebook’s news feed is selected based on a user’s profile, their location, interests, habits, online transactions – what they post, share, recommend, and “like.” The popularity of social media stems from its power to create personalised spaces, walled gardens, which are tailored to individual preferences and favour content relevant to each user. Corporate algorithms proprietary to each social media site determine what is deemed relevant: With the absence of a journalistic or editorial code of ethics, these algorithms determine the make-up of the Facebook news feed, Google’s top search results, and the recommendations on whom to follow on Twitter and what to buy on Amazon. They are optimised to prioritise content that will generate more traffic. Yet, Lotan (2014) warns that, “We’re not seeing different viewpoints, but rather more of the same. A healthy democracy is contingent on having a healthy media ecosystem. As builders of these online networked spaces, how do we make sure we are optimizing not only for traffic and engagement, but also an informed public? … The underlying algorithmics powering this recommendation engine help reinforce our values and bake more of the same voices into our information streams.”

The compounding aspects of this polarisation of opinions in social media have been studied in political science and media and communication studies, e.g., echo chambers and filter bubbles (Pariser 2011). These issues in social media risk a political polarisation. Yet, there is an opportunity in media architecture where pretty lights and colourful LED façades are increasingly making way for situated installations, civic interventions and DIY / DIWO deployments fostering community engagement and citizen empowerment.

In our work, we found that the values and potential of media architecture is embedded in its capacity to provide an innovative avenue for fostering depolarisation, diversity of discourse, and a functioning public sphere.

In the next chapter of this book, Martin Tomitsch presents the notion of the city as an operating system and the development of city apps that plug into the data streams that are collected and shared through smart city initiatives. Although the InstaBooth does not display digital real time data like the IBM control centre in Brazil it does allow for the collection of data in various digital and analogue formats. Different to an API the InstaBooth’s data does not require a computer or smart phone to make the data visible and accessible to others allowing for future commentaries and the sharing of opinions. It is in this way that the InstaBooth can be seen to act as a city app. When comparing the success of the different interaction modules within the InstaBooth the paper based and tangible interactions consistently collect more responses than the purely digital interactions. This supports previous findings that handwritten responses tend to stimulate more meaningful responses from participants (Parra Agudelo et al. 2013) but also highlights the importance of the human factor in the data that is collected. The handwritten notes, the drawings, the playdough, these tangible and analogue data sets reflect the people who have created them, thus revealing the human quality and personal nature of the comments and ideas that are shared through the InstaBooth. We believe that it is this DIY human quality which helps to attract the interest of others and assists in stimulating engagement from more people.

When considering the future directions of this research there is further potential in exploring how the InstaBooth could improve its connection into the city’s data streams to assist in making such information more visible and accessible to all people. The InstaBooth could act as a physical porthole into the city’s data by leveraging its technological aspects to assist in visualizing the information but also allow for direct analysis, comprehension and discussion to be stimulated through its different interactive components. In the first section of this book Patrick Fischer and Eva Hornecker introduce urban HCI focusing on the creation of space to promote shared encounters. The InstaBooth creates a semi private series of spaces within the broader context of public urban space and through its interactive modules shared encounters are encouraged. Exploring these elements of the InstaBooth further could contribute to the growing dialogue connecting media architecture and urban HCI.

6Acknowledgements

We are grateful for research funding that the InstaBooth project has received from a 2014 QUT Engagement Innovation grant and a QUT Women in Research grant. We thank the InstaBooth project team, partners, collaborators and contributors for their support, interest, and continued enthusiasm.