Peter Dalsgaard and Kim Halskov
Designing Media Architecture: Methods and Tools
1Introduction
In this chapter, we offer an overview of the methods and tools for designing media architecture. In our conception, design spans from initial discussions with stakeholders about the purpose and vision of the architectural outcome through concept development on to the final development stages. Media architecture represents a very clear and physical manifestation of the “information society” trope, in that it materialises information and merges it with the built environment, there for all to see. However, if it is to be accessible and meaningful, careful thought must be put into not only the technical implementation, but also the initial examination of the context in which media architecture will be placed and the potential effect on the people who will encounter it.
Given the large scope of media architecture design, the methods and tools involved are diverse. Some address the ‘softer’ sides of the process, e.g. aligning stakeholder interests and generating ideas and concepts, whereas others address technical challenges, such as creating prototypes with novel digital technologies. In order to bring structure to this diversity of methods and tools, we therefore organize our presentation into three phases of media architecture design: 1) preliminary research into context and use situations, 2) development of concept, and 3) mock-ups and prototyping. The methods and tools presented here represent the accumulated results of seven years of research and development of media architecture in our research lab, CAVI (Halskov 2011). In order to ground them in practice, we will show examples from three specific cases, in which we worked with a range of collaborators and stakeholders to create novel media architecture installations: Aarhus by Light, Odenplan, and the Expo Pavilion. We will first briefly introduce these cases, and then move on to the methods and tools employed in each of the five phases, before concluding the chapter with a summary and discussion of key issues.
2Three examples of media architecture design
To exemplify how methods and tools can be employed in media architecture design processes, we have selected three cases, in which our research and development lab has worked with external partners in real-life projects: Aarhus by Light, Odenplan, and the Expo Pavilion. The three cases are similar in terms of being large-scale installations in public settings, but also differ on a number of counts, for instance in terms of setting, purpose, and technologies, and thus represent some of the diversity that characterises media architecture. They also represent the development and refinement of the methods and tools employed in the field. Aarhus by Light was in many respects a pioneering project, which also means that many methods and tools were employed for the first time. Since then, they have been refined and developed, as represented by Odenplan, in which particular attention was paid to develop and tune the process, and in the Expo Pavilion case, in which a series of novel tools specifically for media architecture design were developed.
2.1Aarhus By Light
Aarhus by Light was an interactive media façade that engaged local citizens in new kinds of public behavior, in order to explore new possibilities of digital media in urban life, (Brynskov et al. 2007; Dalsgaard/Halskov 2010). The 700 m2 glass façade of the Musikhuset, the city concert hall of Aarhus, was fitted with 180 square meters of semi-transparent LED screen, which was distributed in a non-rectangular pattern behind the surface of the Musikhuset, facing an adjacent public park. Visitors to the park were met with a view of animated creatures crawling around the structure of the glass façade, along with a constantly moving outline of the Aarhus skyline, see Figure 1. Visitors interacting with Aarhus by Light. When visitors walked through the park, they passed through three interactive zones marked with coloured carpets. Once someone walked onto a carpet, a camera, together with custom designed software, identified the outline of the person’s body, thereby creating a silhouette on the screen. This silhouette encouraged a curious and playful investigation of the façade among the users, while enabling them to interact with the creatures, by pushing, lifting, and dropping them. The motivation behind Aarhus by Light was driven by research interests and curiosity, but was also supported by the concert hall management’s interest in challenging its own rather conservative image. They did not, however, in any way wish to influence the actual design.
2.2Odenplan
Odenplan is a projected metro station in Stockholm, Sweden. The building was designed by 3XN Architects for the Odenplan plaza in Vasastan, in the centre of Stockholm, Figure 2. For the exterior stairs of the metro, the proposal was to integrate bands of LEDs along each step. During the design process, three design concepts were created: Contours, Playhead, and Traces (Korsgaard et al. 2012).
Contours emphasizes the contours of stairs by drawing lines along their edges, followed by each step being lit slowly upward, together with other simple visual effects. Playhead and Traces relied on camera technology enabling identifying the position and movements of people on stairs. Playhead turns the stairs into a musical score sheet. Each step represents a stave, and the position of a person sitting on the stairs represents a note, which is played when a virtual playhead moves across the stairs. Traces creates visual traces of the people sitting or moving about on the stairs, (Dalsgaard/Halskov 2010; Korsgaard et al. 2012).
2.3The EXPO Pavilion
The Danish Pavilion at Expo 2010, designed by BIG Architects, was part of the huge 2010 world EXPO exhibition in Shanghai visited in total by more than 73 million people of which more than 5 million people visited the Danish Pavilion. According to The Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority “the aim of the Danish pavilion was to create an opportunity for visitors to experience first hand the feel of a Danish city”. The façade had a double-loop shape, and from some angles appears as two bands, one above the other. When unfolded, the facade of the pavilion yielded a 300-metre-long, 12-metre-high structure, with a wavy shape due to the helical form of the building with 3,600 holes of various sizes and configuration. These holes were equipped with light fixtures hidden behind PVC tubes, diffusing light uniformly. In daylight, the façade displayed flickering white animations consisting of white surfaces broken by lines, fades, or silhouettes of people walking or bicycling along the façade. In the evening, animations included shimmering, abstract graphics, sweeps, fades, and animations along the entire length of the façade. Colours were mostly restricted to white and red (Halskov/Ebsen 2013) Figure 3.
After this introduction to the three cases, we now turn our focus to the methods and tools involved in designing media architecture.
3Methods and Tools
Since the design of media architecture can span from initial explorations of potential project ideas to final implementation and integration of digital technologies into buildings and spaces, the methods and tools involved are highly diverse. In the following, we focus on three phases 1) preliminary research into context and use situations, 2) development of concept, and 3) prototyping in order to give an overview of central media architecture methods and tools. We have selected these both on the basis of our own work as well as extensive surveys of the field of media architecture in general and exemplify them using the three cases described above.
For each phase, we first describe the main characteristics and challenges of the phase. We then present tools and methods suited to support designers at each phase of the process and offer examples of how this has been accomplished in specific projects.
3.1Preliminary research of context and use situations
Although media architecture is often considered a highly technical discipline, the foundational work for designing new media architecture often begins long before specific technological considerations. Just as is the case with traditional architecture, the preliminary examinations of the context and potential use situations of a new installation are essential in setting the direction for the design process. It is often said that every design process is unique, and this certainly seems to hold for media architecture, since it is a field in rapid development, where the development of new technologies go hand in hand with the development of concepts and ideas for how to use them. Core activities in the preliminary phase involve 1) exploration of the location, 2) examination of potential use situations, 3) integration into new or existing architecture, and 4) negotiations and alignment among stakeholders.
3.1.1Exploration of location
One of the ways in which media architecture differs from other types of IT development is that the end product is typically tied to a specific location, which influences many of the subsequent design choices. For this reason, a good starting point for designers will often be to explore salient features of the location. This entails geographic concerns that might influence the project, such as weather and lighting conditions, the built environment, such as existing buildings, and sociocultural features, such as current uses of a space.
In practice, there is a range of design activities that can support designers in exploring a location. In the Odenplan case, the design team carried out a Site Tour in the early phases of the project. A Site Tour lets the workshop participants go to the site they are designing for or to a site with similar characteristics as the design site – either in physical shape or in the actions or situations taking place. The objective of a Site Tour is to sensitise participants to site-specific elements through an embodied experience of the site. While this can seem somewhat strange from the technical perspective that is often predominant in media architecture, research underlines how our physical bodies play a central role in shaping human experience in the world, understanding of the world and interactions in the world (Dourish 2004; Klemmer et al. 2006).
In the Odenplan case, the main architectural feature was a large public staircase akin to the Spanish steps in Rome. The design team therefore sought out a similar public staircase for the Site Tour to observe how this type of architecture affected social life, and to get a first-person understanding and experience of the place. The Site Tour thus focused on the qualities and constraints connected to a stairway area and its use as sitting area. It made the participants reflect on architectural elements such as points of view, physical positioning, etc.
In addition to Site Tours, design methods such as Bthere (Eriksson et al. 2006), see Figure 4, and Design Space Schemas (Biskjaer et al. 2014) can support on-location explorations of the location and context. In addition to facilitating specific ways of examining the site, these methods also offer designers concrete means of mapping and documenting these insights, by capturing it either on physical maps or in a schematic form.
3.1.2Examination of potential use situations
Thoughtful media architecture is based on an understanding of the use situation that unfold in the space in which it is introduced. While there are instances in which media architecture is placed in settings in which few and stable situations unfold, it will in many cases be deployed in urban settings with a diverse range of situations and rhythms. For instance, a public plaza may be a market in the morning, a transit area in the afternoon, and a place for gathering and socialising in the evening. The design of media architecture for such a setting must take all of these into account, for it is likely to alter them, either by reinforcing, transforming, or hindering them – or perhaps by fostering entirely new situations into the existing setting.
Aarhus by Light is a prominent example of an installation specifically developed to alter existing situations. Prior to the deployment of the installation, the park in front of the concert hall was primarily a transit space. A key objective of the installation was to transform this experience and use of the park. The installation was therefore designed to envelop the concert hall so as to be visible from the side, as well as from the front, and the zones in which users could interact were spread out so both people directly in front of the building, as well as people passing through main transit lanes would see and be able to interact with the installation.
Thus, the interactive façade, in combination with the Concert Hall and the park area, became a stage for new situations. These consisted both of intended use, for instance when passers-by used the installation as foreseen by the designers, as well as unforeseen and unintended use-patterns. A key design consideration prompted by the intention to transform the use situations in the park was to design for situational interaction flexibility, meaning that people could ease in and out of use: they could start by observing how other people interacted and how the façade responded, and then gradually enter and take over interaction if they wanted to. In effect, the use and experience of the park area and the identity of the Concert Hall changed. The park went from being a place of transition to a more diverse place where people still pass by, but with additional explicit hotspots in the interaction zones and the nearby areas. This indicates that the interactive zones have fostered new situations within the park. As a starting point for exploring the complexities of diverse and overlapping situations in the urban domain, McCullough (2004) has defined a number of ’situational types’ and their implications for interaction design. In addition, part of Alexander’s pattern language for architecture provides a rich language for urban situations (Alexander 1997).
3.1.3Integration into new or existing architecture
A third core design activity in the preliminary phase is to examine how technological components can be integrated into the planned architectural structures. In some cases, it entails integration into new structures, as in the cases of Odenplan and the Expo pavilion; in other cases, such as Aarhus by Light, it is a question of finding suitable ways of integrating the technological components with pre-existing architecture, be it buildings and/or physical surroundings. Media architecture can be a dramatic intervention, and this prompts designers to consider how it will impact not only the architecture of an individual building but also neighbouring structures, including plazas and streets. A further consideration is that the rapid pace of technological development on the one hand affords media architecture with a wealth of opportunities. On the other hand, it requires very careful consideration in order to avoid installations that quickly appear out-dated.
In the case of Aarhus by Light, the installation had to be integrated into an iconic concert hall, for which reason we had to very carefully consider how to create an end-product that both respected the existing building and added something new and worthwhile. One of the key design decisions was to avoid a huge rectangular display and instead make the display an integrated part of the façade. This was achieved by fitting semi-transparent LED panels into the existing steel framing of the building, and configuring the panels in an elongated, irregular shape. The integration of the display was also supported by having the content adhere to the existing concert hall architecture. For instance, the luminous creatures would be programmed to crawl up and down the steel framing. Furthermore, the positioning and semi-transparent appearance of the LEDs meant that the installation was visible both from the park outside the building, and from the foyer, thus offering something both for passers-by and concert hall visitors.
In the case of the Expo pavilion, the objective was to integrate the installation into a new building. As designers, we entered the process when the building shape had been developed by the principal architects, BIG, but the construction had not yet been undertaken. While this meant that we could not affect the fundamental architectural form, it did enable us to entirely integrate the installation into the building skin by using the 3600 holes that perforated it as fixtures for LED tubes that could function as individual pixels. On the technical side, it also enabled us to embed light sensors into each of the holes so the light of each pixel could be adjusted to the external lighting conditions. In terms of content, it also afforded us a thorough process of developing visuals that suited the very unique character of the building.
3.1.4Negotiations and alignment among stakeholders
Media architecture often affects a wide range of stakeholders. This entails both the developers, e.g. architects and interaction designers, as well as paying clients and the various groups of people who will in one way or the other be affected by the introduction of a piece of media architecture, e.g. traffic authorities, local businesses and shop owners, cultural institutions, and of course a variety of citizens and citizen groups who inhabit and make use of urban spaces. Development of media architecture will often take place as collaboration between architects and interaction designers. One of the recurring challenges for these cross-disciplinary teams is to align the architectural visions for a project with the technological potentials and visions. In some cases, alignment is reached both through negotiation, where members of the different involved professions develop mutual understandings and concepts of the end product; in other cases, it is reached in a more asymmetrical way, for instance when interaction designers are hired as sub-contractors to deliver a component of a larger piece of work developed by architects.
In the Odenplan case, the media architecture installation was to be a permanent part of a highly visible public transportation hub at a square in the centre of Stockholm. Firstly, this meant that there were a range of constraints in terms of rules and regulations to abide by, e.g. the building had to be permanently lit, which eliminated the option of using projections as part of the installation. Furthermore, it meant that many interests had to be negotiated and aligned in order to reach an end-product that would be acceptable. While there were key discussions between the architects and our research group in terms of developing an installation that would augment the architectural vision, there was also a constant alignment of the developed concepts with the identified needs and wishes of the public, e.g. metro travellers and residents living near the metro station. In the Aarhus by Light case, there were similar concerns for the local residents, in addition to initial negotiations between representatives of the concert hall, our research lab, the city architect’s office, and the lighting manufacturer. The concert hall had a natural interest in promoting their activities, the city architect in keeping a consistent architectural experience, the researchers in pushing the envelope and experimenting with novel forms of interaction, and the lighting manufacturers in getting a good showcase for their new LED products. All of these agendas had to be negotiated and aligned in order for the installation to be implemented successfully.
3.2Development of concept
Development of the basic design concept is at the core of all design projects. Media architecture is a distinctive field of design, since it is in rapid development with a constant drive to create novel products. Therefore, creative ideation and concept development is an essential part of media architecture. Media architecture designers not only use standard concept development methods but also ones that are customized for the media architecture field. A repertoire of such concepts development methods are 1) ideation, 2) sketching, 3) 3D modelling, 4) virtual video prototyping, and 5) 3D projection mapping.
3.2.1Ideation
Development of the basic idea or concepts is a fundamental aspect of all design projects and one of the widely applied methods for this particular activity is the inspiration card workshop methods (Halskov/Dalsgaard 2006; Halskov/Dalsgaard 2007). An inspiration card workshop is in its general format a collaborative design event in which domain and technology insights are combined to create design concepts. The technique is intended for the early stages of the design process, in which designers and stakeholders develop concepts for future products and systems by combining so-called Technology Cards and Domain Cards. The workshop is organized in three parts: introduction, combination and co-creation, and presentation of concepts; furthermore there is an initial preparation phase and a subsequent processing phase.
The inspiration card method was applied in a modified form during the main ideation activity for the development of the early ideas for the Odenplan media architecture. As preparation for the workshop a number of domain cards visualizing and representing the staircase structure of the outer part of the metro station was prepared. Likewise, a number of technology cards were produced, which visualized a diversity of display formats and interaction forms. Moreover, some of the technology cards showed examples of technologies that relied on emergent and open-ended interaction, which was one of the self-imposed constraints for the design process. In the standard way of setting up Inspiration Card Workshops, the two collections of cards would have been applied to generate the specific design concepts but for this particular workshop the presentation and discussion of cards only served as inspiration for the subsequent sketching activity, see below.
3.2.2Sketching
Sketching is in almost all design disciplines a well-established approach to developing and visualizing design ideas (Buxton 2007). Sketches are commonly created using pen and paper, but may also be remedied through the use of smart-boards and multi-touch surfaces. Another option is to combine traditional sketching with technologies such as projection, e.g. by projecting a background image onto a whiteboard and sketch on top of it. As a sketching approach, the benefits of projection are that it is cheap, easy, fast, and fairly easy for a wide range of participants to engage in. The drawbacks are that the output will typically need to be refined and transformed into other formats in the subsequent phases of the process.
In the Odenplan project, sketching was used in combination with projection of a basic 3D model of the metro station onto a whiteboard, Figure 7. A second projection on an adjacent wall enabled designers to display and browse inspirational material, see the above section. The participants in the concept-sketching phase could change both the inspirational sources in the background and the viewing angle and position of the 3D rendering of the model. By alternately sketching on the whiteboard and taking a snapshot with a still camera the designers created a storyboard, which served as a platform for subsequent visualization in the shape of video prototypes, see below.
3.2.33D Modelling
3D modelling is a key part of many architectural practices, and media architecture is no exception. There are a variety of software options available for designers, and the choice is often dependent on the specific subjects that designers wish to examine.
In the Aarhus by Light design process, we employed a variety of sketching methods, especially to examine how the façade would appear from different viewpoints, and to scaffold in-team discussions about the potential interaction zones and the layout of the display stretched across the building façade. An essential part of this process was a straightforward 3D sketching tool, Sketchup, which in comparison to most traditional 3D modelling software is very accessible and easy to start using, and therefore well-suited to quick explorations and joint concept development, see Figure 8. As stated, one of the important aspects of Media Architecture is the integration of display technology into physical structures, which are fundamentally three-dimensional. Except for a minor section of the LED modules, which was wrapped around the left corner of Musikhuset, the media architecture of this particular building was two-dimensional, whereas both the Expo 2010 building and the Odenplan architecture were both complex geometrical structures.
The 3D modelling tool 3DS Max was applied in several ways during the design of the Expo pavilion and the Odenplan metro station. In the Odenplan case, the interaction designers created a 3D model of the out-door staircase-structure of the Odenplan station. The model consisted of two parts, the building structure itself and the LED-strips integrated into the edge of each of the stairs. Animating the light of the LED-strips enabled the production of short videos, which visualized the dynamics of the three proposed media architecture solutions. One of them only visualized the dynamics of the light whereas the other two also included animated figures siting on or moving around the staircase-structure. Such visualization are particular suitable for addressing interactive aspects of the media architecture installation.
For one of the main workshops during the Odenplan design process, the basic 3D model of the Odenplan building was available on a large 3D stereo display providing designers an opportunity to interactively explore the metro station itself as well as the city-square and surrounding buildings. Here, the 3D model was thus used as a means of exploring the already developed building model and understand how it would be perceived, and through this get a better foundation for making design decisions about the media architectural components.
3.2.4Virtual video prototypes
3D modelling tools may not only be employed as stand-alone tools but also as platforms for more complex design approaches such as virtual video prototyping and 3D projection mapping. Virtual video prototypes are videos produced using virtual studio technology that makes it possible to combine videos of physical objects, including people, with video images generated in real time from digital 3D models.
Halskov and Nielsen (2006) explain the basic principle of virtual studio productions in the following way. Physical objects, including people, are filmed in a blue studio while the positions of the cameras and the focus and zoom adjustments are registered. These data are used to render a corresponding virtual camera view in a 3D model The two pictures, one taken by the real camera and the other by the virtual camera, meet in a keyer, where the background colour in the picture from the monochrome TV studio is removed and replaced by the computer-generated picture, see Figure 9. Using real people, as opposed to animated models of people, enables the creation of more realistic visualizations of interactive elements of the media architecture. Moreover, a virtual video prototype is a very concrete form of visualization.
One of the three Odenplan concepts, Traces, was visualized as a virtual video prototype, providing a visualization of how people interacting with installation would appear, see Figure 10 (Dalsgaard et al. 2016).
3.2.53D projection mapping
Another sophisticated application of 3D models is 3D projection mapping, which provides an additional opportunity to visualize the integration of a unique interface into the building. 3D projection mapping is based on having an accurate 3D model of the physical part of the installation, see Figure 11 (Dalsgaard/Halskov 2012). In the digital 3D world, we can produce digital content corresponding to the shape of a physical object, whichmay be subsequently projected onto the physical model of the installation, thereby augmenting the physical object.
Projection mapping has been used for implementing media architecture installation in a number of cases, for instance the City Hall in Sugar Land (Pop 2012; Falck/Halskov 2013). In the case of the Expo Pavilion, 3D projection mapping was applied in the design process by projecting the exact pixel configuration of the Expo Pavilion onto 1:100 scale physical model. Using virtual 3D technology, the model showed the holes as they would be illuminated on the pavilion and simulated the sunlight and cast shadows, Figure 12 (Halskov/Ebsen 2013). This 3D Mixed Reality tool was based on technology recently developed by our research laboratory, in order to match physical objects with their virtual 3D counterparts, and thereby add visual content to precise locations on the object, (Dalsgaard/Halskov 2012).
The physicality of the mixed reality model made for a valuable visualization for discussion among the members of the design team, and also made it possible to visualize the display in relation to the building in its totality, which turned out to be a powerful way to explain ideas to the collaborating architects. The main projector was mounted in the ceiling, and designers could walk around the table on which the model was placed, and share their views on the design.
Gehring et al. (2013) has developed power full a media façade toolkit consisting of separate modules for interaction, application, 3D model and rendering, which in one of the test cases has been applied for visualizing a media façade by projecting on miniature model similar to the 3D projection mapping in the Expo case. The media façade toolkit has also been applied for the development of prototypes.
3.3Prototyping and mock-ups
For the phase following development of the basic design concept, a media architecture project takes on a more technology oriented focus in order to identify how the design concept may be implemented. One of the main challenges for media architecture designers is that interfaces are non-standard in particular with respect to the display itself. As discussed in detail by Halskov and Ebsen (2013) media architecture extends into three-dimensional space and may have any shape and often with pixels part of the visual expression of the media architecture. Moreover the pixels of conventional displays are organized in a grid or matrix structure whereas there is no standardized way of organizing pixels when it comes to media facades. Another challenge is the physical integration of the technology into the building itself. Both of these aspects may be addressed by two of the most prominent design approaches, 1) mock-ups and 2) hardware prototyping.
3.3.1Mock-ups
Mock-ups are low-tech design artefacts that simulate future technology by using physical materials such as cardboard, paper, wood, and slide projectors (Ehn/Kyng 1991), but may be created by combing such physical material together with electronic components. Since Media Architecture consists of innovative combinations of display technology and other kinds of physical components, the use of Mock-ups is a very productive way to facilitate testing of the integration of the interface into the built structure.
In the early phases of the Expo Pavilion case, the designers created a full-scale mock-up of a section of the building, in order to experiment with how to turn the holes in the façade into pixels by mounting light fixtures behind PVC tubes, Figure 13 (Halskov/Ebsen 2013). A number of experiments led to a conclusion with respect to which combination of light fixtures and PVC tubes produced the most uniform light distribution. Moreover the experiments revealed that the shape of the individual pixels depended on the viewing angle, that is, from a very acute angle a pixel would appear as a circle whereas from a less acute angle as a crescent. A smaller section of the mock-up was used for testing the idea that the building would react to the amount of natural light, which was explored by integrating a light sensor reacting to a shadow cast on the surface of the building.
3.3.2Prototyping
A prototype is a software implementation of part of a system, for instance selected aspects of the interface or a particular part of the functionality (Floyd 1984). In the later phase of the design process, the prototyping activities typically focus on testing and exploring the hardware technologies. In the case of Aarhus by Light, the designers and the engineers tested the effect of mounting different diffusers in front of the LED modules in order to explore how various kinds of PVC material affected the appearance and light quality of the individual pixels and the image formation. Similar tests were conducted during the EXPO project using a full-scale mock-up of part of the building, see below.
The Odenplan project also required a detailed investigation of the LED technologies, which potentially could be applied for the implementation of light sources mounted along each of the stairs of the outdoor part of the metro station building. The software engineers tested various solution to the problem of controlling the individual pixels of LED strips as well as mapping conventional matrix-organized pixels on to a set of curved LED strips.
A more conventional prototyping approach was applied during the design of the Aarhus By Light installation. Aarhus by Light was the design team’s very first large media architecture project and in order to explore the visual aspects (the perceptual qualities and resolution) of the LED panels a single module of the panels was mounted in one of the windows of the façade of the design lab, see Figure 14. Such a very basic prototype enabled the exploration of various content and provided the opportunity to test the resolution of the LED modules in full scale. During the Aarhus By Light prototyping process custom developed software enables the designers to map a video signal onto the irregular configuration of low-resolution LED modules.
Within media architecture the development of specialized prototyping tools is widespread. One example is the Lightbox developed by Wiethoff and Bloeckner (2011), see also (Wiethoff/Gehring 2012), which is a collection of hardware components providing people with limited technical skills the opportunity to create simple prototypes of elements of the media architecture.
4Summary
The methods and tools described here represent the core components of our approach to media architecture as developed through seven years of carrying out projects in a range of settings. Table 1 offers an overview of these tools and methods in the three overarching design phases.
Tab. 1: Methods and tools for the three design phases.
| Phase | Tools and processes |
| Preliminary research | Exploration of location |
| Examination of potential use situations | |
| Integration into new or existing architecture | |
| Negotiations and alignment among stakeholders | |
| Development of concept | Ideation |
| Sketching | |
| 3D modelling | |
| Virtual video prototyping | |
| 3D projection mapping | |
| Prototyping and mock-ups | Mock-ups |
| Hardware prototyping |
In our experience, media architecture design processes often unfold in an iterative way, and designers gain new insights along the way that cause them to revisit and revise aspects they had previously worked on. For instance, prototyping may reveal that ideas about how to integrate technologies into a building may not hold up in practice, prompting the need for new concept development workshops to reorient the design process. Similarly, the development of virtual video prototypes may support negotiations and alignment with stakeholders because they clarify and concretise aspects of interaction that can be hard to communicate.
The approaches have been inspired and informed by other practitioners in media architecture and related fields, e.g. urban planning and interaction design. They offer a starting point for practitioners venturing into media architecture to develop meaningful installations. However, the field is still new, so existing tools and methods are continuously being refined, and new ones being developed. This is likely to continue, in part because media architecture spreads into new domains, in part because the available technologies develop at a rapid pace. In continuation, we do not consider these methods and tools to offer a fixed approach to design processes. Rather, they can be seen as a collection from which designers can select the methods and tools that are best suited for a given design process.
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