Interactive Urban Elements Workshop

Workshop _Director

This workshop was set out to tap one of the pathways of interaction design. A lot of critique comes your way when you talk about technology in the developing nations. And maybe rightly so, if technology becomes an added responsibility to cater to as opposed to designing effective solutions to ease out transactions using technology as a tool. Through this workshop, The dichotomy of a context retaining its traditional roots of architecture and design and the agenda of the workshop to support this context with technological tools and fabrication was coming together in an arrangement for study and urban design inserts.
The chosen site and context was Ranwar. An area set in the heart of the Bandra suburb in Mumbai, It is a treat to walk around in the streets of Ranwar. A peaceful place of its own kind, tucked inside the hustle and bustle of the fast paced city of Mumbai.

We started detailing the heritage walk around Ranwar by detailing the walk with 12 spots in Ranwar to stop by for the experiences designed as a part of the walk. We froze on using QR codes in these spots which can be accesed by the phones . These QR codes takes the user to the website page which contains the information about the chosen experience for the heritage walk. The interactive heritage walk comes with a few experiences to choose from , like, the oral narrative or the comparative visual history , or sounds of Ranwar etc. to start off with. we planned to have many more such experiences to chose from after having a pilot project at hand.
The second idea was for the people of Ranwar as compared to the first idea which was catering to the people coming to Ranwar as visitors. This idea was to have an installation with origami inklings. A structure which could be folded when not in use but spread out to for a seating space for impromptu activities with an overhead canopy. This structure also houses a vertical wind turbine to generate some electricity from a natural resource such as the wind to light a few LEDS at the oratory , which is a celebrated area of the locals in Ranwar.