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Urban informatics

Conference Paper · January 2011

DOI: 10.1145/1958824.1958826 · Source: DBLP

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 Urban Informatics
Marcus Foth Jaz Hee-jeong Choi Christine Satchell
Urban Informatics Research Lab Urban Informatics Research Lab Urban Informatics Research Lab
Queensland U of Technology Queensland U of Technology Queensland U of Technology
Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia Brisbane QLD 4059, Australia
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

ABSTRACT was formed merging the Academy of Arts and the School
The increasing ubiquity of digital technology, internet ser- of Media and Journalism. It now comprises study areas in
vices and social media in our everyday lives allows for a acting, animation, creative writing, dance, drama, enter-
seamless transitioning between the visible and the invisible tainment industries, fashion, film, TV & new media, inter-
infrastructure of cities: road systems, building complexes, active & visual design, journalism, media &
information and communication technology, and people communication, music & sound, technical production, and
networks create a buzzing environment that is alive and visual arts. Across the board, technology provides innova-
exciting. Driven by curiosity, initiative and interdiscipli- tive opportunities for creative industries staff and students
nary exchange, the Urban Informatics Research Lab at in the creation of artistic and research works, as new outlets
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, for their creativity, and as a means of publishing, sharing
Australia, is an emerging cluster of people interested in and discussing findings and results. Social media and digi-
research and development at the intersection of people, tal technology enable networked performances and new
place and technology with a focus on cities, locative media cultural experiences.
and mobile technology. This paper seeks to define, for the
Founded in 2006, the Urban Informatics Research Lab is a
first time, what we mean by ‘urban informatics’ and outline
dynamic and fast growing team working across research
its significance as a field of study today. It describes the
and development at the intersection of people, place and
relevant background and trends in each of the areas of peo-
technology with a focus on cities, locative media and mo-
ple, place and technology, and highlights the relevance of
bile technology. Our team is transdisciplinary in that it
urban informatics to the concerns and evolving challenges
comprises and collaborates with architects with degrees in
of CSCW. We then position our work in academia juxta-
media studies, software engineers with expertise in urban
posed with related research concentrations and labels, fol-
sociology, human-computer interaction designers with a
lowed by a discussion of disciplinary influences. The paper
grounding in cultural studies, and urban planners with an
concludes with an exposé of the three current research
interest in digital media and social networking. Being host-
themes of the lab around augmented urban spaces, urban
ed by the Creative Industries Faculty, and specifically the
narratives, and environmental sustainability in order to il-
cross-faculty research Institute for Creative Industries and
lustrate specific cases and methods, and to draw out distinc-
Innovation at QUT enables our projects to embrace the
tions that our affiliation with the Creative Industries
creative energy of a range of disciplines across design, per-
Faculty affords.
formance, production and writing.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
Following on from the 2009 remarks about urban informat-
H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI):
ics in the Preface to [14], this paper attempts, for the first
Miscellaneous
time, to describe and formulate a working definition of
ACM Classification Keywords what currently guides the scale and scope of the Urban In-
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors, Theory. formatics Research Lab’s activities. Drawing attention to
Author Keywords
the relevance of urban informatics in the context of CSCW,
Urban informatics, urban computing, digital augmentation, the following section describes some of the key background
environmental sustainability, ubiquitous computing, perva- trends in each of the areas of people, place and technology
sive technology, digital cities, creative industries that we coalesce and take advantage of in the lab’s work.
Drawing out similarities and differences, the next section
INTRODUCTION reviews related research concentrations and labels in order
In 2001, the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland to position our work in academia and distinguish it from
University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, pervasive / ubiquitous / urban computing. This is followed
by a discussion of the history and disciplinary influences as
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies they pertain to urban informatics. Offering an illustration of
are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that cases and methods, the last section of the paper provides an
copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy exposé of the three current research themes of the lab
otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, around augmented urban spaces, urban narratives, and en-
requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
CSCW 2011, March 19–23, 2011, Hangzhou, China. vironmental sustainability. However, it is beyond the scope
Copyright 2011 ACM 978-1-4503-0556-3/11/03...$10.00.
and intent of this paper to report on specific findings of any related innovation in the place domain need to ensure the
of the individual research projects of the lab which are be- products of the information sciences deliver access, usabil-
ing reported in other research publications. Our goal here is ity and usefulness tailored to “a diverse and mobile urban
to define urban informatics. population” rather than elite experts only.
BACKGROUND AND TRENDS Finally, it is important to consider that “The City” as a con-
Urban informatics as a disciplinary domain is situated at ceptual category and abstract intellectual notion is an intri-
the intersection of notions, trends and considerations for guing but also dangerously complex entity to such an
place, technology, and people in urban environments. The- extent that its merits on this broad and encompassing level
se are now discussed in turn. We will then examine the way may not even be useful. Williams, Robles, and Dourish
in which these themes bring about a construction of urban [52] unpacked the assumptions underpinning “The City” in
informatics that has relevance for the evolving challenges a lot of urban informatics research and found a dense ecol-
of CSCW. ogy of impersonal social interactions occurring within rec-
ognisably public places. They argue for a hightened
Place
Simmel’s observation of the rising metropolitan life in Eu- awareness that accounts for local particularities between
rope at the beginning of the 20th century was that “[t]he cities as well as the broader global networks of connection
relationships and affairs of the typical metropolitan are between these sites.
usually so varied and complex that without the strictest Technology
punctuality in promises and services the whole structure The advancement of network technologies – most notably
would break down into an inextricable chaos” [46]. In re- the Internet – has offered ways to augment experiences of
cent years, there has been an epochal shift in urban densifi- ‘place’ in two contradicting ways. While wireless ubiqui-
cation across the globe. More than half of the entire global tous computing allows for interactivity in a place-
population is now living in cities. The UN Population Fund independent way across physical and geographical bounda-
[50] predicts that the urban population will grow even fur- ries, technologies such as mobile and locative media pro-
ther to reach 60% of the entire global population by 2030. vide access to place-specific information. Movements such
Thus planning, developing, and experiencing various infra- as ‘Earth Hour’ are a clear example of social networking
structures of the city, including social and technological, assisted by information and communication technologies
are becoming increasingly complex. As argued in [14], (ICTs) that can connect individuals and communities
such complexity necessitates a real-time examination with around the world to make an impact based on their shared
flexibility in macro-/microscopic perspectives to deal with beliefs [1]. In the current hybrid environment, many of its
both tangible and intangible constituents of the city as a constituents are becoming – if not already – the ‘Internet of
‘hybrid space’ [12] between the physical and digital. Urban Things,’ hinting at the potential of more inclusive interac-
informatics as a scholarly domain offers useful research tions (also thus exclusion) amongst people and other enti-
apparatuses for this type of examination. ties that jointly constitute society. We explore four trends in
Townsend [49] argues that, “the timing is certainly right. technology innovation further:
Urban planning is well into an undeclared crisis of thought First, everyday technology becomes more and more ubiqui-
leadership – despite it being one of the best avenues for tous: small, embedded and accessible anywhere, anytime
dealing with global challenges like climate change and [23]. Bell and Dourish [3] argue that the design and devel-
migration. Information science is poking its head out of the opment of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) as well as the
burrow and seeing the enormous intellectual challenge of ability to access information in places other than the con-
expanding what worked on the desktop of the elites, to a ventional ‘desktop,’ call for a better appreciation of the
diverse and mobile urban population.” Townsend refers to ‘messiness of everyday life,’ which ultimately requires so-
two trends: First, decision making support for the variety of cial and cultural research skills in addition to technical ex-
situations and the diversity of people in cities requires the pertise. Dave [11] compiled examples of such cross-
information sciences to deliver complex modelling and disciplinary studies in the field of urban ubicomp, which
simulation tools for urban planners which they can use to our research tries to enrich further. The findings of both our
represent the many aspects of the behaviour of cities and own [4, 39, 40, 42] as well as other research [10, 22, 31,
their inhabitants, including transport, utilities, facilities, and 36] corroborate our belief that the mobile phone will play a
the environment. It is hoped that such tools can assist with crucial role in expanding the means of participatory culture
rational decision making about future developments and in an effort to embrace and foster values of sustainability.
improve resource management whilst considering the di-
Second, as a consequence of widespread ubicomp deploy-
versity of urban contexts and environmental factors. How-
ment in urban environments such as sensor networks, loca-
ever, secondly, such tools should not stay just in the hands
tive media and mobile devices [43], the accessibility of
and power of professionally trained urban planners. Similar
real-time information enables a major transformation of
to the way Web 2.0 tools and services have brought about a
the way we perceive, understand and subsequently con-
more participatory Internet experience, neogeography and
ceive and plan city spaces [7]. Heralding the ‘real-time ii. The possible use of user-generated content for urban
city’, Townsend [49] writes, “Where we will see lots of planning (paralleling the rise of user-generated content
change is in the software that shapes cities. Embedded in other domains);
sensing will replace a lot of human watchers, and ‘watch’ iii. The related role of social networking, collective and
things on a frequency and scale we can barely imagine. But civic intelligence, and crowd-sourcing in urban futures;
what will be important is how these abundant data streams iv. The rise of technologies such as wireless Internet and
provide a new ability to model and simulate very complex mobile applications, and the impact of neogeography,
urban systems in real-time. Whereas today, urban manag- simulations and 3D virtual environments that repro-
ers and planners react on the time cycle of a census, by duce and analyse complex social phenomena and city
mid-century real-time dashboards and predictive models systems in urban futures, design and planning.
will rule the trade. ... If aerial photography showed us the
People
muscular and skeletal structure of the city, the revolution in The urban environment is increasingly conceptualised as a
urban informatics is likely to reveal its circulatory and complex techno-social network. The city, however, only
nervous systems.” meaningfully exists when it is occupied by a sustained
Third, our lab’s research goal to inform the design of real- stream of people. In this sense, people are the core of the
time mobile information systems that make the invisible city. From individuals to collective entities, people are in-
visible holds great potential to have wide-ranging impacts creasingly presented with opportunities to make their voice
on sustainable urban development. By being mindful of heard on a variety of issues. The proliferation of blogs and
these developments at the very outset of this research, as social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter
well as avoiding to pre-empt any conclusions (that urban proves that media produsage – referring to the convergence
informatics are good for environmental sustainability – are of production and usage as evidenced in the rise of user-led
they really?), we are guided by a balanced affinity consid- content creation [5] – is becoming part of everyday social
ering social, economic and environmental downsides. interaction. Individuals concurrently exist as constitutive
Ubicomp applications and devices require electricity, one nodes and users of the city as a network. Hence concepts
of the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions; in Austral- such as communicative ecology – which refers to the tech-
ia the combined domestic and workplace usage accounts nological and social context in which communication pro-
for one fifth of total national emissions [9]. However, as cesses occur [17, 26] – and network sociality [16] are
noted in the Stern [47] report, removing ‘barriers to behav- pivotal to understanding urban processes today. Urban en-
ioural change’ [34] is one of the essential elements in ad- vironments currently exist as communicative hubs whether
vancing opportunities for energy efficiency. Our work in it is in regards to convoluted copper cables or number of
this area, bringing real-time environmental data into the mobiles phones per capita and thus have greater potential to
homes and hands of the city dwellers via ubicomp, finds be the site for participatory culture that could bring about
vast potential for positive feedback and learning to better significant transformations in socio-cultural, economic, and
understand the impacts of personal and collective habits. political domains [29, 32]. As Shirky [45] observes, ‘here
comes everybody’ – creating and leveraging collective in-
Fourth, there is a trend towards Geographical Information
telligence via ICTs. As such, the main challenge to bring
Systems (GIS) and related tools that can be used by lay
about significant changes in societies is to ensure equal
persons and non-experts without intensive training. This
access to technologies and associated literacy skills.
new trend of GIS has led to the term ‘Neogeography’
coined by Di-Ann Eisnor of Platial Inc., which describes a The means to engage in participatory culture are no longer
notion of a ‘geography without geographers’ [48]. If neo- limited to the technically versed or the civically inclined.
geography introduces tools and services that allow non- Scholars such as Jenkins [28] and Burgess et al. [6] have
geographers to use advanced GIS, similarly, is there poten- identified socio-technical trends towards a wider, ‘vernacu-
tial for the emergence of a neo-planning paradigm in lar,’ ability of people to participate in digital culture
which urban planning is carried out through active civic through personal expressions of creativity. The implica-
engagement aided by Web 2.0 and new media technologies tions for citizenship, and especially cultural citizenship,
thus redefining the role of practicing planners? only start to be realised now. Urban informatics makes con-
tributions towards exploring the possibilities that can in-
In the face of these trends, as well as the continued and
form the tools, methods and practices of participation.
accelerated crisis in environmental, economic and social
Many examples of how participatory culture is enabled by
sustainability, a number of trends informs our work in ur-
recent technological innovation rely on so-called ‘Web 2.0’
ban informatics and specifically the possible role of com-
applications and services such as blogs, Wikipedia,
munity engagement in contributing to enhancing urban
YouTube, Flickr, and social networking sites such as Face-
sustainability:
book, which are arguably more open, collaborative, person-
i. Changes in the public sphere in terms of participation,
alisable, and therefore participatory than the previous
online deliberation systems, polity of urban futures;
Internet experience. According to [30], the participatory
qualities of Web 2.0 encourage ordinary users to make their coupled with the very essence of CSCW which seeks to
knowledge explicit and help a collective intelligence to support the processes through which collaborative interac-
develop. In an urban context, we argue that such capabili- tions are sustained. This is emphasized by Fitzpatrick [13]
ties present diverse possibilities for network socialities and who explores the way that place is constituted in the ongo-
the rise of a profound urban epistemology [16, 19]. New ing relationship between people in spaces and the resources
tools and practices, inspired by user-led innovation, are they use to meet their needs.
springing up faster than our ability to analyse them individ-
URBAN INFORMATICS
ually. Therefore, urban informatics does not focus on indi- Definition
vidual applications and sites but instead seeks to harness The working definition of what currently guides the scale
the underlying principles of participatory culture by build- and scope of the QUT Urban Informatics Research Lab’s
ing on Beer & Burrows’ [2] proposed three broad areas of growth is as follows:
investigation:
i. The changing relations between the production and Urban informatics is the study, design, and practice of ur-
consumption of Internet content; ban experiences across different urban contexts that are
ii. The mainstreaming of private information posted to the created by new opportunities of real-time, ubiquitous tech-
public domain; and, nology and the augmentation that mediates the physical
iii. The emergence of a new rhetoric of ‘democratisation.’ and digital layers of people networks and urban infrastruc-
tures.
Urban Informatics and the Evolving CSCW Challenges
The above process of discussing urban informatics’ three Urban informatics deals with the processing of information
tenants – place, technology and people –draws attention to particularly via network technologies, which comprises a
its relevance to disciplines with complimentary concerns wide range of urban constituents from the overall configu-
such as CSCW. In the context of Place: Like urban infor- ration of the city (such as the control and monitoring of
matics, CSCW research is actively reconceptualising no- resources through sensor networks) to the individual’s day-
tions of ‘The City.’ Harrison & Dourish [25] for example, to-day interaction with technologies (such as the mobile
are replacing implied notions of space with more specific phone and locative media use). While urban informatics
understandings of explicit notions of place. Indeed, urban shares similarities with pervasive / ubiquitous / urban com-
informatics, with its emphasis on ‘place’ shares a common puting, it is different from the others in its focusing on ur-
interest with one of the biggest evolving challenges of ban (and peri-urban) contexts as the site of technical
CSCW. The challenge of accounting for the way in which enquiry as compared to focusing on non-urban (rural) envi-
interactions are transcending the boundaries of the user’s ronment or technology itself. Urban informatics takes a
fixed desktop PC by moving into the heavily digitized transdisciplinary approach to understanding the city as an
world of personal and urban computing. As argued by [8], ecology that consists of technological, social, and architec-
place is integral for framing our understanding of interac- tural layers.
tions in increasingly complex environments that include Terminology
technology, physical and material resources, and especially, Within the last decade, the attention and interest in the area
other inhabitants. of urban informatics research and development has in-
Technology: Like urban informatics, CSCW perspectives creased in parallel with the hightened urgency and immedi-
highlight the way in which technology, through the process acy of trends in the three aforementioned areas of influence
of digitizing the city, alters our perceptions, our expecta- across people, place, and technology in urban environ-
tions and our behaviours in urban spaces. For example, ments. Related research concentrations and labels are in use
Palen & Sanusi, noting that a ‘blanket’ of wifi now covers to signify a shared interest and common passion for pro-
our cities, set about to see how this might impact users in ducing excellence and impact along similar research and
two every day urban settings – the coffee shop and the car development trajectories. Both the ‘people’ (urban sociol-
park [38]. As commercially hosted wifi seeps beyond the ogy) and the ‘place’ (urban studies and architecture) cen-
physical boundaries of the premises, users drew on both tred perspectives have a much longer tradition and history
space-based notions of ownership, and place-based notions than the technology aspect that emerged relatively recently.
of legitimacy to situate their own connectivity. In addition to the term ‘urban informatics’, one of the most
prominent descriptors is ‘urban computing’ that situates
People: A reoccurring theme within urban informatics is the focus of interest in a strong grounding in both ubicomp
the construction of city dwellers, not as segregated units and human-computer interaction design and research. Four
who might cross paths for moments in time; but rather, as collections of works have been compiled that set the scene:
participating members of a greater collective, diverse cul-
• 2006 ‘Urban Computing: Navigating Space and Con-
ture. Urban informatics seeks to understand the process of
text’ special issue of Computer, 39(9);
participatory urbanship more deeply in order to contribute
• 2007 ‘Urban Computing’ special issue of Pervasive
to an infrastructure that can better support connectedness
Computing, 6(3);
with each other and with places. This approach is tightly
• 2007 ‘Space, Sociality, and Pervasive Computing’ critically analyses the specificities of cities across the world
special issue of Environment and Planning B, 34(3); and their residents, as well as their contextual embed-
• 2007 ‘Urban Informatics: Software, Cities and the New dedness. Such sensitivity may establish a hightened aware-
Cartographies of Knowing Capitalism’ special issue of ness of the assumptions behind urban informatics [52].
Information, Communication & Society, 10(6). Urban residents need to be appreciated as differentiated
individuals that are situated in a variety of time and place
With its sharp focus on technology, the term ‘urban compu-
settings attached to a historical context of personal experi-
ting’ falls short of adequately representing the triad of peo-
ences. Social networks form between these residents and
ple, place, and technology that makes up urban informatics
commuters and visitors that move in and out of cities. The-
research, specifically the human element: people, citizens,
se connections nurture symbiotic relationships and ex-
urban residents, city dwellers, urbanites. ‘Informatics’ with
changes between urban, rural and remote areas. These
its implied reference to information systems and infor-
notions require further work to challenge and debate the
mation studies slightly shifts the attention – away from the
‘urban’ focus with a view to ask, how this research contrib-
hardware and more towards the softer aspects of infor-
utes to address issues and opportunities beyond the urban.
mation exchange, communication and interaction, social
Collectively, we are required to lead a debate that unpacks
networks, and human knowledge.
‘The City’ in order to appreciate its role in a broader and
Similar thinking probably guided Gurstein [24] who coined global context, as a node in a network of flows, as a centre
the term ‘community informatics’ (rather than for example, of a region, or as a capital of a nation-state. In leading into
community technology) to underline the attention that this discussion, we assume that the realm of urban infor-
scholars and practitioners in this field pay to the impact of matics comprises not just the physical city. Rather, these
using ICT on the socio-cultural and economic development inquiries touch upon other conceptual compounds that spill
of communities. Likewise, urban informatics research and over beyond the urban in a number of complex ways.
development is concerned with the impact of technology,
Disciplinarity
systems and infrastructure on people in urban environ- The process of creating a new disciplinary grouping – be it
ments. As such, urban informatics as a concept resonates consciously, unconsciously, purposefully or serendipitously
with Mumford’s [35] use of the term ‘technics’ (as opposed – brings about exciting new opportunities to build activity
to technologies), highlighting the active interplay between
and engagement around a critical mass of people who share
technological and social domains – or techno-social devel-
a common interest, understanding and approach towards a
opment – rather than a purely socially or technologically
research topic. However, the shared commonality of a dis-
deterministic approach to understanding urbanisation pro-
ciplinary grouping also brings with it a certain risk and
cesses and their impacts on society.
danger that – despite old silos being merged, linked, or
Urban informatics is a relatively new term. Rheingold [37] broken down – a new silo emerges. Our lab is multidisci-
may have coined the term in his article Cities, Swarms, Cell plinary in that it collaborates with research colleagues from
Phones: The Birth of Urban Informatics, in which he uses three main faculties at QUT, Creative Industries, Science &
the expression ‘urban informatician’ to refer to public wire- Technology, and Built Environment & Engineering, as well
less Internet advocate and researcher Anthony Townsend. as with other relevant research entities across the world.
More recently, there has been a resurgence of the use of the Additionally, the lab tries to dissolve the rigid boundaries
term ‘urban informatics’ in academic lexicon, starting with between disciplinary silos. ‘Nomadic’ researchers enter the
[14]. In the foreword, Townsend [49] offers two broad def- stage who enjoyed more than one higher education and
initions of urban informatics by synthesising the two con- traverse seamlessly between academic schools. The lab can
stitutive terms of ‘urban’ and ‘informatics’: “the collection, thus also be described as transdisciplinary, which
classification, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of rec- Rheingold, cited in [27], describes as going, “beyond
orded knowledge of, relating to, characteristic of, or consti- bringing together researchers from different disciplines to
tuting a city,” or “in a city.” work in multidisciplinary teams. It means educating re-
searchers who can speak languages of multiple disciplines
The assemblage of works and projects under the urban in-
– biologists who have an understanding of mathematics,
formatics banner does usually not discriminate against case
mathematicians who understand biology” [27]. This cita-
studies focussing on sub-urban (referring to separate resi-
tion represents the nature of the collaboration in our lab.
dential communities within commuting distance to a physi-
cal city centre) or peri-urban (referring to the area Building on QUT’s leadership in creative industries, new
immediately surrounding urban settlements) contexts. media and sustainable living in Australia, the Institute for
However, in seeking cross-disciplinarity, an undifferentiat- Creative Industries and Innovation (iCi) is one of the most
ed attention on the ‘urban’ may segregate rather than con- dynamic, fastest growing, and best resourced research cen-
nect with regards to non-urban areas such as rural and tres available for this work. A six-faculty research institute,
remote locations. In order to move the research agenda iCi places the multi-faceted research of the kind undertaken
forward, urban informatics needs to embrace a view that by the Urban Informatics Research Lab, at the core of the
university’s strategic commitments. iCi is also supported by • Designing Mobile Interaction for Serendipitous En-
and collaborates with the Faculty of Built Environment and counters and Direct Social Navigation in the Hybrid
Engineering and the Faculty of Science and Technology. Space (Mark Bilandzic)
Both bring valuable expertise in social media, computer • Enhancing the Experience of People in Urban Public
science, and sustainability to the team. Being hosted and Places through Context-Aware Mobile Content and
supported by iCi, strengthens this major element in its re- Services (Jan Seeburger)
search agenda, and enables the Urban Informatics Research
Urban Narratives
Lab to embrace the creative energy of a range of disciplines
Narrative based new media innovations, such as digital
across design, performance, production and writing.
stories, computer gaming, and location based scenarios can
CASES AND METHODS enrich community engagement in the urban planning pro-
In order to illustrate what this means in practice, the three cess. Community derived stories of the past and future can
research themes that the lab is currently working on are thereby inform policy and modelling to preserve heritage
now described in turn. However, it is not our intent to re- and yield more sustainable cities. This theme is the focus of
port on specific findings of any project. Profiles and publi- a research team comprising creatives, new media special-
cations can be accessed at www.urbaninformatics.net. ists, educators, and urban planners who research, develop
Augmented Urban Spaces and evaluate a suite of creative outputs and allied planning
Developers and governments around the world are still prototypes in two urban locations: Brisbane and Sunshine
struggling to achieve socially sustainable neighbourhood Coast. Comparative analysis provide insights into different
communities in master-planned urban developments. Re- regional dynamics and assist with the transfer of outcomes
search into the network characteristics of community in the to other communities.
Kelvin Grove Urban Village, Brisbane, informs the design This project supports new media creativity and literacy. It
of proof of concepts of viable new media and ICT applica- helps people participate in the urban planning process. It
tions: peer-to-peer publishing tools, social networking sys- assists in improving a sense of belonging and fosters hu-
tems, and locative mobile media. The new applications are man talent and socio-cultural values favourable to creativi-
trialled, and the impact of their use on enhancing the quali- ty and innovation. By empowering people to bring about
ty of community life in the Urban Village is being assessed. change within their local community, the project re-
This research theme hopes to deliver transferable technolo- invigorates a more contemporary interpretation of commu-
gies and knowledge to strengthen our social fabric. nity values in a knowledge society.
This program develops a better understanding of how urban The main project in this theme is entitled, “Remembering
neighbourhood communities can be assisted to grow in the Past, Imagining the Future: Embedding Narrative and
healthy ways by the use of social media. By careful atten- New Media in Urban Planning.” It is guided by an experi-
tion to cultural and social assets in the community, innova- mental approach towards public history, youth studies, and
tion is engendered which enhance economic and social social media. Key publication outcomes to date: [15, 18,
development. This leads to greater social inclusion, fair 33, 51]. Research student projects under this research
access to and smart use of information and services, urban theme include:
sustainability and healthier local economies. Understanding • The Heritage and History of Gasworks (Ariella Van
the opportunities afforded by digital augmentation of social Luyn)
networks helps us negotiate the complex web of daily • The Construction of Inner City Community Through
choices, access a greater social safety net and participate in Consumption (Michelle Hall)
the socio-cultural and socio-economic life of our cities. • School-Community Engagement: A Critical Approach
The main project in this theme is entitled, “Swarms in Ur- to Involving Young People (Ruth Greenaway)
ban Villages: New Media Design to Augment Social Net- • Knowledge-based Precincts in Regional Towns (Joan
works of Residents in Inner-City Developments.” It is K. Imukuka)
predominantly guided by a user-centred design approach Environmental Sustainability
informed by critical theory and cultural studies. Key publi- The Environmental Sustainability theme currently compris-
cation outcomes to date: [4, 16, 41, 44]. Research student es two main projects, the first on energy monitoring, and
projects under this research theme include: the second on food cultures. The first project, “Ubiquitous
• Augmented Urban Spaces: ICT to Bridge the Physical Computing to Bring Real-time Environmental Data into the
and Digital City (Ronald Schroeter) Homes and Hands of Queensland Residents,” argues that
• Understanding the Implications of Networked Social Australia requires decisive action on climate change and
Interactions for the Design of Public Urban Spaces issues of sustainability. This study explores ways to support
(Kirralie Houghton) people in making more sustainable consumer and lifestyle
• Creative Expression with New Media in Civic Spaces choices. User-centred design research informs the devel-
to Promote Active Citizenship (Jodie Reynolds) opment of real-time, mobile, locational, networked infor-
mation interfaces, feedback mechanisms and persuasive ness of this research work that is grounded in a variety of
and motivational approaches that assist in-situ decision real-world contexts and applications.
making and environmental awareness in everyday settings.
This paper was written in the hope that sharing the underly-
The study develops prototypes offering individual and col-
ing thinking and assumptions as well as hopes and aspira-
lective visualisations of ecological impact and opportunities tions of the Urban Informatics Research Lab in this public
for engagement and collaboration in order to foster a partic- forum will enable a level of constructive scrutiny that con-
ipatory and sustainable culture of life.
tributes to pushing the agenda forward. Although a variety
Raising people’s awareness with environmental data and of disciplinary influences are essential to bring about inno-
educational information does not necessarily trigger suffi- vation in this area, we believe that the net scale is still too
cient motivation to change their habits towards a more en- small to survive on its own without reaching out to build
vironmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle. This study new collaborative partnerships nationally and international-
seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond ly. In this sense, this paper is also an invitation to join this
just informing and into motivating and encouraging action growing community.
and change. Drawing on participatory culture, ubiquitous
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