Haven Stad Interactive Dinner Table
URBAN PLANNING CONVERSATIONS \ URBAN PLANNING CONVERSATIONS \
Hogeschool van Amsterdam
CLIENT
Floda31
Arcam
TIMELINE
4 Weeks
👆 INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
🏙️ URBAN PLANNING
🎓 STUDENT PROJECT
Haven Stad is an upcoming neighbourhood development in Amsterdam, that plans to create close to 70,000 homes and 58,000 jobs by the year 2050. But the general public is not really aware of this.
The Gemeente Amsterdam along with Arcam aims to engage future citizens in the urban design and decision-making process and that’s basically the brief for our project - to design a way to involve future inhabitants in imagining a future sustainable Haven Stad that works for them.
PROJECT ROLES
DESIGN RESEARCH
MOTION DESIGN
GENERATIVE AI
VISUAL STORYTELLING
THE BIG PROBLEM
Our concept was centered around the primary issue that most plans for urban design and development are put out in the form of maps like this. And while architects and urbanism enthusiasts (like me) love a good map, most people outside that ecosystem don’t.And our hypothesis is that when citizens aren’t able to envision future plans easily, they are less likely to form an opinion on said plans. And when they can’t form a clear opinion, they tend to not engage in conversations about them.
THE DINNER TABLE
Our concept was centered around the idea that we need to create a setting to help spark conversations. A space and context in which people are used to bringing out opinions, hot takes, discourse and even heated arguments. The Dinner Table.
We designed an interactive exhibit where our participants or “neighbours” would sit at the dinner table with a digital “window” next to them. The view from the window overlooks Haven Stad in it’s current form - a port-side industrial area in Amsterdam. Along with the view there’s also a host which invites the neighbours to the experience and gives you instructions on how to proceed.
MAKING CHOICES
The table was laid out with plates for the participants and four trays filled with a selection of “snacks”. Here, each tray represents a question about their preferred lifestyle and the snacks are different lifestyle choices that they can choose from. The neighbours are instructed to pick up the snacks and place them on their plates. And this activity acts as a way to get their preferences out on the table.
THE VIEW OUTSIDE
Once the neighbours have all added their preferred snacks to their plates, the view outside the window transforms into a speculative future view of Haven Stad. And how is this view built? Based on the choices that the neighbours have made, we analyze the preferences and extrapolate those behaviours to changes in the urban landscape and show what that future looks like. These are created using Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney and Runway ML.
We also show the participants how much they individually align to the scenario shown outside. Based on the choices made, some align to it more than the others. And this proved to be a good catalyst for conversations about their decisions, the impact on their neighbourhood and their opinions on it.
THE TAKE-AWAY
We included a closing element to wrap-up the experience on a personal level and offer a way to further engage with the project if they choose to. It started just as a pun referencing a “takeaway”, but led us to designing a mobile extension that each neighbour could take on their phone before leaving the table. Here, they could find an in-depth description of the scenario corresponding only to their personal choices, share their experience, and explore more about the Haven Stad project.
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE WITH IKEA
After we built the experience prototype and exhibited it at the HvA Master Digital Design Studio, we got an opportunity to present it to some amazing people at the IKEA Digital office in Amsterdam. Big thanks to Miranda de Groot who leads Service Design for Circularity and her colleagues Adriana Chiaia, Harriet Kay and Marijke Moll.
It was nice to get feedback from people who work on products and experiences designed living and working spaces while keeping innovation and sustainability at high priority.
Coincidentally, their office was located in Minervahaven - which is part of Haven Stad!