My starting point was something I’ve long been obsessed with – desire paths. Desire paths are the footpaths created by the public when the formal paved routes of a space don’t represent the most efficient, or desired, route between points A and B for the public, and they chose their own paths, their desired paths, as shown above. I wanted to find a way to capture the desired movement of people in a public space and use this incidental movement as a tool to enable a sense of contribution, connection and ownership between individuals and the shared spaces of the city.

Working with designer Jon Stam (centre, above) and programmer and Studio MSP guru Mattijs Kneppers (far left), we identified a space in the NDSM area of Amsterdam and set out to create a system to transform it into a platform for aesthetic narratives created by the movement of the public.

The beauty of only having a couple days to create a prototype for a project is that you instantly shift to hacking and rapid prototyping mode. So we grabbed a Kinect, some cables, a few blocks of Styrofoam, booked some time on a CNC machine, and went at it to communicate our idea. The full narrative outlining the concept and the playback system we devised for the space during night time follows. For those who want the quick walk-through of the concept, our summary presentation can be found at the bottom of this post; for an even quicker bite, here’s a video of us demoing it:

Concept Overview
We hacked the Kinect to serve as a prototype of a public camera overlooking the space, layering it with the ability to pick up a single object or colour on a visitor when they enter the space, and then remember that object and track it as it, and the person, moves through the space. If visitors to the space want to remain anonymous, they simply enter the space and walk through. If someone wants to take ownership of their movement in the space, they touch in at one of the check points with an RFID tag on their key fob, and they are given a unique colour path, which which they can draw something in the space, and then download an image of what they’ve drawn with their movement if they wish.

As the visitor walks across the space, his path leaves a trail in the grid of LED lights are embedded in the surface of the space. The next visitor to enter the space will see the trail left by the previous visitor, and other recent ones as the ghost of their travels are held by the LED lights in the pavement, each previous path fading slowly with time. The space holds a living history of its use throughout the day, and becomes a canvas for those who have ID’d themselves when they entered the space.

Night Time Use
The space holds the memory of its use at night. When dusk falls, a playback of the daily travels through the space begins, each path glowing and traffic patters growing as the timeline of the space’s use from the previous day is played back over night, as this video shows:

Through this playback of the day’s movement in the space, a relationship builds between those who use the space during the day and those who use it at night. The brightness and density of the light paths in the space at night will depend upon the traffic patterns in the space during the day – the more traffic during the day, the brighter the space will be at night. Ultimately, the normally ephemeral qualities of safety and security in the space at night become factors created and influenced by its use during the day.

For those who use the space both during the day and at night, the relationship between the two realities will form. Perhaps a few co-workers will be gathered to create some crazy shapes in the space during the day for them to enjoy as they come home that night. Or paths will be formed in circles to see if pedestrians at night will follow.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, every night, the design of the space will be different, directly correlating to the use of the space during the day, its animations, patterns and luminosity being the creation of those using the space 12 hours earlier.

Platform for Play
People are not the only thing able to be tracked in the space. Someone can place a ball on the square to be ID’d, and it will be tracked as well as it moves throughout the space. Children can enter from different entrances and invent a game where their movement become games pieces on a large urban board.

The space no longer becomes a passive area for its population, but an active participant in their daily lives, enabling creativity, connection, safety and narrative to be built during its daily use.

Platform for Data
In addition to the personal and narrative relationships enabled by use of the space, the space will generate data for use by the city. Data created by the space will be visual use patterns; data of the visual flow and use of the space.

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Urban hackers and DIY urban designers gather round: The Urban Guide for Alternate Use is hosting an urban design hacks competition to find the best examples of urban re-use and re-purposed urban design.

To encourage and celebrate resourcefulness in the city, EXCHANGE RADICAL MOMENTS! Live Art Festival is awarding a prize for the most innovative re-use of an urban object or area for a new purpose. The GO11 Award is a €500 prize for the best examples of design hacks and re-use in the city – the winner will receive €500, and their work will be presented in the festival magazine, published October 2011. Winning and shortlisted entries will also be presented as part of the Exchange Radical Moments festival in Berlin on 11/11/11.

I created The Urban Guide for Alternate Use as an online guide to urban design hacks and examples of individual design resourcefulness in the city. The response has been tremendous in the short time since it has launched, and I’m looking forward to discovering all sorts of new urban design hacks and re-purposed objects courtesy of the GO11 Award.

Please contribute your urban hacks and re-purposed design ideas or discoveries on the GO11 Award submission page here.

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It’s an interesting read, not least of which because it contains plenty of quotes from yours truly and references to my work with design hacking, but also because Hacktivist Otto von Busch, tinker.it‘s Brock Craft, and Emily Campbell of the RSA are all asked to chime in on the topic.

A good overview by ICON Senior Editor William Wiles, who curated a nice gathering of people and opinions which hopefully back up the quote attributed to me: “design hacking as reached the cultural zeitgeist now.”

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From Left: Paul Thompson, David Godber, Scott Burnham, Colin McDowell, Otto von Busch

For those who weren’t able to attend the launch of my publication and the related debate on design hacking at the RSA on Wednesday (and for those who weren’t even close but still want a copy) I’m pleased to say that “Finding the Truth in Systems: In Praise of Design Hacking” is now available for download here (PDF, 291KB).

It was a fantastic night – the panel was sharp and the audience was on form with questions and debate afterwards. One of the great pleasures when chairing an event is opening questions to the floor and having a sea of hands spring up in front of you. And for that to happen with a packed house in the hallowed Great Room of the RSA is a special pleasure indeed.

Winding down later that eve I was glad to see that some live tweets were taking place during the session. From joannejacobs:

With some dialogue carrying on into the next day. From jasecoop:

Thanks to all who came, and for those of you who are just downloading “Finding the Truth in Systems: In Praise of Design Hacking” now, let me know what you think.

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Street Market Hacking Stall, Hong Kong. Photo: Scott Burnham

To launch my publication “Finding the Truth in Systems: In Praise of Design Hacking”, London’s Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) is hosting an event on 14 October 2009 to open the dialogue on design hacking.

The RSA commissioned me to write the text as an overview and exploration of ways in which individuals are taking design decisions into their own hands by hacking, reconfiguring and reworking the products, systems and spaces that make up our lives. The publication and event are part of the RSA’s Design and Society programme, which states:

“Contemporary society needs to be more resourceful: its citizens more engaged, self-reliant and collective in their striving. A combination of professionalisation, bureaucracy and consumerism has reduced our resources of common competence and as citizens we often appear to be less resourceful than ever. At the same time our consumption has diminished the earth’s resources and we now have fewer resources of energy and natural material at our disposal.”

- Emily Campbell, RSA Director of Design

It is from this perspective that “Finding the Truth in Systems: In Praise of Design Hacking” is launched. Design hacking is the resourcefulness of the individual stepping in when the products and systems we are offered fall short. In the text I explore ways in which this is being done as a response to both the limitations of resources and economies in the developing world, and the imbalances which exist in the products, systems and cities of developed regions. I feel that hacking methodologies and philosophies hold profound benefits, as I explore in some of the topic areas in the text:

• Hacking creates new engagements between the product and the consumer
• Hacking mandates relevance and necessity in design
• Hacking is resourceful
• Hacking creates abundance from limited resources
• Hacking finds the truth in systems

And when it’s not being summised in bullet points, the text goes like this:

Hacking gives people a voice. Hacking creates new realities, options and possibilities from those we are given, whether commercial, social or civic. It offers forth the notion of a democratisation of design, by enabling the end user to be part of the process and not only on the receiving end of it. There is a triumphant message of individual resourcefulness and direct engagement when a hacker sensibility is applied.

Most of all, hacking is evidence of our fundamental self-reliance in spite of professionalism, bureaucracy and industrial supply. In many ways, it is a return to, or a rediscovery of, the skills which saw us through our pre-consumerist times, when ‘making do’ with what you had to hand required inventiveness. To relegate such activity to the realms of ‘amateurism’ is a dangerous dismissal, for it not only further deepens the ‘us and them’ disconnect between design and society, but ignores the vast potential of the creative energies at work outside established channels.

I will make the PDF of the publication available here after it is launched in dead tree form next week. For those of you in, near, or visiting London, I invite you to come to the event. Famed fashion hacker Otto van Busch will present an overview of his work, with Sunday Times journalist Colin Mcdowell, Dr Paul Thompson – RCA Rector and former director of London’s Design Museum and the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and David Godber of the Design Council joining to dig into the realm of Design Hacking. I will be chairing the evening.

The event is free, but booking is essential. For more details and to reserve a space, go here.

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