Interactive Architecture Lab

We are so pleased to announce graduate has been awarded honorary mention at the Ars Electronica’s Prix Ars 2022 in the Digital Communities category.

Jury Statement
"The imagery of a social structure—be it a community, society, or institution—makes us think that it cannot be destroyed once we build it. But a religion without people practicing the culture, a democracy without people going to elections, or a community without participation means that structures perish. Therefore, we cannot take any social or societal achievement for granted. Social life is a recurring process of creation and destruction. This installation speaks to this very fundamental idea. Moreover, it highlights the unruly role of powerful forces seeking to destroy institutions dear to us. But the piece also contains a hopeful message: Even if the foe is powerful, we should not give up. Instead, the people persistently maintaining, re-creating, and re-building what they hold dear can persevere."

Director, roboticist: Kachi Chan
Project developed at: , 
Project advisors: , , Phaedra Shanbaum
Research: .pat
Creative technologist: 

Respoken by and is graduate project completed on our Masters in Design for Performance & Interaction asking the question Is there music behind the way we speak?
Respoken is an interactive installation that creates an experience from the user’s voice. A stage for self-expression and an invitation for intimacy manifesting the spirit in light and sound. The installation makes music from the way in which the user speaks, capturing the distinct tone, pitch fluctuations, rhythm, and timbre of our voices to create a symphony from vocal expression. Users can record speech over a microphone and listen to their words become music, in synchrony with light evolving around sound. Yet the experience is only as good as the story shared. The installation provides an opportunity to recall the experiences that shape our identity and vocalize them to listen to the music behind our words. Our respective memories are infused with personal meaning, and the way we express them carry the potential to create a personal soundtrack. The user’s individual expressiveness becomes the key and structure for personalized music; thus, every interaction is unique. The emitted sound and light interaction will depend on the content and length of the original recording. The repeated audio will mirror the length of the original input, but the sound will be completely different.

is a platform for local communities to preserve and share their stories and memories in time and space. It was created by graduates while studying their Masters in Design for Performance and Interaction based situated beside Hackney Wick in East London

The project is a community-oriented felt archive highlighting the sensorial exploratory feel of memory.
It consists of a physical interactive platform with an audio-scape composed of interviews the team conducted. The platform itself is made up of physical materials that reflect the physical history of the locality at hand. Users can explore the community’s history through a physical experience of it.
is accompanied by a digital platform which documents the growing archive and makes it accessible to all. Our first collaborator is Hackney Wick, a community in East London endangered by gentrification and re-development campaigns. Meant to serve as a resource for local communities eventually globally, seeks to provide an alternative way of remembering, feeling, and interacting with the world and people around us.
Ultimately, will expand to different communities and grow to be a large-scale archive of local communities. will serve as a resource for communities to learn from each other and help preserve and share local stories and histories on a global scale.