Pop-up living labs:
augmenting physical space to facilitate co-design
Workshop at NordiCHI 2024, Uppsala, Sweden
augmenting physical space to facilitate co-design
Workshop at NordiCHI 2024, Uppsala, Sweden
When? 13th October
Where? Uppsala, Sweden
How? This is a hybrid workshop and we will combine different access modalities.
What will be the result? A set of resources including templates on how to set up a pop-up living lab. We are dreaming of writing a pictorial together based on this workshop, including our results.
Deadline: Extended deadline 2nd September 2024
Living labs are robust structures created with the aim to contribute to addressing societal problems by establishing long-term collaborations among various stakeholders. They are often heavily situated in a specific setting, whether physical or virtual, where stakeholders come together to collaborate. Being anchored in a particular space is a strength of living labs, but it can also be seen as a weakness: living labs can sometimes feel like sterile environments detached from the real-life activities and scenarios they aim to address. In light of this, we wonder: could we extend living lab methodology to support encounters where the living lab goes where participants are, and not the other way around?
In this full-day workshop, we will experiment with that methodological provocation taking the idea of “tiny pop-up living labs” as a conceptual point of departure. Through hands-on and reflexive activities, we will imagine how living labs could be built with an impromptu and ephemeral character, as participatory spaces that are created and emerging, but can also be “decaying”. Rather than exploring substitutes for the current approach to living labs, we will explore these pop-up variations as a complementing approach that might expand the affordances and applicability of this methodology.
The workshop welcomes anyone interested in living lab methodology, or more broadly in participatory practices in design. Prior experience with or expertise in living labs is not mandatory. To participate in the workshop, we invite prospective participants to submit a short position paper including by sending an email to katerina.cerna@hh.se latest 9th August including the following:
A short bio (150 words max.)
A statement of interest in light of the workshop theme and agenda (300 words max.)
Optionally, a brief account of the participant’s previous experience with living labs and/or living lab methodology (500 words max.)
You can download the workshop proposal here.
Preliminary program
Hybrid: meeting on-site and online
9:00 - 10:00 Introduction: Physical and digital sightseeing: mapping the local spaces where participants are based, finishing up with a tour of the THoW.
10:00 - 11:30 Identifying challenges: A discussion guided by the question “What would you want to achieve in your space?”. Regardless if it is an existing living lab, a place they want to turn into a living lab, or the THoW, we will explore which challenges and hinders participants experience when trying to enable, for example, creativity or community building in their spaces.
Including a 30 minute break.
11:30 - 12:00 Household appropriations: Participants craft mock-ups for the THoW or their own spaces, showcasing household appropriations that allow an investigation into how to augment the local spaces to foster the solutions to the above identified challenges.
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch break
Hybrid: working on-site and meeting online
13:00 - 13:30 Finishing up Household appropriations.
13:30 - 15:30 Speedy Householding laborations: Participants stage a scenario in their pop up living lab and document their experience via images and text on the Miro board.
Including a 30 minute break.
15:30 - 16:30 Collective Bonfire: in line with the idea of a sharing circle, participants share and discuss their experiences in a hybrid circle in the atmosphere of an imaginary bonfire in relation to possible group or individual steps.
Want to know more about NordiCHI conference? NordiCHI is a biannual conference on human-computer interaction, bringing together especially the Scandinavian community. This year it will take place in Uppsala, Sweden, between 13th and 16th October. It is possible to take part only in the workshop. More information on the conference here: https://www.nordichi2024.se/