Designing the Augmented City
by Ronald Lenz

Ronald Lenz
Research head Locative Media @ Waag Society
Creative Director @ 7scenes
Strategist, technologist and researcher in
location-based mobile services and experiences

Waag Society
Medialab in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Creative technology for social innovation
Education, Healthcare, Arts&Culture, Sustainability & Public Domain

7scenes
Mobile and online platform for creating, publishing,
playing and sharing GPS games and tours

The City is forever changing...

The City is forever changing...

The City is forever changing...

The City is layered
Di!erent layers with di!erent tastes: historical, social, economical,
cultural, religious and much more
But most are often hidden and not linked

The City is personal
You’re connected through friends, family, work, memories,
places, emotions and always have been and always will be...

The City is mobile
Mobile as in an ever-moving stream of information, goods and people

The City is mobile
Mobile as in connected through mobile phones
Used for internet, navigation, tracking, communication, media recording
& playback, games, hyper-local services and more
insert latest mobile internet and gps smartphones stats here
Yes it’s true what they say: Mobile is the new Mass Medium

The City is virtual
We know this - we have been mapping the City for quite some time now

The City is designed
no longer just by traditional urban planners and architects
shaped by geo-tagged tweets, wikipedia notes, reviews, user photos &
videos, check-ins, gps games, mobile interactive tours, AR local search

The City is designed
but it’s not always a deliberate design
new rules apply - the City is a new design paradigm

The City is designed
how do we want to see the city?
which experiences do we want to design?
we’ve only just started and we need new tools!

A new platform

7scenes
Mobile and online platform for creating, publishing,
playing and sharing GPS games and tours

Create & Publish
All web-based, easy drag&drop interface
Select & configure templates such as role-playing, trading, treasure hunt
& interactive story
Add tasks, photos, videos, sounds, notes & rewards to locations on a map
Publish for events or to everyone

Play
Navigate places live on a map
Location-based interaction: view media/content, perform tasks,
upload photos and notes, pick up rewards
Multi-user gameplay: confrontations & trading, message with players
Collaborate with web-player

Share
Set up scene pages for your project’s communication
All interaction can be broadcast live
All player interaction is archived for playback later
Share your project with widgets

Project
Designed for use by organisations such as schools & universities,
museums, tourist boards, event organisers, publishers and more
Use for any kind of purpose and content
Full administration control to manage content, editors and users

And never forget - The City is playful

Some of our cases

Amsterdam Realtime
A new collaborative realtime map of Amsterdam

N8
Geodrawing competition during annual museum night

Futuresonic festival
New location-based festival report

Sarai, Delhi, India
Creating psycho-geographic maps & mapping the Old Delhi City wall

Frequency 1550
Educational mobile game blending mediaeval history out
in the streets of Amsterdam

Mobile Learning Game Kit
Full toolkit to create mobile ‘lessons’ with
collaboration UvA and Medialab Amsterdam
A full set of production tools

Amsterdam City archive
Extending exhibitions onto the streets

Anne Frank house
Exploring Anne Frank’s neighbourhood as she did over 60 years ago

Games Atelier
Learn by creating and playing mobile games
a full educational program, available in all Dutch schools

Timemachine
Traveling through the Dutch Golden ages in your car

Rituals
Personal religious journey through Amsterdam

The Mystery of the Colonel’s Ghost
Discover the secret behind Adelaide’s first urban designer
The Mystery of the Colonel’s Ghost
Discovering history, the city & people

The map - collect symbol sets at locations
Cut out the decoder

Re-architect
Photographic treasure hunt exploring Hong Kong’s architecture
Think like an architect for a day
Collaboration HK Design Institute and Polytechnic University

Fort Amsterdam
Role playing game about Dutch roots of NYC
Strong theatrics and physical gameplay

Fort Amsterdam
Role playing game about Dutch roots of NYC
Strong theatrics and physical gameplay

The Island
Urban game on shared trading history of Amsterdam and NYC
Connecting the two cities in real-time!
Players trade like merchants did 400 years ago
Respond to the changing market values determined by historic facts

Global Gincana
Combining traditional Gincana with mobile gaming: Mobile Gincana
Creating cultural games for students in another city and playing them
made by students from another city
Connecting Sao Paulo/Brazil and Amsterdam/Holland

So what’s next?

The City is a platform
In
-- the ‘Open City’ all services will be connected and
the City will have an API for 3rd party developers
--
But what should these new designers take into consideration?
--
--
--
--

The City is a stage
Create experiences that change people’s perceptions of the city
(we will have location-based information services in abundance)
Think theatrical and playful performance - always remind yourself to
fully make use of the physical City and everyone and everything moving

The City is a stage
Find synergy between location, physical objects, mediated content,
narrative, gameplay, people and activities
People are intrinsically active, they just need the right trigger
(we’ve all been kids)
Sharing the experience is important, both in the moment and after
“It’s about the story stupid” - combine all tools / media / channels needed
Prototyping is the only way - you never get it right the 1st, 2nd, ... time

The City is yours!
Yes it’s yours - you are the new urbanists!
So what kind of scenarios are you thinking of right now?
What are the opportunities and challenges you see in the near future?
What kind of technological breakthrough would really help you?
What do you demand from new mobile urban design toolkits?
Which talents are required to create a lasting immersive experience?

Thanks! Any Questions?
ronald@waag.org
linkedin.com/in/ronaldlenz
twitter.com/rlenz
slideshare.net/rlenz