The final setup during course exhibition.
Our exhibition on Dutch Design Week 2024.
Many tried out the installation and we even had pleasant conversations with a visitor from the Municipality of Rotterdam.
Rerooting
Tweebosburt
Rerooting Tweebosburt is an interactive installation raising awareness of the gentrification problem in Rotterdam. The bricks represent Tweebosburt, a neighborhood in Rotterdam demolished in 2024. Through a course project in collaboration with the Municipality of Rotterdam, we explore the question of how uprooted newcomers here can reroot their new community, by uncovering the layers of history through this immersive interaction with these AI-driven "talking bricks" that tell the story and evokes your reflection. This project was displayed in the Brabant Pavillion during Dutch Design Week 2024.
2024
Interactive installation
Group project
A video showing the interaction.
Our exhibition on Dutch Design Week 2024.
Many tried out the installation and we even had pleasant conversations with a visitor from the Municipality of Rotterdam.
What does it mean to you to grow roots at a place?
Tweebosbuurt is a neighborhood in Rotterdam known for its social housing and diverse community. It was demolished in 2024 as part of an urban renewal project aiming to attract higher-income residents.
The context
What does it mean to grow roots for a person? Rooting here and now inevitably leads to a person's history; that is what one has been through with the place. Even in a digital setting, growing roots means having a concrete personal history. In a master course, the Municipality of Rotterdam came to us with such a question, and this reminded me of the gentrification problem in Rotterdam. It "uproots" old inhabitants, together with their history.
In such a context, how does one grow roots as a newcomer of these newly built neighborhoods? Our answer is to provide an interaction that exposes the past layers of history to newcomers, and serve as a foundation for their re-rooting.
Design goal
Our goal is to create tangible interactions for newcomers of Tweebosbuurt that tells stories about previous inhabitants of the community.
What is the user's role?
A conversation to tell the story?
How to tell the story?
Brick-user / brick-brick interactions
Prototype 1
The talking rock
A piece of rock that tellls you a story when being picked up, vibrating as it narrates.
Prototype 2
Conversation with a rock/brick
Added AI-powered conversation to the object.
Prototype 3
You become
the brick
Created a full experience with the AI object: with a beginning and an ending.
Who tells the story?
A rock from the rubbles of the demolished buildings?
Concept development
This project follows a Research through Design (RtD) structure, meaning that iterative prototyping is the main way of developing the project, and insights gained from prototypes support future explorations.
With the goal of telling a story with tangible elements, we came to the idea of "an object of the neighborhood that has come alive". During the conversation between the user and the object, the story is narrated. We gave agency to the object using generative AI, meaning it is embedded with its context and history, and converses with humans in a way that triggers reflection.
Final design decisions:
the experience
After iterative prototyping, we came up with a full experience with interactions between the user and "talking bricks", AI-powered objects that not only can talk to humans but can talk to each other. Through listening to their conversation, the user experiences the story in a podcast-like experience.
Final design decisions:
the set up
We also considered design choices on the physical elements. The whole installation is a pile of bricks, having the vibe of the ruined neighborhood, but also shaped like a bench inviting people to sit on and interact. The interactive bricks are embedded in these bricks, glowing while they think and speak.
Final design decisions:
the bricks
After several iterations of prompt engineering, we finally decided on the exact behavior of the bricks. The system consist of 1 "new brick" an 3 "old bricks". The new brick captures the user's personality through a series of questions, just like getting to know a neighbor. Then, the new brick will talk to an old brick based on where the user place it, in the tone of the user themselves. The 3 old bricks each has a story to tell, from their own perspective of the real lives of Tweebosbuurt's households.
Credits
This project is a group project created in collaboration of Eva Migayrou, Imara Stemvers and Hannah van de Ree. I was engaged in all parts of the projects and mainly contributed to the ideation and the technicalities of the installation.