I/M/D x Living Lab Scheveningen: Data awareness in digital public space

September 2020 – February 2021

The Hague is increasingly committed to being a 'smart city'. To this end, it is experimenting with the use of data and digital technologies in public space. The goal of a smart city is to increase the quality of life by organising the city more efficiently. By deploying these experiments, it is necessary to increase data awareness among the citizens of The Hague.

To stimulate this, the Province of South Holland and the Municipality of The Hague have started a collaboration with second and third year Interactive/Media/Design students of the Royal Academy of Art.

Challenges for the Smart City Living Lab Scheveningen (LLS)

Earlier, a Smart City Living Lab was realised on the boulevard of Scheveningen. The Living Lab Scheveningen (LLS) offers citizens, companies, co-governments and knowledge institutions the opportunity to start innovative projects to make the city 'smarter' but also to address the additional challenges.

Despite the development of 'smart' cities, few citizens appear to be familiar with the concept of the 'smart city' and have little knowledge or understanding of all the specific technology and policies that the term stands for. Meanwhile the development of the smart city has important implications for their privacy and security. It is therefore important to find a way to increase citizens' data knowledge and involvement about the smart city. The theme fits well with the curriculum of I/M/D, therefore they have been asked to think about the following issues:

What interventions can be done in Living Lab Scheveningen to create data awareness and/or strengthen the (knowledge) position of citizens?
What does a common (visual) language on data and privacy look like? And how - infographics, apps, art, newsletters - can we communicate with citizens using this (visual) language?

Students have been working in groups on the subject and theme. The collaboration is supervised by lecturers Pawel Pokutycki and Dave Willé. The aim of the collaboration is that a few of the developed concepts will actually be realised on the boulevard of Scheveningen!

Concepts-visualisations

Guardians of the Dunes - The protectors of the dunes

by second year I/M/D students Jihae Cha, Pam Breedveld, Flóra Lazin, Olivia Stenslunde

Guardians of the Dunes concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Guardians of the Dunes concept visualisation
Guardians of the Dunes concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Guardians of the Dunes concept

Technology, data and nature come together beautifully in 'Guardians of the Dunes'. In the context of data collection and data use, nature as an important factor is often forgotten. This project starts the dialogue between nature and the visitors of Scheveningen by means of animatronic (moving) sculptures of local animals, the Guardians of the Dunes.

Swarm

by second year I/M/D students Merel van Altena, Thijs van Kuijk, Iseult Pigot, Bregtje van Jole

Swarm concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Swarm concept sculpture visualisation
Swarm concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Swarm concept app visualisation

The 'Swarm' project brings two things together: a physical statue and a VR visualisation of leftover data from visitors to the boulevard. A swarm of herring - representative of the historical site of Scheveningen - represents the data left behind that swims through the installation.

The Data Flâneur

by third year I/M/D students Marco Dell'Abate , Xiaoyao Ma, Jeroen Meijer

Data Flaneur concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Data Flâneur technical drawing
Data Flaneur concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Data Flâneur concept visualisation

The project 'Data Flâneur' is about the human connection with technology. Data is brought to life in an interactive laser installation where visitors are challenged to walk and are made aware of their connection with data. The interaction makes visitors aware of the digital and physical presence of data in a smart city.

Data Souvenir

by third year I/M/D students Roberto Romano, Isabelle Nair, Sarah Sarah Hoogman, (Simbu) Samriddhi Ghattak

Data Souvenir concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Data Souvenir postcard (front) visualisations
Data Souvenir concept for Smart City - Living Lab Scheveningen
Data Souvenir postcard (back) - data awareness

The 'Data Souvenir' project combines new technology with a familiar and old-fashioned form of communication: postcards. The postcards, which are made by the users themselves, show how Living Lab Scheveningen generates the data of the public.

Click Polution

by third year I/M/D students Lorenzo Quint, Alexia Moutaftsi, Mariela Popova

Garden of Data

by second year I/M/D students Luiza Miranda Rosa Awad, Anh Do, Sandra Veerman

Sonar

by third year I/M/D students Wies Mobach, Melisa Hadimoglu, Gaetan Langlois-Meurinne

Project details

Partners

Municipality of The Hague and the Province of South Holland

Assignment

Design concepts aiming to increase citizens' data knowledge and involvement about the smart city

Year

2020-2021