The project let us consider what were for us completely new and never addressed factors of human behavior in “space”. Thinking and predicting possible behaviors of people in an architectural space required the development of several “models” in scale and in different ways, but, actually, during the construction of the model at “human scale” we increasingly became conscious about the problems and opportunities of our project.
In the concept phase, special effort was required to find a balanced “form” for a deep user experience, to modify their behavior, and to provide a level of information coherent with the theme and the mood, but not too invasive. “re-live” the colonnade has been the thing we always kept in mind, passing through many simulations and tests in order to find the right mix of experience and sensation. Moreover, the issues, not much explored, about religion and mystical sensation have been a challenge for Auditum: trying to look at the architectural space, the San Francesco della Vigna one, through the eyes of history and give impressionistic information, rather than direct, in a emotional way.
From the technological point of view, it has been very helpful to understand and use systems that allow communication between different elements involved in the environment: sensors and actuators. Of great interest has been look at Arduino and Processing as “control rooms” that communicate each other, and work together in sync for a common purpose.
We spent a lot of time thinking of the concept, building the prototype, testing several light sources, as well as looking for an effective and robust system and technology to ensure well working of the “sound interaction”. In particular, the audio research let us to try different methods in order to allow the user’s interaction. There have been many attempts, then, to prepare the prototype and set accurately the timing and the different possibilities of interaction.
The areas that still required to be developed are closely related to the actual construction of the interactive experience on-site. What we couldn’t fully develop has been the spreading of the incense and the use of thermochromic paint: they have remained partly unexplored. The high cost of sensors designed for the real project brought us to use, for the prototype construction, makeshifts that, however, work very well, even if limited, and let us understand and assess the mood, the experience and the interaction.
In conclusion, the team worked well together. Many efforts have been spent to convey ideas in a shared direction: sometimes not an easy goal. We have looked at rich discussion, different point of view, thoughts and scrambling as useful ingredients for the freshness, the colour and the flavor of the project.
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