Urban HCI: (Re)adapting the City Together

With growing urban populations, the World Health Organization has highlighted the importance of urban design for everyone. It is widely recognized that quality of life in the urban environment could be improved through participatory design that includes the active involvement of diverse citizens. Technologies can offer potential tools for such inclusive engagement, however, working together across disciplines and expertise presents key challenges. The design and infrastructure of cities is inherently complex and requires attention to inclusion, translation, sharing and communicating information in effective and constructive ways across diverse constituencies. This workshop intends to bring together a multi-disciplinary community of researchers and designers who are investigating theories, practices, methodologies and technologies of the city; how we live in and (re)adapt them to changing needs together with citizens. This includes technologies that support collecting data on, representing and sharing aspects of urban environments and experiences, architectural envisioning, grass-roots civic engagement, local government planning, activism and creative practice. Our aim is to map a multi-disciplinary agenda for the future of urban HCI.