Extending Design Realities – Technologies for urban participation and resilience

Extending Design Realities – Technologies for urban participation and resilience

Have you ever felt lost in the city? Is it sometimes challenging to understand what urban planners are trying to achieve? Could emerging technologies improve public participation and make cities more liveable? Interpreting complex urban planning strategies can be difficult, let alone far-reaching future scenarios. In Augmented Urbans, we believe that better visualization with rapidly evolving extended reality (XR; augmented, virtual and mixed reality) technologies can make it all easier and more understandable.

Extending Design Realities delves into this topical intersection of XR technologies and contemporary urban planning. We explore how new technologies can assist urban planners in making public participation better for all parties involved – and how to design more resilient cities to tackle the increasingly complex challenges they face today and in the future.

Join us in discussions and networking, hear leading experts from XR and urban planning fields share their insightful and inspiring perspectives in keynotes, and experience fascinating XR solutions yourself in the newly established Helsinki XR Center!

Read a summary of days discussions in the Augmented Urbans blog

PROGRAMME

9:30 am
Registration and coffee

10:00 – 10:20 am
Welcome words and opening of Extending Design Realities, Anna-Maria Vilkuna and Auli Sillanpää Metropolia UAS

10:20 – 10:45 am
Extending participatory urban planning via XR
Gunita Kuļikovska, Vividly

10:45 – 11:10 am
Helsinki smart digital twins
Jarmo Suomisto, City of Helsinki

11:10 – 11:30 am
Architectural democracy
Pedro Aibéo, Aalto University

Break and discussion

11:40 am – 12:00 pm
Urban resilience and XR technologies
Stephan Barthel, Urban Studio, University of Gävle

12:00 – 12:20 pm
Modeling natural environment for all-around digital twin
Lauri Lemmenlehti, Plehat

Concluding words

12:30 – 1:30 pm
Lunch

1:30 – 3:00 pm
Open house at Helsinki XR Center – XR demos, lightning talks etc.

Optional walking tours on Metropolia UAS Campus, themed
– Industrial Design
– Interior Architecture
– Textile Design
– Media
– Conservation

3:00 – 6:00 pm
Workshop: Architectural Democracy

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Extending Design Realities is a pre-event for Cumulus conference 2019 in Rovaniemi ‘Around the Campfire: Resilience and Intelligence’.

Augmented Urbans (AU) co-develops integrated urban planning practices and more meaningful participation through Extended Reality (XR = VR/AR/MR) technologies. Co-funded by the Central Baltic Interreg and coordinated by Metropolia UAS, AU involves 4 countries, 5 pilot cities, and 10 partners.
Social: @AugmentedUrbans

Helsinki XR Center is an incubator for talent, a cultural hub for co-creation and learning for all XR artists, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, students and enthusiasts. Established in early 2019, Helsinki XR Center is operated by Metropolia UAS together with Finnish Virtual Reality Association FIVR, and is powered by the City of Helsinki and Business Finland. Social:
@HelsinkiXRCenter

Finnish Design Academy (FDA) develops Finnish design education by building a new kind of collaboration model that aims to strengthen the role of university-level design education in the Finnish innovation ecosystem. FDA is a collaboration between Finnish university-level design schools and Ornamo Art and Design Finland.

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Register now here!