SENSITY

Giacomo Piovan, Guido Wolff, Marcel Befort & Anja Engelke

MOVING M2 – SPACE IMPACT OF PEOPLE IN MOTION

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19.10.–18.11.2018

Bastion – Av. John F. Kennedy, Luxembourg-Kirchberg

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Technical development consultant: Koen Clostermans

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Project commissioned by: Ministère du Développement Durable et des Infrastructures

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Be a citizen first!

Giacomo Piovan is an Italian social designer based in Luxembourg since 2014. He has explored how design can be a tool for innovation and social change within the Socialmatter design studio. Rather than designing physical objects, he co-designs products and services that empower people, social groups, and organizations.

For Moving m2 – space impact of people in motion, Giacomo supports Sensity, a design consultancy agency undertaking and developing projects in various fields, from conceptual work to products and visual design.

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Your project for Design City revolves around the new tram in Luxembourg City. Why did you choose this topic?

Honestly, it was Anna Loporcaro, the curator of the Design City Festival, who initially proposed a collaboration with Sensity on the topic of the tram. I believe that she made this matching as she knew about our previous design projects taking place in the public space.

What design actions are involved in your project?

With Moving m2 – space impact of people in motion we would like to make public transport users feel part of the mobility of the future. We use Information Design to visualise traffic flows in an experiential way. Moving m2 – space impact of people in motion is a digital installation that presents the traffic movements that are happening at the ‘Red Bridge.’ We chose to work on the idea of how much space a person is ‘occupying’ while he or she is moving, be it by foot, by bike, by car, by bus or by tram ... The visualisation is showing your ‘space-print’. In some conditions, we found out that moving with the tram is much more ‘space-efficient’ than moving with a car!

Which problems in pubilc transportation can design help with solving?

Today we talk a lot about Smart Cities, about using digital and telecommunication technologies to improve the services and infrastructure of a city. Mobility is a very complex topic. By using intelligent digital software and hardware we are able to visualize flows and detect chaos in public transportation. Design could support the civil services with a deep look into user research and with handling the different aspects of stakeholder needs.

We often talk about multidisciplinary design – I imagine a world where traffic jams will be transformed into quality time. We need to talk about traffic consequences: environment, air quality, well-being …

How does daily life inspire your work?

We are designers, but we are citizens first. We should use our skills to promote and envision the society that we as citizens want to be part of. My projects are often dealing with services and products that touch my daily life. The Moving m2 – space impact of people in motion project is not an exception: I take my bike every day to work in Bonnevoie and this ride represents a quality time that inspires me a lot. I am kind of happy not to have the need of owning a car.

Working with Sensity is always about building a deep understanding of the needs of the people we design for. Why they act the way they do – always being aware of their behaviour.

The theme of this year’s Design City Festival is Me craft – You industry – We design. What is your view on the relationship between the three topics?

It explains pretty well how design touches many disciplines. Even from a research point of view design is versatile. Christopher Frayling already showed a model at the beginning of the 90’s, which shows three categories of design research: research over, research for, and research through design.

We invite everyone to experience the Moving m2 – space impact of people in motion whenever you pass by, whether by foot, bike, tram, bus or car! The project will take place at the ‘Bastion’ on the avenue John F. Kennedy during the Fall 2018.

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Shortcut

Sur l’avenue Kennedy, à l’emplacement appelé Bastion, Giacomo Piovan et Sensity proposent une installation numérique qui permettra de visualiser les flux de trafic comme emprunte spatiale et par conséquent, l’impact laissé par chaque utilisateur en fonction de son type de transport et de son mode de déplacement autour d’une zone déterminée.