Paper short abstract:

Understanding the self in place has profound implications for creating human-centered design that honors sociocultural journeys of the past while enabling today’s interactions with the built environment. This multidisciplinary activity involves an experiential journey and investigation of Poblenou.

Paper long abstract:

Before there were apps, there were maps. To be an effective designer of the tools we use to understand and move through places, one needs to understand more than simple direction, but the very multi-modal spaces we move through—and at the heart of it all, the people that call that place home. Building on work done through the City as Text™ pedagogy developed by the USA's National Collegiate Honors Council, this experiential exercise utilizes an inductive method which merges a cultural studies/ethnographic approach with a sociotechnical investigation that promotes new ways of coming to know the self, others, and the various actors upon a place. We will facilitate a "walkabout" through the Poblenou neighborhood near the 4S convention site, which is slated to convert from its industrial past into Barcelona's innovative future, in order to discover the stories that shape this area and the people who move through it. The exercise incorporates sensory observation, human interaction and engagement, listening, and viewing. This walkabout provides participants with the methodology for an exploration through a place, and a new, layered lens through which to look at it. We argue that the ability to "read" a place as a text has profound implications for scientists and engineers, and can bring more focus to the importance of human-centered design and user empathy. This multisensory, multidisciplinary activity focuses on knowing the self and the meaning of how the self locates in space, and helps us analyze, interpret, understand, and reflect on our surroundings.