Memoryscapes: Designing Situated Narratives of Place through Heritage Collections

ABSTRACT

Memoryscapes presents a detailed case-study of a design-led inquiry concerning the development of immersive experiences to support city-center urban redevelopment, to encourage visiting and touristic activity. Our approach sought to explore how we might make innovative use of local heritage assets, within these digital experiences, to enhance engagement with place. We brought historians, “placemakers”, design-creatives, and technology-developers into dialogue, in a series of co-design sessions (over 9 months, through 6 workshops and with 77 participants). Our initial workshop allowed us to explore and develop extant theories of trajectories and immersive experiences, which led to the development of a design toolkit. The toolkit facilitated further co-design sessions with stakeholder communities. This paper contributes a deepening and nuancing of theory of trajectories by applying it in a specific context, namely heritage-led immersive experiences for use in urban areas; and provides critical reflections on the design toolkit to support interdisciplinary stakeholder development of immersive urban experiences.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank our various research participants and partners for the time contributed to this project and the workshops.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the AHRC (AH/R010137/1) and the EPSRC (EP/M023001/1).

Notes on contributors

Kay Rogage

Kay Rogage is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Living in the School of Computing Information Sciences at Northumbria University. She is an applied researcher, who’s work spans across the disciplines of computer science and the built environment, with a focus on the design and development of interactive digital solutions.

David Kirk

David Kirk is a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Director of Open Lab. His work focuses on the design of interactive computational technologies. He is interested in design research methods and the ways in which technology design can be centered on the rich understanding of user experiences, cultures and contexts.

James Charlton

James Charlton is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Northumbria University. James’ research interests include performance analysis and visualization within architecture and urban design, data management and utilization within the fields of BIM and smart cities.

Claire Nally

Claire Nally is an Associate Professor in English Literature in the Department of Humanities of Northumbria University, with an interest in dark tourism, heritage, subculture and popular culture.

Jon Swords

Jon Swords is a Research Fellow in the department of Theater, film, Television and Interactive Media at the University of York. He works on the XR Stories creative industries cluster partnership, is an economic geographer with research interests in relation to the geographies of creative industries and visual methodologies.

Richard Watson

Richard Watson is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Northumbria University. He is also an architect with an interest in the application of digital technologies to the design, and improvement of the built environment.