Habla

Author:	Irene Rodriguez Vara + Saule Gabriele Petraityte (IAAC)
barcelona, spain, 2018
http://www.iaacblog.com/programs/habla/

Purpose	Activation	Interconnection	Collaborating
	Raise Awareness	Educate	Visualize Needs
	Simulate Impact of Decisions	Decision Making	Designing
Co-Creation	Co-Analysis	Co-Design	Co-Implementation
	Co-Maintenance	Co-Monitoring
Outcome	Decision Making	Knowledge	Assessment
	Design	Inclusion	Awareness
	Partnership

Mechanics	Alternative Reality	Role Play	Rule Based Play
	Location Based	Simulations	Mapping
	Geolocation	Hypothesis	Metagame
Tech&Tools	Analoge Tangibles	AR / VR	Audio Visual
	Data AI	Data Collection/Visualization	Digital Interface
	Mobile
Aesthetics	Sensation	Imagination	Assemblage
	Physical Activity / Construction	Realism

Scale	Metropolitan	City	District
	Neighbourhood	Street	Undefined
Audience	Community	Planning Expert	Audience Stakeholders
	Policy Makers
Scope	Individual	Small Group	Small Group
	Crowd	Pre-Defined

Habla is an Augmented Reality app which consists of 5 main scenes: 1) login, where the user fills basic information (age, gender, occupation); 2) the map, where user can  see all the feedback in the area; 3) add comment (with limited amount of characters); 4) add emoji (choose from 5); 5) AR view, where user can see all the feedback left in the area by him/herself or other people.

Superilla is an area of 3×3 blocks in Barcelona which was implemented in 2016 with an intention to reduce the amount of cars. The rapid transition of the area caused a very different reaction from local people: some of them love it, some of them hate it. The community division was expressed mainly on Facebook groups; though the voice from both communities is too abstract and not really heard by local administration.

This miscommunication between two groups of local people and their administration triggered the idea of the habla app: what if people could leave their different opinions on public space? what if they could express how they feel in specific areas or about certain urban objects? what if they could see what their neighbours think about their area?

With the simple and entertaining use of the app users produce very dynamic data which is published on an online platform. The data out consists of participant data (the data that the user types on login), pixel map (emotional heatmap) and comments map (in 3 different formats- text map, comments’ locations and text within selected radius). Since all the generated data is very dynamic and the output is highly dependent on time the platform gives an option to overlay it with other dynamic datasets such as time, events, weather or activities on site.

habla app is created with Unity and for objects’ geolocation it uses the Firebase database.