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Alexander Wiethoff, Marius Hoggenmueller
Experiences Deploying Hybrid Media Architecture in Public Environments
Chapter article in the Book Media Architecture: Using Information and Media as Construction Material - de Gruyter Mouton, March 2017, Berlin, Germany.

Urban interfaces in the form of instrumented buildings and public displays can provide additional communication channels that are not addressed to individuals but rather to the public with in-situ access. On the downside, large parts of this domain fall now into retrofitting the urban environment with giant-sized tele-vision (TV)-like screens to display ubiquitous advertising and to serve as large-scale billboards where content and information can be exchanged at a fast pace. Apart form a questionable aesthetic appearance and integration into the environ-ment, these high-resolution screens demand constant foreground visual attention, as multiple information streams compete for attention, and they fail to take ad-vantage of humansÕ background processing capabilities. Ambient intelligence as an overarching concept for more integrated, non-intrusive and responsive compu-ting can be one alternative way of using media architecture by learning about people and their identities: their habits, preferences, behavioral patterns, etc., and how to apply such knowledge in varying contexts (Ishii et al., 1998). Following this design philosophy, however, features several challenges; one includes the task of aesthetically integrating media architecture into physical surroundings and structures, which demands careful considerations of content, context, and users to create meaningful experiences within the built environment (Dalsgaard and Halskov, 2010).