Media Architecture for Neighborhood Resilience

This pictorial introduces a three-level framework articulating the role media architecture could play in strengthening neighborhood resilience. The framework operates at the levels of concepts, strategies and examples, containing i) five aspects of resilience that media architecture can contribute to in the face of ecological and social shocks and stressors, ii) 17 design strategies for promoting these aspects, and iii) 10 design examples that demonstrate the design strategies. The framework, which is made available through a web-based tool, aims to contribute to the development of intermediate-level design knowledge, linking design strategies to both higher-level concepts as well as concrete examples. In the discussion we further explore how our interpretations of social and ecological resilience in the framework and tool also resonate with emerging more-than-human theories in HCI, IxD and MA.


INTRODUCTION
There is a growing awareness that for cities to function and thrive, now and in the future, they need to become more resilient.The recent Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted this need (e.g., Gualtieri et al. 2022).Due to various restrictions on mobility, resilience was especially sought at the level of the neighborhood and was addressed in both social as well as ecological terms, as the pandemic brought out a.o. the need for local support networks and accessible public spaces as well as stressing the importance of well-functioning ecological ecosystems and green spaces in our cities.
Media architecture is well placed to play a role in the strengthening of both social and ecological neighborhood resilience.It is often defined as physical structures in buildings or public space that use digital media to "passively or interactively broadcast information to their immediate vicinity" (Vande Moere & Wouters 2021, p.1).These structures invite interaction between passers-by and may contribute to a sense of place (de Waal, Suurenbroek & Nio 2020).They potentially enable communication and interaction amongst local actors, such as residents, businesses and governmental agencies in public space.In the past few years the field of media architecture has also seen a shift towards both social and ecological purposes, with designers and researchers questioning how the design of media architecture installations could benefit or empower local communities, as well as more-than-human ecosystems (Hespanhol 2017;Foth & Caldwell 2018).Like other forms of digital media, media architecture has the potential to mobilize local actors to address shared issues and to keep local democracies vibrant (DiSalvo 2022; le Dantec 2016).
At the same time, there is still a lack of knowledge on how abstract notions such as ecological and social resilience can be operationalized in concrete design interventions at the level of the neighborhood.Nor are there appropriate design guidelines or conceptual frameworks that combine ecological and social takes on resilience at the neighborhood level.We therefore started to develop a three-level design framework that could help designers operationalize the abstract goal of neighborhood resilience into aspects of resilience, design strategies, and onwards to concrete interventions at the neighborhood level, taking social as well as ecological aspects into account.

THE GRAND OVERVIEW
On its opening screen (see figure below), our web-based tool media architecture for Neighborhood Resilience provides a grand overview of insights aimed to inspire researchers and designers on three levels of abstraction: Conceptual aspects or qualities of

Explorations and Prototypes
MAB23: July 14-15 and 21-23, 2023, Toronto, Canada neighborhood resilience, design strategies that could contribute to the strengthening of these aspects or qualities, and concrete design examples that have articulated these strategies in a situated media architecture installation.

ASPECTS OF RESILIENCE
At the most abstract level, the five aspects of resilience can be seen as qualities worth striving for, or 'desiderata' (Nelson & Stolterman 2012).We consider these aspects of resilience to apply to both social and ecological resilience.
At the most abstract level, the aspects of resilience can be seen as qualities worth striving for, or 'desiderata' (Nelson & Stolterman 2012).We consider these aspects of resilience to apply to both social and ecological resilience.

STRATEGIES
The aspects of resilience are connected to seventeen design strategies.The strategies describe various ways to pursue the aspects of resilience.They are concrete enough to be actionable, yet abstract enough to be applicable in different contexts.Examples are 'familiarize residents with underused / hidden routes & places', 'make the neighborhood more walkable', and 'give non-humans a voice'.

DESIGN EXAMPLES
The design strategies are connected with ten design examples located at the bottom level.The design examples instantiate the design strategies Projects included are 'Walk Walk Dance' -an interactive installation in public space inviting passers-by to move playfully in the space, perhaps initiating also brief moments of contact with other passers-by; 'Waterlicht' -an immersive installation using laser light to display rising sea levels in situ, and 'Organic Cinema' -an installation that visualizes the reaction of plants to the environment.The aim of the three-level framework and the web-based tool is to inspire researchers, designers and policy makers to explore the links between media architecture and neighborhood resilience in both analytical and generative ways.
The tool allows its users to start from an aspect of resilience and to find design inspiration by exploring the connected design strategies and examples.The other way around, users can start with concrete design examples and explore how they contribute to various aspects of resilience through different design strategies.

Methodology: Developing the framework
Our three-level framework builds on the notion of intermediate-level knowledge -i.e."knowledge that is more abstracted than particular instances, yet does not aspire to the generality of a theory" (Höök & Löwgren 2012, p.23:2; also see Löwgren, 2013).The framework was developed in a series of steps, in which we repeatedly shifted our focus between three levels of abstraction.The steps below are described in more detail in an earlier publication, which focused on generating and disseminating intermediate-level knowledge (see Boon et al. 2021).
• Collecting and selecting appropriate design examples.
• Articulating a set of generic design questions.
• Explicating three levels of abstraction and generating design strategies by connecting design examples with generic set of questions.
• Creating a master visual that clearly depicts the three levels and synthesizing design strategies.
• Rearticulating the design questions by making each of them apply to ecological and social resilience.
• Tweaking the design strategies and align them at the right level of abstraction.
• Describing the particular aspects of the design examples that connect to the design strategies.
In the remainder of this pictorial we further introduce the aspects of resilience that we have articulated, show the interactivity of our web-based tool, and share our thoughts on the analytic and generative value that our three-level framework and web-based tool has to offer.
Openness refers to the quality of a design to be appropriated according to the needs of local actors in the neighborhood.
Livability is the suitability of an environment for living in.
Inclusion is the affordance of a system to include a diversity of local actors.
Connectedness concerns the ability of a system to establish or maintain relevant connections among local actors.
Skills & Knowledge refers to the ability of local actors to build and develop relevant skills and knowledge.

Five aspects of neighborhood resilience
At the top level, shown in the diagram above, the framework and the tool present a number of aspects that could contribute to neighborhood resilience.These are derived from various theories on resilience and urban design (e.g., Berkes & Ross 2013; Maller 2018; Sennett 2019).Resilience is generally understood as the ability of a system to cope, adapt or transform in the face of shocks and stressors (e.g., Béné et al. 2012).The aspects represent qualities that could strengthen systems and allow for the emergence of various strategies or tactics of coping.For our framework we have identified five such aspects that media architecture could contribute to.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather as a starting point for thinking about what design can contribute to neighborhood resilience.It is also meant as an open invitation for designers and researchers to explore other aspects or qualities of resilience relevant for the particular neighborhoods they are working in.
intentionally selected and articulated to be applicable to both social and ecological resilience.For example, connectedness is important from a social perspective (e.g., enabling people to build a sense of belonging to their neighborhood), but also from an ecological perspective (e.g., enabling migration of non-humans by connecting urban green spaces), in order to foster a healthy and resilient ecosystem for the people to live in.
Finally, the question of 'resilience for whom' often has a critical tone, as the resilience of one group can come at the cost of another (e.g., Cretney 2014).We return to this question in the discussion, where we will also consider non-humans, such as plants and animals, as potentially relevant residents of urban neighborhoods.
Resilience is a quality that is not inherently good; problematic systems can be resilient as well.a neighborhood should become resilient, a variety of shocks and stressors may be relevant to consider.In our framework and tool, we distinguish between social shocks and stressors (e.g., gentrification, social isolation and criminality) and ecological ones (e.g.heavy rainfall, biodiversity loss and poor air quality), and define 'social resilience' and 'ecological resilience' accordingly.
Whereas these forms of resilience are often debated in separate circles of designers and policy makers, for us a take away from discussions on the post Covid-city was the necessity to combine both perspectives; to what extent media architecture installations can serve both goals?Therefore the five aspects of resilience were

THE WEB-BASED TOOL
The aim of our interactive, web-based tool is to make the potentially complex framework more approachable and less overwhelming, while still providing access to all its contents.Users can start at any point of interest and navigate the related information with hovers Hovering over a design example makes the connection to the design strategies appear.
By hovering over a strategy of interest, the text of the project example changes to a description of a quality that instantiates the design strategy.The installation is easily accessible to local citizens, and leaves room for many different ways of interacting (hopping from one line to the other, running or rolling over them, using it alone or in a group).
Each neighborhood can create their unique dancing patterns.

THE VALUE OF THE THREE-LEVEL FRAMEWORK
Intermediate-level frameworks can provide analytical as well as generative value.On this page we demonstrate the analytical value of our three-level framework.By applying the aspects of resilience as analytical lenses on the Human Beeing project by THE CONSTITUTE, as in the diagram on the right, particular qualities that can contribute to neighborhood resilience become more salient.From these qualities, in turn, transferable knowledge can be derived; in our three-level framework we articulated these in the form of 'design strategies' (Boon et al. 2020).
Human Beeing puts honeybees in the spotlight.The artists build a scale model of an urban façade that functions as a beehive, and they engage locals to start cultivating bees in it.The activities of the insects occupying these hives are then captured on video.A 90 minutes film loop is then projected on the actual urban façade, which was the initial reference for the beehive, so that the projected, scaled-up bees crawl all over the façade.A custom hacked spotlight enables passers-by to highlight details in the facade-projection.
When analyzing Human Beeing with the aspects of resilience as analytical lenses, particular qualities come into view, related to "Livability", "Inclusion", "Connectedness", and "Skills & Knowledge".
The connection to "Inclusion" can be seen in the following aspect of the project: "After providing a base structure of the beehive, the architecture inside of it is designed and built solely by the bees.Projecting the process and outcome of their work in a scaled up version on a big urban facade gives the bees a stage to show their liveliness, character and harmlessness."The concept of the project is to give the bees an active part in the process -to include them as designers.Extracting this from the concrete project setting and abstracting it into a design strategy illustrates the articulation of intermediate-level knowledge.Human Beeing addresses "Inclusion" by "Giving non-humans a voice".
Another aspect of the project supports the community to establish and maintain relevant connections ("Connectedness") -in this case connections to a local place."The custom-built beehives are a scale copy of the facade of an actual city building which becomes the canvas for the projection mapping afterwards.Like this, the bee-projection perfectly fits onto the respective, local city building and the bees build their hives based on the architecture of the local building".Abstracting this to the intermediate level provides the basis for formulating the design strategy and articulating the underlying mechanism: "Tailor the intervention to the specific neighborhood or location".
Finally, the lens of "Skills & Knowledge" highlights that "locals, including hobby-beekeepers and school-aged children, are involved in the initial process of looking after the custom-built beehive.The projection mapping in the city center allows all citizens to encounter the life of bees."The groups that look after the beehives learn skills regarding beekeeping, while citizens who interact with the projection mapping extend their general awareness and knowledge about the species.This can be abstracted into the design strategy "Enable encounters between humans and non-humans".
As apparent in the diagram, there are many more aspects of the project that can be connected to neighborhood resilience.But these three examples already show how a project analysis based on our framework can contribute to transferable knowledge on neighborhood resilience.

THE GENERATIVE VALUE OF THE THREE-LEVEL FRAMEWORK
So far, we have shown the value of using the three-level framework as an analytical lens to highlight relevant qualities in design examples.The framework, however, is also intended to be used for generative purposes; in other words, it can be used for ideation.A specific way in which designers can do this, for example, is by selecting a design example of particular interest and adapting it to the context and neighborhood they are working in.Consider the SMS Slingshot.It was originally designed as a response to the advancing presence of advertisement screens in cities; rather than treating citizens as a passive audience, the system was designed to enable them to reclaim public space and create their own multimedia content.Considered more generally, however, the installation offers a way to facilitate public dialogue in a neighborhood to inform local urban developments.
For example, in Holendrecht, an underprivileged neighborhood in Amsterdam, the lives of youngsters are challenging, and can easily spiral down towards criminality.These youngsters are also hard to reach and to involve in public dialogue.It turns out, however, that during evening hours particular public spaces in the neighborhood become vibrant meeting places for them.Using an installation like SMS Slingshot in such a setting may engage and empower youngsters to share their thoughts and dreams for the neighborhood, potentially giving a powerful message to local governments or other institutions.Multiple aspects of resilience can come together in this appropriated version of the SMS Slingshot: it would enable the inclusion of young voices in local developments; its openness would allow for youngsters to bring across their particular concerns; it could trigger a civic form of connectedness to take shape among the group; and ultimately it could enable youngsters to improve the liveability of their neighborhood.
There are other ways in which frameworks such as our three-level framework can support the creation of new ideas and design concepts.As mentioned above, the aspects of resilience can serve as goals for designers to aspire to when designing for neighborhood resilience; the design strategies can be used as fuel for brainstorming; and the design examples can serve as tangible illustrations of the aspects and strategies, as well as examples to appropriate into different contexts, as the above example illustrates.But perhaps most importantly, the framework proposes a novel way of looking at neighborhood resilience by tackling social and ecological issues simultaneously.This might encourage professionals of different backgrounds to think beyond their disciplinary silos.

DISCUSSION
The framework shown in the diagram highlights aspects of resilience MA can specifically contribute to; aspects that media architects can aspire to, as they are more concrete than the abstract goal of neighborhood resilience.The design strategies and design examples provide actionable insights to take steps towards these aspirations.To the best of our knowledge, such an overview of aspects, strategies and design examples has not been proposed elsewhere in the field of MA.
By developing an interactive web-based tool, we allow media architects and other users to navigate the 'spaghetti' of connections between the various components of the three-level framework.Its interactivity also allowed us, as researchers, to reach several insights.For example, when looking at the distribution of the connecting lines, the 'Human Beeing' example stood out due to its many connections with six design strategies and five aspects of resilience (see page 5).These connections illustrate how a single MA installation can integrate multiple strategies of our framework and thereby contribute to several aspects of neighborhood resilience.
Another lesson we may take from the framework in its current stage is that MA seems to be able to address some aspects of resilience more than others.As you can see in the image below 'openness' and 'inclusion' have significantly less connections than the other three aspects.The distribution of connections also indicates that some design strategies, like 'use non-humans as entry points into ecological issues' are more commonly used than others.When including more MA examples in the framework, we may be able to be more conclusive about how MA can contribute to the various aspects of resilience, and through what strategies.For now, we suggest that the aspects and design strategies that are less connected can be seen as potential blind spots regarding the role that MA can play in promoting neighborhood resilience, suggesting directions for new design explorations.
Beyond human-centrism when designing for neighborhood resilience we would to discuss how our interpretations of social and ecological resilience in the framework and tool resonate with emerging more-than-human theories in HCI, IxD and MA, and what embracing such a 'morethan-human' perspective can bring to our framework.Earlier work on MA for neighborhood resilience points out how MA can enable encounters and collaboration between different human individuals and organizations (Hespanol et al. 2017).Our framework supports this proposition; by looking at the design examples through the lenses of our three-level framework, we believe MA has a unique contribution to make in growing more resilient neighborhoods.Through its communicative power and its ability to be physically situated in a neighborhood, MA installations can raise awareness and facilitate discussions among local actors, thereby potentially triggering new initiatives to strengthen the neighborhood.

Bringing non-human actors into view
With its focus on ecological and social resilience, our three-level framework also brings into view non-human actors.The design examples and strategies steer towards interactions between human and non-human actors.For example, the 'Human Beeing' installation shows how a facade can be a platform for communication about the behaviors and lives of honeybees.Or consider the 'Biomer Skelters' project, which aims to create support for reforestation efforts.In such projects, MA creates awareness of certain issues or goals related to nonhumans living in and around the city.What they also do is hint at the possibility to consider neighborhood resilience beyond a human-centric perspective.What would MA for neighborhood resilience look like when also including non-human residents within the scope of consideration?And how might this inspire a new iteration on the three-level framework?For example, would it be fruitful to reframe 'ecological' and 'social' as 'human' and 'non-human' resilience?
These questions connect to a growing interest in moving beyond human-centric design in human-computer interaction and interaction design.Various authors have called for 'more-than-human' and 'multispecies' theories and approaches that consider non-humans, such as plants and animals, as agents worthy of consideration (

New roles for media architecture
In the field of MA, Foth and Caldwell (2018) took a first step towards a more-than-human approach, highlighting the potential negative impacts of MA on non-humans, such as the harm that light pollution inflicts on nocturnal animals.Pollestri et al. (2021) describe the role of MA in communicating new knowledge about multispecies coexistence, as well as envisioning more-than-human futures.More radical is the exploration by Sheikh et al. (2021), who explore ways to enhance the agency of plants within more-than-human assemblages.For example, they refer to the terra0 project (Seidler et al., 2016), which prototyped a way for a piece of forest to control its finances, using blockchain, drone and satellite technologies.
These works help envision new roles for media architecture regarding non-humans.They also help us to reconsider the aspects of resilience presented in this pictorial from a non-human perspective.Foth and Caldwell's work is concerned with the liveability of cities for non-humans, while Pollestri and colleagues touch upon the skills and knowledge of non-humans and living together with them.The work of Sheikh et al. connects to openness, and hints at the role that MA can play in enabling plants, as well as other organisms, to take ownership and change part of the neighborhood they are located in.
By including non-humans within the scope of consideration, we can thus see the three-level framework in a different light, potentially expanding our understanding of what media architecture can do for neighborhood resilience.An interesting question that emerges is in what ways MA can contribute to humans and non-humans in urban neighborhoods.How might media architects contribute to openness, livability, inclusion, connectedness or skills and knowledge in a way that is relevant to non-humans?Do these aspects make sense from a non-human perspective?For example, how would it make sense for media architects to be concerned with the 'Skills & knowledge' of nonhuman residents when aiming to promote neighborhood resilience?In future work, we are curious to explore these new venues further, by rearticulating our framework from a more-than-human perspective.
This window shows the different ways in which Skills & Knowledge can be designed for, illustrated by various design examples.andclicks.On this page, we show two typical interactions.The tool is available for further exploration at maximilianenirschl.com/fptr/fptr_index.htmlClicking on the connected aspect of resilience opens a pop-up window.Hovering over an aspects of resilience highlights all of its connections.When hovering over a strategy of interest, connected design examples are highlighted and their relevant qualities are described.Clicking on one of those design examples opens a pop-up window.ARTIST Daily tous les jours WHEN 2021 -ongoing touring exhibition WHERE 2021 : The Bentway, Toronto, Canada Montreal, Canada Wakkary 2021; Smith et al. 2017).How can we support cohabitation of multiple species and enable non-humans to have a voice and participate in design processes (Smith et al. 2017; Clarke et al. 2018); how can we design for and with non-humans (Coskun et al. 2022)?Also in urban design, more-than-human perspectives on the city are being proposed (Maller 2018; 2021).These developments potentially open new and exciting design spaces that media architects can play a role in.