A navigation tool for the stories of London
Team: Cristèle Sarić, Harry Solomons
Responsibilities: leading build, soundscape design, and physical computing; co-leading research, prototyping and testing
Beginning as a task to design a wayfinding system, the London Breadcrumb Project evolved into a dialogue between long-term and incoming residents of the urban landscape. Through a combination of oral histories, archival sound footage, and skeuomorphic navigation techniques, the project encourages shared community heritage and allows for a more authentic exploration of an unfamiliar city.
Brief
Design a hauntological navigation system (self-assigned)
Module
Final Major Project
Timeline
4 months
Date Completed
23 November 2023
Process
Towards street-level navigation
We began with a deconstruction of the effects of ubiquitous digital navigation, including the erasure of personal mapping ability and the suppression of subjective local history. We queried this with research into obsolete navigation technologies such as paper maps, compasses and physical waypointing.
User research
Through guided storytelling interviews and exploration workshops, we examined existing destination communication and allowed users to create their own navigation systems.
Analysis and prototyping
We used artefact analysis and low-fi prototyping to refine the format of both our breadcrumbs and our navigation tool, focusing on aesthetic languages in obsolete technology
Outcome
Soundscapes
User-supplied stories, connected to locations, are transformed into soundscapes in combination with archival sound footage. These soundscapes can be accessed by scanning a ‘breadcrumb’ placed at each location, using a mobile phone.
The compass
Our physical device is a digitally-augmented compass that points towards the nearest breadcrumb point, changing colour from blue to red (as if from ‘cold’ to ‘hot’).
Gallery
Harry Solomons 