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CommunIT Building

An Interactive Environment Exemplar Advancing Social Interaction in Underused Public Spaces

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HCI Outdoors: Theory, Design, Methods and Applications

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

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Abstract

Despite the promise of social media to bring the world closer together, large segments of local communities, globally, remain misunderstood by or invisible to mainstream society. This problem is attributed, in large part, to digital media’s ascendancy over physical, public space as the locus for civic discourse—the loss of informal and structured encounters between members of communities there. This chapter presents our development and early evaluation of a novel cyber-physical platform, communIT, for community building across diverse local community groups. Deployed in underused public spaces, communIT is an origami-like, folding, robotic surface of billboard scale, with embedded peripherals, that changes form in response to group needs for group co-creation and sharing of media. By collaboratively making and sharing media with communIT, local groups can tell stories, share experiences and aspirations, and advocate within the larger community. Such civic discourse promises the potential to transform personal identity and self-representation, community awareness and responsibility, and wider social relationships with policy-makers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Architectural Robotic Lab, Cornell University, Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA), Ithaca, USA

    Carlos Henrique Araujo de Aguiar & Keith Evan Green

Authors
  1. Carlos Henrique Araujo de Aguiar
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  2. Keith Evan Green
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos Henrique Araujo de Aguiar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Center for Human-Computer Interaction, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    D. Scott McCrickard

  2. Department of Computer Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

    Michael Jones

  3. Department of Computer Science and Center for Human-Computer Interaction, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Timothy L. Stelter

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de Aguiar, C.H.A., Green, K.E. (2020). CommunIT Building. In: McCrickard, D.S., Jones, M., Stelter, T.L. (eds) HCI Outdoors: Theory, Design, Methods and Applications. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45289-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45289-6_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45289-6

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