Site-Specific Design for and With the Body: Transforming a Public Space into a Place for Social Gameplay

Despite its current relevance, there have been few attempts in Human–Computer Interaction to theorize and explore what it implies to design for movement in specific physical places. This paper explores how site-specificity can guide the design of playful public interactive installations. Based on a research in and through design approach, we present a retrospective analysis of a project in which our goal was to design an installation that encouraged playful social physical activity among students at a specific university campus site. The analysis provides insights into the design process and how the resulting installation spurred playful social gameplay. We found that the kinesthetic creativity of the members of the design team was stimulated by enacting future use together through site-specific bodystorming. The evaluation made us aware of the importance of doing large portions of the design in-situ when transforming anonymous spaces into distinctive places for playful social interaction.