Whimsically-Designed Sensors Measure a City’s Summer Vibes

These Viennese city-bots collect behavioral data (including ice cream scoop levels) and let citizens visually experience the measuring process

Charlie Stephens

23 june 2015

 

Vienna Summer Scouts are seven sensors designed to smarten up a city by measuring various environmental factors and resources. While many of these sensors already exist in some way, these mini “scouts” aim to capture and explain data in a way that explains emotions, community sentiment, and social phenomena.
The concept, developed by design students Mia Meusburger and Johanna Pichlbauer, is meant to “catch the summery vibes” of Vienna. The sensors are placed around the city and collect information on activity levels, air and sound quality, and wild-life vibrancy. After the information is gathered it’s sent to a central headquarters, which then determines whether summer-time has arrived. The design explains to PSFK:

The dynamics of emotions in a city are very powerful—positive as well as negative feelings can infect a house, a neighborhood, the whole city. We thought about moments where we felt that we as citizens were part of something much larger—and came to choose the arrival of summer as a charming case study.

Simple and playful in design, the scouts are fairly small and are placed throughout society. They don’t stand out as technological devices, they blend into their environments and envision a future that embraces tech-integration in public spaces. This is an important aspect of bringing communities together:

Data collection should not be invisible. It doesn’t have to be something we’re afraid of. The sensors are designed to attract attention, and with their special shapes and behaviour they communicate what it is they measure. We want citizens to be involved in the measuring process, and we think that the results should also be visible to them.

The pool scout sits in the community swimming pool, and reports whether sunscreen levels have reached the pre-determined “summer threshold.”

The pool scout sits in the community swimming pool, and reports whether sunscreen levels have reached the pre-determined “summer threshold.”

The movement scout is placed in an ice-cream parlor, where it reports to the headquarters if scooping movements are up to summer-time levels.

This scout sits by a pond. If there are enough mosquitos, the summer-time test is passed.

Instead of just measuring air temperatures, the air-stream scout measures the wind inside of a public bus. If the scout experiences a high rpm, it means that people are getting hot in the transportation system.

Intelligent cities can be collaborative, emotional, and inspiring. Visible technology and data collection can encourage these qualities, and the Summer Scouts represent this concept.

If we place the new antennas in the right spots, a smart city can be so much more than an efficient machine. A city with a sense for its emotional layers is a place where people are aware of the social dynamics of their environment—a place where one citizen’s actions make a difference and where people understand the consequences of their behavior.

Summer Scouts