Digital Placemaking

EMPATHIZE

As a part of the public spaces domain of the 5-day Social Innovation & Design workshop organized by MIT India Initiative to offer Community based Health Solutions, our group looked at the bustling and vibrant market of Mumbai - The Chor Bazaar [(name literally translates to “Thieves’ Market” in Hindi, though the origin of the name is debated—some suggest it evolved from “Shor Bazaar” (Noisy Market)]. The market has a fascinating history that spans more than 150 years. However, over the years, the identity and memory of 'Chor Bazaar' has been lost and forgotten by the rapidly urbanization of Mumbai. Yet with tens of thousands of invaluable collectible artefacts and shops, it holds within many stories to be told.

  DEFINE

To rejuvenate the relation of the market with the city, it's important to bring back the narratives lost in the chaos of streets of 'Chor Bazaar'. Thus, this called for an intervention to bridge the gap using innovative design strategies that rebuilds the connection between the market and the customers/passer-bys in the area.

  IDEATE

Identifying the street in the market. All streets are extremely narrow so the idea was to pick cues through a photographic documentation and then work with the section of the street.

With the intent to enhance the experience of the street for the occupants and the customers meaningfully as well as functionally, we proposed a canvas covering that would shade the streets while also work as a screen to project narratives of the market to engage with the public through image projection.

Iterations for the form and expression of the canvas

A visualisation of the day and night conditions of how the digital place-making will occupy and shape the space.

PROTOTYPE

To add to the flexibility of the structure, considering the canvas might not be ideal to have stretched all the time, we designed a collapsible canvas using the techniques of origami folds as illustrated in the diagrams below. We proposed to mount the canvas on a track-rail situated 5-6m above the ground to accommodate a pulley system that enables the retractability of the canvas. We further broke the length into 3 parts for ease of operability. The patterns of retracting could be different for different streets. The perforations in the canvas are provided in between to maintain the dynamicity of the market.

The Canvas for the Digital Stories of the Artefacts and the Market, with examples of folded plate structure which could be used as alternatives.

To enhance the experience of the exploration of the 'antique' chaos the street, we used the help of Image Recognition and Artificial Intelligence. In specific locations on the street, the passer-by would be able to access information on the interesting artefacts and be directed to the respective shops by scanning the QR codes that would occupy the sign-boards.

With the help of some python coding we explored Augmented Reality by taking the idea of scanning QR codes further to generate a dynamic display of assorted artefacts available in a particular store.

Explaining the project to the visitors on the day of exhibition