By Maria Basile

An IPCity workshop in Sainte-Anne hospital (Paris) was held between March 19 and 20th. The workshop was connected to the City on the Move event “The street belongs to all of us!”. More information on the event at http://www.larueestatous.com/index_uk.html.

The workshop was addressing especially the work package on “Urban Renewal” (WP6) and “Presence” (WP3) but all IP City members were invited since it was the occasion to discuss stakes connecting mixed reality to the city in general. The workshop was attended by participants from the UMLV, TUW, TUG, UniAK, Oulu and Aalborg. The TUW tools which were trialled in the workshop were the Colour Table (Panorama, See-through and Sound applications), and from TUG the Urban Sketcher.

On Monday the work was mainly done with the equipment installation and final preparation, Mira Wagner had been preparing content since a week on site, most of the IPCity people had started setting material up on Sunday. During the afternoon, a working session was held with the stakeholders of Sainte-Anne, including the director and staff from the hospital management. Also architects and officials participated this session. One of the main conclusions was that IPCity tools are less adapted to urban design than to negotiation and demonstration/ communication.

On the Tuesday workshop, after debriefing and preparations, another session was held. This session was more cooperative than the previous one, probably due to the variety of the participants. The interactive possibilities were appreciated: the users wish to be able to introduce their own references real time. The learning process was a point of interest, too. Discussions went further on the real-virtual mix and its utility for the project negotiation.

A more detailed report on the workshop is available https://websites.fraunhofer.de/Ipcity_eu/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/UMLVnewsletterApril07.doc (doc).