Smart communal spaces: Mixed reality experience for work futures

Media Lab Dubai | Co-hosted by IDEO, Wamda and Community Jameel | co-led with Poseidon Ho

Smart Communal Spaces is a project from the week long design workshop, MIT Media Lab Dubai Workshop 2016, which was deployed and filmed at the Dubai Museum of the Future. It explores how Mixed Reality could enhance team communication in shared office spaces by looking into the interplay of Slack and HoloLens. While existing co-working spaces provide the benefits of openness and flexibility, they sacrifice our privacy and personal experience. However, Mixed Reality enables us to project holograms into our physical reality, visually and auditorily reorganizing how bits and atoms exist around us. In the demo video, we try to imagine and tell a story of how human-computer interactions might look like in an office when team communication tools are operated in a spatial context without any streaming device. We broke down the most important elements in the office space by researching the core functions of a team communication software and several holographic applications.

Design Lead: Chrisoula Kapelonis, Technology Lead: Poseidon Hai-Chi Ho - IDEO, MIT Media Lab, Wamda, Community Jameel

Students: Rajeev Mylapalli, Yazan Fanous, Lamees Alhashimi, Moza Al Naimi, Esra'a Alsanie, Asalah Aranki