Closer to Nature
2018 · Technical support engineer
An interactive nature experience for seniors with dementia, iterating on the first concept by Carlijn Valk and taken further afterwards by Yuan Feng.
As technical support engineer I redesigned the whole application. Only the video material carried over from the previous version: the audio and the visuals were rebuilt, driven by external sensors. I helped design and build the physical installation as well.
Who built it
The original prototype came out of concept exploration by Carlijn Valk and Xu Lin. Yuan Feng took it further. Jasper Loeff ran the user study, and the plaster goat concept was the work of G. Feijóo Carrillo, B. Gorini, E. Rizvi and E. Zanus. The residents, families, volunteers and staff of Vitalis Berckelhof took part.
Published as Yuan Feng, Suihuai Yu, Dirk van de Mortel, Emilia Barakova, Matthias Rauterberg and Jun Hu, “Closer to nature: multi-sensory engagement in interactive nature experience for seniors with dementia”, Chinese CHI 2018, pp. 49-56.
The concept it grew from was published first as Carlijn Valk, Xu Lin, Loe Feijs, Matthias Rauterberg and Jun Hu, “Closer to Nature: interactive installation design for elderly with dementia”, ICIC 2017.