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In a stimulating dialogue with Sarita Vijayan, Editor & Brand Director, IA&B, Usman Haque, Director of Haque Design + Research Ltd, gives an insight into understanding of systems, design of interphases and the architecture of interaction.

Photograph: C – HAQUE Design + Research Ltd

Multimedia Architecture

let’s partner

SV. “Dynamic, responsive and conversant”, how do you describe your practice? Do you maintain a particular language to your work?UH. In the last couple of years or so I have become once again very interested in non-monetary economies and, more specifically, in twisting prisoner’s dilemma for useful and practical outcomes. This means I’ve been looking at cooperative systems and altruism (in an economic sense) and how offering the option to be non-altruistic has, anecdotally, often seemed to be more successful in encouraging altruistic behaviour than systems in which the only other option is to ‘opt out’. Our consumption (and creation) of energy is of course particularly poignant in these kinds of systems.

SV. Can you elaborate on the theoretical base or the core idea behind your work?UH. How do all of us, as citizens, contribute to the data collection process? How do we learn and understand our environments through the data that we create, or rather craft, as data collection is at its heart a craft? How can it help us question the standards of evidence that we are asked to believe and comply with by authority figures, politicians, scientists, media personalities and religious leaders? This isn’t to say that what they say is wrong; it’s to say that it’s more important for us to be active participants so that we understand much better and can also be part of the process of improving things.

SV. What are the key differences between the early and later stages of your work? In your vision, is it an inclination towards the conversant and the ‘performative’?UH. I am more interested these days in encouraging direct participation by citizens in understanding cities. With respect to conversations and ‘debate’ around climate change and the environmental crisis, I have become particularly interested in how members of the public can themselves contribute to the evidence gathering process; how people can convince themselves of what’s going on, so that they do not have to rely on merely selecting which authority figure (scientist, religious leader, politician) to believe -- they all disagree on major and minor points anyway. I want to find ways to encourage people to learn to question the standards of evidence that are thrust upon them. When authoritative sources cannot be trusted, then citizen-led data acquisition/collection/creation/crafting is the only means of making sense of a situation.

SV. How do you achieve a kinetic relationship between your work and the surrounding built fabric?UH. The question, ”Will technology change the way we interact with cities?,” contains the idea that we can somehow interact with cities as abstract entities that are separate from ourselves. On the contrary: cities are the accretions of interactions. They are not some static solidified entity that we, as consumers, simply interact with. We create and recreate our cities with every step we take, every conversation we have, every nod to a neighbour, every space we inhabit, and every structure we erect. Clearly, what we consider “conversations,” “neighbors,” “spaces” and “structures” will continue to change The question is not “Will things change?,” but “How do we want them to change?”

Usman Haque, the Director of Haque Design + Research Ltd, Founder of Pachube.com and CEO of Connected Environments Ltd has created responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. His skills include the design and engineering of both physical spaces and the software and systems that bring them to life. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the world.

SV. What is the ‘software of space’? Can you elaborate on the nature of such a system?UH. I t ’s an old phrase, I do not often use it anymore. But I used to use it to contrast the systemic relationships of a city with the physical fabric of a city.

SV. What will be the look and feel of this new era of technology and dynamism? Do you believe that interactive architecture is an emerging concept? UH. Technology changes our relationship to our cities. Cities accrete technology, and technology is a manifestation and definer of social relationships.

SV. Your recent endeavour ‘Pachube’ is becoming an established platform with responses similar to Facebook and Twitter. Can you elaborate on that? UH. Pachube (www.pachube.com), is a realtime data infrastructure for sensors, devices and environments around the world. Some have called it the “twitter for machines”. It is not simply about making data open. It’s about developing a platform that makes it as easy as possible for everyone—citizens, organizations, companies and city managers alike—to produce, aggregate, share and compare environmental data, sensor data, energy data and any other sort of arbitrary data you want—data that may be generated by devices, buildings, energy meters or even virtual environments.

SV. What kind of response do you receive towards your experiments? How important is it to connect with a user while engaging in these interventions?UH. This kind of engagement is vital for us (i.e. humanity) to make sense of our situation, and is essential if any solutions are to be found -- Science (note the capital letter) is not the only arbiter of truth, nor is it the only framework for empirical analysis. We are all -- scientists, non-scientists, artists, non-artists (much as I hate those false-dichotomies - but I think that covers everybody, right?) -- in it together.

SV. For a young architect, you have had quite a distinguished career. Where do you see your practice in the future? UH. It is often said that it is the task of designers to “make things simple for people” - which I find patronising and counter-productive. If anything it is the task of designers to show how ‘complex ’ things are, and to help build tools for dealing with that complexity... ‘not’ just simplifying it (which is the basic function of the perceptual systems we are endowed with, so it’s definitely possible!). I see myself continuing to build ‘tools’.

SV. Do you envision India to be a future platform for your experiments? Any specific idea or project that you have in mind for India?UH. No particular plans at the moment, but it would be very interesting to consider holding a workshop similar to the urban design workshop I held last year in Pakistan, the outcome of which was, for me, a set of “Notes on the Design of Participatory Systems – for the City or for the Planet’.