Running from 2006 to March 2010, the IPCity project aimed to use technology in various applications to stimulate greater engagement with city environments in the EU, leading to the generation of ideas about how the city should be developed.

The IPCity project was an 'integrated project on interaction and presence in urban environments' which received €5.27 million under the EU's 'Information society technologies' Thematic area of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). It provided local citizens, visitors and professionals (e.g. local government personnel) with a range of technologies that could be used in a diverse range of activities. The aim was that these activities would promote a collaborative spirit for all participants, particularly with regard to the perspective and future outlook of a given city.

The technology was developed by an 11-member European consortium as portable and light-weight mixed-reality interfaces. These interfaces employ information and ideas from a range of scientific disciplines, such as cognitive science and anthropology. The activities supported by the technology include urban renewal projects, large-scale events, explorative 'edu-tainment' (education-entertainment) and storytelling. Through these activities, users are able to discover new aspects of a city and view its physical reality from new perspectives.

The activities included Time Warp, City Tales and a final event:

• In January 2010, the IPCity partners conducted a trial of the Time Warp technology in Cologne, Germany. Real monuments, cityscapes and famous landmarks were used with the applications to suggest that the 60 participants were caught in a time warp and needed to complete a set of challenges to return to their own time. The participants engaged with 'helper elves', and interacted in a world caught between the real and the virtual.
  
  "The users quickly got used to the augmented reality technology that they carried, and they would act in odd ways," explained IPCity project coordinator Dr Rod McCall from Fraunhofer Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT) in Germany. "Passers-by were often confused about what exactly was going on and even intervened, but it was a convincing and fun experience for the participants."
  
  Time Warp is normally played in Cologne's Old Town by just two people who assume the role of agents, travel into past and future versions of the same city and encounter challenges along the way. Dr McCall explained that the application brings the game's players into contact with the history and culture of a city. As well as being fun and engaging, it has an educational element.

• The City Tales I activity included a music-based tour known as StreetBeat, where visitors could explore the German capital city of Berlin, while listening to urban music and stories about sub-cultures of the city. For the City Tales II activity, the IPCity researchers were inspired by the success of community-driven content sites such as social networking portals. The scenario allowed users to leave personal stories linked to specific areas of a city, and to contribute to the overall look and feel of the technology itself.

• In March 2010, the IPCity team held a final event in Vienna, Austria to showcase the results of the project through a series of performances as well as an exhibition, demonstration, lecture and discussion. Participants were encouraged to experience the systems at first hand, and to engage in dialogue with the attending researchers.

Further information:

• Original news article - European Commission
• IPCity project