Contextual design research towards a new relationship among space, people and technology in a smart city

Starting from the difference between “place” and “space”, we propose to define the concept of hybrid space for characterizing a place in which people and technologies cohabit in a synergic way. Having this goal in mind and aiming at sustainable mobility, we focused on biking as a way of living urban spaces and we interviewed a group of people with the aim of discovering the relations between these notions. After analyzing the results of the interviews, we propose to adopt a critical design approach to encourage the reflection about the perceptions of place and space from users to define the concept of hybrid space as a pleasure place in which people live and with they build an affective relation.