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China's cities are being remade and rebranded with light emanating from ubiquitous digital media in the form of media architecture, urban screens, mediated retail environments, and mobile media in taxis, elevators, personal devices, and public transport. Chongqing is saturated with an increasing density of urban media making it a particularly pertinent exemplar of China's urban future and its complex urban media ecologies. This research maps Chongqing's urban media ecology using insights derived from expert interviews to establish the viability of further research testing co-designed urban media and participatory design as tools for urban planners, government, industry, and citizens. The findings suggest that in this cultural context the potential of urban media to introduce novel participatory methods benefiting urban planning is dependent on collaborations with property developers, manufacturers, and architects open to testing small scale interventions at a community level.

Despite the differences of our economic systems, models of governance, cultures, and population sizes, China and Australia share common destinies as societies with rapidly urbanising futures. This presents significant challenges for urban planning, placemaking, and the sustainability of livable, urban communities in our cities. The experimental project 'metaPLACE' aims to use Australian derived participatory urban media to test the effectiveness of co-designed urban media interfaces in helping government and urban planners better understand and design for rapidly urbanising cities. Using Chongqing as a case study, metaPLACE tests the theoretical assumption that participatory urban media (large and small interactive screens, installations, façades, and devices) can act as a co-designed interface between diverse community, industry, and government stakeholders. The research assesses how interactive media installations can build engagement and dialogue between citizens and other city stakeholders about the places in which they live, work, and play. Our initial findings suggest despite the current political tensions, Sino-Australian co-operation can transcend disciplinary silos, and culturally biased assumptions about design to collaboratively identify placemaking problems and co-design novel urban media concepts and solutions.

Despite the differences in our cultural, economic, and political systems China and Australia are societies sharing rapidly urbanising futures. This presents significant challenges for urban planning, placemaking, and the sustainability of livable, urban communities. Using Chongqing as a case study, metaPLACE is an experimental project investigating how participatory urban media (large and small interactive screens, installations, façades, and devices) can act as a co-designed interface between diverse community, industry, and government stakeholders. The empirical data gathered from a co-design workshop held in Chongqing in 2019 indicates there are a range of opportunities and concerns related to equitable placemaking, the environment, the nature of interfaces and participation, ownership and management of data, large and small screens, and cultural and generational considerations. Our critical and comparative analysis of the research design and cultural factors influencing the co-design process, reveal deficiencies in widely accepted models of user experience design and design process used across industry and design research. This has significant implications for transcultural and interdisciplinary co-design and the establishment of a viable Sino-Australian design ecosystem.

As early as 2006, architects and urban planners were expressing amazement and concern at the seemingly out of control speed of urban change in Chinese cities. Less well understood is that by 2014, Australia was also experiencing rates of urbanisation approaching 90%, with 90 per cent of the population living in just 0.22 per cent of the country's land area. In both societies, the shared challenges of rapidly urbanising futures is raising critical questions about the relevance of traditional urban design for city-planning, place-making, and the sustainability of livable of urban spaces. The experimental study 'metaPLACE' aims to use participatory urban media to test the effectiveness of Sino-Australian co-designed public urban interfaces in helping government and urban planners better understand and design for rapidly urbanising cities. Using Chongqing as a case study, metaPLACE tests the theoretical assumption that participatory urban media (large and small interactive screens, installations, façades, and devices) can act as a co-designed interface between diverse community, industry and government stakeholders. In assessing how co-designed interactive urban media can build engagement and dialogue between citizens and other city stakeholders about the places in which they live, work, and play, the research is iteratively exploring how participatory design can promote co-designed place-making for more liveable urban environments.This paper discusses the insights contributed by Urban Media Stakeholders participating in a co-design workshop conducted in Chongqing during 2019 that concluded Stage 1 of this three-year study. The key findings and rapid prototypes from the workshop are evaluated and contextualised within an ongoing iterative co-design process in preparation for testing in Chongqing's public and digital spaces. Reflecting on the implications of the workshop outputs for the subsequent research stages, we speculate on the impact of emergent challenges and opportunities for this research moving forward in post-COVID19 cities.

China's hyper-speed modernisation process generates complex problems demanding new approaches to designing equitable, integrated, liveable, urban and rural places. The Chinese hinterland city of Chongqing's vast urban and rural area provides rich opportunities for investigating how art and design can help address related liveability and place-making challenges. This research aims to use Sino-Australian co-design to test how participatory urban media (large and small interactive screens, installations, façades, and devices) can act as a dialogic interface between diverse community, industry, and government stakeholders to increase our capacity to manage regional urban place-making problems. Our paper presents three empirical perspectives critically reflecting on a two-day co-design workshop conducted in Chongqing during December 2019 prior to the COVID19 pandemic. Informed by our own observations, and insights contributed by participating urban planners, architects, artists, designers, local government, academics, and students, we take a multi-vocal approach to evaluating the workshop methods, outcomes, and interactions. The unfolding narrative illustrates how transcultural and interdisciplinary co-design processes are entangled in language, local knowledge and traditions, socio-cultural hierarchies, different disciplinary fields and levels of professional status, as well as assumed Western design histories and local understandings of the role of art and design in relation to society. We argue these factors also influence the presentation of knowledge in academic writing about design. This highlights the urgent need for pluriversal modes of co-design, research through design, and scholarship about design which can inclusively impact and respond to the diverse needs of the new international situation and our shared urban futures.

China's hyper-speed modernisation process generates complex problems demanding new approaches to designing equitable, integrated, liveable, urban and rural places. The Chinese hinterland city of Chongqing's vast urban and rural area provides rich opportunities for investigating how art and design can help address related liveability and place-making challenges. This research aims to use Sino-Australian co-design to test how participatory urban media (large and small interactive screens, installations, façades, and devices) can act as a dialogic interface between diverse community, industry, and government stakeholders to increase our capacity to manage regional urban place-making problems. Our paper presents three empirical perspectives critically reflecting on a two-day co-design workshop conducted in Chongqing during December 2019 prior to the COVID19 pandemic. Informed by our own observations, and insights contributed by participating urban planners, architects, artists, designers, local government, academics, and students, we take a multi-vocal approach to evaluating the workshop methods, outcomes, and interactions. The unfolding narrative illustrates how transcultural and interdisciplinary co-design processes are entangled in language, local knowledge and traditions, socio-cultural hierarchies, different disciplinary fields and levels of professional status, as well as assumed Western design histories and local understandings of the role of art and design in relation to society. We argue these factors also influence the presentation of knowledge in academic writing about design. This highlights the urgent need for pluriversal modes of co-design, research through design, and scholarship about design which can inclusively impact and respond to the diverse needs of the new international situation and our shared urban futures.