Signal Garden

Signal Garden is a participatory urban prototype investigating how playful, low-infrastructure technology can foster connection in public space. Many city environments are designed for movement and consumption rather than curiosity or collective interaction. Armada Way’s redevelopment prioritises play, nature, and social interaction over passive consumption, and Signal Garden builds on this momentum by experimenting with participatory systems that invite people to discover, listen, and create together in public space.

The creative challenge is to explore whether subtle, human-centred technology can invite people to pause, listen, and engage with their surroundings—and with each other—in new ways.

The project experiments with touch-triggered audio embedded within everyday urban surfaces. Using capacitive sensing, small microcontrollers, and concealed speakers, ordinary materials become responsive interfaces that reveal hidden sonic signals when touched. The prototype is intentionally lightweight and portable, enabling a guerrilla installation approach that will test ideas in real environments rather than controlled gallery settings.

Signal Garden draws on play-based interaction design and participatory placemaking frameworks, prioritising curiosity, accessibility, and shared discovery. The core hypothesis is that playful interaction can spark collective attention and encourage people to notice and question the invisible systems shaping their environments.

Our early experiments explore how strangers collaborate through sound, how people interpret hidden signals, and how public space might become a responsive instrument rather than a passive backdrop. This research opens new directions for civic technology, participatory public art, and urban experiences that foreground listening, collaboration, and imagination.