An Augmented Reality Walking Tour in San Francisco.
Using AR and elements of narrative journalism to tell the forgotten history of Irish Hill, a working class community destroyed for other's growth and capital.
Project Overview
Select a hidden or lost incident, movement, or person as the focus of an AR monument. Using tenets of narrative journalism, express a point of view (POV) about the subject, through well-researched information expressed through a creative lens.
Duration: 6 weeks, completed October 2024
Role: Creative Technologist, Designer, Developer
Tools: Unity, C#, Storyboarding, Vuforia, Blender
Focus: Immersive Storytelling, Narrative Journalism, AR Design, Technical Implementation in Unity
Context: Audited CCA Grad class “XR: Immersive Experiences and Scripted Spaces”
Conceptualization
During San Francisco's Industrial Boom, Irish Hill was once a small, lively working-class neighborhood of Irish immigrants employed primarily at the Union Iron Works shipping yard nearby. During WWI, the hill and its residents were displaced to make way for shipyard expansion. I chose to make an Augmented Reality monument to the workers who were swept away by the exploitation and power imbalance inherent to capitalism.
Design & Development Process
Research
Conducted site research by walking around Irish Hill several times to map out a route for the tour. Identified potential locations for target, surface, and mid-air AR interactions. Timed the walk to plan the audio script accordingly."
I did extensive historic research on Irish Hill thanks to historian Steven Fidel Herraiz's in-depth presentation on Irish Hill and documentation on FoundSF. Learned about San Francisco's Industrial Movement through information of FoundSF.
I studied Michael Epstein's Museum of the Hidden City, An Augmented Reality walking tour of San Francisco's Fillmore District, which was once a thriving, diverse community now displaced by urban renewal, gentrification, and city policies that reshaped the neighborhood. I was inspired by the use of overlayed images in AR to bring the past to life as well as the compelling audio of real people.
Storyboard
When writing the script for the narrator, I wanted to maintain authenticity since I'm not Irish and would say "saloon" instead of "pub", so I recruited my Canadian-Irish coworker, Brian Hardt to review the language in my script and by my voice actor.
Wayfinding using AR Target Based Detection:
Image overlay to compare then & now:
Final Experience
Next Steps
- Conduct more onsite user testing to enhance the map and wayfinding part of the experience.
- Finalize the app and make it accessible to the public!
- Make more! I'm working on an AR site tour of a brownfield central to Neighborship's bioremediation project in Oakland. The AR app will be used to grow community engagement.