Grayscale 3D isometric cityscape with a red highlighted building

Team Project - Academic Brief

Kairos

For this academic group project, our group was assigned to create a creative campaign or system to promote the idea of Rewilding, letting nature bloom in their natural environment, whether in a urban setting or the outdoors.

Our team decided to focus on the subject of urbanisation, and promote how urbanisation within a city is not always the best decision through a time machine.

I was responsible for the flow and initial design of the time machine experience.

Project Details

Problem Statement

“As cities continue to urbanise, natural environments are replaced with concrete, reducing our access to nature and contributing to a decline in our wellbeing’s and environmental quality.”

Duration

8 Weeks

My Role

Prototyping

UI/ UX Designer

Team Members

Jason Lin

Eric Hwang

Andrew Le

That was the question our time was trying to answer throughout this project. And as a result, we ended up making a time machine...?

Kairos time machine interface showing a grayscale 3D city with timeline controls

Kairos: The Time Machine

Kairos, or our time machine was an interactive experience where users would be able to lead a future through multiple choice options of either Rewilding or Urbanising. Then using 3D models to reflect their decision to help them understand how their choices is affecting the city and landscape around them.

Kairos Grafton Gully title screen asking about urbanisation or rewilding

1840s establishment of Symonds Street Cemetery historical screen

Urbanise choice screen expanding UOA facilities in the 2040s

Rewilding choice screen with vertical forests in the 2040s

Urbanisation cause and effect screen with 3D city model and timeline

Research

For our time machine to have substance and be believable, we looked into past urbanisation events that we could base our project upon. And with our project taking on urbanisation within the city, our team had decided to focus on Grafton Gully being our main point of interest. Not only does this place have rich history, that history was affected from the results of urbanisation.

Information sign at Symonds Street Cemetery

View of the motorway through a fence at Grafton Gully

Our team decided to visit the place in person to get a better understand of the area

Ideation

Other forms of research or ideation I did was looked into how would the time machine function or even work in the context of rewilding. How could we make people want to rewild in the first place?

Case studies were conducted to help with this, but all of them felt like a linear scrollytelling site. Which gave me the idea of using video games as a source of inspiration for a dynamic and a experience where the user is the one making the story.

Wuthering Waves script timeline showing branching story choices — Kuro Games. (2024). Wuthering Waves (v2.4). Examples of Timelines or Choices in video game media

Detroit Become Human flowchart of branching narrative choices — Quantic Games. (2018). Detroit: Become Human [Playstation 4]. Sony Interactive Entertainment

The concept of letting the story unfold through choices made by the user was a very interesting idea I thought we could include in our time machine. Giving the user the agency to decide how their story goes and ends struck me as a strong storytelling tool.

Diagram showing the Kairos user flow from establishment through urbanisation or rewilding branches — Diagram of the initial user flow and how the choices would work

This was our initial prototype we had for our time machine experience, however it was quickly scrapped and reworked due to feedback of it being too simple and boring.

Lo-fi time machine starting screen with a message from the future — Starting screen with a ‘message from the future’ to set the tone behind our idea of being a time machine.

Lo-fi linear timeline of historical events around Grafton Gully — Initial interactive timeline we had with expandable cards for historical events around Grafton Gully.

Lo-fi expanded historical event card about Symonds Street Cemetery — Clicking on one of the historical events would expand the card with more information. Too educational and too text heavy.

Lo-fi choice screen between rewilding and urbanisation paths — At the end of the timeline, user would pick between two options, however our execution felt too simple and linear from lead up to this decision.

With the feedback we received from the initial prototype, I was able to quickly put something together that was more dynamic and had more dimensions to it. This ended up becoming our new visual direction.

Mid-fi 1840s establishment of cemetery timeline screen

Mid-fi cemetery detail screen with historical description

Mid-fi urbanization cause and effect screen with timeline and proceed button

Kairos’ Flow

Kairos timeline with Urbanise choice highlighted — Timeline

This is where the experience starts. A timeline with two choices to pick between Urbanising or Rewilding.

3D urbanisation model with highlighted UOA facility expansion — 3D Models

Picking either choice presents a 3D model to navigate around to get a visual representation of the choice made.

3D model hotspot showing Student Hub details — Hotspots

Within the 3D model are hotspots to interact with to get a closer insight into how the choice has impacted the future.

Kairos timeline progressing to the next Rewild choice — Next set of Choices

User's then return back to the timeline to make another choice.

3D rewilding model with vertical forests — Another 3D Model

The user then will now see a updated 3D model reflecting their recent choice again.

3D model hotspot showing vertical forest details — The Flow Repeats

This is the general flow the user goes through until a certain amount of choices on the timeline.

Kairos reflection of choices timeline showing the user's decisions — Reflection of Choices

At the end, the timeline zooms out to show the user the decisions they have made, leading up to the final 3D Model with the ending they have chosen.

Kairos call to action screen asking what future the user will lead — Call to Action

Ultimately, the timeline resets to real life current time, asking the user to reflect on their actions.

Outcome

With Kairos, me and my team hope this time machine project shows people what our future could look like if we were to lead through either urbanisation, rewilding or both. With the core idea of letting the users dictate their story, we hope this approach to storytelling is impactful to the readers.

And as a personal reflection, this was a fun and challenging project. After all a time machine idea being our design solution was already crazy. But it was a great learning experience working through speculative design, and being flexible working in a team environment.