Individual Project / Service Design & Urban Strategy
2025
Individual Project / Service Design & Urban Strategy
2025
Overview
Magic-Box is an individual Interactive Installation & Service Design project responding to urban isolation among young solo dwellers. By leveraging Location-Based Services (LBS) and AR gamification, the system transforms passive public infrastructure into active social hubs. It integrates environmental incentives into social interaction by gamifying the reduction and creative reuse of plastic waste generated by takeout and deliveries—turning everyday routines into shared, community-building moments.
Phenomenon & Problem
In large cities, more young people live alone and rely heavily on online entertainment and delivery services. This lifestyle offers freedom and comfort, but often leads to reduced offline interaction, loneliness, and weakened community belonging. At the same time, frequent takeout and express deliveries generate significant single-use plastic waste, creating an environmental burden tied directly to daily habits.
Design challenge: How can we create a low-pressure reason for strangers to interact—without forcing socializing—and at the same time encourage sustainable behavior?
Research Insights
From interviews and journey observation, three patterns stood out:
Solo living is not purely negative: people value privacy and independence, but still experience loneliness at times.
Offline social interaction has high friction: initiating conversation feels awkward, costly, or “too much.”
Delivery routines are frequent and repeatable: lockers and pickup moments occur daily—making them ideal entry points for lightweight public interaction.
Design Idea
Magic-Box reframes “meeting people” as co-op play rather than direct social exposure. Instead of asking users to talk to strangers, it offers a shared task: catching and cultivating AR creatures that embody common waste items (plastic bags, bottle caps, straws, etc.). The mechanic transforms a mundane routine—picking up packages—into a playful ritual that can lead naturally into community exchange and offline activities.
