As we see it, though, there are critical gaps in the disciplines that cities and citizens might naturally call upon to help them grasp this opportunity. As a profession, interaction design has tended to have problems thinking beyond the screen; it lacks any account of large-scale physical, spatial or social environments. Meanwhile, the fields that traditionally deal comfortably with these scales — architecture and urban planning — quail before the unique demands posed by the human interface with networked information systems.

This is the challenge we’ve taken up. Urbanscale is a practice committed to applying the toolkit and mindset of interaction design to the specific problems of cities. Through the design of products, services, interfaces and spatial interventions, our work aims to make cities easier to understand, more pleasant to use and more responsive to the desires of their inhabitants and other users. We hope you join us in the coming weeks and years, as we explore the abundant possibilities presented by a world of networked cities and citizens.
—Urbanscale