03 / Interaction Design & Physical Computing
Listening Booth
An emotional pause in public space
A speculative reuse of the phone booth as a semi-private urban space where sound is translated into responsive light without interpreting speech.
Design question
How might an obsolete public structure offer a brief, private moment for emotional release in the city?
01 / Opportunity
The booth still offers something the phone no longer does
The communication function of the public phone booth has largely disappeared, but its semi-enclosed form still creates a rare pocket of privacy on a busy street.
The project treats that enclosure as an emotional buffer: a place to step out of public performance, pause, and return to the city when ready.
02 / Interaction
Respond to expression without recording its meaning
The concept uses non-semantic sound input. A hidden microphone reads qualities such as volume, rhythm, and silence as abstract signals rather than recording or interpreting a person’s words.
Those signals become changes in light. Quiet, steady, and high-intensity input produce distinct responses intended to acknowledge presence without claiming to diagnose emotion.
03 / Prototype
Testing sound as a material for light
I built an Arduino prototype with a microphone sensor and an addressable LED strip. Ambient sound levels were processed in real time and mapped to changes in color and brightness.
The prototype tested the core technical relationship between sound and light. It does not claim a therapeutic or clinical effect.
04 / Future direction
A collective map remains speculative
A future network could visualize anonymous interaction across multiple booths as a changing city-wide pattern. This remains a speculative extension, with privacy, consent, moderation, accessibility, and maintenance requiring substantial further work.
