Can art and design projects implemented within public space influence human interaction and experience? Since 2013 the research project ‘Playful Interactive Design: The Social Experiments’ has been coordinated by Dr. Anna Louise Merry. It is supported by the Department of Arts and Communication as well as the staff and students of Frederick University Cyprus. During the research Interior Design students have co-created a variety of low cost, bold and humorous designs for implementation within Cypriot Public spaces.

The research aims to produce methods of regeneration for underutilised public areas, encouraging social and spatial interactions through play permission. Approached from an interdisciplinary perspective, design and artistic installation merge with social science. Central skills of communication develop at a young age where play is a major contributor, but in a globalised world interactions are increasingly ‘virtual’ rather than physical.

Within all of the project’s playful designs, the playful experience acts as a catalyst for change altering spatial usage and user perceptions, thus creating exciting places for public life.  Playful Interactive Experiences are defined as seemingly humorous participatory designs which unexpectedly interven with public space, allowing participation with temporary and fun ephemeral experience.

Re-Placed is the current project running under the theme of ‘playful interaction’. It is a research project funded by Frederick University entitled: Re-mapping Public Space: Investigating Social and Spatial Interactions in Cyprus Post Covid-19 (RE-PLACED). Re-Placed aims to understand if design implementation with a playful and socially distanced context can encourage social and spatial interaction both physically and virtually.

Through an installation of socially distanced visuals; embracing colour, humour, play permission and above all safe possibilities for interaction the area of the Limassol castle aims to be revitalised. With a digital interactive context, the installation will provide a hybrid space of communication, allowing users to be present in physical space yet experience place digitally through remote interaction.

After the success of the Re-Placed exhibition in the square in front of the Limassol Medieval castle, the project was invited to be part of the 2022 edition of the Pame Kaimakli Festival: Urban Playground. The project was installed between the 12^th – 18^th July 2022.

The interactive and playful exhibition allowed the residents and visitors of Kaimakli to playfully view and interact with the works both physically and digitally. 

Urban Gorillas 2022 edition of Pame Kaimakli was entitled Urban Playground”, which was a celebration of play, discovery and human interactions in public spaces. As the current global pandemic persists to transform the way we live, the 2022 thematic highlighted the importance of public spaces to enable human connections as well as the need to create correlations between humans, city and nature.

 In our fast-paced societies where leisure is a repressed human right, Urban Gorillas proposed to rethink city spaces as a ground to accommodate places that are universally playful and inclusive for citizens of all classes, nationalities, ages, genders and abilities.
Urban Playground explored the idea of play in public spaces as a tool for social and spatial interactions, sociability, co-creation and coexistence with the natural environment. 

Through planned events and open invitations, it seeked to design playful explorations of the neighborhood while stressing values of empathy, camaraderie and connection with the local community. The event invited residents and visitors to explore their urban environment through playful tools and interventions and to embrace a new reading of the urban open spaces as our common meeting ground.

The Department of Arts and Communication at Frederick University has a philosophy which resides in a balance of visual, oral, and written intelligence in the fields of
Art and Design. Primarily concerned with the power and value of concepts and ideas, the Department of Arts and Communication explores the dissemination of
knowledge and messages, both persuasive and informative, to dened audiences. Understanding the process of identifying visual issues and analyzing the techniques
of resolution and transmission the Department employs contemporary methodologies and cutting edge means of production.

Visual intelligence, which is not easily assimilated as oral and written intelligence, is viewed as the acquisition of critical and intuitive visual discrimination
in the process of mark making and the construction of imagery, the delivery of words and the understanding of underlying icons, symbols and visual triggers.

Visual lateral thinking and appreciation of subliminal elements in Art and Design interpretation is seen in relation to how all forms of imagery are delivered, received,
deciphered and understood by appropriate audiences and viewers.