Digital Service Points – City of London

Concept and UX design for a self-sustaining smart service point for the City of London, from its on-street security hardware to an IoT companion app.

Digital Service Points (DSP) is our competition proposal for the City of London, developed from a brief by the London City Police: a network of self-sustaining street kiosks that bring together security, public services, greenery and a virtual layer in one piece of urban furniture. Dorve UX led the user experience, working with architecture studio 1319 and an external renewable-energy engineer.

The brief asked us to improve public security in the City of London. We approached it as an experience problem rather than a hardware problem, treating security and the enjoyment of public space as compatible instead of opposed. The proposal considers six factors together, security, universal accessibility, user experience, sustainability, economic viability and aesthetic guidelines, all tied to a virtual, Internet of Things layer. Because the DSP is modular, it can be modified and retrofitted quickly and inexpensively, and the same design can be built in different materials so each material identifies a different borough.

On the ground, a single DSP carries two touchscreens, one for the public and one reserved for police through fingerprint recognition, two sets of panoramic CCTV, a first aid kit with defibrillator and oxygen tank, and a mesopic light guide that stays visible in fog and at long distances for low-visibility conditions. Around it sit the services that make people want to stop: drinking and pet water, a bottle filler, phone-charging lockers, seating, shade, a triple-intention water fountain and public wifi. The unit powers itself with wind energy and BIPV photovoltaic cells, and the planting is chosen for species that need little or no maintenance.

Accessibility follows the UK government guidelines, and we added cultural accessibility, which we treat as essential for a multicultural city. The physical points are completed by a free companion app that guides people to the nearest DSP, assists users with disabilities, and lets residents, police and government exchange information in real time. Esteban Herrera produced the 3D renders that carry the proposal, including placements in locations such as Canary Wharf. On economics, the DSP is cheaper to build than the budget allocated for it, and it is designed to sustain itself through advertising space on the screen and by returning excess energy to the grid.

Project info

Requirements

Design a Digital Service Point for the City of London that strengthens public security without making public space feel hostile, meets UK accessibility standards, sustains itself with clean energy and a workable economic model, and connects to residents through a digital layer. The unit also had to be quick and inexpensive to retrofit, and adaptable across different boroughs.

Strategies & techniques

User research · Universal accessibility (UK gov guidelines and WCAG) · Cultural accessibility · Behavioural analysis · Urban and industrial design · Holistic concept development · 3D visualisation and renders · IoT service design · Companion app UX · Sustainable energy planning (wind and BIPV) · Modular design for low-cost retrofit

Tools

Ideation: user research, behavioural analysis and multidisciplinary coordination between the UX, architecture and engineering teams. Design and prototyping: architectural and industrial design of the unit, plus 3D modelling and rendering for the placement mockups. Delivery and presentation: 3D render sheets, companion-app UX mockups, video presentation and the full proposal document handed to the client.

Final results

The proposal was shortlisted as a finalist in the Urban UX category, and the IoT companion app was selected to move forward as a separate development, which we cover as its own project. Beyond that outcome, the DSP concept held usability, security and aesthetics together in one design, stayed under the allocated budget, and set out a path to self-financing through on-screen advertising and energy returned to the grid. It was delivered by a multidisciplinary team led by Dorve UX with architecture studio 1319 and a renewable-energy engineer.