UrbanChatRoom Brings Chat Boxes To The Real World

UrbanChatRoom is a new smartphone application developed in Vienna, that aims to blend the real and virtual worlds. Demonstrated for the first time at the Austrian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, the app serves as a new, free location-based communication system that brings the good ol’ chat box alive in physical space.

Instead of constantly using a smartphone to speak with people who are not really present, the UrbanChatRoom enables a real shared experience that intensifies the relationship between the living space of the city and the people who live there. In order to participate in a chat, a user has to be physically in a room — a predefined area in the app which can be a building, a neighborhood, or a city. The UrbanChatRoom offers not only location-based chat functionality, but users can also arrange meetings, trade information about particular places, or register for particular activities. Head over to the project’s website to learn more!