Distributed Cognition in Phygital Design Interventions: Community–System Communication in Marginalized Urban Contexts

Abstract

Design interventions in marginalized urban communities involve complex interactions among people, material artifacts, and digital systems. In such settings, cognition and decision-making are not confined to individuals but are distributed across social, physical, and computational elements. This paper examines how communication between community members and a supporting system shapes collective sense-making during community-based design interventions. Drawing on comparative fieldwork in Campana-Altamira (Mexico) and Kampung Gedong Pompa (Indonesia), the study analyzes participatory workshops in which physical artifacts (e.g., maps, models, and visual notations) were combined with a lightweight digital system that recorded, organized, and re-presented community-generated knowledge. The paper introduces the concept of a Situated Knowledge Ecosystem (SKE) to describe this arrangement—not as a standalone technology, but as an emergent cognitive ecosystem situated between physical and digital interventions. Empirical observations show that communication between the community and the system played a critical role in distributing cognitive labor. Physical artifacts supported immediate discussion and negotiation, while the digital layer functioned as a persistent external memory that stabilized interpretations across time and participants. Rather than producing decisions directly, the system mediated how information was revisited, compared, and reflected upon, thereby influencing how collective judgments evolved. This paper highlights how cognitive ecosystems can support distributed cognition in socially complex environments. The findings suggest that the effectiveness of such systems lies not in computational intelligence, but in how they are embedded within ongoing human practices and material interactions.

Keywords: Distributed Cognition, Situated Knowledge Ecosystem, Participatory Design, Phygital Intervention, Collective Sensemaking

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007368