Biography
Tobias Matter is a project lead and lecturer at the HSLU – Department Design Film Art. Within the research group Visual Narrative he leads the team "Extended Spaces", which develops and investigates Extended Reality (XR) – in particular Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) – as innovative methodological extensions for collaborative design, planning, mediation and dialogue processes. He is also part of the core teaching team of the BA Spatial Design, closely linking teaching and research in his areas of expertise.
His research interests focus on co-design practices, spatial design and social participation at the intersection of analogue and digital practices. He investigates how XR technologies can democratise urban planning processes, facilitate new forms of dialogue with the wider public and create hybrid mediation formats. Key thematic areas include public spaces, climate adaptation, socio-spatial transformation, and hybrid interactive approaches to cultural heritage mediation.
His transdisciplinary projects are carried out in close collaboration with public institutions, private companies, civil society organisations, cultural institutions and various community stakeholders. The core aim of his research is to develop hybrid formats that go beyond traditional participation and mediation practices, making complex issues accessible, understandable and interactively experienceable through digital augmentation.
In his teaching practice, Tobias Matter integrates his research findings directly into project-based courses. Students develop innovative spatial concepts using XR technologies and learn to communicate them in a convincing and reflective way in interdisciplinary contexts. He emphasises a critical, reflexive and socially relevant application of digital methods in spatial design.
He is currently completing his PhD at the CityScienceLab at the HafenCity University Hamburg, where he is exploring the potential of Augmented Reality as a socio-spatial co-design and dialogue tool for participatory urban planning. This research continues to provide the theoretical foundation and methodological inspiration for his ongoing teaching and research projects at the HSLU.
