Tasos Varoudis

Ar-CHI-Tecture: architecture and interaction

The rise of ubiquitous computing leads to a natural convergence between the areas of architectural design (the design of buildings, spaces and experience of being in and moving through them) and HCI. We suggest that Architecture and CHI have much to learn from each other in terms of research and practice. This workshop will bring together these communities to explore the benefits of architecture envisioned as integral to an expanded CHI community. The workshop organizers aim to create a framework for future collaboration and identify new directions for research in this multidisciplinary field. This promises significant impacts on both interaction research and its real-world applications.

Architecture and Interaction

Ubiquitous computing has a vision of information and interaction being embedded in the world around us; this forms the basis of this book. Built environments are subjects of design and architects have seen digital elements incorporated into the fabric of buildings as a way of creating environments that meet the dynamic challenges of future habitation. Methods for prototyping interactive buildings are discussed and the theoretical overlaps between both domains are explored. Topics like the role of space and technology within the workplace as well as the role of embodiment in understanding how buildings and technology can influence action are discussed, as well as investigating the creation of place with new methodologies to investigate the occupation of buildings and how they can be used to understand spatial technologies. Architecture and Interaction is aimed at researchers and practitioners in the field of computing who want to gain a greater insight into the challenges of creating technologies in the built environment and those from the architectural and urban design disciplines who wish to incorporate digital information technologies in future buildings.

Ambient displays: influencing movement patterns

Ambient displays are gradually augmenting the principal static elements of architecture, such as walls, transforming space into a dynamic and ever-changing environment. Does the addition of such digital elements influence peoples perception and understanding of space around them? If so, do ambient displays lead to behavioral changes like peoples movement in such environments? In this particular study, a series of experiments were conducted to investigate public interior spaces with embedded ambient displays. The findings are then presented showing how the presence of an ambient display through its visual depth affects and changes movement patterns. This study discusses the ability of an ambient display to refine navigation paths and suggests that its visual depth can enhance its effectiveness.

Design, cognition & behaviour: usability in the built environment

This speculative research proposal offers a user-centred perspective on AgentBased Models for architectural/urban usability studies. As arbitrary decisions are typically made to model some variables over others, Agent-Based Models often miss the patterns and biases of human spatial behaviour long known in Spatial Cognition literature. When meaningful variables are included in the model, they are often assumed to be normally, or unimodally distributed. As a plethora of empirical studies have shown, human behaviour is neither logical, nor random, and very rarely optimal. This proposal presents the problem in detail and offers some avenues for further development, including the ideas for validation of the potential cognitively biased agent-based models.

Architects of information

Interaction design is increasingly about embedding interactive technologies in our built environment; architecture is increasingly about the use of interactive technologies to reimagine and dynamically repurpose our built environment. This forum focuses on this intersection of interaction and architecture. --- Mikael Wiberg, Editor

Interaction and architectural space

For many in the field of HCI, location and space are synonymous; yet, as we move from the mobile era to the ubiquitous era, computing becomes entangled with notions of space. This workshop critically examines the role of space in human-computer interfaces. The objective is to bring together diverse perspectives of space, drawing from architecture, philosophy, art, geography, design, dance, spatial-cognition, mathematics, computing, and still other domains, towards foregrounding space in theoretical discussions and explorations within the CHI community. Expected outcomes are the reporting of fresh insights into the impact and role of space in the interaction process.

Measuring Interaction in Workplaces

Interactions in the workplace have long been studied by the architectural research community, however, in the past, the majority of those contributions focused on single case studies. Drawing on a much larger empirical sample of 27 offices, this chapter aims at establishing a baseline of understanding how the physical structure of office buildings shapes human behaviours of interaction. This may form a foundation for the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community to investigate the impact of embedded computer technology on human behaviours inside buildings. Methods of data collection included an analysis of floor plans with Space Syntax techniques and direct observations of space usage patterns. Exploring this data, different patterns emerged: interactions appeared unevenly distributed in space; interaction rates as well as preferences for locations varied by industry; spatial configuration appeared to create affordances for interaction, since unplanned interactions outside of meeting rooms tended to cluster in more visually connected areas of the office; in addition, seven different micro-behaviours of interaction were identified, each of them driven by affordances in both the built environment and the presence of other people; last but not least, locations for interactions showed clear time-space routines. The chapter closes with interpretations of the results, reflecting on the problem of predictability and how these insights could be useful for evidence-based design, but also the HCI community. It also gives an outlook on future developments regarding the constant logging of human behaviours in offices with emerging technologies.

D.L.D., Dynamic Lighting Design: Parametric Interactive Lighting Software in Urban Public Space

D.L.D., Dynamic Lighting Design, is a three year, E.U. funded, ongoing research project, concerning ways of designing dynamic luminous environments for pedestrians in open public spaces. This paper presents a set of ideas about how space and the surface of architecture are defined in a dynamic luminous environment, which enhance pedestrian lighting and encourage people to walk and visit public spaces. The D.L.D., parametric interactive lighting software in urban public space, will also be outlined in this paper.

Dynamic Lighting as a Design Tool to Achieve Amenity in Open Space

This paper presents our research objectives about dynamic lighting as a tool to achieve amenity in open space. We are currently reviewing theory and technology and we outline our main research methodology. We aim to study how dynamic lighting patterns can impact on amenity and people’s engagement in public space, oriented towards a sustainable development, and then to create a parametric tool that demonstrates these dynamic lighting patterns as visual salient objects in public space.