Adaptive architecture and personal data

Through sensors carried by people and sensors embedded in the environment, personal data is being processed to try to understand activity patterns and people’s internal states in the context of human-building interaction. This data is used to actuate adaptive buildings to make them more comfortable, convenient, and accessible or information rich. In a series of envisioning workshops, we queried the future relationships between people, personal data and the built environment, when there are no technical limits to the availability of personal data to buildings. Our analysis of created designs and user experience fictions allows us to contribute a systematic exposition of the emerging design space for adaptive architecture that draws on personal data. This is being situated within the context of the new European information privacy legislation, the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016. Drawing on the tension space analysis method, we conclude with the illustration of the tensions in the temporal, spatial, and inhabitation-related relationships of personal data and adaptive buildings, re-usable for the navigation of the emerging, complex issues by future designers

Adaptive architecture: Regulating human building interaction

In this paper we explore regulatory, technical and interactional implications of Adaptive Architecture, a novel trend emerging in the built environment. We provide a comprehensive description of the emergence and history of the term, with reference to the current state of the art and policy foundations supporting it e.g. smart city initiatives and building regulations. As Adaptive Architecture is underpinned by the Internet of Things (IoT), we are interested in how regulatory and surveillance issues posed by the IoT manifest in buildings too. To support our analysis, we utilise a prominent concept from architecture, Stuart Brand’s Shearing Layers model, which describes the different physical layers of a building and how they relate to temporal change. To ground our analysis, we use three cases of Adaptive Architecture, namely an IoT device (Nest Smart Cam IQ); an Adaptive Architecture research prototype, (ExoBuilding); and a commercial deployment (the Edge). In bringing together Shearing Layers, Adaptive Architecture and the challenges therein, we frame our analysis under 5 key themes. These are guided by emerging information privacy and security regulations. We explore the issues Adaptive Architecture needs to face for: A – ‘Physical & information security’; B – ‘Establishing responsibility’; C – ‘occupant rights over flows, collection, use & control of personal data’; D- ‘Visibility of Emotions and Bodies’; & E – ‘Surveillance of Everyday Routine Activities’. We conclude by summarising key challenges for Adaptive Architecture, regulation and the future of human building interaction

Adaptive Architecture:Regulating human building interaction

In this paper, we explore the regulatory, technical and interactional implications of Adaptive Architecture (AA) and how it will recalibrate the nature of human-building interaction. We comprehensively unpack the emergence and history of this novel concept, reflecting on the current state of the art and policy foundations supporting it. As AA is underpinned by the Internet of Things (IoT), we consider how regulatory and surveillance issues posed by the IoT are manifesting in the built environment. In our analysis, we utilise a prominent architectural model, Stuart Brand’s Shearing Layers, to understand temporal change and informational flows across different physical layers of a building. We use three AA applications to situate our analysis, namely a smart IoT security camera; an AA research prototype; and an AA commercial deployment. Focusing on emerging information privacy and security regulations, particularly the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016, we examine AA from 5 perspectives: physical & information security risks; challenges of establishing responsibility; enabling occupant rights over flows, collection, use & control of personal data; addressing increased visibility of emotions and bodies; understanding surveillance of everyday routine activities. We conclude with key challenges for AA regulation and the future of human–building interaction

The Quest for the Room of Requirement - Why Some Activity-based Flexible Offices Work While Others Do Not

The overarching purpose of this thesis is to develop further knowledge of the consequences of relocating to Activity-based Flexible Offices (AFOs). As workspace design innovations, AFOs are increasingly implemented in organisations. AFOs comprise a variety of workspaces for employees to choose from depending on their preferences or activities. Workspaces in AFOs are shared, instead of every employee having their own desk. Research results are inconsistent regarding employee satisfaction with AFOs, and research into employees’ appropriation of AFOs and organisations’ processes of adopting AFOs is sparse. In response to these knowledge gaps, the thesis aims to explain why some AFOs work while others do not. The thesis builds on five case studies: (i) three cases with recently implemented AFOs, and (ii) two cases with AFOs implemented at least two years prior to the study. Data collection in all the case studies involved semi-structured interviews with employees and facility managers, observations and collection of secondary data such as process overviews, and layout drawings. For data collection and analysis, a theoretical framework was developed and used consisting of Activity Theory, artefact ecology, as well as theories of innovation adoption and appropriation. The findings show that individuals’ usage of AFOs varies considerably due to personal circumstances and work-related preconditions. Drawing on Activity Theory, three types of matches/mismatches were identified in employees’ activity systems: Employee ↔ AFO, Activity ↔ AFO, and Employee ↔ Activity. Furthermore, individuals’ usage preferences and non-preferences highlighted sub-optimal design features in the AFOs: (a) ambiguity and insufficient communication of rules; (b) undesirable ambient features; (c) exposure to stimuli; (d) difficult to interpret workspaces; and (e) dysfunctionality and insufficiency of the collective instruments. In summary, AFOs work in the absence of mismatches related to individuals’ personal and work-related preconditions and sub-optimal design features. The employees’ processes of appropriating AFOs involved first encounters, exploration, and stable phases, during which various types of adaptations occurred: (i) on an individual level: acquired insights, and behavioural, social and hedonic adaptations, as well as (ii) in the AFO solutions: rule-related, spatial and instrument adaptations. Furthermore, the AFO adoption process in organisations varied considerably.\ua0 Procedural shortcomings during the planning process led to a limited understanding of AFO users and thus the sub-optimal AFO designs, while shortcomings during the routinising stage involved restrictions on making post-relocation improvements in AFOs and inadequate Occupational Health & Safety management. To conclude, AFOs work provided (i) they match individuals’ personal circumstances and work-related preconditions; (ii) they facilitate flexibility and shared use of spaces through well-designed rules, workspaces and instruments; (iii) individuals’ appropriation processes reach a stable phase where mismatches are resolved and fruitful symbiosis is achieved in their activity systems; and (iv) the organisations’ process of adopting AFOs is successful both during the planning and the post-relocation routinising stages, leading to a collective sense of ownership among employees

In Search of the DomoNovus: Speculative Designs for the Computationally-Enhanced Domestic Environment

Edited version embargoed until 01.02.2018 Full version: Access restricted permanently due to 3rd party copyright restrictions. Restriction set on 01.02.2017 by SC, Graduate schoolThe home is a physical place that provides isolation, comfort, access to essential needs on a daily basis, and it has a strong impact on a person’s life. Computational and media technologies (digital and electronic objects, devices, protocols, virtual spaces, telematics, interaction, social media, and cyberspace) become an important and vital part of the home ecology, although they have the ability to transform the domestic experience and the understanding of what a personal space is. For this reason, this work investigates the domestication of computational media technology; how objects, systems, and devices become part of the personal and intimate space of the inhabitants. To better understand the taming process, the home is studied and analysed from a range of perspectives (philosophy, sociology, architecture, art, and technology), and a methodological process is proposed for critically exploring the topic with the development of artworks, designs, and computational systems. The methodology of this research, which consists of five points (Context, Media Layers, Invisible Matter, Diffusion, and Symbiosis), suggests a procedure that is fundamental to the development and critical integration of the computationally enhanced home. Accordingly, the home is observed as an ecological system that contains numerous properties (organic, inorganic, hybrid, virtual, augmented), and is viewed on a range of scales (micro, meso and macro). To identify the “choreographies” that are formed between these properties and scales, case studies have been developed to suggest, provoke, and speculate concepts, ideas, and alternative realities of the home. Part of the speculation proposes the concept of DomoNovus (the “New Home”), where technological ubiquity supports the inhabitants’ awareness, perception, and imagination. DomoNovus intends to challenge our understanding of the domestic environment, and demonstrates a range of possibilities, threats, and limitations in relation to the future of home. This thesis, thus, presents methods, experiments, and speculations that intend to inform and inspire, as well as define creative and imaginative dimensions of the computationally-enhanced home, suggesting directions for the further understanding of the domestic life.Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundatio

Hybrid interactions in museums: why materiality still matters

The importance of physical and tangible qualities in museum visits has been established by extensive literature exploring the importance of materiality (Dudley, 2013) and multisensory experiences (Levent and Pascual-Leone, 2014) of heritage. A challenge for digital technology design is to ensure that these dimensions are not lost to visually heavy virtual experiences. This chapter examines hybrid interactions in museums, outlining exemplars of successful physical- digital installations and defining the key aspects to consider for their design and evaluation. The goal is to complement chapters on virtual approaches to heritage with insights on how and why to successfully bridge physical and digital in hybrid designs.</jats:p

A Network of One’s Own: Struggles to Domesticate the Internet

This thesis is a design research practice-led inquiry into the domesticated Internet. It first seeks to complicate simplistic corporate and academic visions by naming some of the struggles it encounters – not least to assert a private home and network of one's own. It is argued that a century of domestic technologies has emphasised invisibility, ubiquity, and automation in ways that obscure a network of exploited people and finite resources. Furthermore, these technological ambitions are met through machine surveillance, in ways newly enabled by the domesticated Internet, that threaten the privacy of the home. In response, this thesis seeks some practical ways to design alternatives that assert a network of one's own and makes the work it implicates visible. The methodological approach is broadly Research Through Design supplemented by a practice described as designerly hacking through which hidden technical potential is revealed and given meaning. Two empirical studies are described that together make an account of the technical possibility and social reality of the networked home: an autobiographical technical exploration of the author's home and network with the making of hacks and Research Products privately and in public; and a cultural probe engagement with six rented households surfacing contemporary accounts of the domesticated Internet and in particular the challenges and opportunities of wireless networking. Together this yields a series of technical and social insights for design and two forms are offered to communicate these: a framework for understanding change in the networked home (The Stuff of Home) and a set of 30 design patterns for a network of one's own; each invites different analyses. The conclusion then draws together the multiple threads developed through this thesis and offers some reflection on the complexity of doing contemporary technical design work