Trends und Visionen im modernen Bibliotheksbau : mit den Beispielen Seattle Public Library, Sendai Médiathèque, Phoenix Central Library

Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit setzt sich mit Trends und Visionen im modernen Bibliotheksbau auseinander. Es werden einige Visionen für Bibliotheken und Bibliotheksgebäude in der nahen Zukunft vorgestellt und der Frage nachgegangen welche Gestalt und welche Funktionen die Bibliothek und ihr Gebäude künftig haben könnten, ebenso welche Trends bereits zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt zu erkennen sind. Anhand der drei nachfolgenden exemplarischen Tendenzen soll den Fragen nachgegangen werden wie intelligent Bibliotheksgebäude sein müssen, wie real oder virtuell die Bibliothek und ihr Gebäude sein werden und wie sich die Bibliothek im städtischen Kontext positionieren kann. Drei Beispiele aus dem gegenwärtigen Bibliotheksbau werden näher vorgestellt: Die neue Zentralbibliothek in Seattle, welche nächstes Jahr eröffnet wird, die Médiathèque in Sendai, Japan und die bereits 1995 eröffnete Zentralbibliothek in Phoenix, Arizona

Building communities for design education : using telecommunication technology for remote collaborative learning

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-280).The design studio, as both a learning environment and a social place, is one of the major components of architectural education. Traditionally, the studio has been considered a place for individual design work and one-on-one mentoring between an instructor and a student. With the integration of new information and telecommunication technologies, the nature of the design studio and the learning processes within it are being altered. This new landscape of the design studio offers opportunities for globally distributed collaborative work as well as new interpretations of design processes and studio practices. The technologies and the studio system are interwoven and their symbiotic relationships need to be understood if these technology-mediated long-distance collaborative design studios are to be common, valuable, and creative occurrences in architectural education. In this study, the consequences of integrating telecommunication technologies into the design studio are examined through ten cases. The new studios involve multidisciplinary design participants from separate and distant physical and social environments that are electronically connected for sharing design ideas, creating a common understanding of design practices, and co-constructing design objects. With technology use, changes occur in the studio's participants and relationships, the design content and processes, and the events and organization. I argue that the changes to the studio can create an enriched environment for design learning. The successive case studies represent a dynamic pedagogic strategy in which both students and teachers are active participants in constructing their new technology-mediated learning environment through creative experimentation. The findings of these cases provide a comprehensive description of the technical and social characteristics, conditions, and practices of remote collaborative design studios. In these new virtual design studios, there are rich opportunities for building innovative and effective communities for design education in which the traditional boundaries of time, culture, language, discipline, and institution are blurred and new configurations for design learning become possible.by Susan Yee.Ph.D

Designing Tools for Reflection: a concept-driven approach

We are surrounded by objects. We often use and interact with them to do our daily activities. They do not only support us and augment our abilities, but also, can be considered as companions of our thoughts. We think with objects, because they contain information about us: about our memories, experiences, emotions, and activities as Sherry Turkle highlights (2011). Furthermore, our everyday objects are increasingly computed, smart and connected to the Internet. They are able to collect data, elaborate and provide real-time feedbacks. These feedbacks cannot only support us to improve our activities, but also enables critical thinking and reflection on our actions. This resonates very well with what Donald Schön meant by having reflective conversation with materials at hand (1983;1996). He highlighted that materials –artifacts– of a situation talk back to designer, so they enable and support reflection in action of designing. So, how about if we consider that our daily objects can talk back and make us think on our actions in order to consider alternatives? This dissertation, is an attempt to consider this opportunity. The nature of this dissertation is mostly conceptual and its scope is defining the physical and behavioral characteristics of smart artifacts able to provoke thoughts and reflection in user leading to a conscious behavior change. I sought to use existing theories about reflective thinking in HCI and beyond, as valuable sources for developing design concept. I have been inspired by the Concept-Driven interaction design research (Stolterman and Wiberg 2011) and created and defined the whole structure of this dissertation based on this methodology, from the definition of the concept – Tool for Reflection – to the construction of a theoretical model from the design outcome –Make Me Think model. During this process, I used different methods such as conducting literature analysis, context analysis, survey, participatory session and prototyping. The sustainable urban mobility behaviors in the city of Turin (Italy) as the target behavior and home as the place for using Tool for Reflection have been chosen for this research. In particular, informed by architectural studies, I conceptualized In-Between Places as a category of places that connect home places to city places. I suggested to consider such areas as suitable places for evoking thoughts on urban mobility behaviors, in home. This dissertation provides a theoretical perspective with which to guide the design of smart objects that evoke reflection. It first provides a set of characteristics of a Tool for Reflection as a physical artifact. Then it provides a theoretical model, considering the relationship between a Tool for Reflection and a user. The key contributions include the design of the Sóle, a smart lamp, not only as an example of a Tool for Reflection with its theoretically pre-defined characteristics, but also as an instrument for iterating from design to the theory. The overall approach, the methodology and the findings should be of interest in particular to researchers working on design for reflection in the HCI. More broadly this dissertation can be of interest of researchers in the HCI, whose research is around designing artifacts, both as an ‘outcome’ and as an ‘instrument’ of the research process

CIRCUS 2001 Conference Proceedings: New Synergies in Digital Creativity. Conference for Content Integrated Research in Creative User Systems

CIRCUS (Content Integrated Research For Creative User Systems) was an ESPRIT Working Group, originally set up in 1988 as one of the very last additional actions in Framework 4, under DG III. Its purpose was to develop models for collaborative work between artists (the term here used in its widest sense) and technologists (ditto) and to promote these models by whatever means available. While some have criticised this aim as implicitly promoting a 1950s agenda of building bridges across C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’, there is no such intention here, rather that technology, particularly computer and communications technology (ICT) , is irresistibly intruding into what is normally thought of as creative work (and so practised by artists) and that, like any new technique, this has to be understood by its potential practitioners in terms of its true strengths and limitations. The specific problem that computer technology poses is that it is in principle malleable to such an extent that the limitations on its form and functionality are still barely understood, yet the people charged with the task of making the technology available have little or no understanding of the needs of creative users. What the artist usually sees is a tool which is in principle capable of being harnessed to creative ends but in practice resists being so applied. Quite often the tool is shaped more by blind economic forces than by a clear response to a specific, here creative, need. CIRCUS came into existence as a forum in which both artists and technologists could work out how best to play to the strengths of ICT and how to apply both creative and technological solutions (possibly both together) to its limitations. In particular the then new Framework V programme invited projects in such areas as new media but required them to be addressed in essentially the same old way, by technologists working towards commercialisation. The only obvious exception to this was in the area of cultural heritage which, incidentally, CIRCUS was also capable of reviewing. The scope for effective participation by artists was thus limited by an essentially technological agenda although everybody at the time, the participants of CIRCUS and programme managers in DG III, believed that we could do far better than this, and to develop new models of working which could inform the nature of Framework VI or even the later stages of F V. It is fair to say that everyone involved was excited by the idea of doing something quite new (and iconoclastic), not least the expanding of the expertise base on which future Frameworks could draw. It is also fair to say that, while not ultimately wholly original, the CIRCUS agenda was an ambitious one and the WG has had a chequered history peppered with misunderstandings perpetrated by the very people who might have thought would give the WG their strongest support. The CIRCUS idea has been aired before, specifically at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, the MIT Media Lab (and its imitators), and a recent IEEE forum. However a near total change in participation, fuelled by natural migration and a switch to DG XIII, has resulted in the CIRCUS agenda being restarted on at least one occasion and a fairly regular questioning of the principles on whose elucidation we are engaged. While this is no bad thing in principle, in practice we haven’t learned anything new from these periodic bouts of self-examination other than a reinforcement of the values our goals. On the other hand it is evident that we have made progress and have moved on a long way from where we started. A recent experience of a workshop whose agenda appeared to be to form another version of CIRCUS, this time with an overwhelmingly technological (DG III) membership, demonstrates they have a CIRCUS-worth of work to do before they will have reached where we are now. (Foreword of CIRCUS for Beginners

THEORETICAL MODEL OF MEDIATED SHARED SPACE FOR SUPPORTING INFORMAL INTERACTION AT A DISTANCE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Autonomic ubiquitous computing: a home environment management system

Tese de doutoramento em Electrónica Industrial (ramo do conhecimento Informática Industrial)The Ubiquitous Computing and Autonomic Computing reached a point of convergence in which pervasive technology in the environment meets the ability of people to interact with it, making use of all the possibilities made available by this technology. Ubiquitous computing envisions a habitat where the abundance of devices, services and applications allows the physical and virtual worlds to become seamlessly merged. The promise of ubiquitous computing environments is not feasible unless these systems can effectively "disappear". In order to achieve this goal, they need to become autonomic, by managing their own evolution and configuration with minimal user intervention. It is in this context that aspects like self-configuration and self-healing from the autonomic computing concept were adopted in this project. The context awareness and the creation of applications which use that context are the core concern of Ubiquitous Computing Systems and represent the fundamentals for autonomic actions in this type of systems. Such research raises questions on context acquisition, distribution and manipulation, as well as on artificial intelligence algorithms that decide autonomic actions in the environment, having implications in the human interaction with Autonomic Ubiquitous Systems. The research presented in this thesis concentrates on some of those issues. During this project it was developed an experimental setup for context acquisition, in an effortless way, of some activities of a small group of users. This experimental setup was installed in a real home where a young family, a couple and a small child, were actually living. This experimental setup was mainly responsible for the control of the light system of the house, by a network of several inter-connected devices scattered in the home with limited resources. This prototype installation allowed the validation of the system ability, to capture daily life behaviour patterns of the inhabitants. The system architecture was designed based on the concept of a high level and a low level autonomic management system taking from nature the model of the human reflex arc. A reflexive behaviour is managed at a local level by the small devices, with limited resources, high level management is responsible for processing and analysis of the events broadcast by the group of small devices, and run in a centralized mode in a PC. The concept of device information broadcast, to the communication medium, as events was used as an approach to: inter-connect future systems, monitor correct operation of the system devices, capture raw data for estimation of context; allow the visualization of system feedback in user interface devices. Finally, an algorithm using artificial neural networks in combination with simple statistics was developed which allowed the house to learn the routines of its inhabitants, making it truly intelligent by embedding the knowledge about patterns of activities of the users in the devices scattered in the environment, increasing their comfort and, at same time, leading to more energy efficiency. The analysis of the data captured, during two complete years, shows that the reduction of power consumption could be as high as 50%, depending on the profile of the usage of the light.A Computação Ubíqua e a Computação Autónoma atingiram um ponto de convergência no qual a tecnologia dispersa nos ambientes, juntamente com a capacidade das pessoas interagirem, permite tirar partido do seu uso para novas potencialidades. A computação ubíqua vislumbra habitats repletos de dispositivos, serviços e aplicações que permitem a união perfeita do mundo real com o mundo virtual, mas de uma forma natural. A promessa da criação de tais ambientes de computação ubíqua não se tornará possível sem que a complexidade destes sistemas “desapareçam” efectivamente da percepção dos utilizadores. Para que isso seja possível, estes necessitam de ser autónomos, gerindo a sua própria evolução e configuração com o mínimo de intervenção do utilizador. É neste contexto que a noção de Sistemas Ubíquos Autónomos envolvendo as facetas de auto-configuração e auto-reparação derivadas do conceito da computação autónoma, será usada nesta tese. A percepção do contexto e a criação de aplicações que o usam são as principais preocupações na investigação dos Sistemas de Computação Ubíqua, constituindo também a base para as acções autónomas neste tipo de sistemas. Essa investigação levanta questões sobre a forma como o contexto é capturado, distribuído e manipulado. Por outro lado, provoca impacto nos algoritmos de inteligência artificial que efectuam as decisões de acções autónomas no ambiente, afectando consequentemente a interacção humana com os Sistemas Ubíquos Autónomos. A investigação apresentada nesta dissertação concentra-se efectivamente em alguns destes aspectos. Durante a tese foi desenvolvido um sistema experimental com o objectivo de capturar o contexto, de uma forma perceptível, das actividades de um pequeno grupo de utilizadores. Este sistema experimental foi instalado numa casa real, onde vive uma jovem família constituída por uma casal e uma pequena criança. O sistema experimental era responsável por controlar toda a iluminação eléctrica da casa, através de um conjunto de dispositivos, com recursos limitados, conectados em rede e espalhados pela casa. A instalação permitiu validar a capacidade do sistema de capturar os padrões de comportamento quotidiano dos habitantes da casa. A arquitectura do sistema foi projectada baseando-se no conceito de alto-nível e baixo-nivel dos sistemas de gestão autónoma, inspirando-se no modelo dos processos que ocorrem num acto reflexo no corpo humano. As acções de reflexo ou acções básicas são geridas pelo baixo-nivel nos pequenos dispositivos e com recursos limitados, e quanto o gestão de alto-nivel é responsável pelo processamento e analise dos eventos disponíveis no barramento de dados da rede dos pequenos dispositivos. Foi também usado o conceito da difusão (broadcast) da informação, para o barramento de dados, na forma de eventos para permitir: a interligação com sistema futuros, monitorização do correcto funcionamento do sistema, captura da informação para posterior determinação do contexto; e por fim permitir a visualização do estado do sistema na interface com os utilizadores. Por último, foi desenvolvido um algoritmo usando redes neuronais artificiais e em combinação com estatística básica que permite aprender, de uma forma autónoma, as rotinas dos habitantes em casa, conferindo a esta um ambiente inteligente. Desta forma, a casa contém o conhecimento dos padrões quotidianos dos habitantes, aumentando consequentemente o seu conforto e ao mesmo tempo, permitindo melhor eficiência energética. As análises dos dados capturados, durante dois anos completos, mostram que a redução no consumo energético pode chegar os 50%, dependendo do perfil de uso da iluminação.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)Scholarship number SFRH/BD/8290/2004

Storing, caring and sharing: Examining organisational practices around material stuff in the home

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Homes are a much discussed, but little empirically examined resource for action. Material stuff at home offer resources for social, organisational and individual activities that we routinely encounter and use on an everyday basis. Yet their purposes, storing and sharing practices of use and roles in social and organisational actions are hardly touched upon within Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) academic literature. As a consequence of this, there are critical gaps in understanding home organisation and management methods as a means of informing the design of novel technologies. This thesis is an examination of everyday routines in home, paying particular attention to tidying, storing, retrieving and sharing practices. To examine these practices at home, this thesis presents a combination of two qualitative studies using ethnographically oriented methods. Study one (Home’s Tidying up, Storing and Retrieving) concerns the topic of home storage in practice; investigating how householders create and use domestic storage practices and the methods used to manage their storage at home. Study two (Social Interaction around Shared Resources) concerns social interaction around shared resources, and the methods used to manage sharing practices at home. Semi-structured interviews, fieldwork observation, tour around a home, and a photo diary were undertaken to produce a ‘rich’ description of how householders collaborate in storing and sharing set of practices to manage their everyday routines. Several key finding emerged from the research, that are used to identify important implications for design of home organisational technologies, for example to support effective lightweight interactions, providing user controlled mechanism to make different levels of privacy protection for family members, offering effective awareness of family communications and notifications of the activities of other people around these organisation systems, and making available a range of flexible options for family members to access a shared resource. The thesis make the case that flexible systems should be designed allowing people to categorise things in different ways, and have the values of home asserted in technologies, considering factors such as emotion around the use of space in home organisation to make homes become the unique places that they are understood to be