Video Mediated Communication for Domestic Environments Architectural and Technological Design

Abstract. This paper presents different solutions for the integration of Video Mediated Communication (VMC) into the home environment considering primarily architectural and technical aspects. The context is entitled comHOME, a concept dwelling of the future designed and built as a full-scale model in collaboration with a telecom operator. The principal problem investigated is the various aspects of private and public zones when using VMC in a home environment. The solution concerns the integration of different comZONES (communicative zones for VMC), where the resident can be seen and heard at different levels varying in time and space. The comZONES presented include, for example, a “videoTORSO ”-a large vertically mounted flat screen for informal everyday communication and a “mediaSPACE ”- a set-up consisting of a wall of screens permitting shared activities in both time and space. The comZONES are mainly described from an architectural (form and function) as well as technological (hardware and software) perspective

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