Research+Portfolio

PUCK buildings use the data and information they generate, collect, and process about themselves and their inhabitants to tell you stories about how they work, how your use impacts them, and to engage you in ongoing conversations with them.  Both your personal and shared relationship to PUCK buildings is developed through a three-part process that 1) makes a buildings systems and data transparent to inhabitants, 2) engages inhabitants in ongoing personal interactions and conversations that develop over the course of ones relationship with each particular building, and 3) present inhabitants with a personal totem [personal data sculpture that materializes the immateriality of the digital place] that is created through specific interactions, while reflecting the growing relationship between buildings, their data and inhabitants over time.

Though these three elements might manifest themselves in different ways, or through their different characters, each provides a stepping stone towards increasingly engaging experiences between buildings and inhabitants within Interactive Architecture.  These three processes, Transparency, Engaging with the Building, and the development of a  Personal Data Object each rely on a continually evolving and adaptable system of interactions between buildings, data, and inhabitants as buildings and inhabitants learn about and from each other.  But to fully engage with and participate in this ongoing relationship development with a building, you will first need to download the PUCK mobile application to be detected by each building.

PUCK investigates changing spatial character and the resulting experience of place in the context of Interactive Architecture.  As buildings become dynamic generators of data and information, they have the opportunity to use their embedded technological systems to play a more collaborative role in an inhabitants’ experience of space and place.  This presents a unique opportunity to conceptualize and design near future situations and ambient interfaces for interacting with the built environment.  These new spaces of possibility are imaginable by connecting people to now-common ubiquitous computing technologies such as sensors, building management systems, and mobile devices, and to the networks that make up the Internet of Things.

What emerges from this complex interconnection of people, technologies and networks is a design challenge for both interaction designers and architects to create meaningful and evocative experiences within hybrid physical/digital spaces of Interactive Architecture.