Hybrid Connected Spaces: Mediating User Activities in Physical and Digital Space

Abstract

The ever connected, almost symbiotic bond between physical and digital domain gives birth to new contexts of use and behavior. Designing a building, conceiving its interior or exterior arrangement, is no longer an issue that can be resolved solely in the physical domain. It calls for the integration of a digital, immaterial dimension introducing new variables and expertise. The fields of Human Computer Interaction, Human Building Interaction and Architecture, designate new environments that appear to be a middle ground between the physical and digital domain. In these new Hybrid Spaces the traditional utilitarian features of space are different, the users act differently, and have reformed expectations. In this paper we question if space can guide, inform, and educate the users to improve usability. To answer this question two projects carried out by the Mobile Experience Lab are presented: the Atlas Service Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Connected Sustainable Home in Trento, north Italy. Motivation for this research was our interest in reconsidering the nature of everyday work and live environments and activities in a way that integrates the latest technological advancements. Hybrid Connected Spaces represent the potential of an original type of symbiotic physical and digital domain that enables new enactments to take place.