Interaction design is increasingly about embedding interactive technologies in our built environment; architecture is increasingly about the use of interactive technologies to reimagine and dynamically repurpose our built environment.

This forum focuses on this intersection of interaction and architecture. — Mikael Wiberg, Editor FORUM INTERACTION AND ARCHITECTURE Mikael Wiberg, Umeå University

The architecture that surrounds us defines a crucial part of our everyday lives. It shapes and defines the frames for our lives, the rooms in which we live, work, socialize, do our shopping, and spend our leisure time [ 1].

Architecture is the classic, established approach to the design of our built environment. For hundreds of years, architects have focused on the design of our physical surroundings to define the frames for our lives. In doing so, architecture has established itself as the tradition of working with the material and artificial aspects of our physical surroundings to support the social and cultural aspects of our lives. With this as its primary focus, architecture as a discipline and a practice shares several characteristics with interaction design. Architecture is people-centered yet design-oriented; it deals with the intersection of human factors and artificial matters—that is, the material, designed aspects of our everyday lives.

In a similar way, interaction design contains a number of aspects deeply rooted in the field of architecture, including a concern for our physical surroundings as well as a focus on supporting activities and the flow of people, information, and interaction by means of designed artifacts.

While architecture and interaction design have traditionally dealt with ontologically different matters— the physical vs. the digital—this distinction is now being challenged.

Ubiquitous computing, embedded
systems, and the Internet of Things
(Io T) are just a few examples of
how interactive technologies are
increasingly integrated into our
physical surroundings. This at a time
when we are spending more and
more time online in “architectures of
interaction” [ 2], including the wide
range of social media systems that
provide the frames for how we meet,
communicate, and stay together online.
So, while architecture used to
be about the structured way of
arranging and defining “the frames
for our lives,” that is more and more
the agenda for interaction design as
well. At this intersection, interaction
design is concerned with more than
just the online aspects of living,
communicating, and interacting,
and architecture is concerned with
more than just the arrangement of
physical aspects of our surroundings.
Beyond any simplistic or categorical
distinctions between the two areas,
we should rather dig deeper into how
architecture is becoming a concern for
interaction design and vice versa.
Against this background I propose
“Interaction and Architecture” as a
theme for this forum. I view this as
a broad label for the practice where
interaction design is deliberately done
in relation to our built environment.
It might be for the purpose of
reimagining and dynamically
repurposing our built environment,
it might be for the purpose of
embedding interactivity into our
built environment, or it might be for
the purpose of augmenting our built
environment. As such, Interaction
and Architecture is about the design
of interactive systems that takes
an architectural understanding of
interactive technologies as one point of
departure, and how such technologies
might operate as architectural
elements in the creation of interactive
experiences as another point of
departure. In short, it is about bringing
the design practices of interaction
design and architecture together.

ARCHITECTURE MEETS
INTERACTION DESIGN—
A PARADOX?

Ubiquitous computing, embedded
systems, and the Io T do indeed
point in the direction of a complete
integration of computing into our built
environment. From this perspective, it
is natural to focus on the intersection of
interaction design and architecture.
One might think that an interest
in architectural or spatial aspects of
interactivity is just the latest trend
in HCI. However, if we review the
history of HCI over the past 30 years,
it should be acknowledged how we,
as a community, have systematically
worked through a wide repertoire
of explorations of the spatial and
architectural dimensions of interaction
design. This repertoire includes
Insights
→ Architectural thinking provides a
new ground for interaction design.
→ Interactive technologies can work
as architectural elements.

→ At the intersection of interaction design and architecture we can start to think about how to “architect interaction.”

Interaction Design Meets
Architectural Thinking