Introduction to Human-Building Interaction (HBI): Interfacing HCI with Architecture and Urban Design

Hamed Alavi, Elizabeth Churchill, Mikael Wiberg, Denis Lalanne, Peter Dalsgaard, Ava Fatah, Yvonne Rogers

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103 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Buildings and urban spaces increasingly incorporate artificial intelligence and new forms of interactivity, raising a wide span of research questions about the future of human experiences with, and within, built environments. We call this emerging area Human- Building Interaction (HBI) and introduce it as an interdisciplinary domain of research interfacing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with Architecture and Urban Design. HBI seeks to examine the involvement of HCI in studying and steering the evolution of built environments. Therefore, we needs to ask foundational questions such as: what are the specific attributes of built environments that HCI researchers should take into account when shifting attention and scale from “artefacts” to “environments”? Are architecture and interaction design methods and processes compatible? Concretely, how can a team of interaction designers bring their tools to an architectural project, and collaborate with other stakeholders? Can and will architecture change the theory and practice of HCI? Furthermore, research in HBI should produce knowledge and practical guidelines by experimenting novel design instances that combine architecture and digital interaction. The primary aim of this paper is to specify the mission, vision, and scope of research in Human-Building Interaction. As the introductory paper to the TOCHI special issue, it also provides a summary of published manuscripts and describes their collective contribution to the development of this field.
Original languageEnglish
Article number6
JournalACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
Volume26
Issue2 - Special Issue on Human-Building Interaction
Number of pages10
ISSN1073-0516
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Human-building interaction

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