Until now, I’ve written much about how clothing worn by occupants can act as sensors which collect data about their activities and functions in real time. Such data can be transmitted through to the building to further optimize its own operations and to bring greater value to its occupants.

But I am beginning to see now that the sensing of occupant activities and functions can go well beyond clothing. You see, in the future, skin will be “upgraded”: embedded with sensors, health tattoos, or temporary skin tattoos. Such skin sensors will be able to detect occupant health cues like heart rate or even brain waves. Additionally, health tattoos will be able to help those with disabilities to manage their impairments better, where for instance; those with diabetes would use their tattoos to constantly monitor their glucose levels. (1)

In the end, scientific advancements are making it possible for designers to really tap into what makes their occupants tick. And with real-time information about how your occupants are interacting, you stand in optimum position to use emerging design techniques to bring maximum value to your occupants. So, how might you do this?

For starters, think about interactive or adaptive architectural design — where your built environment responds to occupant language or behavior. Now, when you design in this manner, you need to make certain that when your design interacts with its occupant it is doing so in the healthiest way. And to ensure this, information collected can help to inform the next interaction which your architecture engages in.

In a sense, the closer you can get to how your occupant is actually feeling, thinking, or behaving, the better chance your design will have of meeting their most important and immediate needs.

So in addition to the sensing of your occupants behaviors through clothing and everyday objects, begin to consider how their skin, once “upgraded”, will play a role in the way you design your buildings. As an architect, ask yourself about how this would impact the way you design. Would you be able to design buildings that foster healthier, happier, more creative, or more productive occupants?

(1) Boyle, Rebecca. The Future of Skin. Popular Science. September 14, 2011.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Seth Godin recently wrote an article on “pre-digital environments” which I encourage you to read here. Now that you have read it, I ask you…how can you as an architect push advancement from this pre-digital age?

While it seems that much of what makes a place digital depends on the technology — I will tell you that is also depends on how the “design of place” works with that technology.

If the technology that makes a place “digital” is designed as an afterthought (not well integrated into the environment) it will likely have detrimental effects. On the other hand, if the technology that makes a place digital harmonizes with the architectural design, mountains can be moved to help occupants.

The linchpin in all of this is sensory design — which can guide the integration of technology with the environment for better occupant living. Sensory design is what can help to ensure that our transition from the pre-digital is humane.

In terms of hospital care, I agree with Seth Godin that the pre-digital can be “wasteful and dangerous” (as can be seen in many other building types as well). That is why the combination of sensory design with new architectural technologies is critical — to make sure that on our way to digital environments, we don’t create unneccessary chaos, noise, and disturbance. In this light, we’d just be trading one set of problems for new ones.

So, keep sensory design at the forefront as you make way for the digital in environments. In this way, environments will be safer, happier, more effective, and more efficient because you will have harnessed what sensory design and technology can do together.

Bring on the digital, but integrate with sensory design.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Technology is embedding itself everywhere. Within environments, it is becoming smaller and can be found in more and more everyday objects as well as in the fabric that makes up the environment itself. So, the main question becomes: what should we do with all of the information that such technology gathers?

Within smart environments such everywhere technology might be in the form of sensors and actuators that gather important data that gets fedback into a system to optimize a particular environmental function. Such sensors and actuators could live within everyday occupant objects or within the environment itself — again, to use the information gathered toward a given purpose. But, for what?

The following are:

7 Ways Ubiquitous Technology Can Be Used Within Smart Environments

1. Measure individual or collective occupant temperature through clothing to automatically adjust climate controlled building zones.
2. Measure individual or collective occupant stress (heart rate, perspiration, blood pressure) through clothing or wrist-worn devices to trigger environmental stimuli to reduce occupant stress points.
3. Gather data about green occupant behaviors within a given environment to then have environment feedback more green behavior change interventions.
4. Use data to observe excersice and mobility of occupants to then feedback interventions targeting better health toward exercise and mobility.
5. Gather information from social media sites (occupants often carry mobile phones) and feedback this information into environment to further engage occupants with their space and with each other.
6. Gather work pattern behavior data to feedback into system for environmental interventions that help occupants with productivity and/or creativity.
7. Pull data beteen multiple buildings to allow occupants to be more aware and to be in more control of their environments. For instance, pulling data about an occupant’s home and transmitting that data to them at work, at the hospital, or to their hotel would give them a new type of connectedness.

The latter 7 examples of what to do with data that is collected from ubiquitous technology within environments serves to get you thinking about how you might use such information to make your architectural design projects better.

To do this, simply think about what change or improvement you would like to make for your occupants in real-time. Then, think about what information you would need to gather in order to make that change a reality.

Ubiquitous technology is becoming more widespread. Perhaps you can take advantage of what it can do.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: jurvetson | Flickr

With the uprising of more technologies that seem to track everything from sleep, to diet, to other behavioral patterns, environmental design is becoming more of an important player in helping to collect such clues that consequentially help make a person’s life better. Such clues reveal patterns that can be used to determine where, when, and how a person might make adjustments in their life to improve issues like their health, productivity, memory, creativity, or even to help them engage in more socially-conscious behaviors, like green living.

So, the key here for you as an architect is to understand how patterns are inherent to how your designed spaces get used — and such patterns, upon their collection, can help you to design better for your building occupant, and can help your building to adapt in real-time to your occupants’ everchanging needs, as they need them. Especially, the more subtle ones that make a big difference.

I’m sure you’ve already begun to see sleep monitors, or diet monitors, becoming more readily available in devices like the iPhone, or other wrist-worn devices, for instance. (1) But have you stopped to consider what role your designed architectural environments play in this type of real-time lifestyle tracking and pattern analysis?

It is important for you to ask yourself, as an architect, “How can I use clues about how my building occupant behaves to help inform the way I design for them? And how can I use such clues to make my designs better, by tapping into the more subtle nuances of their life?” Also, you should consider whether some of the clues which your environment collects about an occupant would be beneficial to share back with them, in real-time and within that same environment. Might they impact the way your occupant makes health-minded choices, for example?

It is one thing to design for a populations’ general programmatic requirements which seem to get categorized into “standard” needs…a kind of “one size fits all approach”. But you can go a step further to personalize your design, to build an environment that speaks to your occupants’ particular weaknesses and strengths — to build an environment that picks up on the nuances that will make your occupant’s life better.

Thus, you should keep an eye out for new technologies that reveal patterns in your occupant’s lifestyle or health. Just as an occupant’s allergies might make a difference in the type of materials you choose for their designed space, new types of devices are revealing new types of information about people’s lives. Be sure to use such resources to better understand people in general, to better interpret the differences which your particular occupant presents, and to help you find new ways to design environments that collect, analyze, and solve for what were previously, invisible clues.

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

Reference:
(1) Nagle, Micheal. Tracking Attention, Social Activity, and Our Environment. The Measured Life. Technology Review.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: jurvetson | Flickr

As you look around the world today, you will notice that not only are devices getting more interconnected, but also the people that use those devices are getting more interconnected as well. With the Internet and our increasing ability to push data onto it, you as an architect are likely beginning to wonder how such innovations are changing the way buildings function.

For instance, what if many of the architectural devices (think light bulbs, thermostats, window glass, and so on) that your occupants use each day are able to collect simple information that push data onto an Internet dashboard that can make sense of it — to meet even greater personal and collective needs for occupants within buildings? An interesting quote taken from the video which I will show you at the end of this article describes such a “dashboard which manages GSA [building] properties not as machines, but as ecosystems.”

The notion of a building being closer to an ecosystem does make some sense, particularly when you begin to think about how we are becoming better able to turn the relationship between an occupant and their building into more of a dialogue between the two, rather than a one-sided conversation. Additionally, when we can see more deeply into real time information on how a building is being used by occupants, we simultaneously gain greater insight into how to build happier places.

In the following video, you will see a design proposal where concepts from IDEO are aiming to help US government buildings — in an effort to make them more humane, better optimized and increasingly greener. As you will see, these are just first steps in what can be accomplished when we consider how a building and its installations can push data onto the Internet. With more work on how we can aggregate and make sense of such real-time information, we can make our buildings not only smarter for the environment, but also healthier and happier places where occupants can thrive.

Take a look at the following video to see the way such a push data architectural system might work:

Please Tell Me What You Think

I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: maistora | Flickr

Ubiquitous computing is in the works and so is the smart building.

From portable computing to smart devices and from calm computing to wearable computing, architecture will no longer exist as a static “frame” which surrounds activity. Instead, buildings will begin to “move” around their occupants — as if to gain a nervous system.

Networks will help Buildings be Smart

Computers are getting smaller and they are being increasingly networked. The result will be buildings that communicate with both their exterior and interior environments. Since computers will be embedded in just about everything, from environmental objects to occupant clothing, designing for this type of ubiquitous computing evolution will be both challenging and amazing.

For starters, buildings will have to protect while also allowing for a renewed openness which we currently don’t see. As architects we will need to re-think the notion of boundary as it relates to what occupants can do within a space — and as it relates to what a space can do around an occupant.

Boundaries Become Flexible

Thus, as architectural space gains renewed function, flexibility will also be redefined. Some current “boundaries” will become more flexible, while others may completely disappear.

The notion of scale, for example, will undergo a shift within the architect’s mindset. With advancements in fields like nanotechnology, architects will rethink what materials can do. This coupled with ubiquitous computing will yield buildings where experiences for occupants will be more personalized. Yet, such personalization does not mean isolation. Building occupants may have individual needs met while still remaining part of their building, town, city and even global communities in real-time.

The important thing for architects to remember is that ubiquitous computing does not just affect computer devices and technologies. These things will become a part of the environment — and as they are embedded, it is up to architects to design so that when buildings communicate with such devices, everything is synchronized to yield healthy and human state-of-the-art environments.

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© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Idrutu | Dreamstime

INFORMATION EVERYWHERE

The hospital of the “future” is just around the corner. Already, research is being done to create an “interactive hospital” (1) — also known as a ubiquitous smart space.

The first step for better hospital design is a shift in mind-set where computers need to be thought of differently — departing from the traditional “office-type” mentality.

You see, hospitals deal with all formats of information that need to be accessible anytime and anywhere within the hospital. (1) Instead of providing one computer per person, an interactive hospital would provide an array of computer embedded just about everywhere so information can travel seamlessly, wherever and whenever it is needed.

A PRO-HEALING ENVIRONMENT

As ubiquitous computing technologies come together to make medical smart spaces, it becomes possible for all kinds of medical devices to help with data and collaboration management. The first step is for hospital technologies and environments to become interactive — helping the medical team to do a better job, more quickly.

Here is a glimpse of how an interactive hospital might work:

“We are working on prototypes for creating interactive walls, ceilings, and floors, as well as embedding computers in hospital beds, pill containers, surgical tools, etc. We envision a hospital where clinicians can approach interactive surfaces anywhere and carry on their work. Some of these surfaces are small and handheld like PDAs (but are not personal), others are large like the one used in a radiology conference room, where the whole wall is one big interactive surface.” (1)

The beauty of an interactive hospital is that, if designed well, it can give the patient a much better healing experience. By creatively integrating ubiquitous and interactive devices, architects can fine tune healing environments through the patient’s senses, improving things like their physiology and mood — important factors when it comes to healing.

SAFER AND FASTER PATIENT RECOVERY

It’s all about the patient and their recovery. By maximizing the capabilities of the different medical devices found in the hospital, interaction designers can help with many of the problems and challenges hospitals face today — like medication errors.

Here is a telling depiction of what an interactive hospital bed can accomplish:

“For example, when the nurse arrives with the patient’s medicine, the bed is
able to log in the nurse, check if the nurse is carrying the right medicine for the right
patient, and it can display the relevant information on the screen, typically the medicine
schema from the EPR system. Furthermore, various medical sensors measuring things
like blood pressure, temperature, etc. can be attached to the bed and start using the onboard computer as a gateway to the basic infrastructure. Every bed is in itself a server
containing various information about its patient and can be queried from e.g. an EPR.” (1)

In essence, ubiquitous and interactive devices can greatly help the medical team to do their job. By fostering real-time collaboration between team members and optimizing the environment to promote safer and faster healing — hospitals will be taking a much needed step forward.

(1) Bardram, Jakob E., Hospitals of the Future – Ubiquitous Computing
support for Medical Work in Hospitals. Centre for Pervasive Healthcare.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Adistock | Dreamstime

The development of smart environments causes a lot of concern for both designers and skeptics. Both want to make sure that such innovations have great benefits that will greatly outweigh the costs. For this reason, it is important to question advancements as designers and engineers continue to research, test and develop smart environments.

A BRIEF DEFINITION

I recently wrote a very brief “smart environment” description as follows:

A smart environment takes the notion of interactive architecture a bit further. With the use of sensing devices and actuators it will be possible to coordinate different objects and materials in a built environment to make buildings more functional and better able meet occupant needs in real-time. One trend is to make smart environments “goal-based” (thus, occupant-centered).

Here’s another post where I describe the “goal-based” smart environment trend: Why Ubiquitous Computing should be Goal-based

If you would like to read more about smart environments, be sure to visit the Sensing Architecture Article Page to see more posts listed under the “Smart Environment” section (to the right on the page).

Also, a book that discusses ubiquitous computing is: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Voices That Matter)) It describes the many pros and cons of ubiquitous computing – one of the major trends that will make “smart” buildings possible. I find this book good because it presents both sides of the emergence of “smart” designs — with insight into how we can shape such an emergence.

CRITICAL CHALLENGES + CONCERNS

In certain circles the notion of a “smart environment” can be a very hot topic. And yes, although there are many benefits to developing such smart spaces, there are numerous reasons why people get concerned when hearing about this development. The following are a few of the challenges and concerns that I have heard expressed:

• What psychological side-effects might smart environments produce?
• How will smart environments establish a type of transparency that builds user trust by showing “how the system works” to eliminate occupant fear regarding a “loss of control”
• Smart environments must deal with privacy issues if user information is collected.
• How will smart environment technology be environmentally conscious? (Skeptics find that integrating “more technology” is wasteful and ecologically unsound.)
• What backup systems will be in place in case a smart environment has a malfunction? What will be the consequences of such failures?
• Will smart environments serve a “greater good for mankind”?

Such challenges and concerns are completely justified, and it is my hope that researchers are equally sensitive to these topics as they continue to develop solutions that solve such critical points. Nevertheless, it is still important to keep the discussion going.

WHY INNOVATION IS A KEY INGREDIENT

An emerging technology that will ultimately have profound effects on many different aspects of architecture is nanotechnology. In relation to smart environments, “nano-developments” will help to make system devices micro in size (great for embedding technologies and for getting them to communicate). Additionally, nanotechnology will lead to the progress of “new materials” — allowing building material properties to be transient and reactive, as needed. (For instance, nano-materials can make buildings much more energy efficient.)

Why is this important?

Research and technology evolves. This means that there is hope for the research, testing and refinement of smart technologies and systems. By posing the right questions about what we need, many solutions can be found. What we need is the dialogue, the awareness and the determination to integrate new technologies so that we leverage contributing to the solution of as many challenges as we possibly can. (At present, architects and engineers stand in a position to contribute greatly — for the betterment of human life and our planet.)

Nanotechnology is just one example that can greatly help many of the problems expressed above. The key is to continue with innovation.

WHAT CAN BE ACHEIVED

One primary goal is for a “smart environment” to help occupants live healthier, happier, safer and more productive lives. I do believe that such architectural progress is underway in hopes of achieving some major improvements. For instance, smart hospitals could:

• greatly reduce stress as patients go through stages of recovery
• reduce medical error by assisting medical staff with various tasks
• help with patient “activities of daily living” (grooming, etc)
• relieve patient stress while in their hospital room
• transition patients when they are ready to go home
• reduce patient recovery time
• prevent patients from having to return back to the hospital
• provide for better building energy-efficiency
• …

All in all, smart environments have potential to really help architecture optimize its functions and its aesthetic. The path is sensitive and meaningful application through design.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let’s keep this conversation going. If you foresee a potential challenge that smart environments will face, please post your insight as a comment below this post. Likewise, if you have ideas about smart environment benefits, tell us what you think. (If you would like to learn more or want more information about a particular aspect – then you should comment on that as well.)

What’s your insight about “smart environments”?

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Kentoh | Dreamstime

Ubiquitous computing is giving architecture many benefits that we will continue to see embedded in our buildings. Ubiquitous computing is the wave of the future – providing us with many new architectural functions as well as challenges. For now, let’s focus on the benefits.

The following are the top seven benefits brought about by ubiquitous computing as they impact architecture and occupants in everyday life:

1) INVISIBLE:
“Smart” environments will be embedded with computing technologies that will be mostly out-of-sight. Architecture will gain many more capabilities – with less visual clutter.

2) SOCIALIZATION:
Interactions with architecture will be more social in nature. “Smart” buildings will illicit a more social response from occupants as computers user interfaces embed themselves within architecture. (1)

3) DECISION-MAKING:
“Smart” environments will help occupants to make better choices as they go about their everyday lives. At key moments within architectural experiences, a good architectural design will make “smart” environments helpful. Such architecture will be more proactive than passive.

4) EMERGENT BEHAVIOR:
Buildings are now becoming more and more kinetic in form and function. Their movements and constructed designs come together dynamically to yield behaviors that make them more adaptive. Buildings will learn how to learn – in order to run efficiently and aesthetically.

5) INFORMATION PROCESSING:
Since architecture will be gaining a type of “nervous system”, information processing will be gaining a whole new meaning. Architecture will go from crunching data to making sense of data; therefore, eliminating our need to constantly input adjustments.

6) ENHANCING EXPERIENCE:
As computers ubiquitously embed themselves in our environments, sensors and actuators will create “smart” environments where architectural space will be goal-oriented. Therefore, more occupant needs will be better met.

7) CONVERGENCE:
Much of our environment will be supplemented with interconnected digital technologies. Such interconnectivity will allow for a new type of “sharing” that will serve to eliminate many mundane tasks. Also, fewer errors will occur as systems pull data from shared digital locations (instead of having numerous copies to keep up-to-date).

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE?

A wonderful book regarding this topic is Everyware written by Adam Greenfield. He describes the specific pros and cons to the “dawning age of ubiquitous computing” – what we will face and how we can make our transition better (by avoiding potentially negative effects of ubiquitous computing). This book makes for a good read if you are at all interested in these emerging ideas.

Here is the link: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Voices That Matter)

(1) Greenfield, Adam. Everyware. AIGA. 2006.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman

Image: Marinini | Dreamstime

The smart environment is made up of numerous ubiquitous computing devices. They each function to sense and actuate according to a given occupant’s need. But what happens when one device contradicts the other? How can the devices cooperate so that a ubiquitous computing environment responds correctly, as a whole?

The paper Smart Environments and Self-Organizing Appliance Ensembles raises the very interesting question, “How do you control devices you do not perceive?”. An answer to this question revolves around goal oriented device cooperation. You see, the smart system cannot rely on the user to provide a step-by-step process of how each device should behave. Similarly, the designer cannot predict all combinations of how an ensemble ubiquitous computing environment needs to respond. Instead, a system may be driven by a user’s goal – where the system generates the strategy.(1)

Within a smart environment, “goal based interactions” are likely to be at its heart. How a computing device carries out a function is not what matters most to a user. It is rather the effect of ubiquitous computing devices that is key.(1) The following is a diagram as described in the paper to illustrate how such a goal oriented context-aware environment will work.

Image: Goal Based Interaction | Smart Environments and Self-Organizing Appliance Ensembles

As you can see, “intention analysis” and “strategy planning” are critical to how the ubiquitous computing system will work. Both are necessary for goal based interactions.(1)

A user’s needs may be quite varied and the smart environment’s devices must cooperate with each other in unison. In addition, as users add or remove devices to their smart environment, ubiquitous computing technologies must easily allow for such user changes.(1) In the end, a goal oriented approach calls for a dynamic system, so the user’s needs are met – even as they change in real-time.

The smart environment will be able to simultaneously feed the senses so occupants can carry out a multitude of functions. With few interface techniques a user may communicate based on their intention; and therefore, their goals. Smart environments will work seamlessly to orchestrate a smart space through context aware techniques. Appliances will form an ensemble, giving rise to architectural space that yields greatest value.

(1) Heider, Thomas & Kirste, Thomas Smart Environments and Self-Organizing Appliance Ensembles. Rockstock University. Germany.

© 2008-2011 Sensing Architecture by Maria Lorena Lehman