Space, Place and the Design of Technologically-Enhanced Physical Environments

The perspective of "Ubiquitous Computing", proposed in the early 1990's by Mark Weiser (Weiser, 1991), is based on technological developments that make it possible to embed powerful computational elements and digital components into everyday objects, portable devices and the built environment. This trend is inducing significant changes not only in the development and implementation of new technology, but also, and more interestingly, on the relationships between interactive systems and their users. Distributing computational t power within an environment and its elements means that the design of technology is no longer concerned solely with people’s interaction with the standard desktop computer – the ‘box’ that sits on people’s desktops. Design must now concern itself rather with the physical environments that people will experience through their daily lives. People will encounter technologically enhanced spaces and artefacts as they move through a variety of environments. These systems will change the way in which physical spaces are used and shaped by people. The systems will be able to respond and react to their presence and actions. The activities of interacting with the space and its elements and interacting with the computer system will merge into each other. Indeed, recent trends in research on ubiquitous systems involve new paradigms for Human-Computer Interaction such as “invisible” and “disappearing” computing1.