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Architecture as Interface:
Advocating a Hybrid Design
Approach for Interconnected
Environments
ERIN RAE HOFFER
The Blur of Interconnected Environments
We spend 90 percent of our lives indoors.^1 The built environment has
a huge impact on human health, social interaction, and our potential
for innovation. In return, human innovation pushes our buildings con-
tinually in new directions as occupants demand the highest levels of
comfort and functionality.
Our demand for pervasive connectivity has led us to weave the Internet
throughout our lives, to insist that all spaces link us together along
with our handheld devices, that all environments be interconnected.
Internet-enabled devices creep into the spaces we inhabit, and these
devices report back on spatial conditions such as light, radiation, air
quality and temperature, count the number of people stopping at retail
displays minute by minute, detect intruders and security breaches,
monitor locations and track characteristics of equipment and supply
chain elements, enable us to open locked doors remotely using our
mobile devices, and pass terabytes of data to backend systems that ana-
lyze, report, and modify the environments we occupy.