Designing for the Internet of Things

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The space that surrounds us is transforming to a series of intercon-
nected environments, forcing designers of space to rethink the role of
architecture and the rules for its formulation. Similarly, designers of
emerging technologies are rethinking the role of interfaces and the
rules for their creation. During this period of experimentation and con-
vergence, practical construction, and problem solving, architects must
reinvent their roles and become hybrid designers, creating meaningful
architecture with an awareness of the human implications of emerging
technologies.
DESIGN TRADITIONS FROM ARCHITECTURE
Architects begin with a human need and develop solutions through
inspiration and information—human, social, natural, economic and
technological. The architect is charged to envision a new reality that
addresses explicit and tacit needs, to create an expansive solution set
that suits this vision. For millennia, architects have been given the task
of imagining spaces to support people and human interaction, describ-
ing design intent, and producing concrete instructions for realizing
designs as objects in the physical environment. Admittedly, many
spaces are designed by builders or lay people, not by licensed archi-
tects. Whatever the professional and academic background of the cre-
ator, a building design stems from centuries of traditional practice and
refined interaction models.
Upon encountering a device for the first time a user or occupant builds a
conceptual model about it. The same approach plays out when humans
encounter new environments. To design a space, an architect makes
assumptions about the building’s future occupants. As cognitive sci-
entist and design critic, Donald A. Norman points out, “Good design
is a communication between the designer and the user.” This mani-
fests through the appearance of the device (object or space) itself.^2 In
terms of the built environment, Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani
observes that the dialogue between an architect and an occupant of a
space occurs through a system of communication without commonly
understood rules.^3
2 Norman (2002)
3 Karatani and Speaks (1995)