Designing for the Internet of Things

(^294) | dEsiGninG for EMErGinG tECHnoLoGiEs
veyed meaning, or “spoken to us” through form, since the time when
illiterate occupants needed the cathedral to convey the meaning of reli-
gious texts. Alain de Botton stated that, “Belief in the significance of
architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or worse,
different people in different places—and on the conviction that it is
architecture’s task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be.”^15
ENTER INTERCONNECTED ENVIRONMENTS
Our intention as architects to design meaning into space broadens
when we conceive of spaces as interconnected environments, linking
devices to devices, and thereby connecting occupants with remote indi-
viduals, communities, and information sources. Although we have long
incorporated the practical opportunities of automation—environmen-
tal control systems that manipulate building heat and cooling, raise
and lower window shades, and control other architectural elements and
systems with little or no human intervention—emerging technology
can move us beyond digital integration with architecture as “practical
construction” to digital integration with architecture as “art.”
We are surrounded by smart homes, schools, workplaces, shopping
malls, and even the city itself with its smart grid. These anticipatory
models purport to make all decisions and do all the work for us. But,
our models for digital interaction have evolved, and the conceptual
models for user interaction now stretch to accommodate decentral-
ized structures that include mobile “anywhere” access, feedback and
input from “the crowd,” increased transparency, simulation, and anal-
ysis. We are moving from anticipatory centralized models such as the
Encyclopaedia Brittanica^16 to adaptive decentralized ones along the
lines of Wikipedia.^17
Christian Norberg-Schulz said that the job of the architect was to visu-
alize the spirit of the place and to create meaningful places for peo-
ple to inhabit.^18 Perhaps the modern person is less able to understand
the meaning of architecture because our education and training no
longer emphasizes this appreciation. Nevertheless, architects still
15 De Botton (2006)
16 http://www.britannica.com/
17 http://www.wikipedia.org/
18 Norberg-Schulz (1980)