About this Research Topic

Background

Over the past two decades, as buildings are increasingly integrating a variety of sensor network systems and mediated sensory-experiences, we are witnessing the coming together of the disciplines of HCI and Architecture and the emergence of the area of Human- Building Interaction, which in turn, offers new challenges and opportunities with aspects of interactional, spatial, technological, cognitive, social dimensions and environmental.

Fundamental to this integration is the ‘spatial experience’, framing the transition from the body to the building. In this respect, understanding the shift in important concepts such as immersion and presence that are intrinsic to the mediated experience, in particular, to the experience in ‘situated’ sensory environments, is key.

This Research Topic focuses on human building interaction and ‘multi-sensory ‘environments, raising the awareness of ‘design space’ for the mediated experience of inhabitants of these environments that potentially extends beyond the conventional audio-visual, olfactory and tactile ones. It seeks to assemble cutting-edge research and addresses the development of design principles for the creation of such systems that are theoretically well-founded, empirically tested.

In this collection, we call for investigations and contributions that offer understanding around how we inhabit and experience multi-sensory environments. We are interested in understanding the interface between the building envelope and the sensory experience through the body using, vision, sound, smell, touch and proprioception. How this relates to the environment through the application of various sensing and actuation mechanisms and potentially augments social interactions which are mediated through these environments.

The collection invites novel explorations in related theories, methodologies, applications, and interpretations from academia (architecture, HCI, neuroscience, cognitive science, etc), media art, and practitioners. The intention is to consolidate research in these domains and to provide new directions to further understand this shift from the scale of the body to the scale of the building that are bound to the context that we inhabit.

This special collection entitled, rethinking mediated human building interaction, aims to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed papers on research grounded - in any aspect of human building interaction. The following are examples but submissions need not be limited to these:

- Design principles for the development of integrated sensory experiences,
- Technological advances in sensory systems artificial systems (such as, but not limited to, artificial lighting, sound, smell, haptics..) that support human building interactions, situated physical or remote; extended and hybrid, whether through visual, auditory, tactile or olfactory mechanisms.
- Advances in understanding the built environment as an integral system encompassing spatial, physical, digital, sensorial and social forms of interactions, through both: situated and tele-presence across space and time.
- Implications of approaching the design of network and sensory systems as an integral part to the design of the built environment.
- Bridging methodological gaps that stem from the shift of focus and scale within the realm of the built environment.
- Applications in various fields such as health care, museums, education, office, home, and retails environments.

Keywords: HBI, HCI, Architecture, Cognition, Perception, Body, Sensory interaction, Sensors, Mediated interaction

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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