Space, place and the design of technologically enhanced physical environments

This chapter presents an approach to the design of interactive physical environments influenced by geographical conceptions of what they term place. Recent developments in the field of Ubiquitous Computing allow designers to embed computational elements and interactive components within the spaces we inhabit in our daily lives, thus changing their character and the possibilities for action they offer. In order to design such technologies in an effective way, we need to understand how people conceive of, and live in, physical spaces. We believe that the notion of ‘place’ –a concept of space that includes the way it is experienced by people- is a useful notion on the basis of which to frame an investigation of these dynamics. In this chapter we will discuss the concept of place and its implications for design, and we will relate our approach to the current debate within HCI, CSCW and Interaction Design on the concepts of space and place. As an illustration of our framework, we describe a design case study, where an interactive museum exhibition was envisioned and developed according to our perspective.