Interactive Architecture: Connecting and Animating the Built Environment with the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things presents a groundwork for thinking about the implications and applications for connected, animated and interactive architectural spaces. The growing number of ubiquitous and embedded computing technologies introduces a new paradigm for how we interact with the built environment, while mobile and pervasive devices offer new possibilities for sensing and communicating with buildings and objects in the physical world. These technologies are used not only for collecting and providing data, but also as a way to animate and collectively augment the world around us. In thinking about creating hybrid physical and digital architectural spaces, we are presented with new forms of interactivity between humans, computers and the built environment. In this context, Interactive Architecture explores the possibilities for dynamic, interactive spaces in which people and buildings engage in a mutual relationship with one other. By connecting the data, stories and experiences that develop though this relationship between buildings and their inhabitants, the built environment becomes an interactive, adaptive and animate entity. The paper explores how the Internet of Things not only connects physical and digital spaces, but how these networked spaces and objects might become playful characters that engage people with the built environment in new ways. Introduction The Internet of Things presents a groundwork for thinking about the implications and applications for connected, animated and interactive architectural spaces. The growing number of ubiquitous and embedded computing technologies introduces a new paradigm for how we interact with the built environment, while mobile and pervasive devices offer new possibilities for sensing and communicating with buildings and objects in the physical world. These technologies are used not only for collecting and providing data, but also as a way to animate and