Seminar one: Learning from architecture assignment
Task: Choose one (or more) models to think through how a person might relate to something that an interaction designer might create.
How a person relates to something that interaction design might create is highly contextual on their environment, social norms and technological influences. However, this is a dynamic relationship and the user equally impacts the very context they’re surrounded by.
Brand’s book on ‘How buildings learn’ speaks to this cyclical relationship of function (interaction) reforming form (the design), reforming the form (interaction) again. Although Brand uses architecture as his basis, this description of the way people interact with the world around them directly correlates to the concept of the feedback loop that is so critical in design.

An example of the way social norms and behaviors can impact the way we interact with things is the evolution of Google Maps over the years. The original concept of Google Maps was to simply recreate the physical maps already in existence. The original design only included roads like the offline version. However, as people began to use Maps, Google noticed that their interaction with the application was more than just finding roads. People were interested in finding destinations. People didn’t think in terms of addresses, or Sites in Brand’s terms. Instead, they conceived of a location in terms of emotional connections and activities that they perform at a certain destination. As a result, Google has reprioritized the way it depicts space to show different datasets due to the feedback they receive from users’ interaction with the application. Now, they focus on areas of interest, landmarks and neighborhood areas that give a sense of place.
Brand also recognizes the impacts of technology on guiding interaction and changing the different layers of a building from the very Stuff that lives in a space to the Skin that is seen from the outside. One force of change that is bound to impact interaction design is ubiquitous computing. Currently, the largest trend for digital design has been for screens — whether a desktop computer or a watch. However, Weiser discusses the way that making technology adapt to human behavior (rather than the other way around) through a seamless integration of technology, changes the way that human interactions actually take place. It removes the barriers of screens that are currently so prominent in our day-to-day activities and re-defines the concept of interaction. We can already see this trend occurring in the developments in voice, the introduction of tech into clothing and even the concept of using our own skin a ‘screen’ or surface of interaction. This totally changes individuals relate to an interaction design, the concept of interaction design and also the space around them.
As a result, it is clear that Brand’s cyclical interaction between people and physical space also holds true for the way that users’ interaction with an interaction design. This interaction will always be informed by a constant feedback loop between space/place, behavior and technology.
Article sources:
Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They’re Built, Ch. 1–2
Mark Weiser, “The Computer of the 21st Century,” Scientific American, September 1991.

