Digital Ground
Malcolm McCullough • 2004
In Short
A professor of architecture writes about pervasive computing and the role architecture has to play in its design.
In Depth
Who's the author?
Malcolm McCullough is a professor of architecture and urban planning. He has taught at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University, and Harvard Graduate School of Design.
What's the intention?
McCullough writes in response to the onset of pervasive computing. He sees potential peril in the unconsidered expansion of technology into our social infrastructure and wants to make a defense of the importance of architecture in the design of this future.
Who's it for?
McCullough is writing primarily for digital designers, architects, and urbanists. He wants to influence the way these practitioners approach their work. However, as a book written by a professor and published by a university press (MIT), the words may appeal more directly to design academics or those with an interest in theory.
So what?
This is perhaps the only book I’ve found that explicitly examines the middle space between architecture and interaction design (not just IxD as digital design, but IxD as a liberal art). It grounds interaction design in the historical context of architecture, opening a path to draw on the practices and lessons of a more well-established field.
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More
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On the Point Where Architecture and Interaction Design Meet
Architecture • Interaction Design • Pervasive Computing • Seams
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On the Limits of Technological Futures
Pervasive Computing • Place • Technology • Situatedness
Be wary of visions of the future that overlook the value of context and require people to give up aspects of their humanity to better configure with the technology or product.
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On Digital Ground
Place
The idea of “digital ground” is a plea for interaction designers to create more opportunities to feel a sense of place. This entails fostering existing patterns of community and promoting agency through embodied participation.
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On Places as Accumulators of Value
Place
We can understand a sense of place as a starting point for a new way of measuring the value of our experiences and interactions; a more expansive measure than solely economic models of value that often leave us bereft of the feeling of being human.
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On a Typology of Situated Interaction
Interaction Design • Pattern
Borrowing from ideas on architectural type, we might develop a typology of situated interaction. This would be a set of patterns of human interaction each characterized by the protocols, etiquettes, and activities accumulated in a place.