building designers

Abstract: Architectural spaces are increasingly gaining robotic capabilities. Architectural robots such as robotic partitions, ceilings, furniture, facades, and other spatial components can autonomously move and reconfigure in response to occupants' needs and activities. Yet, when architectural robots start shaping the spatial conditions in which people continuously live, work, and interact, we may begin to experience the architectural space itself as robotic. What does this shift mean for how we inhabit such spaces? Drawing on our previous studies, I reflect on how architectural robots interact with people not only through their motions, but also through the spatial configurations that persist after those motions stop; how their actions may benefit some occupants while disadvantaging others; and how multiple robots may together make a whole architectural space appear to act. I argue that as computation gains the capacity to physically reconfigure our environments, interaction extends beyond the moment of computational action into the spatial conditions that people continue to inhabit. Understanding robotic architecture therefore requires us to look beyond short-term human-robot interaction and toward how people inhabit, negotiate, and maintain control over spaces that can autonomously reconfigure.

Abstract: Air-conditioning and road-traffic noise are common in classrooms, and their effects are often judged by cognitive performance. However, a sound that leaves performance unchanged may still be perceived differently or alter brain activity. In a within-participant design, this study tested whether perceived, cognitive, and EEG responses are consistent, and whether perceived and EEG responses distinguish conditions that performance does not. Sixteen students completed cognitive tasks in a university classroom under air-conditioning and road-traffic noise, each played back at 55, 60, and 65 dBA. Participants rated acoustic appraisal and perceived workload after each condition, and EEG was recorded during the tasks. The results show that cognitive performance did not differ significantly between conditions in any task. By contrast, noise was rated louder, less pleasant, and more arousing than a no-noise control, and all three ratings varied with sound level; perceived workload was also higher under noise. Task-period EEG power also showed significant differences between sources or levels in specific tasks and scalp regions. Within participants, relative EEG band power covaried mainly with loudness and pleasantness; louder and less pleasant ratings coincided with higher relative theta and lower relative gamma power. Associations with arousal and performance were rare, and none were found for workload. The three response types were thus only partly consistent, and perceived responses and EEG distinguished conditions that performance did not. Non-significant performance differences do not mean the conditions were equivalent for students. Assessments of air-conditioning and road-traffic noise in classrooms should therefore consider perceived responses alongside cognitive performance, with EEG providing complementary information on neural activity during tasks.