HUMAN-HOME INTERACTION Design and Fabrication of unremarkable ‘Internet of Things’ as the ‘21st-century home’ Ankur Podder MIT podder@mit.edu Abstract. The paper attempts to reimagine the 21st-century home. Human-Home Interaction (HHI) is coined in this work, defined as the human’s interactions with unremarkable physical constituents of the home (door, window, wall, furniture, etc.). Today’s computing-enabled technology in the home like explicit Internet of Things (home-IoT) have limitations like computer-centeredness, planned obsolescence, etc. Moving away from today’s computer-centered life, a human-centered 21st-century home calls for reimagining IoT as the home itself (HHI-IoT), mediated by HHI. The paper responds to a design challenge of how to make home-IoT ubiquitous and tackles it by drawing learnings from domestic environments and user semantics. Each physical constituent for HHI-IoT involves design and digital fabrication of object form (tactile, perceptually visible) and active form (computing-enabled, dynamically functional), guided by a maxim - ‘Form Frees Function’. Taking a rule-based approach in devising the framework, contribution to design community involves exploration of methodologies in design and fabrication of every physical constituent of the home i) as object-plus-active forms, ii) as uniquely-identified artefacts on network and iii) as off-grid solar powered units. Conclusively, the paper identifies multi-faceted impact of the 21st-century home with respect to society, industry and academia. The universal vision is that HHI-IoT would evolve the human’s independent way of living today, and for the next 100 years. Keywords. Human-Home Interaction, Internet of Things, Unremarkable computing, Design, Digital fabrication, Object form, Active form, Independent living 1. Introduction We, as humans, have kept reiterating our collective answer to the question ‘How to live like a human?’ throughout world’s anthropocentric past. With heightened technological pervasiveness in way of life today, we need to ask the recurring question one more time. The paper seeks an evolved 21st-century answer to ‘How to live like a human today, and for next 100 years?’. To ensure that resulting answer paves way for a humane way of life in technological era, this body of work situates all inquiries from a human-centered perspective. From such a point-of-view, inferences through three different lenses experiential, psychological and sociological - have continued to shape our understanding on basic actions that the human undertakes to lead a humane way of life. Firstly, experiential lens is evidently derived from the first chapter of ‘Walden’ (Thoreau 1854), which reads “I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbour, in a house which I had built myself…”. The memoir highlights Thoreau’s attempt at a humane way of life by building his own house, by growing his own food and by having the freedom to choose the extent of communication with other individuals. Secondly through psychological lens, the human’s basic needs - shelter and food - get defined by lowermost-level of hierarchical Maslow’s pyramid (Maslow 1943). Thirdly through
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sociological lens, the human’s identity is developed based on one's interpersonal interactions - or communication - within context of society (Cooley 1922). Thus, three basic actions that the human undertakes to lead a humane way of life are with respect to shelter, food and communication. This has been widely accepted throughout anthropocene, evident even in the way of life of first societies (Jarzombek 2014). It remains valid today, and will be so for the next 100 years. 1.1. The home - a transactional unit: Derived from the paper’s human-centered perspective, the home could be regarded as symbol of one's self. After the body itself, the home is seen as most powerful extension to the psyche (Despres 1991). As the home is said to fulfil a hierarchy of ‘human needs’ necessary to well-being (Fairbairn 1954), the paper points out that center of the human’s universe is the home. In other words, three basic actions that the human undertakes to lead a humane way of life have a syncretistic goal of ‘creating’ the home. A home is not same as a house (Rykwert 1991). The home comprises of personal, social and physical constituents (Fig. 1) and can be viewed as a system of these key components (Sixsmith, J. 1986). Thus, the home is a ‘transactional unit’ (Werner, Altman & Oxley 1985, Altman 1992). Evidently, these constituents are not in isolation and have dependencies. The different elements of home can thus be explored as part of a single complex process (Moore 2000). The paper unpacks this interdependency of personal, social and physical constituents of the home.
Figure 1 The personal, social and physical constituents of the home (Sixsmith, J. 1986)
The most elementary function of the home is to provide a roof over one's head, a shelter answering human need for physical security and health. By its additional spatial quality, the home provides psychological comfort in terms of quietness, light, cleanliness, thermal conditions, and eased movements (Appleyard 1979). The other important aspect of the home is its utilitarian value of cooking, tied to the kitchen and surrounding kitchen-life (Allan 1989), (Greenbaum 1981). As per the scope of this paper, focus would be on utilitarian quality imparted by physical constituents of the home when discussing about the human’s basic action with respect to food. Evidently, the human’s basic action of ‘making’ physical constituents of the home - having spatial and utilitarian qualities - leads to it’s personal constituents (a causal dependency). Furthermore, the home serves as a means of !2
communication with oneself, between members of the same household, friends and strangers (Lawrence 1987). As the center of family, as well as the place to entertain friends, the home constitutes the locus per excellence for maintaining interpersonal relationships, answering the human need for social intercourse (Werner 1987). These are regarded as social constituents of the home. Drawing from above evidences, the home is a human-centered transactional unit whose personal and social constituents emerge from the human’s three basic actions and ‘interactions’ with physical constituents of the home. 1.2. Human-Home Interaction: The desire to act upon and modify the dwelling and to express values is interpreted as a subconscious expression of the self leading to popularity of single-family detached house (Cooper 1974). To modify the dwelling is to not only interact with the home’s physical constituents through the three basic actions, but also to create and re-create those constituents as per ever-changing personal and social needs. People personalise their physical space in order to elicit emotional responses (Scheiberg 1990). Personalisation is a process that changes the distinctiveness of a system to increase its personal relevance to an individual (Blom 2000). Personalisation of space as an assertion of identity is crucial for the human in the home. The average citizen appears to expend more effort personalising and defending the home than any other level of fixed physical space (Porteous 1976). Based on evidences, the paper presents the argument that when personalisation leads to the home being subconscious expression of the self, the home becomes perfect extension of the human, and rightfully center of the human’s universe. However, not everyone self-indulges into personalisation to full extents at every stage of their life (Lowenthal et al. 1975). While one still derives hedonistic value from it, the individual has freedom to choose the extent of their interactions (Sartre 1948). The degree of it also varies based on age, culture and socio-economic positions. The paper thus coins ‘Human-Home Interaction’ (HHI) as foundational answer to how the human ideally lives. Based on evidences, HHI is the answer to a universally humane way of living, carried out by interaction of the human with the home’s physical constituents. HHI’s definition further extends to the human’s act of personalisation in shaping the home’s personal and social constituents, while having freedom to decide extent of this effort. At this juncture of the paper, it is crucial to ask: How can we continue to live the same way today, and for next 100 years? The specific intention of the paper is to socially, spatially, technologically and systemically understand, formulate and disseminate various aspects of HHI, so that we can arrive at a vision for the humane way of living in 21st-century.
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2. Background Tools and technologies continue to aid and redefine the way of life. This is extremely true with evergrowing interaction with digital computers that aim to expand human consciousness (Copeland 2005). As a prime computing-enabled technology (Mahoney 1988), digital computers became more humancentered (from specific-purpose mainframes to general-purpose computers to personal computers to hand-held computers). It is a journey that began with IBM 650 as the first mass-produced generalpurpose computer (Knuth 1986). With widespread use of personal computers, there is an intent to model every computing-enabled technology as ‘computers that can think’ i.e. in image of the human (Turing 1951). Drawing from the paper’s introductory argument, as computing-enabled technology gets more human-centered, its presence in the home becomes inevitable. Based on evidences, the paper asserts that 21st Century Thoreau could be aided by a range of computing-enabled technology when performing three basic actions towards shelter, food and communication. To build a shelter, digital fabrication (Gershenfeld 2008) empowers the human to build an instant house (Sass & Botha 2006). A computing-enabled technology to produce food lies at the heart of ‘personal food computer’ (Ferrer et al. 2017). Furthermore, communication over decentralised internet (Yeung et al. 2009) imparts freedom and personalised control over one’s data, its storage and usage. As per scope of the paper, Internet of Things (IoT) is the computing-enabled technology under spotlight. IoT is defined as a system that starts from the level where a single “thing” is identified using a unique global identifier and can be accessed from anywhere, anytime (Minerva et al 2015). IEEE IoT Initiative differentiates IoT and Cyber-Physical System (CPS) clearly. From a networking or communication point of view, IoT targets a broader view of connecting objects in a global aspect whereas from an application point of view CPS targets the coordination of networked objects to achieve a specific goal. To avoid terminological confusion, the paper focusses on IoT (unless mentioned otherwise) pertaining to HHI. In IoT, smartness can be added to the objects so that they can do the work of actuation to achieve a certain goal without human intervention. Each ‘thing’ is a computer in its own. 2.1. Internet of Things inside the home (home-IoT) : IoT’s significant role in the paper is drawn extensively from studies in domotics (Millán et al. 2014) and home automation (Brush et al. 2004). While IoT is deemed as the future of computing (Fig. 2) (Gubbi et al. 2013), it is also widely regarded as a fundamental element in future of the home (Khan et al. 2012, Kelly 2013). Most research and development in home-IoT (i.e. IoT inside the home) today focusses on challenges like ownership, security and manageability (Stankovic 2014) pertaining to a range of IoT devices inside the home, leading to a widespread computer-centered approach. The rise of ‘gadgetisation’ home-IoT through devices like Alexa (Chung et al. 2017), availability of affordable sensors and actuators and the home becoming more technological (Aiello & Dustdar 2008) are shaping perceptions on home-IoT. IoT has manifested in the home in different ways - as information appliances (Norman 1998), as interactive
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household objects like augmenting cups (Gellersen 2002) and as augmented furnitures like interactive tables (Dietz 2001).
Figure 2 Internet of Things schematic showing the end users and application areas based on data. (Gubbi et al. 2013)
All existing approaches to home-IoT today provide limited guidance in devising a vision for the 21stcentury HHI. The paper recognises the following limitations of IoT inside the home and presents corresponding paradigms with respect to HHI: •
Computer-centeredness: Today’s computer-centered home-IoT employs explicit HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) (Dix 2009). The current vision of home-IoT’s future (Lee 2008) in the home gives rise to heightened HCI and multiple graphical user interfaces (GUI) (Posada et al. 2015). HHI then occurs same way the human interacts with hand-held computers like smartphones. Even the personal computer, although located in the home, has not become a “home computer” and is still not sufficiently integrated into the social context of the household (Venkatesh et al. 1992, Vitalari et al. 1985). The home clearly missed out on its own ‘computer revolution’. The paper infers from evidences that such a home is obtrusive, populated with digital screens and do not make way for life to occur seamlessly for the human. This is fundamentally dystopian as the center of universe for 21st-century human is not the home anymore.
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Rise in gadgetification: The center of universe for 21st-century human is restricted to a range of ‘online’ gadgets networked and spatially spread inside the home, while the physical constituents of the home remain ‘offline’ or non-computed (Gershenfeld & Vasseur 2014). Our economy, society and survival aren't based on ideas or information—they're based on things (Ashton 2009). Not gadgets. The home already has physical constituents that have always been tied to the humane way of life. Furthermore, the digital computer controls the tools, however neither are the tools computers themselves, nor are the fabricated materials. Digital computers
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are, even as of today, helping the human control and create analog materials. •
Planned Obsolescence: Like all current visions of computing-enabled technology, home-IoT and its gadgets suffer from planned obsolescence (Bulow 1986). It is to be noted that contrastingly, physical constituents of the home have longer life-cycles, durability and reliability.
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Bicycle-effect: The expression that a computer is like a bicycle for the mind (Jobs 1990) is limiting in itself for 21st-century, despite its relevance. The paper explores it further. If a computer is like a bicycle for the mind, having many such mind-serving computers is just many bicycles that end up cluttering the mind, rather than being of aid (a desktop on the desk, a laptop on the lap, a smartphone in the pocket, a voice-enabled speaker in the rooms, etc.)
Based on evidences, the paper asserts that living in the future with IoT inside the home would be a reflection of a computer-centered life, not a human-centered one. While the paper aligns with widespread acceptance that 21st-century home will be computer-enabled, it aims to respond to enlisted limitations by moving away from computer-centered HCI in the home. In order to effectively create the 21st-century home, we need to reimagine home-IoT. It must facilitate interaction between the human and the home (i.e. mediated by HHI), rather than the human and explicit IoT devices. 2.2. Internet of Things as the home (HHI-IoT) : The paper attempts to define design process of the 21st-century home not by populating IoT inside the home (home-IoT), but by designing and fabricating IoT as the home itself (HHI-IoT). The former is centered on HCI while the latter is mediated by HHI. In other words, instead of many bicycles (i.e. computers) for the human in the home today, HHI-IoT is one perfect bicycle. It would then actually be a very fast jetpack for the human. In remainder of this sub-section, we unpack the fundamentals of designing and fabricating HHI-IoT for the 21st-century home. A well-known framework is derived from vision of calm technology (Weiser & Brown 1996) where HHI-IoT does not live on a personal device of any sort. It is in the woodwork everywhere (Weiser 1988). The paper also responds to development on ‘ubiquitous computing’ (Griswold 2004). Based on evidences, the paradigm of HHI-IoT is that where computingenabled technology disappears into physical constituents of the home, it continues to aid the human from background (to empower personal and social constituents). The aim is not for a hidden home-IoT (that is hidden inside impressively designed and fabricated physical constituents), but one that is mediated by our learnings from HHI. Home-IoT that has visually disappeared, or that produces perceptually ‘softer’ notifications are not necessarily any less present (Tolmie et al. 2002). Solving the design challenge of embedding home-IoT within the human’s actions, and not just in the physical constituents of the home, will lead to the 21st-century home.
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The paper draws understanding from documented ‘in situ in vivo’ observations on ‘unremarkable computing’ (Fig. 3) (Tolmie et al. 2002). Such ethnomethodologically-informed insights of domestic environments guide designing and fabricating HHI-IoT such that is "invisible in use” (Weiser 1994) from the perspective of the human. Evidences suggest that computing-enabled technology should not be remarkable (Petersen 2004) or ‘dramatic’ in its physical form and function, and only becomes ‘notable’ when its intended function fails to aid the human (or when the physical form is to be personalised).
Figure 3 “All sorts of computing devices will disappear into the background of our everyday lives” (Philips Research)
Learnings from current domestic environments directs this sub-section towards use-case examples of HHI, like that of the alarm in the home. Alarms can be perceptually visible yet practically invisible in use, as part of what has been made routine. What matters about the alarm here is not so much its perceptual character as its significance, a significance that can be made explicit should the alarm ever fail. Evidently, not marking out an element of a routine is not equivalent to no noticing that element (Tolmie et al. 2002). In this way, physical constituents that are implicated in routines can be perceptually available yet practically invisible in use, just like some heavy furnitures that aren’t moved around in the home often, or the ceiling and the walls. The physical constituents of the home have a routine character and thus, are invisible in use for the human involved in it. They have tacit and calm qualities, are not dramatic and do not command attention except when they need to (Tolmie et al. 2002). Seen by the human daily, they are still unremarked and used as resources to perform basic actions (doors, furnitures, walls, alarms, etc.). Inferences as such benefit the design and fabrication of HHI-IoT. With evidence-based ethno-understanding in place, the paper sets out to conceptualise a design and fabrication framework for HHI-IoT, to make it ‘so embedded, so fitting, so natural’ that it becomes the 21st-century home itself. 3. Form Frees Function Devising, designing and fabricating forms and its pre-defined functions has always thought of linearly, especially in context of the home. Form, function and their causal relationship have always been central to design community (Rinderle 1987). With respect to the home, tying pre-defined function to physical form of any physical constituent renders it as a static object or artefact. This section of the paper calls
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for embracing power of computing-enabled technology to make every physical constituent’s function flexible and open to subsequent personalisation. It is known that even an imperfect computer can compute perfectly (Shannon 1949). This means devoid of how the physical constituent looks, the computing-enabled technology (like a micro-controller) will perform its tasks with no loss in efficiency. Through such a paradigm, process of designing the home can finally move beyond age-old ‘function follows form’, ‘form follows function’ and other similarly coined maxims. Designers would be better employed in devising new languages of comparison from computing-enabled technology, than in using them to confirm the obvious (Price 1990). The paper thus suggests coining of ‘Form Frees Function’ (Fig. 4) as the maxim that responds to HHI-IoT. It encourages devising, designing and fabricating physical constituents of the home (the forms) along with computing-enabled technology (the functions). The two have no initial causal relationship anymore (unless aimed for). Their conception while designing and fabricating HHI-IoT will be irrespective of each other.
Figure 4 Form Frees Function, the 21st-century designer’s maxim
Evidently, freeing function by isolating form leads to flexible and personalised functions, while not compromising on perceptual form of the physical constituent. Both form and function renders vital properties to its physical constituent and thus, are subjected to parallel design and fabrication processes. Employing such a design and fabrication framework, the 21st-century home looks and feels humane. More importantly, the home’s functioning has evolved in order to make way for a humane way of life due to unremarkable computing-enabled technology. What is the scope of design and fabrication of function in this framework and how does it tie into discussions on physical forms? To answer this, following sub-section explains the components of our framework further. 3.1. Object Form and Active Form The paper presents ‘object form’ and ‘active form’, derived from designer’s perspective, as the two basic components in any physical constituent for HHI-IoT. In this sub-section, the paper introduces concept of function having a form itself and the roles of the components in HHI-IoT.
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Object form is the perceptually visible form of the physical constituent. Active form is any form (perceptually visible or not) that a function takes while its operation. Active forms do not need to kill object form to exist, when part of the same physical constituent. Object form can be resolutely disengaged from active form (Easterling 2012). Evidently, the action or the function is also the form. Action is not necessarily movement but is rather embodied in relationship, relative position and potential in organisations. Active forms design a disposition—a set of capacities for shaping space over time (Easterling 2012). For every object form, there can now be one or multiple unattached active form(s). The paper puts forward the example of a human hand to explain further. The hand has an object form that is similar across the human species, including its five digits. This is perceptually visible representation of the human hand. However, the function of the hand is flexible depending upon the human’s actions. During the action, it is the active form of the human hand that gets activated and represents the function. It is to be noticed that irrespective of what the human hand does, its object form remains intact fundamentally (Fig. 5).
Figure 5 Anatomically the human hand has a defined object form while patterns of Prehension (grip actions) lead to active forms (Kamakura et al. 1980)
As per scope of the paper, first step of devising object form (tactile, perceptually visible) and active form (computing-enabled, dynamically functional) of a particular physical constituent of the home requires inquiry into choreographies of the human and the non-human actors (i.e. physical constituents) unfolding over time (Price 1990). To engage in effective design and fabrication of both object form and active form, we expand the repertoire of design to include activity (Alexander 1964), a concept detailed as HHI in the preceding sections of the paper. The human, however, is not accustomed to the idea that non-human, inanimate objects possess ‘agency and activity’, and are endowed with code/text-based information technologies (Easterling 2012) like conventional home-IoT devices do.
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A possible approach would be through ‘user semantics’ (Button & Dourish 1996). User semantics is what the user makes of the HHI-IoT (object-plus-active forms). Evidently, the paper benefits from study of media-based routines and activities in domestic environments, especially surrounding digital media (Fig. 6).
Figure 6 Media usage across ecological habitats, activity centres, and coordinate displays (Crabtree & Rodden 2004).
Lets consider a case where the human chose to have object form of the door such that its action form displayed a personalised newspaper, or debited a credit card or changed channels on a television whenever someone knocked on it. These might or might not be desirable action forms of the door. What matters is that such action forms would change the semantics of the door, regardless of how useful that might be for the human. Furthermore, some uses of some doors for the human at some times might lead to personalisation of active forms of those doors so that they capture details of all who called by while the human was not in the home or which displayed whether the room behind the door was occupied or not (Tolmie 2002). Furthermore, what today is called home automation requires careful configuration for appliances to work together. Semantic descriptions will let us achieve such automation with minimal human intervention (Berners-Lee et al. 2001). Thus, the design and fabrication of these two object-plusactive forms for HHI-IoT is a challenge that has no single answer, and is open to further research. 3.2. Forms that make the home Recognising the challenge posed in the previous sub-section, the paper seeks to enlist all physical constituents of the home, categorise them and enlist their currently conceived life-cycles. The belief is that this process would ultimately devise and define a range of object forms and active forms for HHIIoT (a stage prior to design and fabrication).
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Figure 7 The six S’s (Brand 1995)
Previous studies have highlighted how the human continually reconfigure the home and computingenabled technology within (O’Brien 1999). The “six S’s” form the core to understand different layers of change (Brand 1994) that the home goes through, due to influence of the human. Based on evidences, the paper highlights that all physical constituents have interdependencies and already exist as noncomputed system/network in the home. More precisely, Site dominates Structure which dominates Skin, which dominates the Services, which dominate the Space Plan, which dominates the Stuff (Fig. 7) (Brand 1994). While few projects address how such a hierarchical model can be rethought (Intille 2002), the paper situates itself within the scope of the “six S’s”. The value of recognising these existing physical constituents (Fig. 8) lie in the fact that they are unremarkable part of the human’s daily life in the home.
Figure 8 The HHI-IoT 21st-century home with ‘smart’ physical constituents still looks and feels the same (Helal et al. 2005) !11
Physical constituents under all six categories can be devised, designed and fabricated as object-plusactive forms. While possibilities of HHI-IoT reimagining Stuff, Space Plan and Services is high due to direct influence by the human (Rodden & Benford 2003), interesting design and fabrication techniques can lead to Skin and Structure of the home conceived as HHI-IoT. Holistically, they would create the 21st-century home. The paper attempts to provide some working examples: •
HHI-IoT for Space Plan: Openings such as doors and windows fall under this category. During their materialisation, doors’ and windows’ object forms have imparted static functions with respect to the human’s safety, leisure, viewing and wayfaring. Being openings (factors leading to variations in homeostasis), they can be imparted with computing-enabled active forms that initially detect the fluctuation in room temperatures. With time, they could be personalised as efficient energy-regulators of the home. Could the window then replace modern air-conditioner by becoming one?
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HHI-IoT for Skin: Reimagining the roof and the walls by including active forms will lead to their object forms (like roof tiles or exterior panels) having computing-enabled photovoltaic cells (Nakazima et al. 2002). Spread across its object form, the active forms here could channel solar energy to personal storage devices.
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HHI-IoT for Structure: During digital fabrication of the shelter, the structural parts could be designed so as to incorporate data-intensive sensors that not only help automate assembly, but also its facility management during entirety of the home’s life-cycle. However, rather as afterthought retrofitting (Motamedi & Hammad 2009), it would be vital to include active forms during design production stage of digital fabrication (Sass & Botha 2006) of the home.
4. Rule-based approach towards the 21st-century home In the previous section, the paper showed how object-plus-active forms for HHI-IoT requires designing and fabricating at varying scales and they all have different timelines. In this section, the paper contributes to design community a rule-based approach to design and fabrication of object-plus-active forms as components for HHI-IoT (Fig. 9)
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Figure 9 Various primitives (computing-enabled and non-computed) combine to form higher-level components (object forms and active forms) that combine further based on a defined system to form highest-level physical constituents of the home. The connection-parts between colour-coded primitives are indicated in black.
The intent is to use the rules as a toolkit that guides materialisation of any physical constituent of the 21st-century home. The following sub-sections define rules by preceding each with a brief background. 4.1. Design and Fabrication of Object-plus-Active Forms A well-known methodology to design and fabricate microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) exists (Judy 2001). Adding to it, moulded interconnected devices (MID) are component-scale products that are designed and fabricated using digital tools. In such mechanisms, both electrical and mechanical primitives are designed and fabricated in-unification, employing additive or/and subtractive manufacturing tools. This part of the paper loosely draws inspiration from speculation around possibilities of ‘people-centric electro-mechanical system’ (Gershenfeld 1999). To remain true to the vision, computing-enabled active forms are intrinsic and unified to its external object form. Furthermore, to impart possibilities of extended personalisation in active form, the components are fabricated along with application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) and Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) (Trimberger 2015). !13
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Rule 1: All physical constituents must be designed and fabricated using digital tools such that computing-primitives (imparting active forms) like sensors, micro-controllers, etc. are intrinsic to the object form. Design calls for effective combination of these primitives in their component-levels. The object form must either act as an encasement to active form or, the two must be perceptually visible complements to each other (Fig. 10)
Figure 10 Rule 1 leads to component-level object forms and active forms that are themselves made of uniquely combined primitives. Together, they create the perceptually visible physical constituent.
4.2. Decentralised Constituent-Constituent Communication Once fabricated, each physical constituent should be able to communicate with the other in a system, so as to work as a mesh-network (Wheeler 2007) across the home. A decentralised network is where each computing-primitive either stores its own data or delegates this task to higher component-levels. This would enable HHI-IoT to be highly resilient and secure. Every physical constituent either becomes or houses active information and communication technology (ICT)-primitives. The paper derives the working principles of such a networking methodology from one of the earliest attempts with ‘Internet 0’ (Gershenfeld & Cohen 2006) and more recently, the ‘Solid’ platform (Mansour et al. 2016). Each physical constituent then has a unique internet-protocol (IP) address enabling innovative design to happen at the edges (Garcia et al. 2015). A standard has been developed called ‘Composite Capability/ Preference Profile’ (CC/PP) (Berners-Lee et al. 2001). The active form could be reconfigured multiple times to drive any function irrespective of its object form and not having to mess with the system (mimicing model of the Internet where the whole system remains intact while all the human-centered innovation occur at the edges). •
Rule 2: Any physical constituent of the home must be able to securely communicate with another of its type through its uniquely-identified computing-primitives, and be able to store data redundantly as per instructed by the system. The communication must always happen unremarkably (unless aimed for otherwise) (Fig. 11). !14
Figure 11 Rule 2 leads to the non-replaceable primitive of communication and data-storage units as essential part of active form(s)
4.3. Off-grid Solar-Powered State of Activity Physical constituents of the 21st-century home are ‘online’ i.e. in state of activity. Such states require power to be constantly functioning and aiding the human. However, the constituents should not be power-heavy. The amount of energy requirement per constituent should be brought down to optimal levels so as to gain maximum value from the energy supplied. Conventionally, one can design each physical constituent as a battery-operated unit fed from the grid. But being tied to the grid can lead to external over-head accessories (voltage regulators, inverters, etc.) and other dependencies, including political. The following rule is in response to attempts on zero energy buildings and micro-grid architectures, characterising the 21st-century home as a stand-alone energy system (Kaundinya et al. 2009). The challenge here is to bring solar photovoltaic (PV) units to primitives-scale and incorporate building integrated and hybrid PV systems into the design and fabrication process (Zahedi 2006). •
Rule 3: To be functioning seamlessly and be resilient, each of these physical constituent must be powered with independently-sourced solar energy (Fig. 12).
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Figure 12 Rule 3 leads to the non-replaceable primitive of power storage units as essential part of active form(s) so that the physical constituent stays ‘online’
With above-mentioned three rules in the human’s toolkit, opportunities of personalisation can be expanded. However, the rules only provide with the bare essentials. It is only the primary framework that a human as a designer exploits through explorations with materiality, scale and processes. The 21stcentury home is not completely realised until each of these physical constituents get designed into a wholesome system. As a scope of further research work and exploration, a system could be proposed that aids the design process and could lead to a range of iterations for every physical constituent of the home. This would be based on combinations of object form and active form on both primitive and component levels. Ideally, the proposed system would be visualised in a design-software simulationenvironment, before proceeding to fabrication of the physical constituents. 5. Conclusion The paper identifies multi-faceted impact of the 21st-century home, as follows: •
Societal impact: When the home itself is unremarkable Internet of Things mediated by HumanHome Interactions, it aids independent living in a revolutionary way. Millennials, working singles and seniors living by themselves anywhere would be empowered with computingenabled technology without losing tactile interaction with physical constituents of the home. The value in humane way of life is enhanced and evolved through this perspective. The centre of the human’s universe today, and for next 100 years, becomes the home (and not lost amid gadgets). With focus on improving the environment inside the home, ‘sick building syndrome’ would be totally wiped out. In today’s ageing society, seniors would largely benefit from such a tactile as well technologically-empowering domestic environment. This helps elderly people move away from home-based explicit HCI-based assistive technologies (Giuliani et al. 2005). Millennials in dormitories and working singles in apartments live in a ‘home away from home’ today. Opening the home to personalisation germinate a sense of belonging.
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Industrial impact: Repertoire of designers is expanded. Broader visions from bodies of work on Ubiquitous Computing and Things That Think (Hawley et al. 1997) materialise and enter mass-market through context of the home. The work calls for interdisciplinary teams with designers, fabricators as well as programmers. Currently these field have silo operations and processes. The designers bring expertise of materialised design for object forms to the table, and the technologists contribute through their expertise in information and communication technology (ICT). As the process is highly integrated, experts and non-experts benefit from knowledge spillover. To achieve vision of the 21st-century home, not only will there be need for unprecedented collaboration but also in-depth understanding of design and fabrication. The home is looked at a product and a system undergoing a ‘computer revolution’ that it missed out on in last few decades. Stakeholders involved in creation of the home today benefit from a massive supply chain. Employing digital fabrication to create the home in its entirety would mean shrinking supply chain to ‘cosmo-localised’ scale (Ramos 2013). Furthermore, paradigm of the home as product leads to horizontal integration of the building industry where end-toend design and development occurs across architecture, engineering, construction and facility management. The end result is not the home as a finished product, but a product that embraces the timeless way of building (Alexander 1979).
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Academic impact: The work opens up scope for further research on user semantics, domotics and IoT in fields of design as well as in computer science. The home provides with perfect testbed to tackle bigger IoT challenges pertaining to especially pertaining to ownership, security and manageability. Research work on design-software simulation-environment that aids the design and fabrication process is highly encouraged to push this body of work forward. Ideally, the system of HHI-IoT operated like an evolutionary process based on principles of the Darwin Machine (Calvin 1987).
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