Screen As Room[^1]
Christoph Labacher
- :link: John Palmer essays
- “space as model”: spatial qualities (overlapping windows) code/dictate relationships, interactions
- “subjective and metaphoric properties of rooms”; focusing on the manmade, constructed aspect of rooms rather than static, blank spaces
- interfaces as children of architecture rather than film — the difference? Agency.
- choice to move through a space (screens), experience piecemeal at your own discretion
- Sense of Agency
- Le Corbusier’s Promenade: a composed architectural experience considered from various angles
- Emphasis on the experience of passing through a space
- “options for possibilities of action” have all been considered, framed, and constructed
- Sense of Proportion
- devs can make a site feel large or small, as architects can make a space feel cozy or spacious
- Sense of Protection
- boundary or enclosure?
- (im)permeability of that barrier between this “room” and the outside. smaller and easier to work with, but risk not being able to scale (not sure what he means)
- “Rhetorical boundaries”: implied boundaries
- how do these manifest in digital spaces?
- Base for Customization
- adaptability and longevity of buildings… in digital space? :thinking: adaptive reuse?
- “how adaptable … are our interfaces?”
- the Windows phone example, balancing clarity (grid) with customization (your order)
- :link: End User Programming
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A Shared Space
- Proxemics
- nonverbal communication through the use of space
- Social Presence Theory
- transmission of social cues through various media; indicators of presence e.g. “Online” status, cursor position, etc
- space as an entire medium for communication (think closing the door when you want privacy)
- room as Agent! A sense of Place is created through habit, use, and play; the room becomes a player
-
Shaper of Behavior
- we swiftly understand the constraints on our actions in a new software or environment; a good dev ensures they feel like logical trains of thought/behavior, not constraints
- Place
- a space permeated by social norms. Highly ritualized.[^2]
- Nudge theory
- spatial order of objects can influence interactions (salad bar at the front of the line)
- Purposefully Articulated Space
- “dev-built” house, software meets needs piecemeal rather than holistically. thus the whole is not harmoniously composed
- great design can only occur when many questions/problems are neglected in favor of a handful?
Forced simplicity results in oversimplification. […] Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore.[^3]
[^3]:Robert Venturi, 1966: “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” [p. 17]