The role of roomware and sensing technologies for supporting narratives in ubiquitous computing environments

In our view, the study of situated interactions in office environments requires consideration of the following design spaces: mental and social space, information space as well as the physical environment enveloping it (Streitz et al., 1998). It also requires extending context-awareness methods to make accurate and meaningful inferences about human activity in physical space (Halkia & Solari, 1999). In this workshop, we would like to emphasize the importance of the architectural component in situated interactions and the need to translate the specific ity of “place ” of physical environments in the information landscape. Buildings in general, and as an example, working environments, have a language of implicit communication, which transparently prompts us to behave accordingly in different types of spaces. In a large public hall with resonant walls we are likely to be quieter than in a room of absorbent cladding. In a corridor we are likely to be moving than standing, in a very important executive office we are likely to be more attentive, careful or formal than in the entrance hall. The cues of physical space whether established by symbol or convention, or communicated by form and material, condition our behavior and movement, and importantly so, our ability to absorb or manipulate information. Physical cues can modif