Research Group Projects and Descriptions

The home will soon become a center for health care, energy production, and work, but our places of living are poorly prepared for this future. House_n investigates how new computational design, fabrication, and sensing tools can be used to create responsive, adaptable environments that will better accommodate complex new activities and ever-changing technologies. Researchers are focused on three application areas: health (proactive environments for healthy living), energy (scalable strategies for Net_0 houses), and mass customization (chassis/infill for places of living).

We are developing a database of architectural components and connectivity rules that allow non-experts to manipulate parameters in order to design and optimize their own living spaces. The interface will link lifestyle and budget options to regional construction and energy requirements in order to allow decision making to happen within a feedback loop, providing real-time specifications for construction costs as well as projected energy consumption. We are currently working on a tangible interface as an accessible tool for the layperson to work with and potentially choose from many different architectural libraries to reflect a large number of aesthetic and environmentally specific architectural responses.

Alumni Contributor(s): Kenneth Cheung and Thomas J. McLeish

We have created and tested a location-aware thermostat system that communicates with GPS-enabled mobile phones of home occupants and uses phone data to model traveling time patterns and optimize the control of the HVAC system. The system allows the temperature to fluctuate based on a resident's travel time to home, so that temperature is comfortable upon return, yet energy consumption is minimized during periods when the home is not occupied. In addition to automated control of the HVAC system, the system uses persuasive strategies to encourage energy behavior change, and provides information about how the system is operating and the implications of a decision, and control of the manual and automated modes. It requires no programming by the resident. Simulations and an actual working deployment were used to evaluate the idea.

Alumni Contributor(s): Manu Gupta

We are developing a series of zero-energy, mass-customized prototype houses. Working with industrial sponsors, we are testing a new model for architectural design, fabrication, assembly, and technology integration where architects create design engines to efficiently make thousands of unique environments; manufacturers agree on interface standards and become tier-one suppliers of components; builders become installers and assemblers; and customers (home buyers) become innovators at the center of the process. The second prototype house, the president's residence at Unity College in Maine, was completed in July, 2008. (This is a House_n Initiative.)

Alumni Contributor(s): Giles Phillips

The PlaceLab is a highly instrumented, apartment-scale, shared research facility where new technologies and design concepts can be tested and evaluated in the context of everyday living. Developed by the House_n Research Consortium in the Department of Architecture, PlaceLab has been used by researchers to collect fine-grained human behavior and environmental data, and to systematically test and evaluate strategies and technologies for the home in a natural setting with volunteer occupants. BoxLab, a portable version that can be brought into any home or workplace, has also been developed. (PlaceLab and BoxLab are House_n/Department of Architecture Initiatives.)

Alumni Contributor(s): Jennifer Suzanne Beaudin, Manu Gupta, Pallavi Kaushik, Aydin Oztoprak, Randy Rockinson and Emmanuel Munguia Tapia

We explore the use of ubiquitous sensing in the home for context-sensitive microlearning. To assess how users would respond to frequent and brief learning interactions tied to context, a sensor-triggered mobile phone application was developed, with foreign language vocabulary as the learning domain. We are extending this system and using it to study how to develop practical activity-recognition systems for the home that are installed and managed by home occupants themselves. We consider design attributes important for creating context-sensitive, always-on systems that sustain user interest. (This project is a House_n/Department of Architecture Initiative funded by a grant from Intel Corporation)

Alumni Contributor(s): Jennifer Suzanne Beaudin

The nature of work is rapidly changing, but designers have a poor understanding of how places of work affect interaction, creativity, and productivity. We are using mobile phones that ask context-triggered questions and sensors in workplaces to collect information about how spaces are used and how space influences feelings such as productivity and creativity. A pilot study took place at the Steelcase headquarters in 2007, and a current study is underway in the offices of EGO, Inc. in Helsinki, Finland. (WorkLife is a House_n/Department of Architecture Initiative.)

Alumni Contributor(s): Kenneth Cheung