A coordinate system proposal for investigating the changing body-space relationship regarding interactivity

Abstract

With the development of new technologies, architectural spaces begin to offer different spatial experiences compared to conventional buildings. Especially with the emergence of interactive architecture, cues of a significant change in architecture are put forth. These changes are expected to transform the body-space relationship people form with the spaces they inhabit. Even though people still spend most of their daily lives in static buildings, movement and interactivity are seem to be more prevalent features of architecture in the future, influencing the way people experience spaces. As such, it is essential to understand the outline of the newly emerging body-space relationship and its effects on users’ spatial engagement. In order to understand this changing relationship, this study firstly describes the traditional engagement categories; physical movement, mental movement and sensuality, which are used to define the relationship between users and architectural spaces. Under these three categories, parameters that influence the spatial engagement of users are defined based on a literature review. After that, a new engagement category, movement of architecture is proposed to show the effects of movement and interactivity in architecture. Novel engagement parameters are introduced under this category based on literature review and analyzing interactive examples. Using these four engagement categories, a coordinate system, called the PMSI, is introduced and this system is used to analyze spaces starting from static examples to highly interactive ones. As a result of these analyses, it is found that interactive spaces increase users’ spatial engagement compared to static spaces, in means of all four engagement categories and positively affect their body-space relationships.