[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/ skip to main content
10.1145/3173574.3173623acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageschiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

The Value of Empty Space for Design

Published: 19 April 2018 Publication History

Abstract

We present a study on a group of people who, upon adopting a new lifestyle movement, have discovered and constructed alternative aspects of space. Drawing on 23 interviews with minimalists and participant observations of their Meetup meetings, we highlight the central role of empty space in their lives at home. Our findings show how empty space for minimalists emerge as a new, hitherto unknown space in the home and the ways minimalists seek to create, maintain, and stay sensitive to these empty spaces. Empty spaces for minimalists signify their achievements, exudes aesthetic appeal, and provide a sanctuary away from city life. We propose new opportunities for design based on our findings of empty space. We suggest that design should consider supporting the practices and values that revolve around the absence of artifacts.

References

[1]
Ryan Aipperspach, Ben Hooker, and Allison Woodruff. 2008. The Heterogeneous Home. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 222--231.
[2]
Imeh Akpan, Paul Marshall, Jon Bird, and Daniel Harrison. 2013. Exploring the Effects of Space and Place on Engagement with an Interactive Installation. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2213--2222.
[3]
Marc Auge. 1995. Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Verso Books, London. 122 pages.
[4]
Oliver Bates, Carolynne Lord, Bran Knowles, Adrian Friday, Adrian Clear, and Mike Hazas. 2015. Exploring (un)sustainable growth of digital technologies in the home. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S). Atlantis Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 300--309.
[5]
Eric P. S. Baumer, Jenna Burrell, Morgan G. Ames, Jed R. Brubaker, and Paul Dourish. 2015. On the Importance and Implications of Studying Technology Non-Use. interactions 22, 2 (Feb. 2015), 52--56.
[6]
Eli Blevis. 2007. Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal & Reuse. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 503--512.
[7]
Barry Brown and Mark Perry. 2002. Of Maps and Guidebooks: Designing Geographical Technologies. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques (DIS '02). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 246--254.
[8]
Patrick Burns, Matthew J. D'Orazio, and Harry Rolf. 2010. Re-encountering space through 1-bit interactions. In Proceedings of the 22nd Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of Australia on Computer-Human Interaction - OZCHI '10. ACM Press, New York, New York, USA, 408.
[9]
Kathy Charmaz. 2014. Constructing Grounded Theory (2 ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd, London. 416 pages.
[10]
Luigina Ciolfi. 2004. Understanding spaces as places: extending interaction design paradigms. Cognition, Technology & Work 6 (feb 2004), 37--40.
[11]
Luigina Ciolfi and Liam J. Bannon. 2007. Designing hybrid places: merging interaction design, ubiquitous technologies and geographies of the museum space. CoDesign 3 (sep 2007), 159--180.
[12]
Nathaniel Coleman. 2013. 'Building in Empty Spaces': is Architecture a 'Degenerate Utopia'? The Journal of Architecture 18 (2013), 135--166.
[13]
Justin Cranshaw, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, and S.A. Needham. 2016. Journeys & Notes: Designing Social Computing for Non-Places. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4722--4733.
[14]
Audrey Desjardins and Ron Wakkary. 2016. Living In A Prototype: A Reconfigured Space. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5274--5285.
[15]
Audrey Desjardins, Ron Wakkary, and William Odom. 2015. Investigating Genres and Perspectives in HCI Research on the Home. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3073--3082.
[16]
Tao Dong, Mark W. Newman, and Mark S. Ackerman. 2014. House memory. interactions 21, 5 (sep 2014), 70--73.
[17]
Paul Dourish. 2006. Re-space-ing Place: "Place" and "Space" Ten Years on. In Proceedings of the 2006 20th Anniversary Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 299--308.
[18]
Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell. 2007. The Infrastructure of Experience and the Experience of Infrastructure: Meaning and Structure in Everyday Encounters with Space. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 34 (jun 2007), 414--430.
[19]
Lucy E. Dunne, Jingwen Zhang, and Loren Terveen. 2012. An Investigation of Contents and Use of the Home Wardrobe. In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 203--206.
[20]
Thomas Erickson. 1993. From interface to interplace: the spatial environment as a medium for interaction. In European Conference on Spatial Information Theory (lecture no ed.). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 391--405.
[21]
Patrick Tobias Fischer and Eva Hornecker. 2012. Urban HCI: Spatial Aspects in the Design of Shared Encounters for Media Facades. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 307--316.
[22]
Michel Foucault and Jay Miskowiec. 1986. Of Other Spaces. Diacritics 16, 1 (1986), 22--27.
[23]
William Gaver, John Bowers, Andy Boucher, Andy Law, Sarah Pennington, and Nicholas Villar. 2006. The History Tablecloth: Illuminating Domestic Activity. In Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 199--208.
[24]
Steve Harrison and Paul Dourish. 1996. Re-place-ing Space: The Roles of Place and Space in Collaborative Systems. In Proceedings of the 1996 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '96). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 67--76.
[25]
Steve Harrison and Deborah Tatar. 2008. Places: People, events, loci - The relation of semantic frames in the construction of place. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 17 (2008), 97--133.
[26]
Monique M. Hennink, Inge. Hutter, and Ajay Bailey. 2011. Qualitative research methods. SAGE, London. 304 pages.
[27]
Tom Jenkins. 2017. Living Apart, Together: Cohousing As a Site for ICT Design. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1039--1051.
[28]
Jasmine Jones and Mark S. Ackerman. 2016. Curating an Infinite Basement: Understanding How People Manage Collections of Sentimental Artifacts. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 87--97.
[29]
Maroš Krivý. 2010. Industrial architecture and negativity: the aesthetics of architecture in the works of Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Smithson and Bernd and Hilla Becher. The Journal of Architecture 15 (dec 2010), 827--852.
[30]
Myeong Lee, Luis S. Santos, Wei Zhao, Preeti Lakhole, and Brian S. Butler. 2015. What Makes a Place More Familiar?: Implications of Geospatial Information Format and Content. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1079--1084.
[31]
Scott D Mainwaring, Michele F Chang, and Ken Anderson. 2011. Infrastructures and Their Discontents: Implications for Ubicomp. In UbiComp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing: 6th International Conference, Nottingham, UK, September 7--10, 2004, Proceedings, Vol. 3205. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 418.
[32]
George E. Marcus. 1995. Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (oct 1995), 95--117.
[33]
Assunta Matassa. 2015. Interaction with a personalised smart space to enhance people everyday life. In Proceedings of the 11th Biannual Conference on Italian SIGCHI Chapter, CHItaly 2015, Doctoral Consortium, Rome, Italy, September 28--30, 2015. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 34--45. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ 0f45/a3bda331e0355752abbd89f1d87d35339153.pdf
[34]
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. 2014. Everything that remains : a memoir by the Minimalists. Asymmetrical Press, USA. 216 pages.
[35]
Jörg Müller, Robert Walter, Gilles Bailly, Michael Nischt, and Florian Alt. 2012. Looking Glass: A Field Study on Noticing Interactivity of a Shop Window. In CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1465--1466.
[36]
William Odom, Richard Banks, David Kirk, Richard Harper, Siân Lindley, and Abigail Sellen. 2012. Technology Heirlooms?: Considerations for Passing Down and Inheriting Digital Materials. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 337--346.
[37]
William Odom, James Pierce, Erik Stolterman, and Eli Blevis. 2009. Understanding Why We Preserve Some Things and Discard Others in the Context of Interaction Design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1053--1062.
[38]
Jeni Paay, Jesper Kjeldskov, and Mikael B Skov. 2015. Connecting in the Kitchen: An Empirical Study of Physical Interactions While Cooking Together at Home. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 276--287.
[39]
Marianne Graves Petersen, Aviaja Borup Lynggaard, Peter Gall Krogh, and Ida Wentzel Winther. 2010. Tactics for Homing in Mobile Life: A Fieldwalk Study of Extremely Mobile People. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 265--274.
[40]
James Pierce. 2012. Undesigning Technology: Considering the Negation of Design by Design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 957--966.
[41]
Kirsi Saarikangas Saija Isomaa, Pirjo Lyytikäinen. 2014. Imagining spaces and places. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. 326 pages. https://books.google.com/books?id=NU9JDAAAQBAJ
[42]
Phoebe Sengers and Bill Gaver. 2006. Staying Open to Interpretation: Engaging Multiple Meanings in Design and Evaluation. In Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 99--108.
[43]
M. Six Silberman, Lisa Nathan, Bran Knowles, Roy Bendor, Adrian Clear, Maria Håkansson, Tawanna Dillahunt, and Jennifer Mankoff. 2014. Next steps for sustainable HCI. interactions 21, 5 (2014), 66--69.
[44]
Edward Soja. 1996. Thirdspace: journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-immagined places. (1996).
[45]
Abigale Stangl, Joshua Wepman, and Dylan White. 2012. Moodcasting: Home As Shared Emotional Space. In CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1303--1308.
[46]
Laurel Swan, Alex S. Taylor, and Richard Harper. 2008. Making Place for Clutter and Other Ideas of Home. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 15, 2, Article 9 (July 2008), 24 pages.
[47]
Phil Turner and Susan Turner. 2006. Place, Sense of Place, and Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 15, 2 (apr 2006), 204--217.
[48]
Peter-Paul Verbeek. 2005. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design (illustrated edition edition ed.). Penn State University Press, University Park, Pa.
[49]
Salu Ylirisku, Antti Jylhä, Anu Lehtiö, Imtiaj Ahmed, Craig Stewart, Abigail Sellen, Richard Harper, and Giulio Jacucci. 2016. Designing for Active Place Presence at Home: The Hole in Space Design Experiment. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1341--1352.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Learning from Users: Everyday Playful Interactions to Support Architectural Spatial ChangesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36770858:CHI PLAY(1-25)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
  • (2024)“It’s Like Living a Different Life, Going to the Moon”: Rethinking Space and Activity in the Context of COVID-19Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-024-09493-yOnline publication date: 24-May-2024
  • (2023)From Screens to Projector, Wall, and TVs: Conceptualizing Livestreams as Design Material for Direct and Indirect Viewership ExperiencesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35794897:CSCW1(1-22)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. The Value of Empty Space for Design

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2018
    8489 pages
    ISBN:9781450356206
    DOI:10.1145/3173574
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 19 April 2018

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. alternative lifestyle
    2. empty space
    3. minimalists
    4. place
    5. space
    6. sub.c.ulture
    7. value-sensitive design

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    CHI '18
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    CHI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 666 of 2,590 submissions, 26%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

    Upcoming Conference

    CHI 2025
    ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 26 - May 1, 2025
    Yokohama , Japan

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)49
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 13 Dec 2024

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Learning from Users: Everyday Playful Interactions to Support Architectural Spatial ChangesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36770858:CHI PLAY(1-25)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
    • (2024)“It’s Like Living a Different Life, Going to the Moon”: Rethinking Space and Activity in the Context of COVID-19Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-024-09493-yOnline publication date: 24-May-2024
    • (2023)From Screens to Projector, Wall, and TVs: Conceptualizing Livestreams as Design Material for Direct and Indirect Viewership ExperiencesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35794897:CSCW1(1-22)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
    • (2022)Ambienti fisici di apprendimento che favoriscono i processi attentivi: gli effetti dello spazio vuoto, del colore e del design biofilicoPhysical learning environments that favor attention processes: the effects of empty space, color, and biophilic designIUL ResearchIUL Research10.57568/iulres.v3i6.3573:6(104-120)Online publication date: 21-Dec-2022
    • (2022)Robots as a Place for SocializingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555586:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
    • (2022)Working with Bounded Collaboration: A Qualitative Study on How Collaboration is Co-constructed around Collaborative Robots in IndustryProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35550946:CSCW2(1-34)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
    • (2021)One Byte at a Time: Insights about Meaningful Data for Sustainable Food Consumption PracticesProceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3461778.3462121(683-696)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
    • (2020)Data DashboardProceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3357236.3395457(311-326)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2020
    • (2019)Jam Today, Jam TomorrowProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/33611213:GROUP(1-27)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2019
    • (2019)Keeping and Discarding Personal DataProceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3322276.3322300(1463-1477)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2019
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Media

    Figures

    Other

    Tables

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media