Interactive Interior Design and Personal Data

Interactive Interior Design refers to the development of interactive elements within the built environment. These technologies offer new kinds of functionality and interaction capability embedded within decorative elements inside our buildings. In this chapter we introduce a variety of these technologies and explore some of their implications. In particular we focus on the challenges around the personal data that ‘Interactive Interiors’ will inevitably generate and use. We also present four short case studies of interactive technologies, contrasting their technopositive accounts (that are often common to research literature) with design fictions of dystopian alternative interpretations to support our deeper reflection on the potential pitfalls of increased interactivity in our habitable spaces. We conclude with a set of reflections on those case studies, pointing to the necessary challenges we face as we develop the field of Human-Building Interaction.