Proxemic Transitions: Designing Shape-Changing Furniture for Informal Meetings

The field of Shape-Changing Interfaces explores the qualities of physically dynamic artifacts. At furniture-scale, such artifacts have the potential of changing the ways we collaborate and engage with interiors and physical spaces. Informed by theories of proxemics, empirical studies of informal meetings and design work with shape-changing furniture, we develop the notion of proxemic transitions. We present three design aspects of proxemic transitions: transition speed, stepwise reconfiguration, and radical shifts. The design aspects focus on how to balance between physical and digital transformations in designing for proxemic transitions. Our contribution is three-fold: 1) the notion of proxemic transitions, 2) three design aspects to consider in designing for proxemic transitions, and 3) initial exploration of how these design aspects might generate designs of dynamic furniture. These contributions outline important aspects to consider when designing shape-changing furniture for informal workplace meetings.