HabiTech: Inhabiting Buildings, Data & Technology

As larger parts of our lives are determined in the digital realm, it is critical to reflect on how democratic values can be preserved and cultivated by technology. At the city-scale, this is studied in the field of ‘digital civics’; however, there seems to be no corresponding focus at the level of buildings/building inhabitants. The majority of our lives are spent indoors and therefore the impact that ‘indoor digital civics’ may have, might exceed that of city-scale, digital civics. The digitization of building design and building management creates an opportunity to better identify, protect, and cultivate civic values that, until now, were centralized in the hands of building designers and building owners. By bringing together leading architecture/HCI academics and commercial stakeholders, this workshop builds on previous workshops at CHI. The workshop will provide a forum where a new agenda for research in ‘HabiTech’ can be defined and new research collaborations formed.