Towards Fluent Interaction with Cyber-Physical Architecture

2026-03-13

AI Summary

This study explores natural and trustworthy human-robot collaboration within architecturally scaled, dynamically reconfigurable environments, seeking to balance the tensions between automation and user autonomy, as well as personalization and collective belonging. Through speculative design workshops and task-based Wizard-of-Oz elicitation experiments, complemented by multimodal interaction analysis, the research uncovers users’ core expectations and conflicting demands regarding adaptive architectural spaces. It proposes, for the first time, the necessity of a modality-agnostic model of user intent evolution to enable seamless interaction. Furthermore, the work distills a set of actionable design principles and practical recommendations for collaborative intelligent environments in everyday contexts, thereby establishing both theoretical and practical foundations for the development of credible, cooperative smart architectural systems.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Intelligent User Interfaces
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Agent Architectures

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

What happens when your walls begin to move? This paper explores the design of human-robot interaction for architectural-scale, shape-changing environments. We present findings from two studies: (1) a series of speculative design workshops (N=20) that uncovered aspirational visions for these spaces, and (2) a task-based Wizard-of-Oz elicitation study (N=12) that grounded these visions in the challenges of practical interaction. Our workshop findings reveal a complex landscape of user desires, exposing critical tensions between proactive automation and the preservation of user autonomy, and between personalization and public ownership. Our elicitation study reveals a set of core interaction challenges related to multimodal collaboration; and, most critically: suggests the need for a modality-agnostic model of evolving user intent. We conclude with a set of grounded proposals for creating robotic environments that are collaborative and trusted partners in everyday life.

Problem

• human-robot interaction
• shape-changing environments
• user intent
• multimodal collaboration
• cyber-physical architecture

Innovation

• cyber-physical architecture
• shape-changing environments
• modality-agnostic intent
• human-robot interaction
• multimodal collaboration