Call for Papers

Human-Building Interaction

A Special Issue of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM TOCHI)

Deadline for Submissions: (be sure to see also our author’s instructions)

• December 8, 2017: Informal submission of abstract to special issue editors at HBI-TOCHI@unifr.ch.

Submission of an abstract is not required, but very strongly recommended for prospective special issue authors.

• January 12, 2018: Submit Full Manuscript at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tochi.

Information for Contributors

We seek original contributions for a new Special Issue of TOCHI on Human-Building Interaction.

Built environments increasingly incorporate interactivity and context-aware automation. Human-Building Interaction (HBI), as an emerging research field, seeks to develop an HCI lens to the vision of our interactive experiences with built environments.

A special issue of TOCHI on Human-Building Interaction invites research contributions that examine the engagement of HCI in the evolution of buildings and urban spaces.

In particular, we solicit articles that pursue the new coordinates that HCI should take into account when shifting attention and scale from “artefact” to “environment.” For example, the investigations on the occupant comfort across multiple dimensions (e.g., thermal, visual, acoustic, respiratory), the discussions of the interplay between user agency and building automation, the reflections on the immersive and durable user experience design, and so forth.

We seek contributions that address these and similar topics that embody the complexity of human’s individual and collective experiences with and within the built environment. The invited topics include technological innovations, ethnographic studies, as well as conceptual and framing contributions.

Between the lofty and mundane discourses of interactive architecture and connected products lies considerable space for grounded research and reflective discussion.

This special issue invites attempts to capture, share, and expand what is already known, what is contested, and what are opportunities for a common scientific grounding for prospective dialogues and discourses in the area of Human-Building Interaction. It will serve both as a unifying stage for the existing voices that are centrally and peripherally working on HBI, and a platform for the research area to move forward.

The HBI special issue is interested in questions including (but not limited to) the following:

• How can HBI designers reconcile the complexity of human decisions with the efficiency that the automation systems promise? What services do we expect the building to provide seamlessly, and where do we want to retain the manipulation control, and through what interaction modalities?
• What are the UX design challenges in creating buildings that can adapt to their occupants’ contextualized needs and preferences?
• Surveillance is increasingly common to provide security. How does the need for surveillance interplay with the privacy concerns which are especially elevated in inhabited environments?
• What can we learn from the comfort literature in the scholarly domain of architecture, and how can an HCI perspective complement and (possibly) correct the current comfort discourses?
• In what ways can built environments support and take advantage of social and cultural diversity?
• Are architecture and interaction design methods and processes compatible? Concretely, how can a team of interaction designers bring their tools to an architectural project?

Contact

Please direct inquiries regarding the special issue to HBI-TOCHI@unifr.ch.

Special Issue Editors:

• Hamed Alavi (University of Fribourg and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL))
• Elizabeth Churchill (Google, Mountain View)
• Mikael Wiberg (Umea University)
• Denis Lalanne (University of Fribourg)
• Peter Dalsgaard (Aarhus University)
• Ava Fatah gen Schieck (UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture)
• Yvonne Rodgers (University College London & TOCHI Editorial Board)

Schedule and Submission Details

Pre-Submission Abstract Due: Dec 8, 2017 (email to HBI-TOCHI@unifr.ch).
Full Manuscript Submission deadline: Jan 12, 2018 (must submit to: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tochi).

The tentative reviewing timeline is as follows:

• Reviews Due: March 30, 2018
• First-round notifications to authors: April 15, 2018
• First-round revisions due: June 15, 2018

Papers that pass the first round of reviewing will enter revisions and a second round of consideration:

• Second-round reviews due: August 15, 2018
• Second-round (final) author notifications: Sept 1, 2018
• Final revisions Due: Oct 10, 2018

Special Issue Published: February 2019

All contributions will be rigorously peer reviewed to the usual exacting standards of TOCHI. Further information, including TOCHI submission procedures and advice on formatting and preparing manuscripts, can be found at: http://tochi.acm.org/authors/.

Manuscripts are submitted via the ACM online manuscript system at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tochi.

Please note that TOCHI remains open to regular submissions, as well, throughout the special issue call.