Technology-led evolution of interior space: Interiors becoming products

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) were hosted by industrial products since their emergence in the 1980s. They entered daily life through products – in the shape of black boxes – and changed habits, ways of executing tasks, and dynamics of interaction with each other and our surroundings. ICTs offered a revolutionary domain, the digital world, and used physical and digital representations and tools to manipulate this world. As offerings of the digital increased, human-computer interaction and its design gained importance, User Interfaces emerged to meet human diversity and dynamicity. Today ICTs’ hosts are shifting from products to spaces. In this study, we investigated the relation between ICTs, products, and spaces to understand the needs of space as ICT hosts. Sensory diversity in user interfaces increased, physical restraints of hosts decreased, and new more adaptive technologies such as artificial intelligences and augmented reality emerged. The evolution of user interfaces indicates the goal is to implement natural interaction, placing the user at the centre and mimicking the way humans interact with the physical world. While both architecture and product design are user-oriented, product designers practised more on implementing ICTs to hosts as the initial hosts were products. Since ICTs are becoming embedded into spaces, interiority is changing, built environments will consist of conventional building elements, ICTs, and user interfaces. As the host is shifting, interiors are becoming a part of communications systems that needs a transdisciplinary approach to design.