Towards Fluent Interaction with Cyber-Physical Architecture
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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.13633,
title = {Towards Fluent Interaction with Cyber-Physical Architecture},
author = {Jesse T. Gonzalez and Neeta Khanuja and Michael Li and Maggie Guo and Layomi Olaitan and Emily Lau and Jennifer Pugh and Alexandra Ion and Scott E. Hudson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.13633},
year = {2026}
}