Making space for interaction: Architects design dialogues

Abstract

This exploratory research has taken a set of theoretical concepts as the basis for testing a visualisation of body-centric gesture space: 1). Kendon's transactional segments, 2). the manubrium as a central anatomical marker for bodily movement, and 3). physical reach space. Using these, a 3D model of gesture space has been designed in order to be applied to empirical data from architects design meetings, articulating the role of gesture space overlaps within the interaction. Multi-dimensional drawing techniques have resulted in detailed visualisations of these overlaps. Illustrations show that the dialogue contributions can be mapped to distinct locations in the changing shared spaces, creating a spatial framework for the analysis and visualisation of the multi-dimensional topology of the interaction. This paper discusses a Case Study where this type of modelling can be applied empirically, indexing speech and gesture to the drawing subspaces of a group of architects. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.