Domotica

The property becomes the interface, the house develops into a “smart” network environment.

Similar to the car, the connected car, which is not just a project from Microsoft, but has long been a reality.

Interview Social Construction & Technology @ BUGA, Bundesgartenschau 2005, Munich, 1 September 2005

Ambient
Intelligence

With today’s Ambient Intelligence and Domotica applications, the focus is first on digital music, video and television entertainment. In addition, in the recent past, house prototypes have been presented, in which heating, refrigerator and special control modules of the telepaths and telemedicine for seniors as well as careers can communicate wirelessly with the computer or the personal digital assistant (PDA, pocket computer).

Interview

Prof. Sikiaridi, you are involved in research and teaching on the effects of information and communication technologies on living and working.
What development of the so-called “networked house” today?

The property becomes the interface, the house develops into a “smart”. Network environment. Similar to the car, the connected car, which is not just a project from Microsoft, but has long been a reality. With today’s Ambient Intelligence and Domotica applications, the focus is first on digital music, video and television entertainment. In addition, in the recent past, house prototypes have been presented, in which heating, refrigerator and special control modules of the telepaths and telemedicine for seniors as well as careers can communicate wirelessly with the computer or the personal digital assistant (PDA, pocket computer).

Does the networked house actually improve the living conditions or does it only change them?

If the networked house is used primarily for security and digital music, video and television entertainment, “it certainly does not contribute to the real improvement of our living conditions, but it should not be that a future with permanent drainage and Total monitoring is the only perspective that this technology opens up to us. In order to allow an actual improvement in the living conditions, the needs of the dwellers in the future should serve as a starting point in the development of this technique.

What was the biggest change at the end of the 20th Century? How do you recognize the big trend?

There is no big trend. Nevertheless, within the diversity of very different lifestyles, one can name some developments which are of importance: For many young people, flexibility which creates a modern nomadia of workers is a reality. At the same time, the total population is shrinking and shrinking.

How can the technologies, which are summarized under the term “networked house”, help to support such new lifestyles?

It would be important that the structure and service packages of the housing market take into account the nomadic of the younger group. This could be done, for example, by means of relocation services, housing-related media information and communication rooms and social services, as well as offers for short-term WGS.
Also the “new old” will not only ask for new housing models or barrier-free housing. They will need a whole range of services that can be provided both analog and digital: care and care services as well as special control modules of tele-care and tele-medication, wellness and leisure facilities in the neighborhood, mobility services such as car sharing, And emergency services, shopping and tele-shopping, service living with repair service and cleaning assistance.
Another development is that the apartment is nowadays for many workplace or part workplace. This requires not only a study room. It would also be advantageous to have a meeting room in the neighborhood, which can be rented on a per-hour basis, as well as a technical infrastructure, for example for video conferencing.

Does the technology industry react with your offers to a sufficient extent to the new needs?
Are housing offers taken up by housing industry?

A lot of things are simply regulated by the market. However, in shrinking regions, we are dealing with age poverty; And arms are not a buying group. Public actors are required. In one of our projects, we have developed typologies for combined mobile-medial services as a solution for infrastructure facilities in shrinking regions that are not fully utilized and therefore can no longer be maintained. Concepts for such services are of great relevance in regional regional development of shrinking regions where, in the future, they are not being promoted, but centered on the development of centers. Such services could also lead to a quality increase on a small scale for individual carriers such as housing associations and thus a competitive advantage in a ‘tenant’ market. The housing associations, which derive from the social project of the architectural modernism of the twentieth century, were actually predestined to cooperate very intensively in a social construction of technology. Thus the new technical possibilities would actually be used to improve the living conditions.

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