OfficeSphere: An Input Data Physicalization of Office Environment

Accessing data collected by sensing technologies in smart office buildings enhances our understanding of the indoor climate. While objective information can be retrieved and shared, our subjective perceptions of the environment are easily neglected and seldom discussed with one another. To address this, we propose OfficeSphere – an interactive tool that enables office workers to explore and share their thoughts about the environment through tangible interactions. OfficeSphere utilizes Computer Vision markers to support unobtrusive sensing, interaction tracking, and data representations. Using OfficeSphere, users slide, allocate, rotate, and puzzle tokens to express their subjective perceptions towards environmental parameters, including light levels, sound, air quality (CO2), temperature, and humidity. OfficeSphere demonstrates that the collective inputs of office workers for every parameter are demonstrated with light feedback. It makes the invisible, sometimes ignorable feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the office environment more tangible and approachable for users to feel, reflect, and share.