Considerations for an Interface-centered Design Methodology

The paper describes the notion of the “architectonic interface” and its design implementations
and concludes with a corresponding design methodology. It summarizes key moments
in interdisciplinary discourse in physics, ergonomics, philosophy, and cultural theory extended
into the field of architecture, and further as related to a prototypical definition of an architectonic
interface. This field-related definition guides the design process and informs it with
four aspects: surface, relation, territorial space, and embodied interaction. These four aspects
describe the associations between the elements of the interface, both animate and inanimate
entities. To put to the test the architectonic interface, a robotic installation was developed as
part of an architecture museum exhibition, which demonstrates the interface’s ability to create
a space of interaction between users, robots, objects, and movements in both the physical and
the virtual reality. This effectively generates a territory of dependencies between these actors
through the medium of the architectural object as a data carrier emblematic of the architectonic
interface.