Communities in the clouds
Tom Lodge, Tom A. Rodden, Richard Mortier · 2013
Research into domestic infrastructures has focused upon a user's understanding and control of in-home networking technologies. It has exposed a range of needs that have either lead to the creation of new tools and services, or have triggered a fundamental re-evaluation of the status quo. We consider a class of domestic environment that has largely been neglected: large scale communal living. Urban high-rises, composed of hundreds of apartments and hundreds or thousands of occupants, expose their residents to a set of problems which impose complex requirements upon supporting technologies. We examine the requirements of high-rise communities, through a set of illustrative scenarios, inspired by forums, social media and literature. We consider how commonly appropriated social media tools fail to address these requirements and we discuss the nature of the services required to better support high-rise communities.