An empirical study to design interactions with historical buildings used for everyday activities
Linda S. Hirsch, Daniel Buschek, Eileen Einwächter, Louisa Bekker, Andreas Martin Butz · 2023
Many historical buildings are challenged to comply with their dual purpose of being society's living memory and being used for everyday activities, such as a place to work or study. Direct interactions with such buildings could counteract this challenge and integrate their historical significance with contemporary needs. However, there is a lack of knowledge about designing this. We approached the gap in an iterative design process by conducting four expert interviews and two building walks with N=16 building users at a public historical building. Our results highlight the importance for building users to integrate historical significance and contemporary needs into their routines to increase their connection to the building and its past users. We provide three design implications for designing the interaction with historical buildings in everyday life and emphasize research implications for future projects. Our findings emphasize the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between Human-computer interaction research areas.