Lenneke Kuijer | Search arXiv

arXiv2026

Heating in human-HVAC interaction for smart homes: An interdisciplinary overview

As part of HVAC systems, residential heating provides foundational infrastructure for human habitation in cold weather. However, research on how residents interact with HVAC systems, particularly heating systems, remains fragmented across architecture, engineering, informatics, physiology, psychology, sociology, and design. Based on 541 studies from these fields, this review integrates interdisciplinary research on Heating in Human-HVAC Interaction in smart homes.The resulting synthesis is conceptualized through the Situated Interaction Dynamics of control and feedback between users and systems. User-initiated interactions involve monitoring past and present system performance and planning future operation, while system-initiated interactions rely on sensor networks to trigger automation or provide information enabling user action. These interaction dynamics connect Residents' Experience and Practices with Heating in HVAC System Mechanics. Residents' Experience and Practices include thermal comfort and energy management, where thermal comfort involves both individual physiological and psychological experiences of indoor climate and social practices shaped by norms, empathy, and negotiation among cohabitants. Heating in HVAC System Mechanics includes thermal conditions and energy performance. Thermal conditions concern the regulation of air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air velocity, and relative humidity, while energy performance concerns efficiency and environmental impact. This overview highlights four interdisciplinary tensions: sensed versus lived conditions, personalization versus negotiation, efficiency versus health, and automation versus agency. The resulting framework offers a conceptual lens to interpret heating interactions and design Human-HVAC Interaction that balances IEQ-driven healthy thermal conditions, affordability, and sustainability.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Beyond Efficiency and Convenience. Using Post-growth Values as a Nucleus to Transform Design Education and Society

In this position paper we present Municipan, an artefact resulting from a post-growth design experiment, applied in a student design project. In contrast to mainstream human-centered design directed at efficiency and convenience, which we argue leads to deskilling, dependency, and the progression of the climate crisis, we challenged students to envision an opposite user that is willing to invest time and effort and learn new skills. While Municipan is not a direct step towards a postgrowth society, integrating the way it was created in design education can act as a nucleus, bringing forth design professionals inclined to create technologies with potential to gradually transform society towards postgrowth living. Bringing in examples from our own research, we illustrate that designs created in this mindset, such as heating systems that train cold resistance, or navigation systems that train orientation have potential to reskill users, reduce technological dependency and steer consumption within planetary limits.

cs.HC↗