ABSTRACT
This chapter presents human relations with a smart building, the purpose of which is to detect events or changes in the built environment and provide feedback to people about indoor and outdoor conditions. In our study, we show that the state-of-the-art building, equipped with technological solutions, does not necessarily guarantee the well-being and satisfaction of its occupants. On the contrary, the “smartness” of the building often proves to be a source of discontent and disappointment, especially when it tries to appropriate agency from the people and make independent choices regarding their needs and wants. In such cases, people tend to find innovative solutions for outsmarting the building and taking back control. In this chapter, we identify such examples and explain why it is necessary to highlight the needs, analyse the expectations and study the habits and practices of people before we start designing smart buildings. By combining methods from anthropology and data science, we can better understand human practices in a smart building and design more efficient, people-friendly technologies. In this way, we can truly make sense of thousands of sensors and the data collected by them.
