  While robots are increasingly integrated into the built environment, little
is known how their qualities can meaningfully influence our spaces to
facilitate enjoyable and agreeable interaction, rather than robotic settings
that are driven by functional goals. Motivated by the premise that future
robots should be aware of architectural sensitivities, we developed a set of
exploratory studies that combine methods from both architectural and
interaction design. While we empirically discovered that dynamically moving
spatial elements, which we coin as spatial robots, can indeed create unique
life-sized affordances that encourage or resist human activities, we also
encountered many unforeseen design challenges originated from how ordinary
users and experts perceived spatial robots. This discussion thus could inform
similar design studies in the areas of human-building architecture (HBI) or
responsive and interactive architecture.
