I finished Luigina Ciolfi's paper Understanding Spaces as Places: Extending Interaction Design Paradigms. The author underlined the very notion of the importance of considering spaces as place (nothing's new since Harrison and Dourish, 1996), and analysing those features of a place that are going to shape users' interaction. The good point is that she gives two nice references : - Erickson, T., 1993. "From Interface to Interplace: The Spatial Environment as a Medium for Interaction", Proceedings of the European Conference on Spatial Information Theory. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1993. - Lainer, R. and I. Wagner, 1998. Connecting Qualities of Social Use with Spatial Qualities. In Proceedings of CoBuild98. Streitz, N., S. Konomi, snd H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Heidelberg: Springer.

I like this part :

On the methodological side, introducing a new set of issues for analysis (such as the connections between cultural factors and the way the physical space is arranged and perceived) means also reconsidering existing design practice and subsequently extending and enhancing current methodologies. For example, the data collection phase should include surveys on the particular spatial arrangements of the environments, and observation sessions focused on the features of the physical space and aspects of place appreciation and presence expressed by the users in that environment.

It is always the same statement as in the paper we wrote for CSCW as said in CSCW Challenging Perspectives on Work and Technology (1994) by Liam Bannon

Attempts to design CSCW technologies, then, must be grounded in a thorough understanding of ongoing work processes and how they are supported (or not) by the physical layout, artifacts, information systems and databases, as well as the social relationships and arrangements of the workplace