The Telepresence Lounge was developed as a fully functional prototype for smart furniture, under a larger concept for developing mediated architectural objects that transcend the screen and mouse based communication platforms currently in operation. We took two inflatable couches and turned them into tangible interfaces for gestural communication to supplement text based communication systems such as IRC, ICQ and Messenger. Such couches could be transported in an A4 envelope, inflated and be connected from anywhere using the internet. When in use, touch, pressure and motion related data were generated, digitized and sent to the couch on the other end using TCP/IP through ICUBE X in conjunction with Macromedia's multiuser technology. At the receiving end such haptic information was processed and represented through coordinated visual patterns and colors projected across the couch surface in realtime, providing the users additional cues about their postures, movement, position etc. While 80% of inter-personal communication is non verbal, TPL was an attempt to overcome the limitations of the text-only environments.
TelePresence Lounge was developed as a part of the MSc projects at the University of Edinburgh Department of Architecture.

TelepresenceLounge book - available on request [60 pages, hI-res full color, PDF]. For information contact orangevoid