The overall research themes for the Interactive Workspaces area are to design augmented reality support for collaboration between people:

1) in the same room
2) in distributed organizations,
3) in the field. This involves the utilization of the environment (walls, furniture’s, objects) as well as small wireless and mobile devices as computing components. Moreover, it involves bridging the gap between physical and digital worlds. We call the technological infrastructure developed Spatial Computing Environments, emphasizing:

1) that computing takes place inside many components/components of the distributed spaces and fields; and
2) computing tracks objects and people and affects the physical spaces through projections, sound, light etc. The development of infrastructure and prototypes of spatial computing environments is a central theme.

Even though complex use settings call for a holistic understanding it is useful to operate with a number of perspectives on the development of augmented reality based collaboration support. We see the following three important perspectives taking the computer support as the starting point:

1) augmenting the space/environment,
2) augmenting the artefact, and
3) augmenting the users. These perspectives will always appear in interplay in specific use settings, but they are useful distinctions when considering the design of technologies across application domains and use situations. In the following we briefly explain these perspectives:

Augmenting the space/environment
Focus on users collaboration in relationship to rooms and buildings as well as development of IT-support that is integrated and transparent in the physical environment, e.g. walls, floors, ceilings and furniture’s.

Augmenting the artefacts
Focus on the roles of physical artefacts in work processes and on development of IT-support integrated in these artefacts. The physical artefacts allow to be moved around in buildings and fields preserving the built in IT-capabilities.

Augmenting the users
Focus on the mobile and flexible user who works in many different settings, and how to support such users with access to material and communication with colleagues etc.

Expected results
Expected results are new theoretical knowledge about future work environments, prototypes of building environments, information appliances, mobile devices, infrastructures, user interfaces etc.

We are drawing on and contributing to a number of established research fields, such as:

• Augmented reality
• CSCW
• Collaborative Virtual Environments
• Open Hypermedia
• Human Computer Interaction
• Architectural and Industrial Design

The participants in the Interactive Workspaces activities have already published several papers in conferences within the research fields.