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~We describe the i-LAND environment which constitutes an example of our vision of the workspaces of the future, in this case supporting cooperative work of dynamic teams with changing needs. i-LAND requires and provides new forms of human-computer interaction and new forms of computer-supported cooperative work. Its design is based on an integration of information and architectural spaces, implications of new work practices and an empirical requirements study informing our design. i-LAND consists of several 'roomware' components, i.e. computer-augmented objects integrating room elements with information technology. We present the current realization of i-LAND in terms of an interactive electronic wall, an interactive table, two computer-enhanced chairs, and two "bridges" for the Passage-mechanism. This is complemented by the description of the creativity support application and the technological infrastructure. The paper is accompanied by a video figure in the CHI'99 video program.

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The study examines effects of media synchronicity in a group problem-solving task. The media characteristics of parallelism, immediacy of feedback, and reprocessability are varied within text-based computer-mediated communication. The hidden profile task requires groups to exchange unshared pieces of information and to integrate them. Contrary to expectations, asynchronous media characteristics do not support the production of unshared information. Furthermore, asynchronous media characteristics result in higher engagement in integrating information during discussion. Asynchronous media characteristics decrease the coherence of the discourse and increase the mental effort of the participants. Since coherence and mental effort indicate that asynchronous media characteristics impede the information integration process, the higher engagement in information integration is interpreted as compensatory effort.