Headshot of Daniel Rosenberg Munoz
Faculty

Daniel Rosenberg Muñoz

Assistant Professor
Headshot of Daniel Rosenberg Munoz

​​Daniel Rosenberg-Munoz is an Assistant Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). As a designer, technologist, researcher, and educator, his work focuses on advancing direct, in-person interaction through design processes and technologies that heighten people’s innate mindful awareness and capacity for face-to-face engagement.

Research 

Daniel directs the Spatiality Lab, a research group focused on Spatial Interaction Design (Spatial IxD). Situated at the intersection of design and HCI, the lab investigates how spatial interactions can enrich human experiences of presence in co-located environments, from homes and workplaces to retail spaces, manufacturing facilities, and entertainment venues.

Departing from the notion of space as a neutral container, the lab approaches spatiality as a relational phenomenon that emerges moment by moment through motion and action. In this view, space is not pre-given but continually produced through bodily and social relations among people, artifacts, and their surroundings.

Integrating theory, design methods, and emerging technologies, the Spatiality Lab extends these theoretical conceptions of space into design inquiry by exploring how to conceptualize, materialize, and evaluate new forms of spatial interaction. The lab aims to articulate a design-led alternative to the prevailing screen-based interaction paradigm, which isolates users and draws their attention away from their immediate environments. In contrast, the lab seeks to bring interaction and information back into the physical world, enabling people to heighten their spatial awareness and elevate daily activities by becoming more present with others and the objects around them. 

Within this spatiality-based approach, technology responds to people’s relational actions within an environment—such as proximity, orientation, configuration, location, and locomotion—modulating interactions according to attention to others and surrounding objects. Interaction moves fluidly between physical and digitally augmented artifacts, allowing people to engage with technology as naturally as they do with the material fabric of everyday life. The lab studies how these new forms of interaction can reduce distraction while fostering social connection, spatial attunement, and a renewed sense of presence within shared environments.

Current Projects: 

  • Spatial IxD: A conceptual framework integrating vocabulary and methods to understand, create, and evaluate spatial interactions.
  • SoundHolo: A room-scale platform for sonically augmenting everyday objects by dynamically attaching 3D sounds to them and their surroundings.
  • ImageHolo: Extends the SoundHolo platform by integrating dynamic projection mapping to explore audio–visual augmentations.
  • Membranes: An industry-focused project exploring how spatial interactions can mediate transitions between individual/private and collective/shared experiences in smart home environments.
  • Spatial IoTs: A digital tool enabling designers to prototype distributed IoT systems within physical environments.
  • Spatiality Workshop: A collaborative, hands-on activity that leverages spatial bodystorming and experience prototyping to ideate, design, and communicate low-fidelity spatial interactions.

Background 

Daniel holds a PhD and a Master of Science in Design and Computation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has taught at RPI’s Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE), NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and SVA’s Design for Social Innovation Program. He has led over twenty design workshops with students and local communities across the United States, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Taiwan, and India. His research has been published internationally in venues such as TEI, C&C, CAADRIA, CAAD Futures, ACSA, Dosya, and Footprint.

Alongside his academic career, Daniel has over six years of professional experience leading teams and collaborating with clients on technology-driven design projects. He was a partner and Head of Design at Midnight Commercial, a design agency creating next-generation products and spatial experiences, including smart IoT devices, immersive art installations, and technology-mediated retail environments. In 2018, he founded Phantasma, a design consultancy specializing in large-scale immersive and interactive environments for the arts, entertainment, and recreation industries. His clients include Target, Cartier, Cadillac, Gentex, The New York Times, Samsung, and TSG Entertainment.

Courses 

Daniel teaches studios, labs, and electives in Spatial IxD, alongside a graduate seminar on the theories, history, and emerging paradigms of interaction design. His courses integrate research on spatiality, equipping students with the conceptual frameworks and practical tools to design meaningful spatial interactions within physical environments and to create solutions that positively impact both society and the planet.

He also directs the Spatial Experiences Lab, an educational resource for students, faculty, and staff to ideate, prototype, and test interactions, media, and physical designs that unfold at room scale.

Key publications