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Short abstract

This paper examines an AI fall-prevention device to show how "homemaking" is re-configured in the design practices. By analyzing practice-bound imaginaries, it reveals how designers pre-configure the home, navigating the friction between invisibilizing technologies and making new dependencies.

Long abstract

In the current digital transformation of welfare, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly framed as a remedy for healthcare systemic deficiencies, often supported by "Aging-in-Place" imaginaries of home care. By examining the design of a fall risk prediction device, this paper argues that homemaking for older adults is actively reconfigured within design practices long before technology enters the home. This creates a fundamental tension between envisioned independence and new forms of data-driven dependency.

Moving beyond the analysis of top-down imaginaries of "Aging-in-Place", the research adopts the lens of "practice-bound imaginaries" (Hyysalo, 2006) to investigate how specific visions of care are locally generated and stabilized during the development process. The study explores the frictions and translations between these multiple imaginaries and the material practices of technology design.

The research draws on an in-depth case study of an Italian company developing a wearable device for evaluating fall risk. Through the analysis of interviews, participant mapping, and documents, the paper examines how developers "pre-configure" the home and the older adult in relation to the broader care network. By focusing also on the aesthetic choices made during prototyping, the study reveals how artifacts constructed as "invisible" actually reconfigure the sociomateriality of home care, embedding users into new infrastructures of preventive intervention.