Data art to enhance users' pro-environmental behavior

Promoting sustainable behavior among building users remains challenging, particularly in smart buildings where environmental data is often presented through dashboards that lack emotional resonance. This study explores the potential of data-driven art to deepen pro-environmental awareness and intention by transforming building sustainability data into an affective and reflective experience. A flexible data-to-art framework was developed to integrate diverse building data streams, such as temperature, airflow, water, waste, or energy use, and translate them into multisensory outputs including sound, haptics, and interactive visualizations. Using this framework, the Garden of Sensors installation was created and exhibited in a university library. Rather than instructing users or prescribing behaviors, the installation aimed to evoke emotional and cognitive engagement with otherwise invisible building processes. In this implementation, ventilation airflow served as an energy-related operational indicator, while room temperature functioned as a proxy for thermal comfort. These variables were translated into generative visual forms, illustrating one possible configuration of the framework. A qualitative questionnaire involving 43 participants examined users' emotional responses, reflections, and sustainability-related intentions. The findings indicate that uplifting emotions, particularly inspiration and hope, were most often associated with reflective thought and openness toward sustainable habits. Reflective emotions such as guilt or melancholy tended to prompt introspection without leading to stated intention. Overall, the results suggest that data-driven art can function as a perceptual and emotional interface, making invisible environmental processes perceptible and personally meaningful. This approach is readily integrable across libraries, campuses, residential buildings, and public spaces, supporting pro-environmental engagement in everyday contexts.