Algorithmic Dwelling

Algorithmic Dwelling will explore how digital technologies are reshaping access to, and experiences of, housing. Presentations will examine how people make home with computational devices (Sophia Maalsen), how algorithms regulate tenant selection across housing tenures (Lina Przhedetsky), and how open banking and data-driven profiling are transforming mortgage lending (Roger Burrows). Together, the speakers trace how automation and algorithmic systems are redefining the meaning and politics of dwelling in the digital age.

Home in Cybersymbiosis: Making Home with Digital Oddkin: Sophia Maalsen

In this presentation I present a provocation about the way we live at home with digital things. Acknowledging the history of more-than-human approaches in human geography, and the entrenchment of computational devices in the home, I advance the concept of cybersymbiosis as framework to think about the way we make home with computational devices. Doing so provides a speculative tool for thinking through our relationships with devices and the way we make home with them in critical ways. Three insights are identified: first, that these relationships are made and change over time; second, that our relationships with technology are often characterised by ambivalence, meaning it is not just about control and exploitation but extends to the mutually defining nature of those relationships; and third, that our relationships with home technologies can be conceptualised as a speculative ecology. Understanding our co-habitation with such devices can bring more sustainable and ethical approaches to our increasingly digitised homelives.

Sophia Maalsen is a former ARC DECRA Fellow and senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She is interested in the translation of computational logics and technologies to address issues of housing affordability and innovation, as well as looking at the potential role of technologies in tenant advocacy. Her research is predominantly situated at the intersection of the digital and material across urban spaces and governance, housing, and feminism, with particular interest in the digital mediation and reconfiguration of relationships across these spaces. She is co-editor-in-chief at the International Journal of Housing Policy and was founding associate editor and later co-editor-in-chief at Digital Geography and Society.

Digital Doorkeepers: Regulating Algorithmic Tenant Selection Across Different Tenure Types: Lina Przhedetsky

The proliferation of digital platforms and tracking tools, coupled with increases in computing power and decreases in technology costs, is radically reshaping the possibilities and practices of housing allocation. Increasingly, businesses, governments and consumers use decision-support systems to ‘screen’ and ‘sort’ prospective tenants; as a result, algorithms play an increasingly important role in determining who can access housing and on what terms. There is evidence that these systems can discriminate, exclude, and prevent individuals and groups from accessing housing. International approaches to addressing these challenges vary: some jurisdictions have focused on applying economy-wide laws of general application (e.g. privacy law or anti-discrimination legislation), while have developed sector-specific interventions (e.g. regulating data collection in the private rental sector). The development of these regulatory approaches has proceeded without adequate examination of variations in algorithmic tenant selection across different housing tenures, and their associated challenges. This presentation identifies the unique challenges that emerge from the use of AI and automated decision-making in determining access to private rental accommodation, social housing, shared housing, and short-stay accommodation. Using Australia as a case study, it describes existing frameworks that govern algorithmic tenant selection, highlights their limitations, and calls for a nuanced regulatory approach that ensures tenant selection processes account for individual needs, preferences, and entitlements.

Lina Przhedetsky is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S). Her academic work is at the forefront of Australian research into the regulation of emerging technologies, specifically, the use of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making in essential services markets. Her research interests include housing, consumer protection, platform governance, citizen science, and surveillance. In 2025, Lina joined University of Melbourne node where she works on the ADM, Ecosystems and Multispecies Relationships', AI Regulation' and Ad Observatory' projects. Prior to this, she undertook a PhD at UTS Law School. Her doctoral research analysed rental application technologies through a sociotechnical lens, used doctrinal analysis to identify gaps in consumer protections and put forward solutions for effective regulatory interventions.

Envisioning Mortgage Futures: Roger Burrows

This paper explores how open banking and algorithmic profiling are reshaping mortgage lending in the UK. Drawing on interviews with lenders, brokers, technology developers and borrowers, it examines how transaction data, behavioural analytics and predictive modelling are being used to assess credit risk. While these technologies promise efficiency and inclusion, they often deepen inequality by embedding opaque and morally charged judgments into lending decisions. Through seven speculative vignettes, the paper illustrates how algorithmic systems may reward conformity, penalise life transitions and categorise borrowers in ways that reinforce social divisions. The concept of eigencapital captures how data-driven metrics now govern access to housing finance. As automated infrastructures evolve, they raise urgent questions about fairness, privacy and accountability.

Roger Burrows is Professor in Global Inequalities in the School of Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. He is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Professor in the Australian Centre for Housing Research at the University of Adelaide. He was previously Professor of Cities at the Newcastle University, Pro-Warden (PVC) at Goldsmiths, University of London and Director of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York. Over a 40-year career he has published across: housing and urban studies; digital cultures, the history of methods; and, most recently, the cultural politics of global wealth elites.