May 11, 2024
How Our Senses Affect Our Perception
When designing a space, much of the focus is on defining the physical aspects of it, but what if architects looked beyond the physical? Sensory architecture can go beyond this and profoundly transform the relationship and interaction between people and the built environment. Humans have five senses: touch, smell, vision, hearing, and taste. Each one directly affects our perception of the world around us. There are well-documented links between our senses and memory and well-being.
There is a difference between perception and sensation. Sensation is the detection of sensory stimuli by receptors on sensory organs (for example, when we touch a surface, smell a flower, or hear music) and perception is the organization, interpretation, and conscious experience of sensations by the brain. Biochemical and neurological functions of sensory organs facilitate the conversion of sensation into perception.
The scientific field that explores the quantitative relationship between physical events and psychological events is called Psychophysics.
How Sensory Design Affects Our Experience of a Space
Sensory design is design that is centered around considering more than one or all the senses when a person enters a space. A space designed with this in mind can trigger profound feelings of warmth, comfort, cleanness, and even surprise.
A space that considers all of the senses can trigger feelings such as coziness, warmth, cleanness, comfort, and surprise. In addition to room temperature, the texture of wood and warm colors can also provide an extra sense of comfort. While concrete is perceived as a cold material, you can counteract this impression by adding plants, contrasting colors, and other elements to the environment. There are endless possibilities, so we have listed some aspects that can be taken into account to help you think outside the box and make creative designs towards the user’s well-being.
After World War II, many European artists felt an urgent need to start from scratch, but few summed up the ambition as succinctly as the three young German artists who called themselves Zero
A Brief History of Sensory Design
Sensory design has its roots in the 1950s. Radical art collectives sought to disrupt traditional architecture paradigms. There were installations in Eurpoe and Japan where artists directed their work beyond the visual to all the senses. Their work directly confronted post-war consumerism. Light, reflection, sound, and garish and dramatic flourishes were married with physical actions such as burning and explosions.
We saw a reboot in the 1970s,with artists and performers such as Yoko Ono focused on our relationships with light, music, visual space, and emotional and psychological experience. Postmodernism played a huge part in disrupting traditional design, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, there are many examples of designs and art installations that use multisensory approaches.
DeafSpace
DeafSpace is one such example. The concept has put forward over 150 principles for multisensory design that elevates a space beyond the mere physical. Concepts include covering concrete with wood veneer to allow navigation by blind people via vibration, and designs that embrace color and visual elements. Multisensory design can have a real-world resonance that connects us in profound ways.
Spatial orientation and the awareness of activities within our surroundings are essential to maintaining a sense of well-being. Deaf people “read” activities in their surroundings that may not be immediately apparent to many hearing people through an acute sensitivity towards visual and tactile cues. These clues include vibrations, shadow movement, and reading subtle shifts in the expression of others. Designers can facilitate spatial awareness ‘in 360 degrees’ to improve deaf people’s orientation and wayfinding. This was fascinating, in a respectful tone, because we do not often think about it when we are not directly affected by the daily challenges that a hearing impaired person would be. For more information on DeafSpace, here is the site.
The Role of Light
Our bodies have an internal biological clock that revolves around our circadian rhythms. Light levels influence this, so understanding its effects can improve the user’s sense of well-being. There are numerous studies that have linked lighting with health. Intelligent lighting design can be the difference between a comfortable space and one which feels uncomfortable.
Lighting design with this factor in mind can improve motivation, focusing ability, mood, and even appetite. Incorporating elements like focal points, natural light, and color maps are central to good lighting design and can create a multisensory experience.
Get ready for Take Off
. Sensory Room at Pittsburg Airport helps make air travel easier
More and more of these quiet rooms for individuals with autism and other sensory-processing issues are becoming common across the country (and the world), and the trend is praised by various autism advocacy groups and the overall community. The Sensory room in Pittburg’s airport is special because it seems to have special features to accomomdate everyone. These unique features include a variety of tactile, touchable surfaces; cloud panels to soften the adjustable, overhead lighting throughout the rooms; soundproofing in the doors, walls, and ceilings; use of sustainable, odor-free materials; incorporation of the smaller rooms for silence or privacy, calming sounds and visual stimulation, numerous custom-built features such as benches that feature bubble tubes and fiberoptic-lit “tunnels”, all with soft or curved surfaces, and a sensory-friendly bathroom with both a height-adjustable sink and adult changing table.
Pittsburgh’s sensory room also has one very unique room, created with help from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, American Airlines, Magee Plastics, and XYZ Custom: A real-life airplane exhibit where you can experience what it’s like to board an actual airplane, before you do just that! Sometimes just being familiar with what to expect can help bring calm.
The Emotional Nature of Color
Colors have a profound psychological effect on humans, as they are associated with certain feelings. Thinking of color maps can subtly influence a person’s mood in a space. The great artists understand color and our emotional response – choosing the colors for a space should therefore be seen as akin to creating a great piece of artwork. Using color uni
formly creates an overall emotional response to a space, whilst strong colors can be used sparingly to create focal points. Again, we are NOT experts in the field of autism but once we started really exploring the concept of how the senses can affect different needs, it was easy to become fascinated. Beyond the spaces in public places such as the airport above, sensory rooms are becoming more popular in smaller settings such as preschools and even at home. This was a helpful read to give perspective on everything that might go into creating a sensory space.
Spaces that can sing
To think about sound in architecture is more than just soundproofing and noise reduction. Different sounds can add different sensations to an environment, for example, mindfulness meditation music can provide a sense of tranquility, while upbeat tunes may cause euphoria, and with a little more creativity, we can make architecture itself produce music. I ended up down the rabbit hole on this one because so little is actually available for interior design and hearing impairment. As I kept digging, I came acrossed a different type of art installation that was all about sound and environment.
If the ocean could play you a song, it would sing differently each night. The Sea Organ in the Croatian city of Zadar is comprised of a network of polyethylene tubes and resonating cavities which sing as the waves and wind lap the shore. With thirty-five individual pipes spanning a total length of seventy meters, it is the largest aerophone in the world.
Another one allows passerby to change the sounds heard just by a simple touch. Not only would every child love this but I can see alzheimers patiences, adults with mental impairments and maybe even trauma victims. It could be programed to adapt to what the user would benefit from the most.
If this technology could be used at home or school, for trauma victims or those with mental impairments to create a calm, soothing space or play notes of familiarity it could bring an entirely new way to incorporate sound in to a design.
Why does this matter?
Honking cars outside the window, an officemate making coffee, conference calls—the possibilities for noise disruption are endless. Acoustic design in architecture can help mitigate these frustrations caused by external noise pollution and competing internal noises within a space, and yet, so often, acoustic design is overlooked.
Growing research has suggested that both children and adults can suffer as a result of noise exposure. Noise exposure has been linked to poorer reading comprehension and standardized test scores in children, according to a 2018 World Health Organization analysis. A study published in The American Journal of Industrial Medicine in 2018 concluded that as many as 14% of cases of hypertension and 9% of cases of high cholesterol were potentially a result of noise exposure.
Tactile Environments
Sensory spaces can be designed with tactile sensations in mind. Temperature, humidity, ventilation, and the surfaces of walls, chairs, and floors can all be involved to provide levels of comfort. Malleable materials and interactive elements can improve the user’s relationship with the built environment.
It’s not art, it’s architecture. Please touch.
The surfaces of floors, walls, and furniture, as well as the temperature of the room, humidity, and ventilation, determine most of the comfort related to the touch. A metal chair, for example, can be a very interesting element but can also be cold and uncomfortable depending on the weather; hot environments can become more pleasant and playful with the presence of a cool-mist humidifier; the wind blowing on a curtain can transform a room and encourage interaction with the touch. So, using soft and malleable materials or interactive devices can be a good way to improve the relationship between the body and the built environment.
The Living Room.
This proof-of-concept project seeks to determine if affective and physiological regulation in individuals with autism can be promoted throu
gh dynamic adjustments in the ambient environment. In short, light, sound, smell, and other sensorial stimuli within a space are designed to adjust to accommodate end-user comfort and enjoyment. While we are not experts on a lot of the science behind this, it is fascinating to think about how we can use technology in our own homes for our families that might need something that isn’t a standard home design. In addition, while everyone in the home may not need the environment to be adapted to be comfortable, the connection this may bring into your home may change the dynamic of how you spend time together. For more information on this study, check out the ongoing event in Omaha that is dedicate to sensory architecture.
The Future – What’s next?
Will multisensory design become commonplace? Only time will tell. Certainly, the idea that a space should be much more than its physical elements is gaining traction. Furthermore, augmented and virtual reality technologies have the potential to provide truly interactive, multisensory experiences for sensory space design in the future.
As a believer in the idea that you can always learn something new and since I LOVE school and learning, this gave me a new avenue to explore. And, while we will not claim to be experts on the challenges that may take place in someone’s daily life, we are more than willing to grow and learn and bring enthusiasm to a project that would make someone’s world significantly better. That is what we try to do in every design at Sutton Place and it would be our privlige to create a special space that is one of kind for your special one of a kind person.
Warmly and Creatively Yours,
Andrea and Kimberly
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