Using sensory design to enrich our indoors
Designer: Gray Puksand | Photography: Peter Bennetts
The human senses are universally understood, but how well do we understand their capacity to evoke emotion, memory and behaviour? When discussing rebuilding the House of Commons, Sir Winston Churchill sought to restore its original form and dignity, declaring that “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” 4 He recognised the power of familiarity and how a building is more than its structural design, but an influential environment.
The indoor spaces we regularly inhabit – offices, classrooms, clinics, waiting rooms and lecture theatres – are a multi-sensory experience engaging our senses of touch, sight, sound, smell and taste. This stimulus impacts our mind, daily mood, modifies the way we think and determines how we behave. When we reflect on the design of these spaces – a cramped workplace design causes us to feel powerless and dull settings rob us of inspiration – it begs the question, are we shaping the buildings, or are the buildings shaping us?
Designer: Architectus | Photography: Aaron Citti
Creating an interior space that holistically stimulates all senses to form an enriching atmosphere that promotes desirable behaviors, positive emotions and fond memories, is at the heart of good sensory design.
So where does good sensory design begin? Architectural design has primarily been tailored to our vision – and for good reason - sight is our dominant sense in perceiving our surroundings. It extends significantly farther and uses more cognitive processing than other senses.3 The visual elements that create our environment can profoundly impact how we feel. Ornamentation, angular surfaces, pattern, colour and light are all architectural facets that stimulate our sight. Woven Image’s acoustic portfolio contains design-driven acoustic finishes that can effectively delight users with their visual cues. EchoPanel® works as a partition, pendent or workstation - with the option for in-house or custom perforated designs, it grants sight and light to flow through open floorplans while delivering sound absorption. Precision cut designs like Longitude and Palace enamour our eyes with grooves of shadow and light.
Designer: Luchetti Krelle | Photography: Michael Wee Photography
One of the largest sensory complaints in the built environment is noise.8 Poor acoustic design generates constant exposure to negative sounds which studies suggest can induce stress, making people more emotionally reactive or increase blood pressure, contributing to mental and physical health problems.6 Acoustic panels such as the Embossed range or acoustic ceiling solutions like Array or Aire have strong sound absorbing properties to combat noise disruption. Yet there is more to acoustics than eliminating “unwanted sound.”
Designer: Hub Interiors | Photography: Ryan North Photography
Designer & Photography: InOne Projects
Designer: Architectus | Photography: Aaron Citti
Finnish architect and professor Pallasmaa7 states that “every building or space has its characteristic sound of intimacy or monumentality, rejection or invitation, hospitality or hostility.” The function and atmosphere of a shared interior space is perceived, in part, by what it sounds like. A library and a bar each require unique design features that cue our understanding of their intent. Therefore, acoustic enhancements to the built environment are also an opportunity to create meaning and purpose. Fuji acoustic ceiling tiles bring visual and acoustic qualities to hard-surface, high-ceiling, dynamic spaces to achieve a distinct sound, look and feel, enabling a space to deliver the appropriately designed sensory experience.
“The door handle is the handshake of the building” Pallasmaa7 continues. In any building, we find ourselves engaging with its tactile design. The steel door handle feels cold and uninviting or a plush ribbed fabric like Focus Chain gives peaceful feelings. Furthermore, tactile and visual sensation combine, allowing us to feel the impact of textures by merely looking at them, since our mind remembers and interprets what familiar texture feels like. Even when it cannot be physically touched, texture can enrich a space with meaning. Embossed designs like Pico and Zen display peaks and valleys, giving a strong, yet delicate form to walls, providing users a sense of calm, reminding them of soothing sand lines in a Japanese Zen garden. While Gem flaunts beautiful structures of expanded Mesh, Ion references geometric origami, providing character and reinforcing culture in the case of Japanese restaurant, ITO.
Taste might seem the most bizarre sense to have an impact through the design environment, but Senior Service and Experience Designer Ricardo Faria9 reminds us that in the hospitality sector, people “eat with their eyes.”
Designer: Francis Burne | Photography: Anjie Blair
Designer & Installer: Sheldon Interiors | Photography:Simon Whitbread & Toby Peet
In the same way that taste hinges on appearance, our sense of taste can be influenced by visual, tactile and auditory design, leaving a foul or pleasant taste in our mouth, causing us to feel a certain way to the space we are occupying. More eating hubs are eliminating harsh lighting and introducing softer seating, creating atmospheres that contribute to the overall goal of a good tasting experience. In the same way a chef ought not neglect the appearance of their dish or their restaurant design, a designer should consider how the sensory output of their design affects one’s taste. Great visual, textural or acoustic design can be undermined if smell, taste and the interaction of all human senses, is overlooked.
Smell takes a more direct, less conscious pathway to the brain into a region that processes emotion.2 As the only sense to bypass our thalamus, scents are not always consciously registered and can attach themselves to memories and evoke emotions. It is an inescapable stimulus that cannot be understated. If a private space is solely designed based on physical attributes, yet fails to stop unwanted scents, it will lose any sense of privacy and instead feel communal.5 Designing to avoid negative scents like dust, spoiled food and escaping gas, is more important than developing positive scents - the latter is mainly to mask bad odours. 1 Improving air quality and ventilation are among the most effective methods to achieve this. Ceiling solutions like Array are ideal for trending exposed ceiling designs, integrating around HVAC systems, the EchoPanel® baffles reduce reverberation time, providing acoustic comfort without hindering natural lighting, utilities or air flow.
In essence, sensory architecture caters to all human senses, enriches interior spaces and elevates the occupant experience. It calls for a holistic approach, prioritising the dominant senses of sight and hearing, without overlooking other senses which interact to create our multi-sensory experience. Woven Image’s portfolio of acoustic materials is an ideal solution to engage the senses positively and comprehensively.
References
1 Baus, O., & Bouchard, S. (2017). Exposure to an unpleasant odour increases the sense of presence in virtual reality. Virtual Reality, 21, 59–74.
2 Beeler, C. (2014) Why smell is so closely connected to our memories and emotions, WHYY. Available at: https://whyy.org/segments/why-smell-is-so-closely-connected-to-our-memories-and-emotions/
3 Gallace, A., Ngo, M. K., Sulaitis, J., & Spence, C. (2012). Multisensory presence in virtual reality: Possibilities & limitations. In G. Ghinea, F. Andres, & S. Gulliver (Eds.), Multiple sensorial media advances and applications: New developments in MulSeMedia, (pp. 1–40). Hershey: IGI Global.
4 Hansard, (1943) House of Representatives, debates, 1943: Historic Hansard House of Representatives, Debates, 1943: Historic Hansard. Available at: https://historichansard.net/hofreps/1943/
5 Lawrence, Attila, “Learning about Human Spatial Behavior, Cyper space is a good place to start”, a paper published in the Internet, web page: www.nscee.edu/unlv/Colleges/Fine_Arts/Architecture/Faculty/alawrence.html , 2005.
6 Lee, Y., Lee, S. and Lee, W. (2023) Occupational and environmental noise exposure and extra-auditory effects on humans: A systematic literature review, GeoHealth. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10248481/
7 Pallasmaa, J. (1996). The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses (Polemics). London: Academy Editions.
8 Spence, C. (2014). Noise and its impact on the perception of food and drink. Flavour, 3, 9.
9 Ricardo Faria - Sr Service & Experience Designer (2023) The impact of sensory design on user engagement and satisfaction, Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@faria.faria9/the-impact-of-sensory-design-on-user-engagement-and-satisfaction-fdf203409701#:~:text=Sensory%20design%20helps%20to%20create,evoke%20emotions%20and%20influence%20behavior.