REIMAGINING SOCIAL INSTITUIONS THROUGH SENSES

MAITRYI MANGLA, 180BARCH070

SUSHANT SCHOOL OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE

INTRODUCTION
Architecture only exists, when it is experienced & it happens to be primarily at the service of
the human body. It’s effect on us does not lie in the structure or in its form, but rather with its
encounter with the body. As an experience, it can be intimate and deeply engaging. Our
perception of the world is through the sum of all our senses and it only has meaning when it
is experienced. However, we currently live in a world where visual stimulation takes
precedence over the other senses and factors such as emotion, perception and memories are
not factored into design. It would be interesting to know what would the world be like if a
sensory response will be a critical design factor, which is treated equally as structure and
program.

Experiencing architecture has less to do with what the building looks like but rather to do
with how it engages with all of the five sensesPeople experience a space with their entire
body, through movement, imagination & memory. It is about the dialogue between a person
and architecture that involves an embodied experience, which is determined by the reach and
grasp of our hand, the touch of our fingers, the feeling of heat and cold on our skin, the sound
of our footsteps, the stance we have taken and the position of our eye. As we enter a space,
we not only grasp the space through our senses but we also measure and explore it with our
bodies and movements. Sensual architecture deals not only with the structure, but rather with
how it engages with the human bodies in different ways, and at different times, differently
with different people.
Sensory design through architecture optimizes the healing process & emphasizes the role of a
total sensory experience in influencing, our behaviours, attitudes and wellbeing, making it
imperative that vision only reinforce the other senses. Often, with only visual stimuli, people
become detached from a relationship with the environment through the suppression of the
other senses. With this approach, the effect of architecture on occupants can be better attuned
through sensory design for healthier mind and body.
In modern theoretical approaches, the culture is treated as a value, which results as a
dimension for development. Using culture as the resource for development doesn’t refer only
to the artistic values, but it also refers to approach towards human relationship with cultural
& social institutions.
It is essential that we study as well as bring the shift of iconography & effigy of
organized culture to ambiguous spaces that reflect the idea of "spirituality" as a whole and
focuses more on the five senses with architecture that creates a sense of wonder, a space for
reflection, and a glimpse into clarity and how a human body can deeply engage through
sensorial experience in these cultural and social institutions. Through form, space, scale,
materiality, and light, the role of spiritual spaces can begin to form a new typology, one that
today’s society can benefit from. 

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
-Can sensory response be considered a critical design factor, which can treated equally as
program & structure?
-Can design with a multi-sensory objective improve spatial experience of cultural & social
instituions?
-What type of experiences should be designed for cultural institution?
-What makes religious bodies “spiritual” as a whole?
-Is it the connection to beliefs or iconography & effigy?
-How can multi-sensory design provide a systematic approach to design for experiences? 

METHODOLOGY
The methodology followed for this research involved remote understanding of the topic
through case studies, research papers, interviews, dissertations and digital date available
online.

LITERATURE REVIEW
With the advent of globalisation, the dissolving of ideological boundaries & information age
human beings are finding themselves questioning age-old belief systems and traditions. They
have become much more secular allowing room for diversity. In a time where people
associate themselves with pluralistic identities, a shared space that lets people have an
interpretative experience of the sacred would prove to be more relevant. Since time
immemorial humans have searched for and defined ways to embody a sacred experience, a
way in which they can form a connection with the almighty and their culture. Every culture
articulate their own formal language of architecture and as the world strives to become more
individualistic & inclusive, reordering of the understanding of these social institutions also
calls for a reordering of the structural organization of the sacred space. All these social
institutions derive their quality of transcendence from the same set of elements of light,
symbols, scale, and proportion all linked to five senses. They might share different stories but
they all share a similar philosophy.

Examples like Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, Tadao Ando’s Church of Light,
or St. John Abbey’s Church by Marcel Breuer are noble experiments that have pushed the
envelope for the design of cultural spaces. Architects like Le Corbusier & Don Bosco, serve
as role models as their architectural styles of social institutions are characterized by freedom,
speech of expression and sensorium. Their religious architecture shows an expressive design
language which, for example, is clearly illustrated in the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame-
du-Haut in Ronchamp, France.

Julio Bermudez’s collection of essays, “Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on

Sacred Space” accurately describes how “our contemporary civilization has aggravated the
feelings of existential emptiness and meaninglessness” and that the need for "transcendent"
space could not be more relevant. With hyper connectivity and consumerism, where we are
continually besieged by constant images, noise, and information, the need for spaces to
reflect, to meditate and to feel silence is crucial. In this way, spirituality in architecture can be
completely disconnected from organized religion and take on a new role—with architecture
that creates a sense of wonder,a glimpse into clarity, space for reflection.

KEYWORDS:
SENSORY EXPERIENCE, NATURAL SURROUNDINGS, LIGHT, SHADOW,
SENSOUS, RESTORATIVE, SENSORIAL ATMOSPHERE, SOCIETY, SECULAR,
PHYSICAL & MENTAL EXPERIENCE, PERSPECTIVE, SPATIAL PERCEPTION,
STIMULATION, EMBODIED SPACE, SENSORIUM, CULTURE, SPIRITUAL

REFERENCES

Bermudez, Julio. “Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred Space.”

The Catholic University of America Press (2015).
Kahn, Louis. and Vassella, Alessandro. (2013). Silence and light. Zurich: Park Books
(2013)
Crompton, Andrew. “The Architecture of Multifaith Spaces: God Leaves the Building.”
The Journal of Architecture, Volume 18 Issue 4 (2013).