INAR 1014

Introduction to Interior Architecture

FIVE SENSES AND SPACE PERCEPTION

LECTURE 2

Week 3
“The role of the (interior) architect is to organize
the sensations that will thus be encountered: light
and shadow, threshold, views, textural changes,
and dimensional variations… experiences,
memories, become that matter of creation itself.”
Manuel Sauzet

We all know that (interior) architecture is

incredibly visual, but how we perceive
space is shaped by all of our sensations,
not just sight.
spatial perception is the initial
gathering of information.

we primarily are visual beings, but environmental perception

includes the ways and means by which we collect information
through all our senses.
Dominance of vision and the suppression of
other senses in the way architecture was taught, conceived and
critiqued

The body in the center

Multi-Sensory Experience

Interaction of the Senses

Sensory Architecture
 Dominance of VISION and the
Suppression of Other Senses

The perception of sight as our most important sense is well

grounded in physiological, perceptual and psychological
facts.
The problem: isolation of eye outside its natural interaction
with other sense modalities, and from the elimination and
suppression of other senses, which increasingly reduce and restrict
the experience of the world into the sphere of vision (Pallasma,
39).
Human Body as the Center of the Experiential World
“… sensory experience is unstable and alien to natural perception, which we
achieve with our whole body all at once, and which opens on a world of
interacting senses” (Merleau-Ponty).

Sensory experiences become integrated through the body,

or rather, in the very constitution of the body and the
human mode of being.

Our bodies and movements are

in constant interaction with the
environment; the world and the
self inform and redefine each
other constantly.
Human Body the Center of the Experiential World
Body, Memory, and Architecture (Kent C Bloomer, Charles W Moore)

What is missing from our dwellings

today are the potential transactions
between body, imagination, and
environment…

The body is not a mere physical entity; it is enriched by both

memory and dream, past and future. …our capacity of memory
would be impossible without a body memory. The world is
reflected in the body, and the body is projected onto the world.
We remember through our bodies as much as through our nervous
system and brain.
 Human Body and Architecture
We could not think of purely clever
architecture that would not be a projection
of the human body and its movement
through space.
The making of architecture calls for clear thinking,
but this is a specific embodied mode of thought
that takes place through the senses and the
body, and through the specific medium of
architecture.
Multi-sensory Experience

Architecture is essentially an extension

of nature into the man-made realm,
providing the ground for perception
and the horizon of experiencing and
understanding the world.

Every touching experience of

architecture is multi-sensory;
qualities of space, matter and
scale are measured equally by
the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue,
skeleton and muscle.
Instead of mere vision, or five
classical senses, architecture
involves several realms of
sensory experience which
interact and fuse into each
other.
Multi-sensory Experience

Senses not mere passive

receivers (J. J. Gibson)
Instead of five detached
senses, Gibson categorizes
the senses in multi-sensory
systems;

the visual system,

the auditory system,
the taste-smell system,
the basic-orienting system,
the haptic system
 Multi-sensory Experience
The eye wants to collaborate
with the body and the other
senses.
All the senses, including vision, can
be regarded as extension of the
sense of touch –as specializations of
the skin.

All senses define the interface between the skin and the
environment- between the skin and the environment- between the
opaque interiority of the body and exteriority of the world.
Even the eye touches; the gaze implies unconscious
touch, bodily mimesis and identification.
Interaction of Senses / Relation of Touch with Vision

Vision needs the help of touch which

provides sensations of ‘solidity, resistance,
and protrusion’ sight detached from touch
could not ‘have any idea of distance,
resistance, outness, or profundity, nor
consequently of space and body’
(George Berkeley).

The only sense which can give a sensation of spatial depth is

touch, because touch ‘senses the weight, resistance, and three-
dimensional shape of material bodies, and thus makes us
aware that things extend away from us in all directions’
(Hegel).
Interaction of Senses / Relation of Touch With Vision
Vision reveals what the touch already knows.
We could think of the sense of touch as
the unconscious vision. Our eyes stroke
distant surfaces, contours and edges, and
the unconscious tactile sensation
determines the agreeableness or
unpleasantness of the experience. The
distant and the near are experienced
with the same intensity, and they merge
into one coherent experience.

What we see is:

the depth,
the smoothness, softness/hardness
the surface temperature of the object
An architectural work generates an indivisible complex of
impressions.

Fallingwater House -Frank Lloyd Wright;

Live encounter
with Fallingwater-
weaves the surrounding
forest, the volumes,
surfaces, textures, and
colors of the house, and
even the smells of the
forest and the sounds
of the river, into a
uniquely full
experience.
5 Senses
Sight: The most obvious and appealing to
designers (lighting, color, proportions).
Scientists say more than half the brain . positive and negative reactions to color,
is devoted to processing visual images, layout and flow of the space,
and 80 percent of learning is based . how much sensory input could be given
on visual input. without overwhelming the user.

Research showed that

a space should not be
crowded since
"emotionally, you want
to feel comfortable."
This includes visual
clutter, too.
A work of architecture incorporates and infuses both physical
and mental structures.
The eye is the organ of distance and separation,
whereas touch is the sense of nearness, intimacy and
affection.

Good architecture offers shapes and

surfaces molded for the pleasurable
touch of the eye.

The eye surveys, controls and

investigates, whereas touch approaches
and embraces.

Deep shadows and darkness are essential,

because they dim the sharpness of vision,
make depth and distance ambiguous, and The shadows
invite unconscious peripheral vision and give shape and
tactile fantasy. life to the object
in light.
The art of
chiaroscuro
in
architecture

Chiaroscuro by
Horatio
 Chiaroscuro: Caravaggio

Rembrandt - "Chiaroscuro"-Technique
Chiaroscuro is a skill of
the master architecture.

In great architectural
space, there is a constant,
deep breathing of shadow
and light; shadow inhales
and illumination exhales
light.
In our time, light has
turned into a mere
quantitative matter
and the window has
lost its significance as
a mediator between
two worlds, between
enclosed and open,
interiority and
exteriority, private
and public, shadow
and light.
Light - Shadow
 5 Senses
Sound: Utilizing acoustic techniques to match sound with the
function of a space (noise reduction or amplification)

airport lounges – there is high

concentration of people; creating
tranquil spaces that are refuges
from electronics.

create designated spaces for

cell phone use / separate TV
media rooms.
a signal with a flat frequency
spectrum that blocks other sounds.

to muffle conversation noise, incorporate water

features to produce soothing white noise
Interaction of Senses
Sight / Sound Vision is
directional, sound is
Sight isolates, sound incorporates omni-directional

Eye reaches, ear receives The sense of sight

implies exteriority,
sound creates an
experience of We are not normally
aware of the
interiority
significance of
Buildings do not hearing spatial
react to our gaze, experience, although
they do return to our sound provides the
sounds back to our progressive range (in
ears. space) in which visual
impressions are
embedded.
Sound and interior

In historical towns and

spaces, acoustic
experiences reinforce
and enrich visual
experiences

The early Cistercian Abbey of Le

Thoronet, established in 1136.
transferred to its present site in 1176. The space traced by the ear in the
darkness becomes a cavity sculpted
directly in the interior of the mind.
sound Sound & Space

Hearing structures and articulates the experience and

understanding of space.
Tunnels in Vienna; in Orson Welles’ film The Third Man ‘Your ear receives the
impact of both the length and the cylindrical form of the tunnel’ (Rasmussen,
‘hearing architecture’).
 Sound & Interior
Every interior space has its characteristic
sound of intimacy or monumentality,
invitation or rejection, hospitality or hostility.

A space is understood and appreciated through its

echo as much as through its visual shape, but the
acoustic percept usually remains as an unconscious
background experience.

The echo of Renaissance interior …

… differs from that of Baroque

We stroke the
boundaries of a
space with our
ears.
sound Sound & Space
Every city has its own echo which
depends on the pattern and
scale of its streets and the
prevailing architectural styles
and materials.
Manhattan / USA

Prague / Chech Rep.

 In the interiors of today’ buildings echoes
are absorbed and censored.
“The programmed recorded music of shopping
malls and public spaces eliminates the possibility
of grasping the acoustic volume of space”.

“Our ears have been blinded” (Pallasma)

“The favourite interior of today seems to be

something so unnatural as a room with one wall
entirely of glass and other three smooth, hard
and shiny and at the same time with a resonance
that has been so artificially subdued that,
acoustically speaking, one might just as well be in
a plush-lined mid-Victorian interior” (Rasmussen).
There is no longer any interest in producing rooms
with differentiated acoustical effects –they all sound
alike. Yet the ordinary human being still enjoys
variety, including variety of sound” (Rasmussen).
Felt absorbs sound thus
creating a quieter
environment.

Studio O+A used a felt

installation on the ceiling in the
startup company Livefyre’s
engineering workspace.

To create the individual spaces

they designed soundproof
booths in the walls that are both
silent and comfortable

Livefyre engineering department, San

Francisco, California, Architects: Studio
O+A
5 Senses
Smell: Mood is impacted by the connection between
smell and memory, and in turn emotion.

One of the most powerful senses. Evernote atrium space,

San Francisco California,
Architects: Studio O+A
. smell can trigger associations and draw
upon memories of other smells.

Evernote, a small software company in San Francisco, a

café placed at the entrance with a barista that also
functions as receptionist. By placing a café at the
entrance, people know when they smell coffee or
pastries they are near the entrance.
The most persistent
memory of any space is
Spaces & Scent
often its smell.

Every dwelling has its

individual smell of
home.

Particular smells makes us

unknowingly re-enter a space
completely forgotten by the
retinal memory; the nostrils can
awaken a forgotten image..
Smell & interior

A space of smell: spice

market in Istanbul.

A space of smell: coffee house

in Istanbul.
Smell is not unrelated
to our other senses,
and the designer needs
to deal with
connotations and
associations as well as
with more direct
information.

sensory exhibitions
We associate certain
colors with
masculine or
feminine attributes
due to their
connotative odors.
Odors are detectable in an interior, it is not Welfare of users
beyond the designer’s province to assure demands that all
that the odors are appropriate. interiors be free
of products that
emit unpleasant
or noxious fumes.

. “It would be a new idea in the airline industry to make lounges explore
aromatherapy as it's used in healthcare (to overcome stress)” say some
professionals.
. fuel smells make customers feel unsafe and unhealthy,
. HVAC equipment to get rid of the unpleasant odor. .
A restaurant is not to
smell of motor oil, nor
a garage of baking
bread;

a billiards room is not to smell

like a florist’s shop, nor a
corporate board room like a
beer hall.
5 Senses
Touch: Tactile senses help connect the
user to a space. (fabrics, textures,
temperature)
“When not using fabric on the arms of
chairs in healthcare settings, warmth of
wood to the coldness of metal is preferred.
Soft rubber arms, are a good option for
high-use areas. People are drawn to
natural materials because they possess an
innate richness and warm up an
environment through texture” … (M. Piette,
IIDA Group.)
 "The feel of a textile can create a
comfort zone away from home.” …
often soft textured fabrics selected
make a person want to relax and
stay put.

Textiles are one of the

most evaluated decisions
in vocational interiors;

"Touching a furniture is the

most personal experience that
a user will have,” in these kind
of places.
 Shape of Touch
The skin reads the texture, weight, density
and temperature of matter.
The door handle is the handshake
of the building ☺
The tactile sense connects us with
time and tradition: through
impressions of touch.

Our skin traces temperature of spaces with unerring

precision; the cool and invigorating shadow under tree, or
the caressing sphere of warmth in a spot of sun, turn into
experiences of space and place.
Please Touch Me Museum…
Manifesting that texture can
set the mood for a space.

Carpet and wood set a

homey feeling whereas
steel, glass, and hard stone
have a cold, harder feel to
it. … office creating a
homey feeling for its
employees by using wood
and different carpets.

Designing for touch is important because

people are in constant contact with the world
around them so creating a space that is
comfortable to the touch reflects people’s
mood
Shape of Touch
Gravity is measured by the bottom of the foot; we trace the
density and texture of the ground through our soles.

There is a strong identity between naked skin

and the sensation of home. The space of warmth
around a fireplace is the space of ultimate
intimacy and comfort.

Marcel Proust gives a poetic description of

such a fireside space, as sensed by the
skin:
“it is like an immaterial alcove, a warm
cave carved into the room itself, a zone of
hot weather with floating boundaries”.
5 Senses
Taste: Least relevant to interior designers, but important to
consider in restaurant design.
"Color affects the appetite, in
essence, the taste of food," says Bennett
it's important to know what type of
food the restaurant serves.
. blue color schemes for use only in
seafood settings,
. pink helps encourage dessert sales.

--Lighting can also make food seem

more appealing. "Cool [blue] lamps will
not enhance food appearance," she
says.
---Food - and taste - can also make a
space feel more inviting and welcoming,
…” Piette says.
Surfaces of stucco lustro, highly polished
colour or wood surfaces present themselves
to the appreciation of the tongue..
Movement
A building is encountered; it is approached,
confronted, related to one’s body, moved through,
utilized as a condition for other things.
Architecture initiates, directs and organizes
behavior and movement.

As we open a door, the body

weight meets the weight of the
door; the legs measure the steps
as we ascend a stairway, the hand
strokes the handrail and the entire
body moves diagonally and
dramatically through space.
Bodily Identification
We see (observe)
touch
listen
taste
hear…
We measure the world with our entire bodily existence, and the
experiential world becomes organized and articulated around the
center of the body.
design
Some of the best examples of
designing for the senses are
churches and theaters.
From stage lighting to
acoustics, these spaces
were specifically designed
for people to feel
and express
emotion.

Sunset Chapel in Acapulco,

Mexico by BNKR
Arquitectura… an awesome
example of a project that uses
sensory design.
Senses - interior space
“The lighting in the Sunset Chapel is incredible. In person, … you can feel the
warmth of the light on your skin, smell the fresh air and natural stone, and hear the
footsteps and echos throughout the space.”
http:/ /www.formandfolly.com/blog/2014/11/3/design-work-five-senses