Sense of places.SENSORY DESIGN By Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. External link
Sensory Design is an excellent book, although I have to admit to being slightly confused by its title. Initially, I expected a rather prosaic discussion of why designers should concentrate as much on, for example, smell and soundscapes as vision and form. True, the book does exactly this in chapters called 'Sensory Cues' and 'Sensory Schematics', offering methods of understanding and designing architecture based on the full range of human senses. But there is so much more besides. In fact, it's as much 'Poetics of Space' and 'Phenomenology of Perception' as 'Sensory Design'. Bachelard and Merleau-Ponty have been merged with Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Freud and Jung to create a literary, poetic and scientific analysis of how and why we experience spaces and places in the way we do. This involves personal memory and cultural grounding, as well as perception and sensory experience; sense in this instance notably including the expanded notion of hapticity, regarding touch, muscular tension, spatial compression and expansion, and awareness of temperature and humidity. The authors' train of thought is wide-ranging and engaging, all the while bringing us back to hard facts concerning real design elements like material, light, colour, threshold and decoration. This is a serious body of work, and a rewarding object of study. Following a methodical me·thod·i·cal also me·thod·ic adj. 1. Arranged or proceeding in regular, systematic order. 2. Characterized by ordered and systematic habits or behavior. See Synonyms at orderly. path, the authors move from theoretical grounding (the difficult early chapters), to applied understanding (the most interesting middle chapters), and practical advice on how we could all design better buildings and places. Lip service lip service n. Verbal expression of agreement or allegiance, unsupported by real conviction or action; hypocritical respect: is paid to Steven Holl Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947, Bremerton, Washington) is an American academic architect best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland and the controversial 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.. , Herzog and de Meuron, Juhani Pallasmaa Juhani Uolevi Pallasmaa (born September 14, 1936, Hämeenlinna, Finland) is a Finnish architect and former professor of Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. Pallasmaa is a former Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture (1978-1983). and Peter Zumthor Peter Zumthor (born 26 April, 1943) is a Swiss architect. The son of a cabinet-maker, Zumthor learned carpentry at an early age. He studied at Pratt Institute in New York in the 1960’s. , so we instinctively know we are in safe hands. Students of architecture and urban design should read it, and it has the empirical content to be relevant to planning authorities and the formation of their legislation. Sensory Design is an important and thoroughly considered design polemic po·lem·ic n. 1. A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine. 2. A person engaged in or inclined to controversy, argument, or refutation. adj. . |
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