scholarly journals Sight of Sound: Designing for the Senses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Shepherd

<p>It has been agreed that one of Interior Architecture’s primary roles is to create atmosphere. This is generally achieved by engaging the senses in specific spatial conditions that shift the emotions and create moods. This view of interior is more particularly relevant to the needs of inhabitants/ users with sensory impairment. The intention within this thesis is for individuals with hearing and sight impairment to experience space/ interiors, with at least the same, wholeness as those with the capacity of full range of sense.  Pallasmaa states that “it is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all of the senses simultaneously” (Pallasmaa (C) 11). It has been suggested that if a sense is taken away there is a higher importance placed on the remaining senses. Early research has indicated that people, specifically children with sight impairment “perceive the built environment very differently and pay more attention to tactile, haptic, auditory and olfactory aspects” compared to a person with full sensory abilities (Vermeersch et al. 1). Engagement with all possible senses allows a connection with space and orientation within architecture. It is this engagement with surroundings which “is a key component of happiness” (Fox, “Emotion Science”). This helps to achieve the independence that is desired among the sensory impaired. “A dialogue between architects and people with visual impairment can therefore contribute to a more multi-sensory design approach to architecture” (Vermeersch et al. 1).  While specific senses engage with mood to stimulate a learning experience for those with hearing and sight impairment, this design research demonstrates how the play of light and water can be used as a tool in creating specific atmospheres. These in turn influence moods in creation of interiors for multisensory experience. Henry Plummer’s light categories are the basis for which this research invents categories of sound. It is also proposed as a tool for interior designers to think about space for people with sensory impairment and to design with specific guidance. This invention will be tested by applying a program, Gallery of the Senses, to a Wellington site.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Shepherd

<p>It has been agreed that one of Interior Architecture’s primary roles is to create atmosphere. This is generally achieved by engaging the senses in specific spatial conditions that shift the emotions and create moods. This view of interior is more particularly relevant to the needs of inhabitants/ users with sensory impairment. The intention within this thesis is for individuals with hearing and sight impairment to experience space/ interiors, with at least the same, wholeness as those with the capacity of full range of sense.  Pallasmaa states that “it is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all of the senses simultaneously” (Pallasmaa (C) 11). It has been suggested that if a sense is taken away there is a higher importance placed on the remaining senses. Early research has indicated that people, specifically children with sight impairment “perceive the built environment very differently and pay more attention to tactile, haptic, auditory and olfactory aspects” compared to a person with full sensory abilities (Vermeersch et al. 1). Engagement with all possible senses allows a connection with space and orientation within architecture. It is this engagement with surroundings which “is a key component of happiness” (Fox, “Emotion Science”). This helps to achieve the independence that is desired among the sensory impaired. “A dialogue between architects and people with visual impairment can therefore contribute to a more multi-sensory design approach to architecture” (Vermeersch et al. 1).  While specific senses engage with mood to stimulate a learning experience for those with hearing and sight impairment, this design research demonstrates how the play of light and water can be used as a tool in creating specific atmospheres. These in turn influence moods in creation of interiors for multisensory experience. Henry Plummer’s light categories are the basis for which this research invents categories of sound. It is also proposed as a tool for interior designers to think about space for people with sensory impairment and to design with specific guidance. This invention will be tested by applying a program, Gallery of the Senses, to a Wellington site.</p>


Author(s):  
Mohit Arora ◽  
Felix Raspall ◽  
Arlindo Silva

Cities have been the focus of recent sustainability and climate change mitigation efforts primarily because of unprecedented urban growth and ever-increasing resources consumption. A worrying trend has been the ever-decreasing life of buildings in cities because of premature building obsolescence. Premature building obsolescence has been cited as the major driver of demolition waste which accounts for more than 40% of total waste generated annually. This waste stream poses a bigger challenge as the pressure on natural resources increases with urban growth. A traditional way of looking at the urban sustainability has been from the perspective of the environmental sciences and waste management methods. Analyzing urban areas with design science perspectives could provide novel insights to improve existing resource consumption patterns and transform sustainability growth in cities. This study focuses on the problem of demolition waste arising from the premature building obsolescence in cities. It applies a design research methodology framework for identifying existing problems associated with demolition waste and generating strategies to transform cities into more sustainable urban systems. In the problem clarification phase, a detailed literature review was supported with stakeholder’s interviews to identify the state-of-art for building demolition process and demolition waste. Research was further extended to descriptive study-I phase to carry out a demolition case study and generate support tools to enable transformation in the existing scenario for achieving a desired state. Singapore, a dense city state of South-East Asia has been taken as a case study in this research. Results show that applying design research methods could help open-up a new dimension to solve urban sustainability challenge for built environment. It highlights that material reuse could lead to significant improvement in the built environment sustainability but the challenge associated with realization of material reuse practice needs to be addressed. Descriptive study-I concludes with the strategies on creating a reuse market through entrepreneurial innovation and an alternative material supply chain of secondary materials for regional housing demand. These results highlight the role of design research methods for tackling complex systems level problems in cities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 07003
Author(s):  
Anna Rybakova ◽  
Aleksandra Shcheglova ◽  
Denis Bogatov ◽  
Liudmila Alieva

This paper focuses on the use of interactive technologies and distance learning in sustainable education. It discusses how remote learning technologies can positively influence students’ learning and entry in sustainable education. The paper looks at the use of distance learning in higher education as a means to help students in the built environment and its use within the education system. It studies and expands the theoretical research on the benefits of distance learning, where the study is remote and there is no personal contact with staff or students, and examines the impact of distance learning on the student’s learning experience. It also proposes and evaluates potential solutions to overcome the barriers to learning in the built environment and create successful virtual learning communities, recognising that such improvements must be reconciled with the primary benefits identified. The paper provides an overview of sustainable distance learning within higher education and discusses the differences between learning outside the structural environment of a profession, what it means for the student’s learning experience and the potential to overcome barriers to distance learning. This is a very timely topic in the times of COVID-10 pandemic. Lockdowns of the economy and social life impacted all spheres of education with schools and universities closed for long periods of time and all teaching moved to online and distance mode. However, coronavirus pandemic also brought the digital surge in the system of education, including the sustainable education. All these innovations might stay after the pandemic and help the education to evolve and to embrace more novel trends and technologies.


Author(s):  
Marilyn C. Salzman ◽  
Chris Dede ◽  
R. Bowen Loftin ◽  
Debra Sprague

Understanding how to leverage the features of immersive, three-dimensional (3-D) multisensory virtual reality to meet user needs presents a challenge for human factors researchers. This paper describes our approach to evaluating this medium's potential as a tool for teaching abstract science. It describes some of our early research outcomes and discusses an evaluation comparing a 3-D VR microworld to an alternative 2-D computer-based microworld. Both are simulations in which students learn about electrostatics. The outcomes of the comparison study suggest: 1) the immersive 3-D VR microworld facilitated conceptual and three-dimensional learning that the 2-D computer microworld did not, and 2) VR's multisensory information aided students who found the electrostatics concepts challenging. As a whole, our research suggests that VR's immersive representational abilities have promise for teaching and for visualization. It also demonstrates that characteristics of the learning experience such as usability, motivation, and simulator sickness are important part of assessing this medium's potential.


Author(s):  
Kaye Clark

The background focus of this discussion about work-integrated learning is the three streams of undergraduate Built Environment programs at Central Queensland University that are accredited by their relevant industries. CQU's students' truly work-integrated learning experience may be considered to be a 'self-paced flexible learning while earning' process. Relevant background theories of philosophy and the more recent manifestations of WIL are discussed at length in considering the strengths and weaknesses of the formal and informal opportunities for putting theory into practice in this alternative form of work integrated learning.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hayhow ◽  
E.A. Parn ◽  
D.J. Edwards ◽  
M. Reza Hosseini ◽  
C. Aigbavboa

This article investigates the development of a board game entitled ‘Construct-it’ as an innovative pedagogical approach (as proof of concept) to augmenting the applied knowledge and understanding of built environment students studying property life cycle analysis. A largely qualitative and inductive methodological approach is conducted to identify and investigate the various pertinent theoretical frameworks that could be adopted; conduct a critical synthesis of extant literature; and develop Construct-it, a game intuitively grounded in practice-based knowledge. The study reveals that games provide a fun, engaging and challenging means of educating students at higher education institutions. It also notes a significant dearth of literature in terms of applying games to students enrolled on built environment programmes. Construct-it can enhance the student’s learning experience and knowledge of pertinent industry practice and standards and can complement traditional classroom teaching approaches. The study concludes with directions for the future work required to enhance the development of the novel pedagogical proof of concept presented. Such work will require robust testing and validation of the game to measure its impact on the student learning experience.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mitchell Jones

<p>Future habitation of earth is an ever-increasing concern, with the proliferation of problems such as overpopulation, climate change, nonviable waste disposable methods and over-consumption of natural resources. These issues are influencing some contemporary entrepreneurs to consider ways of moving away from earth, to new habitations in space where we can survive if the earth becomes uninhabitable. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo is currently engaging technicians and engineers to design plans for a city in space. But architectural design theory, in addition to engineering, must play a fundamental role in such a project, if it is to meet the social, cultural and political needs of its inhabitants.  People on earth benefit significantly from the ability to engage with the natural environment. But in outer space, this is not a condition that normally would be considered viable. In a space city, by default the traditional notion of an outside landscape setting needs to occur inside. This imperative becomes one of the principal reasons why this thesis looks at biophilia as a direction for the design research experiments, since biophilic systems at a large scale can provide a sense of an ‘outside’ landscape even ‘within’ the architecture of the design research. This thesis advances this concept further by proposing that the occupants can live within such a system, rather than peripheral to it, enabling the occupants to become a fundamental part of a working system.  With the intention of exploring design concepts for a city in space, the first aim of the thesis is to consider how to incorporate a ‘natural environment’ into people’s lives, even within an ‘architectural’ context where no access to a traditional natural environment is available. The first thesis aim is to achieve this by integrating biophilic systems throughout the design, thereby providing an environmental landscape within which people can interact, within an internalised architectural construct. The second aim of the thesis is to consider how to apply sustainability to an entire city. By designing an entire city as an integrated set of biophilic ‘systems’, the thesis proposes that each component of the new urban environment becomes participatory – and they become fundamental parts of that system. The overall system can be conceived in relation to sub-systems, systems working on macro and micro levels, relating to the full range of urban to human scales. The third aim of the thesis is to consider how the architectural identity of a future city would be defined if the multicultural future city is not associated with any traditional site, culture, or architectural heritage. The thesis proposes that if the new city is designed as an overall set of biophilic systems, then the typological identity of the new architecture / new city could arise from the biophilic systems’ environmental as well as mechanical components–integrated with the related habitational systems. In this way, the architectural identity of the ‘new city’ is conceived as systems-based, rather than arising from historical architectural precedents that are no longer applicable in a fully enclosed city in space.  This thesis asks the question: how can pressing issues such as global scarcity and severe environmental transformation be strategically represented to the public through politically motivated ‘speculative’ architecture? Using Factory Fifteen, a visual studio that works in architectural communication, combined with design work described in Chris Abbot’s novel Xavier of the World as a provocative generator of a speculative design as well as a driver for the site and programme, the architecture of a city in space is used to illustrate a new interpretation of physical, social, economic, cultural and political parameters for 21st century architecture.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mitchell Jones

<p>Future habitation of earth is an ever-increasing concern, with the proliferation of problems such as overpopulation, climate change, nonviable waste disposable methods and over-consumption of natural resources. These issues are influencing some contemporary entrepreneurs to consider ways of moving away from earth, to new habitations in space where we can survive if the earth becomes uninhabitable. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo is currently engaging technicians and engineers to design plans for a city in space. But architectural design theory, in addition to engineering, must play a fundamental role in such a project, if it is to meet the social, cultural and political needs of its inhabitants.  People on earth benefit significantly from the ability to engage with the natural environment. But in outer space, this is not a condition that normally would be considered viable. In a space city, by default the traditional notion of an outside landscape setting needs to occur inside. This imperative becomes one of the principal reasons why this thesis looks at biophilia as a direction for the design research experiments, since biophilic systems at a large scale can provide a sense of an ‘outside’ landscape even ‘within’ the architecture of the design research. This thesis advances this concept further by proposing that the occupants can live within such a system, rather than peripheral to it, enabling the occupants to become a fundamental part of a working system.  With the intention of exploring design concepts for a city in space, the first aim of the thesis is to consider how to incorporate a ‘natural environment’ into people’s lives, even within an ‘architectural’ context where no access to a traditional natural environment is available. The first thesis aim is to achieve this by integrating biophilic systems throughout the design, thereby providing an environmental landscape within which people can interact, within an internalised architectural construct. The second aim of the thesis is to consider how to apply sustainability to an entire city. By designing an entire city as an integrated set of biophilic ‘systems’, the thesis proposes that each component of the new urban environment becomes participatory – and they become fundamental parts of that system. The overall system can be conceived in relation to sub-systems, systems working on macro and micro levels, relating to the full range of urban to human scales. The third aim of the thesis is to consider how the architectural identity of a future city would be defined if the multicultural future city is not associated with any traditional site, culture, or architectural heritage. The thesis proposes that if the new city is designed as an overall set of biophilic systems, then the typological identity of the new architecture / new city could arise from the biophilic systems’ environmental as well as mechanical components–integrated with the related habitational systems. In this way, the architectural identity of the ‘new city’ is conceived as systems-based, rather than arising from historical architectural precedents that are no longer applicable in a fully enclosed city in space.  This thesis asks the question: how can pressing issues such as global scarcity and severe environmental transformation be strategically represented to the public through politically motivated ‘speculative’ architecture? Using Factory Fifteen, a visual studio that works in architectural communication, combined with design work described in Chris Abbot’s novel Xavier of the World as a provocative generator of a speculative design as well as a driver for the site and programme, the architecture of a city in space is used to illustrate a new interpretation of physical, social, economic, cultural and political parameters for 21st century architecture.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
К. A. Zalihina ◽  
Т. N. Sakulyeva

The purpose of this study is to study the development of customer service as the basis for the emergence of an e-commerce system. Research objectives: to study the aspects of the origin of customer service, to analyse the development of marketplaces abroad and in Russia, to structure expenses when selling goods through the marketplace. The methodology of marketplaces research is based on a deep and thorough study of the needs and moods of customers. The informatization of modern society makes it necessary to adapt business processes to the needs of the consumer, who, due to various factors of the 21st century, are guided by the Internet space, which does not provide the client with a full range of information about the product through the senses. Accordingly, it is necessary to create a level of service that embodies the consumer’s trust in buying goods online.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Claire Ford

<p>Increasingly, research suggests that urban life is characterised by rising levels of distress (Söderström, 2017). We exist in a melee of social, political, cultural and environmental constructs, many of which require individuals to repress emotional expression and experiences. Without consciously doing so, we take cues from the designed environment as to what behaviours should be acted out in that space, and this has a direct impact on our well-being. This thesis explores how the built environment can be designed to support the emotional wellbeing of its occupants.  Current practice addressing well-being predominantly looks at cases of severe mental dysfunction (Söderström, 2017) or designing spaces that privilege physical concerns (Jencks & Heathcote, 2010). The research in this thesis is not directed towards such extreme instances of distress; it focuses on the capacity of designed environments to emotionally enable and empower all building users, taking into account a broad spectrum of emotional expression and responses to space. To accomplish this, existing literary research on emotional well-being is traversed and used to inform a series of design explorations. These aim to discover how the design of space can enable occupants to feel supported; to live their emotional lives with complete agency. A conceptual framework is developed, drawing on philosophy, psychology, sociology, neurology and geography, which informs architectural design experiments that test relationships between the body, the mind, and the architecture we engaged with.  This thesis involves a speculative approach to design research. Using design experiments at multiple scales, this thesis explores the potential of moments in the built environment where people have strong emotional connections to space, in order that a consciously compassionate design approach may be developed. Four architectural briefs are explored at three scales - installation, domestic and public scale - allowing design to inform the research. Each investigation is successive and becomes a testing ground to evaluate and critique the design outcomes prior to it. The design tests also involve progressively more architectural and interactive complexity. This sequence of design tests explores the potential of spaces to empower an inhabitant in architectural space to experience joy and sadness; to directly associate architecture with emotional well-ness.</p>


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