Abstract
Traditionally, architectural practice has been dominated by the eye/sight. In recent decades, though, architects and designers have increasingly started to consider the other senses, namely sound, touch (including proprioception, kinesthesis, and the vestibular sense), smell, and on rare occasions, even taste in their work. As yet, there has been little recognition of the growing understanding of the multisensory nature of the human mind that has emerged from the field of cognitive neuroscience research. This review therefore provides a summary of the role of the human senses in architectural design practice, both when considered individually and, more importantly, when studied collectively. For it is only by recognizing the fundamentally multisensory nature of perception that one can really hope to explain a number of surprising crossmodal environmental or atmospheric interactions, such as between lighting colour and thermal comfort and between sound and the perceived safety of public space. At the same time, however, the contemporary focus on synaesthetic design needs to be reframed in terms of the crossmodal correspondences and multisensory integration, at least if the most is to be made of multisensory interactions and synergies that have been uncovered in recent years. Looking to the future, the hope is that architectural design practice will increasingly incorporate our growing understanding of the human senses, and how they influence one another. Such a multisensory approach will hopefully lead to the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our social, cognitive, and emotional development, rather than hindering it, as has too often been the case previously.
Highlights
We are visually dominant creatures (Hutmacher, 2019; Levin, 1993; Posner, Nissen, & Klein, 1976)
As Finnish architect Pallasmaa (1996) noted almost a quarter of a century ago in his influential work The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses, architects have traditionally been no different in this regard, designing primarily for the eye of the beholder (Bille & Sørensen, 2018; Pallasmaa, 1996, 2011; Rybczynski, 2001; Williams, 1980)
This review highlights how the contemporary focus on synaesthetic design in architecture needs to be reframed in terms of the crossmodal correspondences, at least if the most is to be made of multisensory interactions and synergies that affect us all
Summary
We are visually dominant creatures (Hutmacher, 2019; Levin, 1993; Posner, Nissen, & Klein, 1976). We all mostly tend to think, reason, and imagine visually. 29) writes that: “The architecture of our time is turning into the retinal art of the eye. Architecture at large has become an art of the printed image fixed by the hurried eye of the camera.”. Commenting on the current situation, Canadian designer Bruce Mau put it : “We have allowed two of our sensory domains—sight and sound—to dominate our design imagination. When it comes to the culture of architecture and design, we create and produce almost exclusively for one sense—the visual.” When it comes to the culture of architecture and design, we create and produce almost exclusively for one sense—the visual.” (Mau, 2018, p. 20; see Blesser & Salter, 2007)
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