Multi-Sensory Design: An approach to explore the latent psychological aspects in interior spaces التصميم متعدد الحواس: نهج لاستكشاف الجوانب النفسية الكامنة في الحيزات الداخلية

23/12/2021

Professor of Interior Architecture & Interdisciplinary Design

Environmental Psychologist/ A Member of World Design Organization -WDO

There is currently an increased desire for sensory integration of visual, auditory, olfaction and kinaesthetic-tactile pathways in many fields. The perception of a space is emerging from the response of the different senses together. Although sensory cues are identifying human attachment to the environment by developing different degrees of sense, they are often neglected or misemployed.

The problem lies in the neglect of the logical connection between the role of multi-sensory design in guiding user’s perception in interior spaces through the latent psychological aspects that lead to form the mental images in user’s memory. Therefore, the approach that embraces human-being senses, sentiment, and memory as critical design factors is significant. Discussing the idea of examining the sensory responses that should be experienced by the user and therefore help in making design decisions regarding the appropriate space treatments became an essential need. We aim to further the growing body of knowledge about the multi-sensory-based design within the process of interior design solving-problem and to construct a conceptual framework that include set of indicators for characterizing spaces in many ways, including choosing routes while locomotion, orientation, spatial acquisition, perceived spaciousness, privacy and social interaction, stress and fear, and aesthetic judgments. The methodology should be based on constructing operational definition of multi-sensory design concept through the database collected from a theoretical framework of both descriptive and analytical concerns. The implementation of this framework requires an applied study of the psychophysical reality of the interior spaces that have been selected and investigating the effectiveness of the multi-sensory based design. Showing the significance of sensory design as a multi-modal process in which psychological aspects are important triggers for generating new design ideas leads to setting a list of design standards that help in maintaining the user’s experience in interior spaces.

Perception is an individual's ability to draw conclusions from prior experience when confronted with inputs and to establish patterns and interconnections between them. In addition, man and other higher animals use two common sensory systems to interact with the environment: The other three senses are olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic, all of which are utilised infrequently. It is defined as the process of sorting out, interpreting, evaluating, and synthesising stimuli using sensory organs and the brain in a comprehensive manner.

Place perception is also defined as the set of clues that allows a person to be aware of his position in a confined space as well as the objects in that space. Distance and depth are indicators that help with movement and orientation to the surroundings. In this context, the enclosed space is a physical three-dimensional space in which man can construct mental images.

Further researches reveal that man's perceptional appraisal is influenced by visualisation in three planes (horizontal, vertical, and distance, which can be expressed as length, height, and width), as well as the viewer's position and the gravitational force acting across the area.

This space category is characterised by floor, wall, and ceiling in the book "Genius Loci: Towards a phenomenology of Architecture." Other scholars claim that space perception is divided into two halves. As a result, form type and size are primary considerations, whereas other components are secondary considerations. However, a certain level of presence in a location is essential for man to function successfully in his daily routine of movement, conversation, and rest.

The following reactions are caused by the above assertions at this stage to support the claim that man's mood in individual space is induced by the following reactions: Pleasant, unpredictability, loneliness, restlessness, coziness, and other words that each person can think of that narrow down to the sensation of expressing largeness and smallness in an envelope space. While in medium space, the above space reactions present an indicator of good and negative reactions (large or small).

It's important to remind designers, but especially interior architects, that space is their most valuable asset. In this way, architecture is being rethought as a form of social life. Despite the many different ways to define architecture, critique of completed buildings by architects and architecture education all point to the assumption that architecture is the construction of a functional thing in a functional place.

The proponent that human behavior in a space is affected by: the arrangement of furniture in a room, position of rooms in a house and orientation of houses in a city is a pointer. The architect’s role in is that of intermediary between man and space. He manipulates all elements of design through design principles to make architectural space which the writer calls individual space. The task of the architect is the evaluation of all variables consciously incorporating the design tools in a scale of equal objectivity to favor the user.

The topophilia evaluation of individual (his heritage, biological upbringing, educational training, socioeconomic position and surroundings) to space is necessary for the architect so that space allotment and compartmentalization is handling in a friendly manner. Avoiding all levels of space monotony and taking the user via large/small spaces in a particular home can be one sure way of managing space phobia. The task of restructuring man’s fear of space is possible if the architects manipulate the scale of individual space with an understanding of the user’s perception and the sensitivity of the composition of the space. Design approach for homes should be more of evidence based and less of abstracting methods. From the perspective of the books on different dimensions of space which formed the background of this discourse, it is vital that while scientific values for space are adopted for the design of space, care should be taken not to neglect sociological, psychological, physiological and philosophical values especially as man’s existence in the environment is affected by all spatial values.