SENSES IN ARCHITECTURE:

Sense of Sight in Architecture:

Vision has a strong connection to architecture. The first impression we get from architecture relies most of the time on the first view that we get on it.

With the technological development our world has become a lot faster than it used to be. Screens, advertisements, radios. Constantly our senses are triggered and it seems like time and space are fused by speed. The only sense that can keep the pace of this development is sight.

As a result architectural design is meant to please this sense. This should not imply that architects focus only on the nice picture of their design but some of them are just not balanced in terms of the sensual possibilities. Whereas other architects focused on the visual component of their design but conscious or unconsciously built architecture that affect several other senses.

So there are several methods to dethrone the sense of vision. One opportunity is to combine the sight with other senses. This is already applied in the same media that brought the vision to its current status. Visual art, TV and even architecture try to use the fast created images to stimulate new experiences to achieve what David Levin calls a new mode of looking.

A special case is the lack of vision. Architecture is still perceivable for blind people. Over the other senses. The lack of one sense stimulates the others to develop.Still they perceive architecture in a different way. So designing a building for their use is a very special task. In several interviews blind people describe their feelings about architecture.

Lighting is very important when designing for the visually impaired. It depends on the person too much light can hurt and not enough makes it too dark. Fluorescent lights are glaring and annoying for us.

Sense of Touch in Architecture

The eye is the organ of distance, whereas touch is the sense of nearness, intimacy and affection. The eye observes and investigates, whereas the touch approaches and feels.

So when the light makes space for shadow our other senses are sharpened including the sensitivity to touch.

Feeling shape: We can feel if a room is brightly lid or if it is dim. In the same way as we can feel the sunlight on our skin. So light is a good method to address touch in architecture. But the skin can sense more things. It can read texture, weight, density and temperature of matter.

By touching material we experience more than by the bare gaze at it. Structures have a visual effect but by touching them we feel more components of their construct. Hardness, Depth, Temperature these components can vary in materials that give the same visual impression.

Sense of Hearing in Architecture

Hearing is a very incorporating sense. It is omni-directional, not focused like vision. A view at a building will not show the person watching the building but a building will return the sound of a person walking in it and listening to the sound.

And still most of the time acoustics remain an unconscious background experience but in the right places it can create the right atmosphere for almost spiritual sceneries.

Like a soundtrack in a movie, where music is increasing the tension in a thriller or the drama in a love story, sounds in architecture can increase the intensity of its perception

On one hand we have new technologies that enable architects to build great soundscapes on the other hand we cheat on the spatial experience by installing sound absorbing materials and other sound optimizing elements. So the built product does not equal the heard product.

Sense of Smell in Architecture

We need only a little amount of molecules of substance to trigger an impulse of smell in a nerve end, and we can smell more than ten thousand different scents. If it is a new scent it is possible to remember the scent and identify it again later.

Since it is not possible to name all the odours, spatial qualities are associated. That is why the expression “it is a hospital smell” is familiar to most people. Also the own smell of a person is so familiar that it is possible to recognize your shirt out of 100 identical and your flat when you come home just by taking a deep breath.

These associations could be used in architecture. To stimulate emotions, to guide, or to distract.

In the same way as every city has its own smell every building could have the same. It will end up as a difficult task, since smell is so sensitive that for example a mixture of scents in one room is not possible. But the effect could be as great as the effort.

Taste – more a combination of two

Sense of Taste in Architecture

The taste in architecture does not literally mean to kneel down and try to eat the stone bricks, but it means that architecture can make our mouth water just by the sight of appealing materials.

Interactive architecture – a possible new field for the senses

As cited in the beginning senses are the mediator between people and architecture. In interactive architecture the goal is to reach a dialogue between the building and its users. This is mostly done gathering digital information from the people by the use of sensors and other technical tools.

These senses inserted in the building equal the human senses. In fact the building is imitating the human perception.

More interesting than the gathering of this information is the answer of the building to it. In most cases the answer is only visual or acoustic. This is a loss of information. It should be possible to communicate back to all senses, since it is possible to imitate all perception methods. Then the name interactive architecture would resemble more the human interaction, which is also dominated by acoustic, haptic and visual components but still uses taste and smell for direct or indirect communication.

Using senses in architecture is not new. But the level of perfection is by far not reached. “ Architecture reflects, materializes ideas and images of ideal life.” Today we aim at the construction of intelligent buildings that help their users and communicate that. So the method of communicating will always be an important issue. It is easier to communicate in the same language and with the same method than responding only in one or two ways, where five a re possible.

The usage of some senses like smell and taste appears rather difficult, but architecture is developing very quickly at the moment, so one can be confident that appropriate methods will develop to incorporate also theses senses into architecture.