Sensory Ecology. Designing synergies between micro and macro-scales of experience in public environments

This study introduces ways in which designers can contribute to people’s ability to develop positive emotional connections with their environment, to design sensory spaces where people can flourish. It is situated in ontological design, drawing on the phenomenological theory of embodiment whilst advocating an ecological perspective to bring together spatial and human dimensions. Placing the sensing body as the primary means of perception, it examines qualitative interrelations between the micro-scale of experience, the scale of the body and its immediate surroundings, and the macro-scale of experience, the wider context of the physical and social environments. These complementary scales are examined through two interrelated principles, privateness and porosity. Privateness is enacted and characterised by people’s ability to define personal and group territories in the micro-scale whilst porosity enables them to maintain sensory connections with the macro-scale. This is first examined in a case study of the public interior of the Royal Festival Hall, a major cultural venue in London. This environment, where space and people converge, provides a rich field for exploration. This is followed by design experiments to test the findings from the case study. The outcome of this study feeds into a larger research project to contribute towards a sensori-emotional framework for spatial design.