The personalisation of the visitor experience in the public interior and its contribution to emotional attachment to place: Towards a sensory-emotional framework for experiential design

This thesis investigates the personalisation of experience in the public interior to uncover principles that can contribute to a design understanding of the visitor emotional attachment to place. It posits that catering for a diversity of sensory and emotional needs can foster a greater sense of belonging and wellbeing in the public realm. Insights are brought together into a framework for designers interested in enhancing the relationship between people and environment.

This research is rooted in the paradigm of embodiment; it explores the visitor situated experience of personalisation. This is analysed in two dimensions: personalisation for visitors, the way the interior is designed and managed, and personalisation by visitors, the way they engage with the environment to enact their preferred activities. Personalisation for and personalisation by are treated as complementary and interdependent. Their relationship is examined through three pairs of associated terms that connect environmental qualities with human behaviour and feelings: looseness and appropriation; enticement and exploration; and porosity and privateness.

The Royal Festival Hall, London, is used as a case study in exploring the relation between the personalisation of experience, sensory phenomena and the way visitors perceive its interior environment emotionally. The methodology is grounded in a phenomenologically inspired conception of experience that foregrounds the primacy of enacted situations in the collective environment of the public interior. In addition to an observational study, interviews with staff and visitors provide first-person perspectives on personalisation for visitors and personalisation by visitors. The usability, transferability and value of insights are then tested through design experiments with students before being articulated as a framework for design to contribute to the creation of multisensory public environments that can cultivate positive emotional connections.