Rediscovering the Environmental Smellscape

Have you ever thought of “smellscapes” for design? And have you ever considered that you could compose smells for the olfactory sense to promote certain responses through memory? Well, the olfactory sense is an important part of the way we experience our surroundings. An article featuring Sissel Tolaas, who is a chemist specializing in olfactory information, teaches very interesting points about how smell impacts us. In fact, Tolaas...

Real-Time Feedback for Improvement

Using social media to collect real-time feedback about a product, design, or event is becoming evermore popular. In fact, healthcare practitioners are now looking into ways to mine such data for the collection of “patient experience clues”. (1) After all, time is of the essence. By receiving patient experience feedback in real-time, it becomes possible for medical teams to make adjustments, and improve their performance to help patients heal...

INTRODUCTION: THE DEFINITION

Schematic design is the first stage of an architectural design project, and within this phase there are important milestones to get right that will greatly leverage the project’s results throughout the rest of its impending design phases. For example, by iteratively designing through various schematic prototypes, it becomes possible to optimize one’s design concept idea in a way that prevents future errors and expands the discovery of new design...

Does Environment Impact the Taste of Food?

Designers often ask “how does an environment impact the sense of taste”? Well, a tangible example of this can be observed within restaurant designs. After all, a restaurant atmosphere can set up expectations of how a meal will taste, and it can impact how those tastes are perceived, enjoyed and remembered.

It is interesting to think that innovative restaurant design ideas can make dining experiences extraordinary. A restaurant experience...

With the dawning of online retail and the displacement or forced evolution of places like bookstores and malls, designers are beginning to use sensory design to win out (or at least stay in the running) against their online competitors. You see, such brick-and-mortar retail stores are tapping into what the senses can yield from design, to make shopping in their business a true experience. And this experience for the senses is what limits online retailers today.

As branding expert Martin...

Poetics: More Than the Sum of Its Parts

Poetics is that moment in architecture when elements yield more than the sum of their parts. But what does this really mean? What is it that gets “yielded”? It could be, perhaps, the way architecture is able to “touch” its occupants on deeper emotional or spiritual levels. It could also be the way architecture can convey beauty together with meaning that leaves one feeling more fulfilled.

In this article, I am encouraging you to...

Understanding Cause and Effect within Your Architectural Design

In a previous article I taught you about meeting occupant needs before they arise, as compared to meeting them after they arise. This is important for effective building design, as your building needs to help its occupants meet their goals and enjoy their journey while striving to achieve them. And after all, when architecture becomes an active participant in an occupant’s journey, then their likelihood of...

ON SOU FUJIMOTO’S CONCEPT:Architecture Designed as a “Nest” or “Cave”

The relationship between architecture and the human body obviously has a long history. And the questions that arise when exploring this relationship are more than simply about finding the proper dimensions and placements within architectural space to “accommodate” a person and their behaviors within it. The relationship between architecture and the human body delves deep into why...

It Can Be Difficult To Control

When do buildings feel just right?

As your occupants live, work and play within your designed spaces, thermal comfort becomes an important quality that can make or break an environment quickly. Often, building designers strive to keep room temperatures comfortable throughout the building — but all too often, room temperatures fluctuate uncontrollably from room to room.

Perhaps you may have experienced working in an office that is too cold, only to discover...

INTRODUCTION – ADAPTIVE URBAN ARCHITECTURE

Urban design within cities around the world has impact upon the citizens they serve. As environmental designers, it is important to continuously evolve how cities beneficially influence citizens as they live their daily lives within these urban areas. A critical way by which to accomplish this is to design urban architecture within such cities so they cooperate and collaborate together to yield a relationship of co-creation with their...