From reading the excerption of the book ‘The Senses: Design Beyond Vision’, it discusses the importance of the senses and the impact of incorporating this into design. For my project, sensory design could enforce children to learn about nutrition and the act of growing food as it embeds information into their memories. Senses is a great way for teaching and learning as ‘the senses mix with memory’ (Ellen Lupton, 2018). The book explains the ‘brain fires neurons, prunes synapses and forges pathways. Thus, meaning and memory take place’ regardless of our sensory abilities and capabilities. The senses target our smell, passive and active touch, vision, hearing and kinaesthesia which is placement and movement of our body. The sensory experience activates a curiosity and a hunger to learn and remember. Especially for my target audience of children this is important as they are still in the stage of growing and developing, so this ingrained experience may become a core memory and shape their future, not just becoming a memory but also creating a future narrative on cooking. The book also discusses that ‘senses are unique to every person’ hence the experience will be unique to each person in every encounter and ‘inclusive’ so it has the potential to bring everyone together. Broccoli may be more bitter to the other child or cilantro may test like soap for someone else, therefore it is necessary to involve everyone in a sensory design so every child can undergo their own experience, enjoyment of the space and their own conclusion on cultivating, cooking and eating different types of food.
Also, senses trigger and amplify other senses. So sensory design for my project should involve eating, touching, smell and this can increase the attachment and connotations with food and the cycle of food. It will enforce children to understand the process of food production from the very beginning to the end. Sensory design ‘increases health and well-being’ therefore children will build a healthy association to food and incorporate it healthily in their diets.
The book also discusses how a graphic designer created a sensory map of Singapore and celebrates the quality of a location. The designer used experiential and observational data from over 200 residents who went around Singapore with her on ‘smell walks’. The smells of curry, jasmine and Manila rope were left suspended in the humid air of the island and she then mapped these distinctive smells, visualising their trajectories. “Using humans as sensors is a method that aggregates personal insight…. It is about the acceptance of the subjective as worthy and useful data.” I wish to somehow utilize my own senses and map the scents of Deptford’s food smells which could dictate the design of my space.
References:
Lupton, E. and Lipps, A. (2018) Why sensory design?, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Available at: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/04/03/why-sensory-design/#:~:text=Sensory%20design%20activates%20touch,%20sound,regardless%20of%20our%20sensory%20abilities. (Accessed: March 16, 2023).
Kate McLean, “Smellmap: Amsterdam — Olfactory Art and Smell Visualization,” Leonardo, 50, no. 1 (2017): 92–93, doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01225.
Lupton, E. and Lipps, A. (2018) The senses: Design beyond vision. New York: Copper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.