Essentially, experiential design prioritizes human interaction with a built environment.

Engagement and emotional connection are the foundation of experiential design. If a space doesn’t
allow its occupants to feel connected, it’s not experiential.

Whereas some designers might create a space based on trends or aesthetics alone, experiential design
looks at how humans will interact with the space and builds the environment not only around human
needs but also the human experience. Input from to-be occupants is thus a crucial part of the process.
This collaboration with occupants allows designers to understand users’ needs and expectations.

While experiential design at its core does require a deep look at how people will interact with a space, it
goes above and beyond to emotionally connect people with the space

The more connected someone feels to a space, the more they will want to come back to that space.
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Case study:
Another outstanding example of experiential design is Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Monmouth. The
legendary firm Perkins+Will worked to create a healing environment that would be noticeably different
from other cancer centers. That ethic is evident in the facility’s design. A large courtyard, ample views of
nature, and clean spaces inspired by the hospitality industry make MSK Monmouth truly unique. Jason
Harper, medical planner and associate principal and Perkins+Will, said, “We wanted to give patients a
positive, hope-filled and humane experience at a time when they’re feeling down, both emotionally and
physically.”

As Principal Jeff Straesser put it, “It’s more about traditional architects realizing it’s not enough to design
something that’s visibly compelling. It’s about bringing all these other considerations into design
experiences.”

The Future of Experiential Design

As more architects and designers are considering what it means to build human-centric spaces,
experiential design is rapidly becoming more mainstream. Design is becoming increasingly less about
current trends and more about meeting human needs. When people have a quality experience in a
space, they are more engaged.

Engagement translates into more productive workers, more customers and more social shares of well-
designed spaces.

https://www.terramai.com/blog/experiential-design-interior-spaces/

How Emotion Impacts The Perception Of Architecture

THE LINK BETWEEN EMOTION AND “SENSE OF PLACE”
Architecture can trigger emotion. Just look at how designed memorials can trigger emotions
like pride, sadness, or gratitude. Similarly, other building types can yield surprise or can even
mellow one’s mood. It all becomes a matter of how a particular place is designed — to trigger
for an emotional response in its occupants.

Emotion in architecture can often be linked to how well an architecture exudes a “sense of
place” — where the emotion experienced of a particular architecture can be shaped by its
“sense of place”. Often, “sense of place” can help an architecture take on a type of personality
— and this personality can serve to trigger emotion in its building occupants because it
connects with them.

Why is human emotion an important factor for you to consider as you design your
architecture?

for starters, reaching for an emotional response in occupants can help your architecture
achieve a higher level of poetics. You see, when your architecture can connect emotionally with
its occupants, its message and its meaning can be felt more deeply — thus, more readily leaving
a lasting impression.

ARCHITECTURE THAT UNFOLDS INTO A STORY

In the book called Atlas of Emotion by Giuliana Bruno, motion is linked with emotion, as are the
physiological bodily sensations that result because of a felt emotion.

As your architecture guides occupants along its journey, both intellectually and physically, it
takes them on an emotional narrative which affects where they go, how they behave, and what
they remember.

In essence, emotion is a critical link that impacts the perception of architecture by occupants.

So, how do you do it? How do you design for human emotion with your architecture?

design through the senses — using architectural qualities like materiality, light, and sound, you
can create an architectural journey where the narrative pushes and pulls at different emotions.

you can tell a story with your work using different architectural characteristics.

Secondly, the grand gesture behind your architecture can stand poetically to trigger certain
emotions in occupants.

This initial design concept can pull from aspects like metaphor, juxtaposition, or even new kinds
of beauty. Emotion can be triggered if the design concept connects with occupants.

https://marialorenalehman.com/post/how-emotion-impacts-the-perception-of-architecture
ARCHITECTURE CAN DO MORE

As an architect designing environments, it is important to strive for highest level design poetics.
This allows one’s project to engage building occupants more fully. Yes, a building can meet a

To me, there's nothing more important than architecture. It creates your world and influences
how you feel both mentally and spiritually.
So, if you live in a horrible place, you'll be impaired mentally. Let's say you live in a dark
environment with no windows and with nothing but a blank wall behind you. You'd be in a
prison, and that would have a detrimental impact on your mental health.
The most neutral architecture is often the most aggressive. But in buildings that move us,
there's an element of care.
It's not a question of whether a building makes us feel good or bad. It's about being moved.
That's what the word emotion means. What we feel is the sense of intensity, passion and
involvement. It's something that goes very deep.

I often wish the city was more creative, that the sidewalk was a more fantastic experience,
because life is short and you don't want to walk through a dull-witted place.

As an architect, it's my responsibility to make a personal connection -- not just with the physical
environment but how it triggers our memories and emotional responses.

JEWISH MUSEUM:
When I explored the site for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, I put myself into the souls of those
who are not there, into the emptiness I felt. I tried to see how it would feel to be there when
you're not there. What does it mean to create a space for those who were murdered, who
disappeared in the smoke?

we can tell when somebody does something just for a quick buck. We can feel that
carelessness and the silence it produces.

“how tragic a site might be, how abused by history, architecture has the notion of a
future.
That sense prevents it from being something in a minor chord. Even erecting a
monument to the dead, in any form -- writing a book or planting a flower or a tree -- has a
sense of hope and redemption.
To me, that is the emotion of architecture.”

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/daniel-libeskind-architecture-emotions/index.html
Architecture perception the modern societies is mainly directed towards surface appearances rather
than meaningful content. It is urgent to understand the creation and perception of architecture in a
deeper, more significant way.
Meaning arises from the composition of the foreground and background.
Our ordinary perception is based on the predictability of this relationship, as we generally recognize and
understand meaning from the figure as it is situated in relation with its ground. A perceptual negotiation
occurs in architectural experience from the interaction of figure and ground, essentially relies on the
ground to provide the basis for perceiving figural form or meaning. People do not merely register
symbolic one to one relations where one element carries a specific meaning. Instead they are always
ascribing new, flexible and changing connotations, not to elements but multiple relationships among
elements. Thus the unrecognized significance from each individual component becomes a moment of
absence.

Perception- defined as physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience, presents the connection
between space and the mind. Experiencing architecture through the characteristics of light and shadow,
texture, colour, volume of spaces, and crafted details imprint vivid memories and evoke interpretive
thinking. At its best, architecture stands in the lived world and encourages people to see through the
surface of everyday life to engage and enrich its meaning.

This dissertation discovers and illustrates an unfamiliar condition that challenges the conventional
perception of figure and ground relationship.

Meaning arises through experience, especially in bodily sensations engaging with physical space. This
experience leaves internal impressions (mental and emotional), promoting interpretations, creating and
conveying meanings.

Juhani Pallasmaa states “the timeless task of architecture is to create embodied metaphors that
concretize and structure man’s being in the world. Images of architecture reflect and externalize ideas
and images of life; architecture materializes our internal ideals of life”

“architecture holds the power to inspire and transform our day to day existence”-steven holl

“https://issuu.com/luluportfolio/docs/moment_of_absent”

A building can look gorgeous, and have great design. But, let's face it, if it's hot, stuffy, cramped, or
poorly lit, you're not going to enjoy your time there.

We spend almost 3/4 of our lives indoors.

This means that the importance of architecture when it comes to the interior of buildings is just as
important as structural integrity.

Man tends to weave relationships with his surroundings; he grasps vital relations to bring order into his
world, adapting physiologically in the process. Human actions have a spatial aspect attached to them that
are related to orientation and existence. Relationships like inside and outside, near and far away, above
and below are spatial qualities that explain orientation. Man associates these with his daily activities such
that space becomes part of his existence, building a mutually adaptive association with the human body.
“Architectural space can be defined as a concretization of man’s existential space.” (Norberg-Schulz 1971).
Man, from the beginning of time, has built space according to his needs; a space that was formed by what
he wanted to see, hear, smell and touch. The environment became alive by his choice of objects, and thus
he could relate his dwelling in the world with the space around him.

The existence and life of the environment is felt by the senses. Each aspect of the space influences the
mind – the touch of the materials, the sound of the space, the smell of the air; all these work together to
form an experience of space. “A real architectural experience is not simply a series of retinal images; a
building is encountered – it is approached, confronted, encountered related to one’s body, moved about,
utilized as a condition for things” (Pallasma 2006).

The experience starts from the approach to a place. The approach forms the path of preparation for the
user to free the mind of all external noise and concentrate on the space and his existence. It is like visiting
a church. It’s generally a straight path to the altar, however, the high ceiling of the naïve, the frescoes
around and the stained glass windows constitute an atmosphere of contemplation; such that before a
person reaches the altar, all his worldly worries have mellowed down and he is conscious of himself and
his God to have a personal interaction with Him. The path may alter the experience in various ways.

The path provides the opportunity for interaction between spaces. “…thoughts are communicated in the
silence of phenomenal experiences.” (Holl 1993). Series of experiences form a path of exploration that
draws the user into a world of discovery. Spaces flow into each other creating a fluid movement sequence
of variable perspectives. “Perspectives of phenomenal flux, overlapping perspective space is the “pure
space” of experiential ground.” (Holl 1993).

Space Kinesthetics

The interaction of various spaces between one another forms an important aspect of space-making. “The
visual perception at the human eye-level while moving through the space provides the only accurate
reality of spatial experience.” (Pandya 2005). Objects placed above or below eye-level may be perceived
differently, just like movement in horizontal space is very different from movement in the vertical
direction.

Experience based spaces are designed keeping the movement of human eye in mind and are thus
rendered effective. Vistas unfold sequentially forming a process of concealment and revelation bringing in
an element of exploration. This is enhanced by changing perspectives and shifting visual axes. Buffers may
provide places of rest and contemplation. The whole architecture is thus experienced while moving
through the space that is orchestrated by the perception of the senses. Space becomes alive and the
individual has the “sense of presence”.

REFERENCES
Alberto Perez-Gomez, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Steven Holl. 2006. Questions of Perception-Phenomenology
of Architecture. William Stout Publishers, San Francisco, USA .

Christian Norberg-Schulz. 1971. Existence space & architecture. Praeger Publishers, New York, USA.

Steven Holl. 1993. Steven Holl. Artemis Verlags AG, Zurich, Switzerland.

Yatin Pandya. 2005. Concepts of Space in Traditional Indian Architecture. Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd.,
Ahmedabad, India.