Essay

Interaction: A Critical Component

The following quote from my book, Adaptive Sensory Environments, stands as a simple yet profound call for environmental designers to look deeply into the function, beauty, and meaning in their works. As technologies continue to advance at rapid rates,interaction with it through environments is increasingly becoming an overlooked part of everyday life.

The quote I am referring to is as follows:

“[A] successful adaptive architecture is one where the occupants are better off after having experienced the architecture. That is, they transform in some way (for the better) as a result of engaging with the built environment. This becomes life-changing architecture.

-         Excerpt from the award-winning book, Adaptive Sensory Environments by Maria Lorena Lehman

Three Important Questions

As the proliferation of environmental technology leads us to more and more interaction, it is upon designers to orchestrate how those interactions will impact occupants. As an architect, you may ask the following three questions about your proposed design:

·        Do I wish to help occupants get a task done?

·        Do I wish to help occupants overcome an obstacle or challenge?

·        Do I wish to help occupants transform themselves for the better in some way?

While each of the latter questions (or architectural objectives) is a noble cause to pursue with your architecture, these questions can help you to stop and think about how beneficial your design actually is for its occupants. In other words, how deeply are you striving to positively impact occupants with your design? So yes, your architecture may indeed leave occupants better off than before they experienced your environmental design. But how much better off are they?

Deepening Your Understanding

How can you push your architectural design to help uplift the lives of your occupants in transformational ways? This may call for you to more deeply understand multi-sensory design and emerging technologies, so you can make smarter design decisions while creating environments.

To learn how you can create architectural projects that go well beyond merely helping occupants get a task done, to creating life-changing environments that help them live better, please read my book: Adaptive Sensory Environments. You will learn an in-depth methodology and mindset shifts that will help you to design places that profoundly help occupants in life-changing ways.

Learn more at www.AdaptiveSensoryEnvironments.com

Image Credit: © Geralt and Manuchi | Pixabay