11th EAEA Envisioning Architecture: Design, Evaluation, Communication Conference in 2013

Track 2 | Experiential Simulation | The sensory perception of the built environment

Perceptual experience and its role architectural design decision making

ABSTRACT

Over-emphasis by architectural design on its conceptual dimension stems from reliance on what Juhani Pallasmaa’s terms the Cartesian “retinal gaze,” a way of seeing that preferences representations over sensory experience that alienate us from our environment due to the distancing of mental structures. Pallasmaa’s descriptions of architectural experience instead seek emphasis on the active. multi-sensory engagement within our perception due to movement in and around buildings. This position has consonance with recently emerging models of perception (J.J. Gibson, Merleau-Ponty, Noe) that operate precisely because of the action and movement of our bodies in space – the very act of seeing, for example, is made possible due to our movement in space imparting variable reflectance from the structure of the physical world onto our eyes, thus allowing for differentiation of light patterns over time. We orient and position ourselves due to this movement and it defines the world thus. A moving body enables greater presence and openness to the world than the static moment of perception necessary to the mental representations necessary to the long trail of models of perception held over from Renaissance thinking. Yet the predominant operations of the discipline of architectural design in the present day continue to favor working in visual abstractions apart from reality, attempting to predict the experiential disposition of actual reality. How can working with these illusory representations give a clear picture of ourselves as beings-in-the-world? The problem of the designed environment is thus tied to the problem of perception.
Relationships between perceiver and environment are constructed within human perception and structure how we come to know the environment. Architectural design is highly influenced by designers’ knowledge of how they think perception works, which, in turn, has consequences for design decision making. Unwittingly held assumptions about a particular model of perception cause design decisions that configure the environment consistently only with particular modes of perception. Assumptions like “mind/body dualism” and “sense-data” impact perceptual experience in everyday life. If uninspected, these conceptual models become underlying determinants of aesthetic decision making that prefigure other design determinants (i.e., materiality; detailing; parametric determinants; and finally, apprehension of meaning and substance). I believe conscious understanding of perception enables a designer to distinguish issues such as real from imagery within a more purposeful design methodology that sustains unanimity of both experience and imagination. Objectives of this paper focus on the relevance of a working understanding of models of human perception as underlying actors on cognitive frameworks for design thinking. Investigation of the foreknowledge of theories of perception on aesthetic preferences is supported by discussion of designed environments in which comprehension of perception has played a role in forming aesthetic decisions.

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AUTHOR

Stephen Temple

College of Architecture, University of Texas San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA

Stephen Temple is Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Texas at San Antonio, where he established 'making' as a prime foundation design experience. With an MArch from University Texas at Austin he taught at Drury University and University of North Carolina Greensboro. He was a registered architect for 12 years in Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. Professor Temple has authored over 40 scholarly/creative works and has delivered 25 lectures nationally and internationally. His book, 'Making Thinking' (KendallHunt, 2011) concerns phenomenological inquiries into making, visual perception, body, and architectural design, in relation to the development of beginning design pedagogy.

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