Adventures in Architecture

On May 1st, 2007, the Boston Architectural College’s Educational Committee gave me preliminary approval for a grant to install a large experiment in haptics in Cornwall, England as part of the Sense of Place Conference in September of this year. Since then, the contracts have been signed and the design is moving along in full swing, with cooperative efforts from The Eden Project, and the Sensory Trust, both in Cornwall.

So you may be asking, what is haptics? Why does haptic design matter to architects and other spatial designers? Why do people who can see need to understand what it’s like to be blind?

Haptics, as the term is used here, describes the application of all spatial senses in design. Webster’s dictionary will give you a far narrower deffinition. The broader definition was not coined by me, but rather a small community of Virtual Reality programmers who were exploring haptic technologies as it related to recreating realisitic spaces in completely virtual environments. These programmers were asking the fundamental questions of navigation; how do we know where we are? How do you show someone how to move through a space without verbal or written queues? Do different sensory experiences make your body move differently through space? All very fascinating questions! I began to realize that this level of dialog on navigation and sensory perception was something I’d yet to witness in an architectural discourse. As an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I took on this challenge of understanding sensory navigation as a 5th year thesis student, in hopes of bringing the language and framework of haptic design from the realm of VR into the reality of the physical world of architecture. My research project was titled, Corporeal Architecture; an exploration in haptics, mechanisms of navigation and designing for the blind.

So why study haptic design, when most of the world can see? There are several reasons, actually. First, because a fairly large portion of the population cannot see well; though total blindness is fairly rare, moderate to heavy visual impairments are among the most common disabilities on the planet. In the US, people with poor vision far out number the population of wheel-chair bound citizens, yet “accessible design” caters almost exclusively to people who utilize wheelchairs, scooters or walkers to get around. Second, because sight loss is a nearly inevitable consequence of aging. Even with advances in medicine, such as laser surgery, there are still many conditions of the eye which are not treatable with anything other than corrective lenses. By using haptics as a design methodology, you create a richer spatial fabric more conducive to complex cognitively mapping. In theory, if there are tactile, aural and olfactory texture within a space, then the loss of sight will be less traumatic and debilitating than in a space which has almost exclusively visual information.

Feel free to visit the Black Box page of this website for more information on the installation, the grant, the BAC, the Sensory Trust, The Eden Project, and all involved in designing built environments which allow for independant navigation amongst those with vision impairments.