"Sensational Inclusive Design" Javeriana

S.I.D. Sensational Inclusive Design: Tool for the Good Design

Ricardo Becerra Sáenz, Maxivalid Project – Inclusive Design, Universidad Javeriana

becerrar@javeriana.edu.co, dimaxivalido@yahoo.com

Abstract

The design of friendly environments that could be enjoyed by most of the people, including persons with any disability, children and the elderly, among others, demands designer’s understanding on the sensorial potential of the human being. Therefore, this document introduces a tool called Sensational Inclusive Design that allows compiling, analyzing and diagnosing information about the sensations experimented by people when interacting with their environment, in order to propose new design options taking into account the sensorial processes of the human being, starting from the detection of stimuli an the generation of emotional and behavioral responses defining the degree of attraction of an environment to be used efficiently and inclusively.

Keywords

Inclusive design, senses, stimulus, sensation, perception, emotion, behavior, Industrial Design, Architecture.

Introduction

Becerra [1] proposes that “it is normal to be different”. Disability is a common condition and more extended that people guesses and it has been recognized that people with motor and sensory limitation develop different skills to interact with their environment and, in many cases, even better than any other people.

In the academic framework of the Maxivalid Project of the Architecture and Design School of Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia during the last four years, an experimental dynamics has been developed called the Senses Workshop, intended to trains the student of Industrial Design and Architecture in the sensorial comprehension of the space and objects; the workshop proposes the following design question: How can the conditions of the environment be improved so that any person may enjoy it with pleasure?

The answer is: By simplifying the life for everyone, understanding and inspired by the sensorial capacity of the people, specially, of those who have been affected by disability conditions. Day after day, we face ramps that are traps, enraged doors, offensive stairs, rough pedestrian sidewalks, aggressive elevators, slippery floors, that may cause many problems to us, and these strange personalities of space and object impede us to enjoy the environment with pleasure. Is it possible to anticipate, from the design, these strange environment personalities that would cause us displeasure and discomfort?

Starting from the sensorial dynamics of the Senses Workshop, the Maxivalid Project has developed a tool called SID (Sensational Inclusive Design); it is a new design practice that offers a response to that question and is based on the sensorial experiences of each human being when interacting with space or with an object: a room smells different than a restaurant, a museum looks different than a park, a coat feels different than a shirt, an office hears different than a cemetery. And each one produces pleasant or unpleasant sensations on people, who are able to accept or reject it. Every human being, independently of his/her age, genre, condition or capacity, experiments sensations through a sensorial structure as affirmed by Ayres [4], and the SID compiles, processes and improves the perceptive capacity of the human being to design more sensitive, pleasant and friendly spaces that could be recognized and enjoyed by the most of people as possible.

The Concept

Solano [3] states that the human knowledge is acquired through the senses and from the experience generated by them, and we similarly understand the space and the objects through sensations given to us by their infinite stimuli. We permanently feel on our very skin what surrounds us. The SID considers that the real action of design starts from the enjoyment of the space by the human being, through his/her sensations and perceptions translated into welfare, producing a positive mood and behavior, Solano [3]. The action of design derives from the spatial and objectual pleasure experimented by one or more persons in the development of an activity, wherever it is.

The SID is inspired on the sensorial and motor capacities of people with disability, children and the elderly as its first reference. As expressed above, these people develop different skills that allow them interact with their environment in a particular way; a blind person develops his/her hearing, smelling and touching perceptions better than any other person; a deaf person is more sensitive to visual and tactile stimuli; a person with some deficiency in his/her legs is more skillful with his/her arms and hands. In conclusion: those things that do not work well are compensated by other skills and thus the person with a disability transforms his/her condition through different capacities. It is in the difference where we find the talent of the capacity, and the SID capitalizes this knowledge for your work.

Background

The five senses are: hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. The sense of touch has many subdivisions, such as the sense of pressure, heat, cold and pain; the sensorial receptors that are in the muscle, tendons, and joints are called propioceptors, and inform on sensations such as weight, position of the body and the game of some joints, Ardila [5]. Within the semicircular canal of the ear is the balance organ, which informs about body stability.

A sensorial communicative process requires an emitter agent that produces the stimulus for other receptor agent, connected through a canal through which the specific information of space and/or object or product is emitted, Ardila [5].

The spaces and objects define an active environment for the human being and they are always characterized by visual, auditory, smell, touch and even taste stimuli [Figure 1]: the environment is configured through the form, environment, color, sounds, textures, fragrances, smells and flavors. All of them are physical, chemical or mechanical agents that trigger pleasant or unpleasant reactions in people.

Solano [3] identifies sensation as the reaction that the human body experiments from the detection of stimuli; it is the first impression obtained from the sensorial canals. To perceive is to appreciate the information received through a process of mind reception and preparation that causes judgment of value against the quality of stimulus, Solano [3].

The emotion is the main component of the sequence. The individual’s acceptance or rejection depends on the positive or negative reaction generated by the stimulus of the environment. Emotion is a synonymous of feeling, mood state and in psychology, as Ayres [4] states, it is used to call a reaction implying determined physiological changes, such as acceleration or reduction of pulse rate, reduction or increase of the activity of certain glands. All of it stimulates the individual, or some part of his/her organism, to increase its activity. The three primary reaction of this type are anger, love, fear, that sprout as an immediate response to an external stimulus or are the result of a subjective process, a memory, association or introspection and totally depend from the characterization of the individuals and his/her individual or collective profile.

Finally Ayres [4] affirms that the conduct, understood as the form to be of the individual and the set of actions that he/she carries out to adapt to his/her environment, is the response to a motivation in which psychological, physiological and motive components are involved. The conduct of an individual, considered in a determined space and time, are called behavior.

The sensorial experience is not exclusively selective in one or other sense. When we interact with the environment all ours sensorial canals are ready and active to receive external information; our body simultaneously perceives different stimulus even from a same emitter agent, as for example the water that falls from a fall: it is visually perceived by its bright, contexture and movement, it is heard to fall and hit the rocks, it fells when flows between the fingers of the hand or when touches the skin and has a flavor and odor that identifies it. Likewise, our mind may simultaneously process the information emitted by different agents, Regan [6] as for example the enjoyment to be in the beach: a beautiful sunset is seen in the horizon, while our body feels the texture of the sand and the movement and sound of the sea waves and at the same time breathes the sea wind and the plants smell. This is a sinestesic experience.

Additionally, the human being, when establishing sensorial relationship, defines his/her performance as for position and location of his/her body in the space, his/her orientation and his/her body balance.

The Proposal

The proposal suggested by SID is developed from the sequence initiated by an stimulus producing a sensation, a perception, an emotion and a behavior [Figure 2]:

According to the above, the SID proposes the following statement:

If a good selection of stimulus defining an space or object is made, this permit to generate good sensations that may conduct to good perception; if they in turn, produce good emotions or mood states and finally are translated into good behavior or attitudes, therefore, we obtain good sensitive, pleasant and friendly environments that permit all the persons to enjoy totally the development of their activities. This is the Good Design the Sensational Inclusive Design. Its mission is to conceive sensational and emotional environment with which people may enjoy their activities.

Well then, as the nice or pleasant sensations produce appropriate and positive attitudes, a bad or unpleasant sensation will trigger negative reactions in people. These would identify the wrong design in aggressive, unsafe, hard and unpleasant environments.

This way the SID develops its mission by promoting in the design to be aware of the sensorial potential of his/her clients and users, while permits him to discover in him/her self infinite options of design according to principles of social responsibility and ethical commitment.

The Sensosphere

The sensosphere is configured as the specific tool of the SID for the three-dimension delimitation of the human being in the space-time relationship. It is presented in any active environment where an individual or more develop any activity and are surrounded by sensorial stimulus. The sensosphere is the final result of the lifting of sensorial plans or maps where the emitters and their corresponding stimulus are located. Their applications are different:

· It may be applied to analysis and dialogisms process in a specific environment.

· For the improvement of the sensorial conditions of a space and the objects composing it.

· To develop new projects inspired on the skills of persons with disability permitting its inclusion and the use in the environment for a wider range of persons.

Four types of sensosphere are specified [Figure 3]:

· Body sensosphere: It embraces all the emitters and stimulus located in objects with which the use has an active contact tanks to his/her active and/or receptor organs or with objects surrounding all his/her members. The emitters are included, in general, in the clothing and accessories or in elements of temporal use as the hair comb, the toothbrush, a towel, a tissue, etc.

· Immediate sensosphere: It embraces the emitter and stimulus that are in the pressure scope (holdings) and body movement. It is equivalent to the personal space. According to the dimensional static and dynamic characteristics of the individual this sensosphere may have above 2.00 to 3.00 meters diameters. The individual may be standing, seated or lying down. It may involve objects and spaces for a work place, a desk, a car cabin, a bathroom, a kitchen, a Jacuzzi, a waiting room, bus stops, a garden, etc.

· Intermediate sensosphere: It embraces the emitters and stimulus located during a journey where the individual generates body displacement between spaces during a specific period of time. They are located in the space and objects that are beyond the radio of pressure and movement of the use and that are part of his/her circumscribed space environment. It embraces environment of circulation such as corridors, avenues, bridges, parks, streets, rivers, etc.

· General sensosphere: It embraces the emitters and stimulus located in spaces and objects that are approximately from 30 metros to the infinite, and are beyond the circumscribed space environment of the individual; they act in primary way on the receptor organ. It embraces landscapes, public urban space, the sunset, the rainbow the forest to distance, etc.

Proceeding

Taking into account an environment delimited and defined by a space and objects, the basic steps of the process are synthesized as follows:

· To detect the emitter agents and the stimulus emitted.

· To identify its position and location in the space regarding to the receptor.

· To configure layers from the distance and the values of stimulus (intensity, frequency, timbre, texture quality, etc.).

· To acknowledge and /or discover the emotions produced by the experimented sensations.

· To understand the different human behaviors as response to the felt emotions.

· To evaluate and diagnose the real disposition of the individuals in the environment.

· To propose actions of design modifying and improving the sensorial conditions of the environment.

The sensosphere may be configured in many ways according to the quantity of stimulus, the distance regarding to the receptor, the path and displacement of the individual and the space dimension. It form may change from one to another: the first one may be spherical, the other one oval or cubic; it is random according to the case of study. As well as the globe, each sensosphere has proximal or distal layers defined by the distance of the receptor.

To generate the three-dimension configuration of the sensosphere is convenient to make at least three sensorial maps: a superior view, a lateral and a frontal way.

Each view will have located all the sensorial stimuli in such a way that permit sinestesic relations and make decision of design taking into account the possible pleasant and positive sensations that the environment may offer.

With all the views made and the interaction of the stimulus it is possible the final construction of the sensosphere permitting to have a consolidated three-dimension map. [Figure 4].

Finally, the graphical information must be expressed in matrix mode in such a way that it may be understood in applicative terms for the design and that may define clear and precise determinants for the decisions making. [Figure 5]

Conclusion

Through the professional and academic experience, the SID application and its tool has generated projects of spaces and objects accepted by the most of people; it has been understood that if the design of an environment works well for the persons with disability, the children and elders, then it will work much better for all the people in the greater extension as possible. Additionally, it has been valuable for the training of professionals and students of Architecture and Industrial Design, who has created awareness about the creation of including environment that provides friendly and pleasant conditions for the efficient development of the human activities.

Taking into account the aspirations and needs of the human being, knowing them in depth and improving their sensorial skills, we may design sensational spaces and objects that permit them to be enjoyed in full by all people. This is the real enjoyment of the design, the Good Design.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Architect Alfonso Solano de Francisco, Director of the Architecture Career of Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, for sharing his experience, knowledge, sensibility and common sense. To all the students of Architecture and Industrial Design for their devotion and motivation. And finally, to the people with disability that have contributed their testimony of life and their talent.

References

[1] Becerra, R (2006). Guía del Proyecto Diseño Maxiválido FAD – PUJ. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Bogotá, D.C.

[2] The Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University (2001). The Principles of Universal Design. http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/index.htm

[3] Solano, A (2006) Taller de los Sentidos. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Bogotá, D.C.

[4] Ayres, J (1998) La Integración Sensorial y el Niño, México, D.F., Ed. Trillas.

[5] Ardila, A (1980) Psicología de la Percepción, México, D.F., Ed. Trillas

[6] Regan, D (2000) Human Perception of Objects: Early Visual Processing of Spatial Form Defined by Luminance, Color, Texture, Motion, and Binocular Disparity, U.S.A., Sinauer Associates, 1^st Edition