Invite all senses in your brand interiors!
Why do we rely so heavily on visuals when designing our spaces and objects? Let’s create intriguing multisensory experiences that runs deeper and lasts longer – inviting all senses in a synergetic storytelling whole.
In this 6th issue of the Holistic Design Journal, we explore our multisensory approach to design. It’s time for Principle No.5 “Invite all Senses”.
Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka, Ranges of the Senses, from Sensory Design, University of Minnesota Press; © 2004 by Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka
Our senses interacts with the spaces around us in layered, complex ways
Our experience of a space goes via all our senses. It’s layers and layers of stimuli. Imagine the sensation just before stepping into a space, your ears are most attentive here, what you can hear, or almost hear draws you in. Maybe also some light seeps out and intrigues you.
“Sensory design activates touch, sound, smell, taste, and the wisdom of the body. Sensory design supports everyone’s opportunity to receive information, explore the world, and experience joy, wonder, and social connections, regardless of our sensory abilities.”
Quote from The Senses: Design Beyond Vision , by Ellen Lupton and Andrea Lipps (New York: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Princeton Architectural Press, 2018).
Haptics – The contact stimuli, active touch.
Kinestesia – Position and movement of body parts.
Skin – Sense of air, temperature..
Vision – An essential but somewhat distant stimuli. Interconnected with the other senses.
Memory and our senses – How we interact with the spaces around us is also deeply connected to experiences and memory. Especially with our sense of scent…some further reading here from the Harvard Gazette
Olfactory Sculptures – An inspiring collaboration with Act of Caring
Together with the brand Act of Caring, we are developing something really sensory. Stay tuned, you will be the first to know and get invited to try it, to experience it. For now, a sneak peek…
Left. For this project along with the pages and pages of hand sketches, I did some very tactile and intuitive sketches, collage style, for an immediate sense of texture.
Right. We also set up an ENTIÈRE_LAB, exploring material characteristics with a special dedication and interest to test different material’s ability to diffuse scent in an interior.
Separation of our senses is somewhat of a construction. Our senses like to mix and mingle.
Synesthetes make connections between different senses. These connections are consistent and very clear. But even if you’re not a synesthete, our senses are not really divided, they like to mix and mingle. Do you get shivers when seeing something pleasantly triggering? Have you tried to close your nose when eating (not pleasant)? Do you want to move when you play a great record? “cross talk in the brain is the rule, not the exception” a short capture here on Synesthesia on TEDed.
Many painters have stated how listening to music, jazz in particular, have influenced, and worked as a companion to their action, method, way of expression. To me, and many other, jazz is the ultimate creative music. It just turns all my senses on alert and I’m there.
(Jackson Pollock performing his action painting technique.)
For the Love of Pine is a multisensory project and the starting point for the capsule scent collection
I wish this newsletter could carry the scent to you, but the most sensual way to experience it is still of course to come by our studio/showroom and try it for yourself.
You can also order one of the remaining numbered, all handmade, boxes here or by answering this e-mail.
Enter the spacious Pine forest and experience this woody, fresh, balsamic, herbascious, layered scent. Top: Bergamotte, Thyme, Cumin. Heart: Pinus Sylvestris. Base: Vetiver, Frankincense, Copaiba.
For the Love of Pine Artisan Scent Collection includes a 100% essential oil aroma oil for diffusers (or for a diffuser stone), a perfume-oil roller (20%) for pulse points. For this capsule collection a hand made diffuser stone, made with materials from a Pine forest ocean beach I love, is also included. I handpainted each box.
Ideas and visions aligning. Meet another new collaborator on sensory interiors and brand experiences
Collaboration is truly at our core. No bullshiting. Just straight up how we aim to and love to operate. Here’s one of these beautiful collaborations we’re so grateful for at Maison Entière:
Meet Anna Thornton, who runs Thornton Interior Design. Together, we share a deep interest for multisensory brand experiences and we are digging deeper into how to create sensory rich hospitality and other people-centric public brand spaces. We’ve got something cooking, don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to meet us and learn about our offer!