Sensing Creatures: Tools for Augmenting Our Sensory Awareness of Space

Architecture education has prioritized vision over the other senses and has been detached from the direct experience of space. To extend our sensory understanding of space, this paper proposes the use of computational tools for body-centered situated learning of space, and discusses precedents in sensory pedagogies and embodied learning. The paper demonstrates the pedagogical implications of the use of such tools by describing the method, procedure, and results of a narrative-based study that utilizes wearable devices in the role of “sensing creatures” limited to a particular sense. In the study, participants were asked to explore a physical space while being the host of a sensing creature. It was hypothesized that the sensing creatures can act as perceptual filters, allowing us to focus on each of our senses individually in order to expand our understanding of space. It was demonstrated that the sensing creatures augmented participants’ sensory awareness of space by engaging them in a sensory exploration, which, while stemming from the specific sense under study extended to the rest of the senses. The study suggests a new direction towards a sensory pedagogy of space based on the perceptual and psychological impact of wearable computational tools when used in the exploration of physical spaces.