Experience in architecture : a reference to domestic architecture

Abstract

Chapter 1 goes through a brief account of the studies of perception and aesthetics, which developed through out time. It talks about the origin of the study of aesthetics in Greece and goes all the way to the nineteenth century. The second chapter gets into more detail about the sense perception systems and how their identification has developed in the last two centuries. Studies concerned with the main sensual perception systems are reviewed. In this chapter, I focus on the haptic sense and the body-image theory, in order to derive how they are applied in architecture. Whilst in Chapter 2, I consider the psychological, physical, and physiological aspects of the user, in Chapter 3 I seek to assess the features and characteristics of architecture. Having listed the senses that connect our mind with the outside world, this chapter tries to explain the architectural characteristics that stimulate these senses. This chapter is made up of two sections. One deals with the architectural stimulation of the five senses that were outlined in Chapter 2. The first section refers to the retinal, acoustic, touching, taste/smell, body image. The other section deals with the phenomenological perceptions that are experienced in architecture. Mass and Space, Movement and Rhythm, and Scale and Proportion are the topics that are discussed in this section. This chapter refers to the architecture in general and does not go into detail in domestic design.