SENSORIAL URBANISM

CAMPBELL | JACCODINE

SENSORIAL
URBANISM

                This seemingly foreign idea is actually a lot nearer to us than we may expect. Your sensory experience — sight, smell, sound, taste, touch — is constantly engaged with your existence in a certain environment, although primarily in your subconscious. 

                    In cities, a dominant environment in our modern age, this environment can include skyscrapers, construction sounds, and fogs of exhaust. Sensorial urbanism focuses on pushing back against our over-reliance on vision when in urban environments.¹ 

                It looks to a future of heightened sensory identity in places around the world, and also addresses essential topics like mental and physical health, accessibility,and sustainability.

                    Might there be potential within multi-sensory design to expand our holistic experience of city spaces? Could we utilize this to reimagine well-being in the public realm?² Here’s a global look at our current state of sensory awareness and urban planning as a way to explore such possibilities.

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how might a new state of sensorial attention reshape urban spaces?

BEIRUT

                      In Beirut, a city devastated by the Lebanon Civil War in the late twentieth century, painful history remains majorly unaddressed. Planners hope to bring to life physical ruins of the city as a standing museum, using light to emphasize the texture of damage, to help create space for its people to remember and heal.²

SOUNDSCAPES

                      Noise pollution is a growing issue in cities globally. Researchers have struggled to measure annoyance with sounds in cities objectively, since perception of noise is subjective and contextual due to source and other factors.⁵ Experts are developing an approach to help define urban auditory comfort, based on city noise’s effects on people.

                      
DETROIT

                      Meet America’s first sustainable urban farming “agrihood” in the North End of Detroit, a recent addition from the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI).⁶ This three-acre space is a reimagined form of residential development, centered around a thriving two-acre garden, fruit orchard, and children’s sensory garden. Not only does this urban farming foster a serene sensory presence in the midst of Detroit, it brings people together by restoring vacant buildings and lots, providing produce to the neighborhood, and generating sustainable resources and common space in the community.

LONDON

                      Researchers in London looked at the unharnessed potential of our noses – a powerful tool that can potentially differentiate more than a trillion different odors. This group conducted smell walks in which locals were asked to roam London and take notes of their olfactory findings.⁴ This map displays their color coded results, which were a diverse mix of scents from the city’s emissions and nature. Notice the patterns around major parks and areas of metro and traffic dominance.
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SINGAPORE

                      Now coined “the city in a garden,” Singapore is renowned for finding more ways than imagined to integrate greenery not only into segmented parks, but within, outside of, and on top of building structures. Pictured here is its famous Gardens by the Bay, a lush green space filled with 1 milliondifferent plants on the edge of Singapore’s financial center.³ Its structures, designed with sustainable use of water and energy, lead people through and above to engage with the gardens and trees.

REIMAGINING
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                On a global scale, we can see attention to sensory experience spreading, even within movements that are decades old and that bring typically rural or green practices into an urban space. However,here 
                    in the midsized city of Rochester, New York, where do we see such practices and discussions? 

                    Grassroots movements, community gardens, children’s parks, and more, can be found around the city, yet there is still potential for multi-sensory design and engagement to transform more public spaces.

                    We’ve decided to get the ball Rolling by re-envisioning the Parcel 5 lot space in the center of downtown Rochester. The space stood as an urban shopping center until 2009 when the stores were demolished. Since then, the area has been subject to various new development plans, and there has been substantial pushback on proposals to revert Parcel 5 
                    back into open green space.⁷ 
                    Using sensorial urbanism, 
                    here’s what we’ve envisioned 
                    as a revitalization plan: 

Lots of plants.
 Sit among dangling willow trees and smell the lilac bushes (a local favorite), plus walk among small structures and pathways lined with vines and tall brush.

Auditory interaction.
 Walk over an elevated bridge with railings made 
                    of harp strings beckoning to be played,
                    and pass between a structure of windchimes.
                    
                    Warmth and comfort.
 Spot the globular, heated amphitheater, made of glass for optimal views, and lined with cozy inward-facing seating. The ground-level exterior features a chalk wall for artistic expression.

Feel and play.
 Hear and touch interactive, solar-powered fountains (turned winter ice sculptures), roll around on grass, or take a seat on
                    organic wooden benches and the circular, leafy swing set.

                    What becomes a reality around us is in our hands – or eyes, or ears, or nose, for that matter. Start by
                    closing your eyes and paying attention in whichever space you find yourself. Take in the surroundings with all of your senses and heighten your awareness of your physical engagement with the environment.

                    Then consider: how can urban sensory design expand beyond just sensory engagement? Where does it merge with a fuller, healthier human experience? How can new approaches transform our everyday experience, and our future, within spaces that foster wellbeing? The next sketch 
                    is yours.

how can new urban design approaches foster wellbeing?

REIMAGINING PARCEL FIVE

REIMAGINING
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