SENSORY DESIGN THEORY

Sensory design theory is used within the built environment to enhance an inhabitant’s connectivity and quality of experience within space. The creation of connections between all the senses, touch, sound, smell, taste, and the interior environment creates a safe, welcoming environment that improves moods and mental health. “Multi-sensory design can solve problems and enhance life for everyone” (Genco, Lupton and Lipps) and it goes hand in hand with Biophilic design. Biophilic design is so successful since it appeals so much to the senses of humans. “The senses mix with memory. From infancy, human creatures engage in countless acts of lifting, licking, touching, sniffing, throwing, dropping, hearing, balancing, and more, constantly testing the edges of physics to understand (or “make sense of”) the world we were born to discover. The brain fires neurons, prunes synapses, and forges pathways” (Genco, Lupton and Lipps). Everyone has different experiences and memories, and sensory spaces allow for inhabitants to engage with the built environment in unique, personal ways. This theory will be extremely beneficial to recently released inmates that are looking to reconnect with their lives previous to incarceration.