This question hit me when I grappled with how my current position would fit into the icon that is Liberty Hall. Designed By Des Rea O' Kelly, with the Johnson Wax Research Tower in mind, the tower was built to represent innovation and progression. Being Ireland's first skyscraper it seems fitting for a technologically forward renovation.
My research tackles using the intersection between xr technologies and architecture to create sensory immersive spaces. Sensory engagement is something that is often lost in Office Design. As cost and efficiency take centre stage.
In today's world, we must focus on refurbishment before building new. However how does one retrofit in sensory aspects? To answer this I think of a quote by Jim Roche;
"In order to change the world you have to know what it is first!"
With this in mind my first step was to figure out what a sensory indulgent workplace felt like. To do this I conducted a survey, to which I got 33 responses. The survey questioned how participants saw, heard, touched, smelt and tasted their ideal workplace. I was fearful of a bias I was aware of amongst the participants....Most were architects.
This bias turned out to be a major turning point as I read through responses. I found some odd answers... While most people could tell you what their ideal workplace looked like and even smelled like. People struggled to relay how it felt. With one participant concluding with;
"Sustainable/ responsible use of materials with no hierarchy given to executive or higher power offices to create equality in the workplace. Materials that don’t exacerbate respiring or other sensory illnesses."
Although a useful and informed response. It didn't exactly answer the question. I.e. is it soft... warm.. can you feel the grooves of timber or the coldest of steel.
Thus I started to realise that we are sometimes too pre-occupied with what we know should be right, to really close our eyes, throw away our notions and really feel the world around us.
This is something I think is heavily influenced by the manner in which architects design. With visual representation with no tactility. Thus tactile design technologies, coupled with other immersive design methods could completely change the spaces we are designing.
The video above shows some of the response the survey led to. It also leads one to wonder if we were immersed in these spaces, would we make the same choices?