[TEXTILES] Sensory Landscapes: Exploring Comfort Through the Senses

As designers, we are always crafting sensations, but we rarely consider how these sensations affect the users’ well-being. Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; and there is no one "right" way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and comfort means something else to everyone. Therefore, how can we inspire a more inclusive and empathic approach to material design?

During the Sensory Landscapes drop-in workshop, attendees will be invited to take the time to explore and reflect upon their sensorium by engaging in a wide selection of worksheets, material library, mind-mapping, swatch matching, collaging, and drawing.

Through a series of exercises and reflective discussion, participants will be prompted to critically analyse their sensory preferences and investigate what causes a sense of comfort or irritation in objects, spaces, colours, and materials. The workshop aims to help imagine one’s sense of comfort in different sensory scenarios and identify the complexity of sensory experiences by considering senses of touch, vision, smell, sound and kinaesthetic.