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Home Schedule Week 5 · Monday
Invisible Senses
Week 5
Week 5 Dyads
Home Schedule 10-Week Overview
Week
5
Home ScheduleWeek 5 · Monday
Week 4 Presen­tations
  • Play 2-3 minute highlights from each interview
  • What world did you enter? What surprised you?
  • Use the I Like / I Wish / I Wonder protocol.
  • Vote all four categories
45 Minutes Audio Highlights Originality Feasibility Embodiment Peer Favorite
Home ScheduleSensory Exploration
Touch Smell Sound Taste Temperature
Guided Exercise
  • Touch: sandpaper, silk, leather, moss
  • Smell: essential oils, coffee grounds, cut grass, something unexpected
  • Sound: 3 ambient soundscapes, 30 seconds each
  • Taste: a single bite with layered flavor
  • Temperature: warm object vs. cold object
What did you notice? What surprised you? What combinations amplified each other?
Home ScheduleReading · Spence
Our Senses Inter­act
Cross-Modal Congruency

When senses reinforce each other, experience is more powerful.

Vision Dominates

Which means non-visual senses are chronically underdesigned.

Sensory Profiles Vary

Different people have different sensitivities, preferences, aversions. You MUST know your audience.

Home ScheduleReading · Dorst
Change The Frame
A genuine reframe opens possibilities that were invisible before.

Frame switching = seeing the same problem differently

Frame creation = restructuring around a different center of gravity

Before you design: whose perspective defines this problem?

Home ScheduleCase · Sleep No More
Sleep No More

Punchdrunk puts you in a mask and releases you into a 5-story hotel. No seats, no program, no guide. You navigate by touch, scent, and sound. You choose which character to follow. Every audience member sees a different show.

Takeaway

Your 10-minute experience should not be something that could just be a presentation. The medium must be essential.

Home ScheduleCase · Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Jiro
Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Jiro Ono serves 20 pieces of sushi. Each is designed: rice at body temperature, fish cut moments before serving, placed when the customer is ready. He's been doing this for 70 years. Multi-sensory design at the scale of a single bite.

You don't need elaborate materials. You need obsessive attention to each sensory moment.
Home ScheduleCase · Noma
Noma

Food as Multi-Sensory Experience

René Redzepi closed the world's best restaurant to reinvent it. Noma's menu comes from what the Nordic landscape offers each season — foraged ants, beach roses, reindeer moss.

Foraging as Research

The menu isn't invented — it's discovered. Every ingredient is sourced from a specific place and season.

Every Dish Tells a Place Story

Each plate communicates a landscape, a climate, a moment in time — through taste, texture, temperature, and aroma.

Home ScheduleChallenge 5 · Teams
Dyads
Team Structure

Design Dyads

Randomly assigned pairs, announced now

Feedback Dyads

Each dyad paired with a partner dyad (groups of 4)

Reciprocal

You design for them. They design for you.

Home ScheduleChallenge 5 · Deliverables
Deliverables & Quality Prompts
Live 10-min ExperienceDelivered to partner dyad, filmed. Video is the primary submission.
Portfolio Entry PDFStills, process, design decisions documented.
Partner Survey SummaryWhat did you learn about them?
Reframe Statement"We originally assumed _____, but shifted to _____"
Principle Transfer Statement"The principle I applied is _____, and it shows up in my design as _____."

Congruency
Do your non-visual senses reinforce each other or clash?

Beyond Vision
Does each sense carry information that vision couldn't?

Specific Audience
Did you design for your SPECIFIC partner dyad (from the survey) or a generic audience?

Genuine Reframe
Can you articulate a genuine reframe — not cosmetic?

Home ScheduleChallenge 5 · Milestones
  • Right Now
    Fill out the sensory survey: preferences, aversions, allergies, sensitivities. Meet your design dyad and partner dyad. Begin brainstorming.
  • Before Wednesday
    Read your assigned reading. Explore sensory materials — what's available to you?
  • Wednesday
    Reading discussion + 80 min studio time
  • Between Wed & Monday
    Build and prepare your 10-min experience
  • Monday Week 6
    Deliver it live. Film everything.
Mile­stones
Home ScheduleWeek 5 · Readings
Your Assigned Readings
Spence & GallaceSpence & Gallace (2011)
DorstDorst — Frame Innovation

[ Groups will be assigned in class. Each student reads one. ]

Home ScheduleWeek 5 · Wednesday
Wednesday
10 Minutes Discussion
  • Spence group: What did you learn about cross-modal design? How are you using it?
  • Dorst group: What makes a reframe genuine vs. cosmetic? Where's yours?
  • Bridge: How does sensory richness enable or constrain reframing?
80 Minutes Studio

Work with your dyad. Source materials, test combinations, rehearse the sequence.

Between now and Monday: finalize and prepare the live experience.

"What does this sense ADD that vision can't carry?"