ARCH Studio: SENSE

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ARCH 4001. Fall 2025

SENSE: Spatial Experiences for Narrative and Sensory Emotions

Studio Overview

This design studio invites students to explore the complex relationship between architecture, human emotion, and experiential design through the conceptualization and design of a Museum of Emotion. Students will investigate how spatial design can evoke, mediate, and communicate emotional states—moving beyond functionality to create environments that resonate on a deep psychological and sensory level. By integrating neuroscience, art, culture, and digital technologies, students will develop speculative proposals for a museum that acts not only as a cultural institution but also as a space of introspection, empathy, and transformation.

Studio Objectives

  • Understand and interpret the spatial, sensory, and material qualities that influence human emotional responses.
  • Translate research on emotion into architectural language (form, light, material, scale, sequence, etc.).
  • Design immersive environments that express or evoke specific emotional states.
  • Engage interdisciplinary methods (AI, Extended Reality, digital media) to inform spatial experience.
  • Critically assess cultural, ethical, and therapeutic dimensions of designing for emotion.

Key Questions

  • How can architectural elements—light, space, materiality, proportion—evoke emotional responses?
  • What is the role of immersive and interactive technology (VR/AR, AI, biometric feedback) in shaping emotional experiences?
  • How do cultural, personal, and neurophysiological factors affect emotional perception of space?
  • How can architecture foster emotional literacy, empathy, and collective memory?

Program

Each student (or team) will design a Museum of Emotion on a site of their choice. The museum must include:

  1. Core Zones (Required):
  • Emotion Lab: Interactive gallery presenting scientific and technological perspectives on emotion.
  • Rooms of Emotion: A minimum of three immersive emotional environments (e.g., joy, fear, sadness, awe, love, anger).
  • Memory Archive: A participatory or data-driven installation space where emotional memories are recorded, interpreted, and displayed.
  • Cultural Expressions Gallery: A rotating exhibition space focused on how different cultures represent and process emotions.
  1. Optional Programs (Student-Defined):
  • Workshop or educational spaces
  • Performance or therapeutic spaces
  • Café or gathering zone
  • Outdoor sensory garden or emotional path

Design Tools and Methods

  • Precedent studies of museums, memorials, and immersive installations
  • Digital modeling and rendering (with emphasis on atmosphere and mood)
  • Use of AI-assisted simulations, AIGC, and VR walkthroughs
  • Assessment through user feedback survey

Waterfalls of light: Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather (2018/2024), teamLab Borderless, Azabudai Hills, Tokyo© teamLab, courtesy Pace

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