Multisensoriality in Contemporary Architectural Pedagogy- A Neuroscientific Critique

Abstract

The way architecture was conceived by the architect, the tools that aided him in first recording and then realising it has underwent a lot of changes in the last few decades. Significant changes came in the way architectural product was perceived, where now it’s designed not only for the inhabitants, users and onlookers, but also for those who look at it from continents apart as printed or as displayed in digital displays. Also now we have a lot of recent results from studies in neuroscience, cognitive science and psychology, which negate or ascertain many of the intuitive (or at times dogmatic) positions we usually base the design process upon. In this situation, this paper analyses the design process as happening and as understood  (and as liked to be understood)  in  architecture school studios in India now and seeks identification of its gaps which many times fails it in creation of a rich ‘multisensory’ architectural experience when realised, in the light of recent researches mentioned before. It also look forward at need of  pedagogic strategies which can reinstate the conception of architecture in its complete multisensory form, which can eventually make architecture that can be more engagingly heard, touched, smelled, and viewed ( or may be even tasted, who have seen the future !).