SENSE-SENSITIVE DESIGN
According to research, vision is the key sense for successful learning, and – the Vision Council says – 80% of the brain’s input and data are relayed through the optic nerve. This may vary depending on age, individual eye structure, disease, how our brain processes images, and what language we speak.
from the ‘room like a womb’, delivering constant temperature, attenuated light and sound, and support for neonates, to dedicated chill-out spaces to suit the needs of teenagers. Inspired by the desire to create optimal healthcare paediatric-focused healing environments, substantial investigative work by Arcadis, THiNK, and Arcadis’s specialist Healthcare group, have resulted in the development of a number of unique design tools with vital links between academic research and models of care. For over 20 years THiNK has funded, participated in, and reviewed, considerable supportive research in collaboration with many international universities. Paediatric design tools such as the well-known ‘Sense-Sensitive Design’, ‘Sensory Plans’, ‘Design Prescription’, Emotional Mapping, and Sensory Audits, can all usefully benefit Pedagogy in teaching methods, both theoretical and practical.
AEDET and ASPECT Toolkits Both the AEDET (Achieving Excellence Design Evaluation Toolkit) and ASPECT (A Staff and Patient Environment Calibration Toolkit) toolkits are healthcare evaluation toolkits which may well translate and benefit the education sector. Healthcare building design frequently involves complex concepts which are difficult to measure and evaluate. The AEDET Evolution toolkit evaluates a design by posing a series of clear, non-technical statements, encompassing the three key
areas of Impact, Building Quality, and Functionality. For its part, the ASPECT toolkit measures the way healthcare environments can impact the satisfaction levels of both patients (children) and staff. Sense-Sensitive Design is a well-
established and well-known design tool first established over 20 years ago. Essentially it harnesses robust international research to create optimal healing environments for paediatric departments for patients ranging from pre-term babies in neonatal units with jaundice and retinopathy, to self-harming adolescents with eating disorders. The data is recorded and tabulated on an X,Y axis, addressing the individual senses on the Y axis, and the three key diagnostic body systems – i.e. autonomic, motor, and state systems – on the X axis. This component of design decision making enables designers to create optimal therapeutic environments. Research from a variety of disciplines shows that a range of environmental characteristics can have powerful healing and therapeutic benefits for their users (Ulrich, 1991; Scher, 1996; Lewy et al, 1980, Murgia & San Martin, 2002). These characteristics include natural and artificial light, colour, views, artwork, aroma, modulation of space and form, arrangement of furniture, manipulation of scale and proportion, sound, texture and materials, movement through space and time, and indoor and outdoor plantscapes. Within the education field, interest is fast growing in the relationship between
the learning environment and its potential impact on learning, achievement, engagement, motivation, behaviour, and sense of well-being for both the student/ pupil and the teacher/lecturers. Research projects such as ‘Clever Classrooms’ and the ‘Head’ research project, undertaken by Salford University in collaboration with Nightingale Associates, are supportive of this concept. This is especially evident in Special Education Needs and Disability schools, and in new studies in Neurodidactics – a term coined in Germany in 1988 from the fusion of various fields of study, such as education, psychology, and neuroscience. The ‘fusion’ was built from an attempt to understand the aspects of neural development that influence learning, and to use this knowledge to create new methodologies in a classroom, and to optimise the teaching / learning process.
Sensory plans Sensory plans are an offshoot of Sense- Sensitive Design, and offer unusual yet insightful levels of information. For example, seemingly unusual olfactory plans, as first generated for Gainsborough Primary School in Hackney, will identify predominant smells in teaching spaces – such as polyurethane from adjacent gym floors, wet cloakrooms, cabbage from the school kitchen, gym kits, adjacent WCs/ changing rooms, chemistry lab toxins, baking smells from home economics, and indeed the ingress of outside smells, VOCs, traffic pollution, spring/summer pollen, bone glue from carpentry workshops, and general off-gassing from interior materials. There is compelling evidence in the form of research to prove that olfaction profiles alone can impair learning.
The key stages of inclusivity – from the Macro to the Neuro. 56 Health Estate Journal August 2024
Sensory audits Sensory audits are a tool developed by Arcadis – THINK, evolved from Rush Copley Medical Centre in Chicago, and indeed the US hospitality sector, to ensure optimal comfort for their guests. They have at times been known as the
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
