Sensory mixes, disciplinary barriers: an examination of the multi-sensory nature of urban experience

Although designed with an emphasis on visual elements, urban environments are experienced by people using their varied sensorium. Different sensory stimuli contribute different layers of meaning and understanding to place experience and identity, with sensory information sometimes aligned, sometimes contrasting. However, the notion of five separate recognised senses is somewhat misleading, and although scholarly and professional activity has been organised according to these senses e.g. visual artists, acousticians, thermal researchers, perfumiers, there are clear overlaps in sensory phenomena, requiring an inter-disciplinary approach to related research and design.This discussion paper draws from sensory walks and semi-structured interviews carried out with 52 built environment professionals, licensees, workers and community representatives in Doncaster, England and 82 residents in the English cities of Manchester, Sheffield and Clerkenwell, London. It focuses primarily upon experiences of smell in the city to highlight the complex interplay and intermixing of sensory information in people’s day-to-day experiences of the city, their expectations of different places, the behaviours they adopt, and judgements of place they make. In highlighting these relationships, this paper advocates that built environment professionals, researchers and designers adopt a more full-bodied, poly-sensory and experimental approach to city design, but that important considerations be made when designing with the wider sensorium in mind.