designing with senses
chocha foodstall,
petaling street.
by mentahMatter design
Profile
MentahMatter Design
Shin Chang & Penny Ng
We are multi-discipline design firm;who appreciate
architecture, space, green, art and humanity;as unify, as basic approach,as
MentahMatter.
“Wow, that building looks really fantastic! “ “I kind of like the design of this skyscraper, so sleek and futuristic. “ I believe these would be our very first reaction when we see something very nice and pleasant to our eyes. One of fact that we couldn’t argue is, sight is one of our 5 human senses which is the most important one. Normally, we feel the surrounding by using our eyes, sight. A good design looks great, but why couldn’t it be smell great and taste great at the same time?
As a beginner of designer, we always focus on sight, trying to design something looks nice, but we forgot about the other 4 senses, which are touch, smell, sound and taste. To be honest, I did that all the time for the previous semester projects. I couldn’t really understand how to add in multisensory experience into the space, into the building. Ted talk delivered by Jinsop Lee is really inspiring talk that teach me how important to design a building with the integration of five senses.
In order to understand how architect or designer design a space incorporation with human sense, we as a group had went to Chocha Foodstore which is located at Petaling Street. Surprisingly, it’s a café which own by one of our part time lecturer, Mr Shin Chang. It’s a café refurbished from a very old kind of hotel. The design team remain the interior finishes including mosaic floor tiles, exposed brick walls and faded wall plaster. You can’t tell it’s an in-operation café from the outside because the old façade is mostly preserved. In the sense of sight, it’s different from the other fancy café which design to looks neat and clean. Some people might like it some people might not. For me, it’s an on-going trend to preserve the old looks of old building and it gives us a new experience as well. When I first enter the building, it kind of tells me that there’s story behind it. It’s old but the history of this building has been revived.
I believe that each remained building element has their own story to tell, you can feel it by touching it. First you will see exposed brick wall on your left hand side when you first enter the café. Some part of wall tiles has fallen and we can barely see the mortar attached on the wall. By touching it, I can feel that the wall is cold and imperfect. Touching an exposed brick is different from touching a concrete wall. Sandy and rough surface has makes our touching experience more interesting. It shows that how the people nowadays left the old buildings, everything changes so rapid and we had forget these old architecture. Sometimes, imperfect is better than perfection. When we’re living in a world of perfection, we won’t realize what we have lost. Imperfect makes us stop and think. There’s space for discussion whether development has left the past behind or the past makes what we are now.
In order to increase the human touching experience in this space, the design team has use timber as dining table and chair. People feel more relaxing with natural material made furniture. The surface of table is rough with timber texture, not very smooth but it’s finished. It’s more suitable to use natural wood as furniture in that space, old and traditional. People would feel the authentic of material by touching the surface of wooden dining table, makes them feel closer to the nature as the dining environment is designed to be closer to the nature. They use skylight to allow natural sunlight to lighten up the courtyard dining area, greenery planting pots and raw painted wall making the dining experience better as well.
In conclusion, touching is one of the way to feel the space, which is quite direct. We should never forget to incorporate design with sense of touch. By touching, people would gain extra feeling and message from it. I personally quite love the idea of remaining the old building elements as design concept. Old things give us more feeling especially by touching it. I’m the one who like to touch the things that I’m quite curious about, touch it or maybe knock it. So texture of material does change the sense and experience of a person towards a space. Touching enhanced the taste of a human in Chocha Foodstall because it gives us more feeling. It taste good! Not only is the food the taste of being there good. It’s worth to spend a visit to this café which is charming and authentically unvarnished.
Architecture is not only about the function of building but also the experience of human inside the building. A good design able to trigger all the five human senses of human when they are inside the space. One can feel a space by sense by sight, touch, smell, sound and also taste.
