Rooted in Nature, Designed for the Senses

A TWO-PART REFLECTION ON DESIGN. MEMORY AND SENSORY EXPERIENCE.

Growing up, nature wasn’t a backdrop or something to be eliminated, it was a companion and something to be embraced. Our home was not just shielding us away from the elements of nature, but was also a sanctuary that allowed a dialogue between us and nature, which grounded us in something bigger than us, nature. I often say that I was raised in a house not only rooted in nature but also allowed us to be in sync with the rhythms of nature. Be it the sound of raindrops on our iron-sheet roof, the scent from the mixture of clay soil and cow dung used as floor finish, or the sounds of crickets announcing night fall. Before I ever encountered the term sensory design, my mind already knew what nourishing the senses meant. And so there was this Sensory Shock when I moved to the city and all of a sudden I was starved of this sensory diet which impacted my stress and mind health for the worse.

In the city, I was shocked by how muted buildings felt. The concrete didn’t breathe. The floors didn’t creak. The air was conditioned, and the windows didn’t open. I couldn’t hear the rain anymore nor could I see the horizon. I felt disconnected from nature, from myself.

This disconnect led me to my design journey. I started asking questions: Why do so many buildings feel so sterile, cold and inhuman? Why do they ignore the very senses that shape our emotions? And most importantly, how can we reawaken the senses to bring back feelings into our spaces for the betterment of our health and wellbeing?

To me, designing for the senses is about creating buildings that feed not just the body, but the mind through the senses. It’s about spaces that invite sensory engagement. Places that feel alive where textures invite touch, light moves like time, air carries the scent of the earth, and materials age with grace. It’s an approach that goes beyond how something looks and functions to how it’s felt, heard, smelled, and experienced in motion and stillness. It’s an approach that recognizes that as human beings, we’re multisensory beings endowed with more than sight to connect us with our environments.

My design thinking is rooted in material honesty to nourish sensory richness. I choose brick because it holds scent. I love timber because it speaks through grain and sound. I work with daylight as if it’s a material in itself, allowing it to change mood, temperature, and perception as well as tell time with shadows. Texture, scent, light, and sound are not extras; they’re the essence of a space’s emotional life.

Nature makes places make sense, through the senses. It never over stimulates, yet it never bores. It holds contrast, soft and rough, bright and dim, loud and still. I believe our buildings should do the same. If they can’t, at least they should not shield us away from this sensory greatness because it is good for our health. As Juhani Pallasmaa said, Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation or dialogue happens through the senses. Sensible buildings facilitate this dialogue with nature, while nonsense buildings shield us away from nature.

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For me, to design for the senses is to design with care.

While my colleague speaks from the immediacy of memory, my own practice filters sensory design through restraint, material honesty, and quiet intentionality. I am drawn to the spaces in between, to the silences, textures, and tonal shifts that ask nothing loudly but speak everything with a bold presence.

For me, designing for the senses is an act of curation; always considered, emotional, and precise. It is less about imitating nature, and more about honouring its logic: the contrast and continuity, the weight and lightness, and the warmth and breath. I don’t only think of what is added to a space, but moreover what is withheld. Stillness becomes a medium. Light becomes a tool of emotion, and colour becomes a vessel for calm. A natural fibre or finish can shift the perception entirely, and not only because it demands attention, but because it just feels right. It belongs.

Much of my work begins with questions like:
What should this space sound like? What does stillness feel like here? Where is softness needed, and where might the hand need to meet resistance?

You’ll notice that these aren’t your typical ‘aesthetic’ questions; they’re more sensory ones. And they lead, always, back to the body and the natural world.

Part of my approach is rooted in sensory precision. Not every surface in a space needs to speak. Not every object must announce itself. But everything should be in dialogue, whether with light, time, the air, or with those who enter the space.

When rooted in nature, design becomes more than a visual. It becomes visceral. A quiet invitation to dwell, breathe, and simply be. I believe that it is in that quiet, that the most meaningful spaces are made.