Objectives:
‍In his book, The Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa states, “Modern architectural theory and critique have had a strong tendency to regard space as an immaterial object delineated by material surfaces, instead of understanding space in terms of dynamic interactions and interrelations.”₁ With the immense and growing collection of scientific study on the body—both psychologically and physiologically—movements in meditation and mindfulness, and new design technologies, our ability to explore more dynamic interactions and interrelations between object and body has increased exponentially. This is the time to return to the body as the point of origin for design and academic inquiry. All design is an engineered interaction between a body and an object. The purpose of this academic experiment is to explore a more rigorous practice of investigation and creative applications connecting science, philosophy, meditation and design technologies to form a deeper understanding of this body-object relationship. The goal is to establish a pedagogy that both educates students and designers about the role the body plays in our design thinking, as well as to distill these approaches to their core principles such that they can be applied across all design disciplines—in other words, in a non-disciplinary fashion. From a poster, to a coffee mug to a skyscraper, the role of the designer is to facilitate the dialogue between a body and the objects of one’s environment. This perspective on design focuses us away from our predominant object-based discourse on design, opening up new dialogues for innovation and cross-disciplinary fertilization. This project proposes somewhat of a revival of a pedagogical approach, experiential knowing, founded in the Bauhaus, yet extended into a broader conversation on design, materials, experience and the environment—grounded in their origin in the body. This project (and its case study course) proposes the introduction of a series of theoretical and practical topics early in the education of all designers that addresses the critical interrelationships between objects and bodies. It is intended to precede traditional design pedagogies and alters the focus of our research and study. 

‍Conceptual Underpinnings: 
‍The foundation of this approach lies in a structured, concrete engagement with principles of knowing—or, ways of knowing— that hold the capacity to expand the academic framework for critical and scientific inquiry. Yifu Tuan states, “Experience is a compound of feeling and thought…It is a common tendency to regard feeling and thought as opposed, the one registering subjective states, the other reporting on objective reality. In fact, they lie near the two ends of an experiential continuum, and both are ways of knowing.”₂ Ways of knowing have been explored by various philosophers, most notably, Herman von Helmholtz. In her book, Kinaesthetic Knowing, Zeynep Alexander explores how Helmholtz differentiated two facets of experience. Alexander writes, “In his popular lectures delivered in the middle of the nineteenth century, Helmholtz distinguished between Wissen, propositional, discursive, and conceptual knowledge that was conventionally understood to be the ideal of rigorous science, and Kennen, non discursive, non conceptual knowledge obtained by experiential acquaintance.”₃ Kennen, as noted, is knowledge gained through experience—from human interactions with beings, objects and environments. Alexander’s examination further expands on this notion. He quotes William Endell’s theories stating, “lived experience is an unconventional, yet legitimate mode of knowledge.”₄ In fact, early definitions of “science” were described as knowledge gained through experience. In this case, human experience produces knowledge and opens us up the possibility of a new arena of rigorous study of experience-based design knowledge. This is knowledge defined by, and originating from the body, rather than the object. This is knowledge that is capable of being measured, organized, expanded, interwoven and deployed by creatives. The value of this knowledge for design is that it can inspire, inform and refine our creative capacity. Again, Tuan states, “Experience thus implies the ability to learn from what one has undergone. To experience is to learn; it means acting on the given and creating out of the given.”₅ We often discuss form and materiality as a static, critiqueable matter. In fact, the complexity of design lies not only in its form, but in the complexity of its reading and experience by a user. For example, in a scientific study of perception Dr. Martin Grunwald, a researcher on haptics at the University of Leipzig, states, “Alongside the descriptive-measurement analysis of the exploratory process, Révész analysed the ability of seeing people and those born blind to haptically gauge an object’s proportions and translate them into an active structuring process. An important result of his descriptive-analytical studies is the realisation that haptic perception is always accompanied by an ‘optification’ and that visual perception is accompanied by a ‘haptification’. This means that, according to Révész, the haptic exploration process in seeing people is accompanied by a tendency to create a visual imagination of the object being felt. In a parallel fashion, visual perception is checked and verified by haptic experience (‘haptification’). In this way, Révész formulated a structural principle in which haptic perception takes up a central position within the human sensory systems.”₆ In a genuine philosophical overlap, Pallasmaa refers to the eye as an extension of the body. In fact, it is an essential part of the human condition. Given the right academic structure, philosophical undertakings in phenomenology and design thinking evolve into new creative phenomenons--grounded in past and present lived experience.Haptification is one example from a long list of studies that critically connect visual and aesthetic principles to a more complex and integrated understanding of the designed object. For example, Grunwald states, “Certain compound sensations – as, of light and color, of smoothness and hardness – are not regarded merely as psychical acts whose cause lies in the extended object; they are regarded as qualities of its surface and appear to belong to it as forms of its objective being. Such a result, however, must be regarded as brought about by the action of mind, in forms and according to laws of its own.”7 Such integrated sensory and aesthetic design qualities extend beyond simply sensory information, but also experience of time and language. The body records each proprioceptive, visual and sensory element to prepare itself for future encounters. Each and every variation of experience is recorded in our memory—but also added to our body’s ever-changing and expanding plastic schema. This collection of knowledge is not limited to only application in future movements and actions, but could be applied to strategies for design—for instance, the body leverages the plastic schema in the use of tools. As such, it can be used to inform our capacity for design and creative thinking. As well, we know of the brain as having neuroelasticity—the capacity of adapt, learn, transform, refocus, expand perception and knowledge or rewire completely. Neuroplasticity is realized through a combination of focus/attention and experience. This invites us to begin practicing “attentiveness” or mindfulness of human experience as means to bring about adaptations of the body and mind. The focus of this study is to bring these concepts into the classroom through an introduction of theory, scientific inquiry and exploration of creative practice. Understanding the theories through readings and discussion can establish a common language. In order to apply these concepts to design, students must also engage in structured exercises that utilized “lived experience” to build an intellectual and experiential archive of knowledge for deployment in future design projects. Moholy-Nagy experimented with this approach at the Bauhaus, developing curriculum through the use of tactile boards and other experimental models. He sought to provide students with a structured understanding of materials through both interaction and diagramming. His courses took on a scientific approach to understanding human experience and did so as the new science of psychology emerged. Leveraging this model, I propose the introduction of a set of pre-disciplinary courses that expand on this concept and explore a broader range of areas of interaction between bodies and objects. These courses are based on core design principles and philosophies that cross all disciplinary boundaries and provide extensive, legitimate knowledge of how a body interacts with and responds to objects. This course is structured to achieve multiple goals. First, the course helps students better understand the science, theory and philosophy that underpins these concepts. Second, the course builds structures for students to begin collecting “experiential knowledge” through engaging in physical experiences with objects/environments and journaling/diagramming about those experiences. The collection of projects from all of the students combined produce an exensive experiential body of knowledge that each student engages with and grows from. This is kennen in action, in the classroom. Finally, the course provides students with a set of practices from mindfulness to archiving to journaling that they can carry with them in their future design exercises and practices. 

‍Case Study: 
‍The foundational research and theories are part of a larger research/writing project but the concept was beta-tested in a course titled Pre-Disciplinary Design: Theory and Practice in the fall of 2018 at Hampshire College. This course’s pedagogical focus is on the importance of the human experience (as a form of knowledge) and our plastic schema which evolves and complexifies through to rigorous, continued human-object experiences. The course was structured into four parts with an introduction to the theoretical framework, followed by a three focus areas including sensation, time and language. For each of the three key topics, we performed rigorous theoretical and scientific readings with discussion, followed by a short project. The projects in this course presented students with the challenge of aggregating materials, objects and/or experiences to be organized, compared and experientially evaluated. In the time section, students developed narratives of their interactions with objects or spaces, marking the key sensory engagements, important transitions, and the transformation of perception of the object over time. For sensory projects, students developed a focus area (particular sensation) and created or collected a broad palette of materials and/or textures which were organized and subjectively diagrammed. For the language section, students selected a specific object or space typology and attempted to distill the visual attributes of these objects to their core differentiating visual elements, represented in graphic gestures or illustrations, as well as the emotional or expressive qualities those gestures hold. While these experiences are subjective, they add new dimensions of experiential knowledge to their creative toolkit. Individual projects were presented and shared so the group engaged in a collaborative laboratory of sensory experiments and gather concrete ‘lived experience’ of a wide array of design concepts.