Materials and the Five Senses (Also for Erasmus)

Workshop description
Materials are not only seen and touched. They are also heard, smelled, and sometimes tasted, forming multi-sensory experiences that shape how we understand and relate to objects.

Students are invited to explore materials through the five senses and to use perception as a design tool. Through short lectures, material experiments, and hands-on exercises, participants will investigate how qualities such as texture, temperature, weight, sound, smell, and visual appearance influence the character of a product.

Key questions include: How can materials evoke specific sensations or emotions? What happens when sensory expectations are challenged? How can designers amplify, combine, or contrast different sensory qualities?

The workshop concludes with the development of a small object or material study in which sensory experience becomes a central design parameter.


Learning goals
Expanding the understanding of materials beyond their visual and functional properties, is key for making informed materials selections.

By engaging with materials through all five senses, students will develop greater sensitivity to their experiential and emotional qualities and learn to use sensory perception as an active design tool.

The workshop encourages experimentation, observation, and material curiosity, helping students make more deliberate and expressive material choices in their design practice.


Requirements
None


Costs
None


What you should bring
Grundausstattung, Photoshop, (im Vorfeld) gesammelte persönliche Objekte/Materialien als Beispiele