Paper short abstract:

bodies-cities explores how the entanglements of mind, body, and environment, could be mapped in an immersive virtual space. Situated at the intersection of architecture, place-making, and experiential design, the speculative design explores human embodied knowledge of an urban public site.

Paper long abstract:

Through human sensory intra-actions with the ecological and built environment, the human species has left its mark on the biosphere of this planet; resulting in progressive and destructive trends in urban design. Given the implication of sensory embodied knowledge for the future of cities, the bodies-cities project takes the position that what worlds we create matter, and more so the spatial dimensions of our built environments. As cities grow and urban place-making adapts to growing populations and technological inventions, the urban worlds we create could articulate the lived experiences of humans through the architecture of public space. What knowledge sources we tap on to tell the tale of such human-material interactions at this moment in time, matters. Situated at the intersection of architecture, place-making, and experiential design, this speculative design process draws on feminist new materialist methodology and ethnographic methods, to propose alternative ways of discovering and applying spatial design knowledge as it emerges from the embodied experience of city dwellers. The research is accompanied by a virtual reality experience that reflects the embodied perception of a public site in Toronto, Canada.