Design is in the makeup of everything, offering an experience. There is a construct to its success which can be broken down into our senses.
I have been creating spaces and stimulating experiences for a long while now, I love the influence of sensory design. I did my thesis on the importance of maintenance for the mechanized man; the case study was a large advertising building in London, which I lived across from for the first 1.5 years of living in London. I would watch these people through the windows burning the midnight oil, and as I awoke in the morning I would see them again in new outfits at it again. I thought about their lives and moments in between work; where did they live, did they have a car – the tube stopped running at 11pm so were they all bussing and if so how long did that take?? So I proposed that there should be skyPODS on top of the building where they could go reboot, recharge and establish balance. Each skyPOD was for a different purpose, all of which tied into the specific needs of humans and in this case within the advertising industry itself. I did this through a series of design choices, mainly based around senses.
As I am freshly back from renewing my bond with my spirit I realize that much like my approach with design is my approach in obtaining and maintaining happiness.. In essence I am designing my happiness. There are rules for engagement in any design contract and the structure of those is based upon the end user and their experience. At the core of this standard, is happiness. This is what I identified early in my education and what I have been esoterically implementing throughout my career. It is only now that I see the importance of bringing that process forward and exemplifying it as a natural structure from which many could build from, literally and figuratively.
Of course happiness is subjective, and working in a more intimate setting where there are only a few end users can be vastly different from appealing to the masses. However there are a certain set of principals which can be applicable in both scenarios:
- Meeting basic biological needs from an environment.
Air, water, light, temperature, nourishment, comfort, ergonomics, health/ body
- Meeting the requirements for emotional well being.
Mind, spirituality, laughter, inspiration, freedom, bliss, LOVE
3. Establishing and Enabling desires and goals
- Allowing room to grow and change
- Creating balance between function and form
It is through these categories that a design can be configured; whether designing a product, a space, an experience or our own happiness. Most importantly is that design seeks solutions, and solutions are the windows and eventually doors leading from depression.
