Beyond Visuals

What if we stopped designing for how a space looks, and started designing for how it feels? A primary research essay on sensory frameworks for inclusive public environments.

Poorvi Jain Guided by Prof. Mangesh Tambe 8 min read

NOTE — This article is based on primary research in progress. Observations, framework, and case analyses represent an initial investigation. Conclusions are preliminary and subject to revision as fieldwork and interviews develop.

You smell a McDonald’s before you see one. That is not an accident. The ventilation systems in their outlets are engineered to push the scent of cooking outward into the surrounding street. By the time the golden arches appear in your line of sight, your brain has already decided it wants fries. This is sensory design at its most deliberate — and its most commercial. But it points to something far more interesting: that the spaces we move through are constantly communicating with our bodies through smell, sound, texture, light, and temperature. And most public space design pretends this is not happening.

My research begins from a simple question: if human beings navigate the world through five senses, why do we continue to design public spaces almost entirely for one? The project titled Beyond Visuals: A Sensory Framework for Inclusive Public Space Design attempts to build a language for design that addresses this gap — beginning not with spectacle, but with the full texture of human experience.

The Visual Bias in Design

Modern public space design is, at its core, visual. We design for the render, the aerial photograph, the magazine spread. The question “does it look good?” dominates every other. This is not entirely wrong — sight is our primary orienting sense, and visual coherence matters. But it becomes a problem when it is the only question being asked.

As cities grow more dense and more digital, a sensory overload has crept into everyday environments. Commercial signage competes for attention. Artificial lighting flattens the experience of time. Hard surfaces amplify noise into stress. The result is public spaces that may look impressive in photographs but feel exhausting or cold to the people who use them every day.

“Spaces that rely on visuals alone create environments that photograph well but feel poorly. The body knows the difference.”

— Primary Research Observation, 2025

What Each Sense Does in a Space

When we break down the five senses as design inputs, a clear picture emerges of what each one contributes — and what goes missing when it is ignored.

01- Sight / visual

Light quality, contrast, and color rhythm orient us and signal safety. Natural light that shifts through the day communicates time and connection to the outside world. Poor lighting — glare, shadow, backlighting — creates fatigue and disorientation. Sight is already over-served in design; the task is to use it more honestly.

02-Sound / auditory

The acoustic character of a space is felt before it is consciously heard. Echo, reverberation, and ambient noise all shape how safe and comfortable a space feels. Water features, planted buffers, and material choices can transform a sonic environment. Sound is the primary navigational tool for the visually impaired — yet acoustic design is almost never foregrounded.

03- Touch / tactile

Ground texture, surface temperature, and material quality all communicate through the body. Tactile paving at transitions gives non-visual wayfinding cues. The warmth of wood versus the cold resistance of concrete changes how long people want to stay. Touch is the most honest of all senses — it cannot be faked by a render.

04-Smell/olfactory

Smell is the only sense that bypasses rational processing and connects directly to memory and emotion. It is also the only sense you cannot choose to turn off. A space’s olfactory character — the smell of rain on stone, flowering trees, or street food — builds its invisible identity, often more powerfully than any visual marker.

05-Atmosphere / thermal

Temperature, air movement, humidity, and the feeling of shelter or exposure constitute the atmospheric layer of a space. Peter Zumthor called this quality “Atmospheres” — the physically felt emotional character of a space that cannot be captured in a photograph but is experienced completely the moment you enter.

Case Studies

Case Study 01 — Global, Intentional Sensory Architecture

Therme Vals, Switzerland — Peter Zumthor, 1996

When every sense is designed for

Therme Vals is perhaps the most complete realisation of sensory design in the built environment. Built into an Alpine mountainside from locally quarried Valser quartzite stone, the spa does not attempt to impress through form. It impresses through experience.

Natural light enters through narrow ceiling slits, casting soft shifting patterns on stone and water — light that tells you the time of day without a single clock. The acoustic design is equally deliberate: a dedicated Resonance Room uses exposed stone walls and a single pipe to produce spatial echo that separates sound from its source. A Fragrance Room releases scent through joints in the stone. Water moves between warm and cold pools, with temperature itself used as a navigational and experiential cue.

Case Study 01 — Global, Intentional Sensory Architecture

Therme Vals, Switzerland — Peter Zumthor, 1996

When every sense is designed for

Therme Vals is perhaps the most complete realisation of sensory design in the built environment. Built into an Alpine mountainside from locally quarried Valser quartzite stone, the spa does not attempt to impress through form. It impresses through experience.

Natural light enters through narrow ceiling slits, casting soft shifting patterns on stone and water — light that tells you the time of day without a single clock. The acoustic design is equally deliberate: a dedicated Resonance Room uses exposed stone walls and a single pipe to produce spatial echo that separates sound from its source. A Fragrance Room releases scent through joints in the stone. Water moves between warm and cold pools, with temperature itself used as a navigational and experiential cue.

▸ Vals, Graubünden, Switzerland | Architect: Peter Zumthor | Opened 1996 | Photos from primary research document

Movement between spaces

The lesson for public design: sensory richness does not require elaborate technology. It requires deliberate attention to material, light, sound, and temperature as equal design inputs alongside visual form.

Case Study 02 — Everyday Commercial Spaces

McDonald’s vs Subway: two brands, two entirely different sensory strategies

McDonald’s & Subway — Sensory Design as Behavior Tool

Fast food chains are, quietly, among the most sophisticated practitioners of sensory design in the world. The difference is that they use it to influence behaviour — not to serve the user, but to serve the business. Understanding this is valuable: it shows what sensory design can do, and raises the question of what it should do.

Smell. McDonald’s ventilation systems are engineered to push the scent of cooking outward into the surrounding street. You smell the outlet before you see it. Smell is the only sense you cannot choose to turn off.

Sound. Music in fast food environments is calibrated for tempo. Upbeat, fast-paced music increases eating speed and table turnover. Subway plays mid-tempo music designed to feel relaxed, matching the brand’s “fresh and easy” positioning.

Sight. McDonald’s red and yellow activates urgency and appetite. Subway’s green-and-white signals freshness and health. Both are deliberate, researched colour choices — not aesthetic preference.

Touch & Temperature. McDonald’s seating is hard plastic in a cool interior — designed to move people through quickly. Subway seating is slightly softer; the brand wants you to linger a little longer with your “fresh” experience. Every physical detail is a sensory decision.

A Working Framework

Based on these observations, the following table is a preliminary sensory design evaluation tool — a starting point for identifying gaps in any public space and naming what might address them.

▸ Global | McDonald’s Corp. / Subway International | Ongoing sensory brand strategy

Conclusion

What Therme Vals does with architecture and what McDonald’s does with brand strategy both demonstrate the same underlying truth: sensory design is not a speciality. It is the baseline condition of all design. Every space has a smell, a sound, a texture underfoot, a temperature. The only question is whether those qualities were considered intentionally, or whether they arrived by accident.

The most powerful interventions are often the simplest: a change in paving material, a planted border that adds scent and sound, a shaded walkway that offers thermal relief. None of these require spectacular budgets. All of them require the decision to design for the whole body, not just the eye.

This primary research is the beginning of that investigation. The framework proposed here will be tested, revised, and extended through fieldwork, user observation, and interviews as the research develops.

References & Bibliography

1. Zumthor, P. (2006). Atmospheres. Birkhäuser.
2. Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. Wiley.
3. Kaplan, R. & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature. Cambridge University Press.
4. Hillier, B. (1996). Space is the Machine. Cambridge University Press.
5. Pink, S. (2015). Sensory Ethnography. SAGE Publications.
6. Persson, A.H.T. (2018). Multisensory Urban Design. Urban Design International.
7. Design Council UK. (n.d.). Guidelines for Inclusive Design. designcouncil.org.uk
8. ArchEyes. (2026). Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals. archeyes.com
9. McDonald’s Sensory Branding Analysis. (2023). EduAds 2.0.
10. Tantra, Z. (2024). Sensory Symphony: Fast Food Marketing. zahltantra.com
11. Therme Vals photographs from primary research document (Dissertation_Poorvi.docx).

Submitted by: Ms. Poorvi Jain Under the guidance of: Prof. Mangesh Tambe School of Visual Arts · BVA Applied Arts Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University, Dhankawdi, Pune Academic Year 2025–2026

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© 2026 — Primary Research