Sensorial Interior Landscape

Definition

The sensorial interior landscape is Laura Garófalo-Khan's name for the "interior environmental aesthetic" her chapter proposes to redefine: an interior understood and designed as a landscape of the senses rather than as a room, shell, or composition. The chapter's abstract states the programme: "Framing sensorial manifestations of ambient conditioning and performative ornamentation with interior spatial design in terms of biophilia, this chapter discusses projects expressing the sensual nature of the grotto's architecture without being confined by formal, morphological, or material conditions." The culminating claim: such projects "offer the potential to redefine an interior environmental aesthetic – in particular, one that defines a sensorial interior landscape and bridges the disconnect between the constructed shelter and the natural environment."

The concept's content is dispersive across the senses and the media that carry them: ambient conditioning (the grotto's "distinct thermal environment" — flowing water, earth as thermal sink, cool air by Venturi effect, moisture; see ambient-conditioning); performative ornamentation (the tactile, deep surfaces of rhythmized, changeful ornament; see performative-ornament); and imaginative world-making ("These narrative spaces expressed the morphology of the cave with its earthen enclosure" — the grotto works "not only on the physical senses, but also on the imagination, as the occupant cobbles together the disparate components of this sensorial experience"). Its three contemporary instances are the chapter's exemplars — Hylozoic Soil ("a haptic wonderland… a shimmery interior landscape"), SOL Grotto ("a mediated experience of water, coolness, and light"), and Bienvenidos al Sur ("a literal garden room, an interior in the exterior" whose "diffused boundary modulates moisture, light, air, smell, and sound") — each an interior whose landscape character is sensorial rather than morphological: "What qualifies these English follies as grottoes has more to do with the sensuality of surface treatment than morphological association to a cave."

The concept stands in the interior-architecture cluster as the register that defines the discipline by its medium of encounter — the conditioned, ornamented, multisensory field — rather than by object, shell, story, or system: see the nineteenth register on interior-architecture.

Key Thinkers

• Laura Garófalo-Khan — the concept's author: the sensorial interior landscape as the interior environmental aesthetic bridging shelter and nature.
• Kent Bloomer — the multisensory-theory source: the haptic connection and the "dynamic line work of ornament" as the interior's biophilic medium; not yet paged (see log).
• Philip Beesley — the installation-scale exemplar (Hylozoic Soil, the "artificial forest" of responsive units).
• Ronald Rael & Virginia San Fratello — the pavilion-scale exemplar (SOL Grotto, 2012); not yet paged (see log).
• Aybar Mateos Arquitectos — the building-scale exemplar (Bienvenidos al Sur, 2015); not yet paged (see log).
• Peter Zumthor — the bath-scale precedent: Therme Vals as the contemporary subterranean water space "programmed for relaxation and sensorial awakening"; not yet paged (see log).

Related Concepts

• biophilia — the frame: the sensorial interior landscape is what biophilic design redefines the interior as.
• artificial-grotto — the touchstone typology from which the concept is abstracted.
• performative-ornament — the surface mechanism: the ornament that makes the interior a landscape of acts.
• ambient-conditioning — the atmospheric mechanism: thermal, aerial, and hygric conditioning as sensorial design.
• atmosphere — the phenomenological relative: both name the interior's overall sensory character; the sensorial interior landscape differs by grounding it in biophilic nature-connection rather than mood alone.
• interiority — the grotto's "inherent interiority" that the landscape interior carries.
• heterogeneous-space — the spatial order of the exemplars: spaces of varied, changing sensorial conditions rather than uniform climate.
• embodiment — the receiving organ: "a corporeal engagement with a mass" (Vals); "touching and the possibility of touching are critical" (Bloomer, via the chapter).
• olfaction — the included sense: smell named among the modulated media ("moisture, light, air, smell, and sound").
• oceanic-interiority — Treadwell's immersive relative: the interior as enveloping medium rather than bounded room.
• hermetic-seal — the negative pole: the sealed, homogeneous deep interior whose "extreme sensual disconnection from nature" the sensorial landscape reverses.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Sensorial interior landscapes (Garófalo-Khan 2018) — the concept's founding source: the title term itself; the ambient-conditioning + performative-ornament framing "in terms of biophilia"; the three exemplars; the Vals precedent; the culminating redefinition claim.
• Touch, Taste, Smell (Brown 2018) — the museum-exhibit scale of the same programme: the exhibit interior designed as a sensorial field rather than a visual container. The Prado's gallery geometry serves the body's reach ("at a natural height and distance from the audience – at arm's reach rather than safely hung out of reach"); Old Sturbridge Village's period structures "immerse the audience in the period, allowing them to experience a former way of life, to participate in it"; Tolaas's scent-infused walls make the room's surface itself the sensory medium. Where Garófalo-Khan's landscapes bridge "the disconnect between the constructed shelter and the natural environment," Brown's exhibit interiors bridge the disconnect between the visitor's body and the collection — the same ambient/performative/tactile toolkit (touch, smell, participation) aimed at cultural rather than natural encounter. See multisensory-museum, embodiment.
• source-notes/brownell-2018-living-rooms-hypernaturalization

Open Questions

• Is "sensorial interior landscape" a type of interior (grottoes, baths, pavilions — event spaces) or an aesthetic any interior can adopt (the "biophilization" of the ordinary room)? The chapter's exemplars are all exceptional spaces; its opening diagnosis concerns everyday deep interiors.
• The concept "bridges the disconnect between the constructed shelter and the natural environment" — but its exemplars are maximally artificial ("both utterly artificial and full of life"). Is the bridge built by bringing nature in, or by making artifice behave like nature — and does the difference matter for the nature-vs-culture debate?
• The occupant "cobbles together the disparate components of this sensorial experience" (SOL Grotto) — is the sensorial interior landscape therefore completed by the imagination rather than delivered by design, and can an interior be designed to be imaginatively completed without becoming merely scenic?