In Hand: Touch as a Critical Act in Creating and Experiencing the Built Environment

Touch as a Critical Act in Creating and Experiencing the Built Environment

Abstract

This photo essay depicts the design and fabrication research that David Schafer and his team conducted through a grant from the Association of Siamese Architects (Thailand). His architecture and design practice crafted bespoke objects which investigate the value that hands-on making gives to an intuitive and embodied design. Seeking intimate relationships with the hand, skin, eyes, and body both before, during, and after manifestation, this work describes a material practice intimately familiar with making’s feedback mechanisms and constituent benefits to the design studio. They study ergonomic relationships with familiar object typologies and segue into the creation of experientially sensitive door handles in wood, leather, steel, brass, and other materials. The palpable haptic richness of these objects, through a responsive and fertile design process, reveals opportunities amicably distant from standardised, functionalist design methods.