A home with heart
In a class that feels like a lifetime away, I was first introduced to Somatic Spatial Design. As I delved into the complexities of the subject and how it could translate into a viable thesis project for myself, I found myself getting sucked into the world of ‘felt’ spaces. I kept coming back to wondering what that meant for my practice in a world where each individual is fundamentally unique. When i married this to the German philosophy of Einfuhlung it seemd like a colossal contradiction to my 21 year old brain- designing public spaces for the masses that was somatically inviting even though every individual can not possibly have the same felt experience in the environment.
After i left college, this inquiry was parked in some forgotten corner of my brain. Instead my sights were set on proving myself professionally. An aspiration that led me to Visual Merchandising. A field so far from the altruistic ideals of felt space. A field where economics and conversion matrices took precedence over somatic experiences. Visibility and volume became more important than the human in the space. Something within me kept rebelling against this. I chalked it down to professional dissatisfaction and personal ineptitude. I put down my papers (twice) a little disillusioned and very lost. And honestly, professionally that feeling has still not changed.
There seems to be very little impetus to create spaces that are holistically designed to be experienced. The human in the equation is an afterthought. The gullible rube whose only role in the narrative is to be duped by grandeur, texture, material and well packaged, poetic lies into making a purchase. Most spaces (especially those that pay a designers bills) are designed to be transactional. If there is ever a mention of felt experiences, they focus on creating a memorable spectacle that convinces our rube that the space and the project or object it celebrates will alter their lives in some fantastical way. It’s a marketing shitshow that is difficult to reconcile with: alas the woes of capitalism.
On the other hand, over the last one and a half years I have quietly observed somatic spaces at play and its an enigma. You see, over a year and a half ago, I moved out of my parents home into a space of my own. With a tight budget and a plethora of hand-me-down furniture and furnishings, I have spent my days building a space that is all mine. Very little of it is aesthetically cohesive in the way spatial design training tends to teach. It is not a well moodboarded and cohsively executed design marvel. It is simple, modest and lovingly curated. What led me back to somatic design was seeing friends and family enganing with the space every time they visit.
There is nothing extraordinary about their visits. It is not visible in physical exclamations. It is softer, more subtle. It is visible instead in slow meandering conversation that looses track of time. It is visible in how people melt into the space. In the ways they feel comfortable enough to let their bodies relax and melt onto the floors surrounded by cushions. They way someone feels comfortable enough to clamber on to a kitchen counter while i put something together. It is visible in the way a friend walks straight up to the fridge and pulls out things he wants to eat. In the way my mother misses the quiet of my home and looks forward to having work in my vicinity so she can sleep over and enjoy slow mid mornings here. It is visible in the way that when friends come, we line up like children on the floor after a heavy summer afternoon lunch to chat and siesta.
It is visible in the distinct unseriousness of the bodies that walk into this space. And it got me thinking. Is this not the marker of a sucesful somatically designed space. Where furniture and design palettes step back to just be a stage for comfort and familiarity. Where the body is at ease, at home. A space that you intrinsically feel ownership on. Even as a visitor. I wish I could bottle this magic and recreate it in public spaces. Imagine a city that felt so comfortable on the soma. Imagine the life that would foster
