The Lupton sense document examines the individual senses and then provides examples of how the senses are used individually, with art and design installations. In comparison, I am giving an overview of the senses and then providing guidance, a sort of How-To, to create spaces with the designs. So, the Lupton book is a work that is looking to the past, and my work is looking to the present and future. As such, it is important to create a detailed list in order of steps to take to complete the use of design and the senses.
The Lupton document is very rich with works, writing by design experts, and a bibliography. I definitely need to build up the bibliography. This will add weight to my argument and value to the book. As always, I can use the Lupton work as the starting point for my bibliography. There are many works that we already share, but more is better. Really, the Lupton book will serve as a good part of the bibliography because it can provide the examples, instead of me. So, I can focus on the other aspects, which make my work different.
The book is about making spaces rich with the senses, but how else can I differentiate from the other? It would be nice to have an expert in physiology or medicine to provide knowledge beyond what I have prepared with Constanza Loustalet. Really, it might be good to have text that explains the mechanics of each of the methods of sensing. How long is appropriate? Would it be 750 words? 500? 250? Of course, I am not an expert, and this part of the work would just be about a general exposition of the sense. If I had an expert to work with? Then, this section could very easily be more than 750 words–this is something to consider when thinking of the scope.
The challenge is not just to provide a list of things to do, but really translate the importance and the needs to complete a sensory experience. Helpful tips on how to create, resources, when is too much, when is too little will make this a more useful document. How do we bring the document to life so people are willing and interested in using it? Illustrations, sure. We also need narratives: examples of using the senses with variations of numbers of senses and which sense or senses to leave out. There should be images and diagrams to accompany these. Really, there should be four to six examples with permutations. This may make the texts for the examples long, but it is important to make the idea of using the senses real and within reach.
One way to keep this within reach is to provide a method of documentation and annotation. This can be incorporated in drawings with tags of a certain form–in this case, I suggest a pentagon. These tags would work as most others with leaders to elements within the design that provide a sensory experience. These tags would have an annotation or label that would define the item, and these labels would key with a sensory schedule, which would be very much like any other schedule, such as partitions, doors, windows. So, you would have a sense, say Smell, and it would have both a signifying abbreviation, let’s say Sm, and a numeral to specify which smell was tagged in the schedule. This would produce a label such as Sm4.
This schedule would have a number of columns including: Label or Number, Name, Description, Technology Necessary (or similar), and Drawing Number, which would include the drawing and sheet number. In this list, Technology Necessary would be another way to contrast my work with the Lupton book. In that book, there is no, or at most, very little explanation on how the object is made. Instead, it is about the description and the experience. It will be important to provide a method on how to make the experience to go along with its description. This may make the examples even longer, taking up chapters of the book, which could turn off some. However, these could be appendices at the rear of the work. However, I should review this after completing one or two to see if this is really the heart of the object. The examples are useful, but they are supposed to be stepping stones for the reader to use the senses.
Other items to include are the examples given on the website. These will help fill out the possibilities. Also, similar to the Lupton book, it will be useful to express how to use the senses to tell a story.