The workshop is about communicating with “Smells”. The smells are intangible. Though these

are present in their source, which is a material in itself that one can touch, rub, scratch, and

break free the molecules of smell. From this perspective exploring various ways to feel and

touch the textiles as we do the source of the smell could lead to the understanding of how

these smells could be activated differentially when incorporated into the textiles or on the

other hand designing the textiles with smells by the way of activation through physical

interaction.

Purpose and relevance

We encounter smells and odours in our busy 24/7 life without even realizing the effects of the

same on our perception of things, people, surrounding environment and thereby our

behavioral and decision making changes. Nonetheless these smells in a social context play a

very important role in our lives. If we would take time and consciously smell our surroundings,

perhaps there would be many odours that would be repelling and make us move away as an

immediate reflex. While few other odours would be appealing and we would be ready to

spend some more time in the vicinity to enjoy these odours. Perhaps we can design our

spaces with the appealing odors varying with our choices and perceptions.

With the challenge that most of us are grown up learning and practicing our professions using

visual and auditory senses more than touch, taste and smell. How will we communicate using

smell as a medium? The aim of this workshop is to apply textile thinking while exploring

haptic of smell. Smells do enhance our being in an environment; knowingly or unknowingly.

How can we use this material in our own space? How can we touch this intangible material?

What are the different ways of incorporating this material? When using textiles and smells, to

what scales we can work with it?

This research paper discusses dimension of smell for designing spatial interactions through textiles. The focus in these design examples is combining the sense of touch to actuate the smells. Sense of touch is explored in terms of different tactile sensations that include pressing, rubbing and movement of the body. Through these tactile interactions smells embedded in the textile objects are released. The temporal textile expressions of smells open up for further investigations for designing spaces, as these design examples bring forward the olfactory expressions and proposes frameworks for future research in potential human-computer interactions through our everyday objects and surroundings. The proposal of textile interactions that engage sense of smell and create slow interactions with objects and situations from our daily lives opens up the opportunity to encourage more social interactions within the physical world. These interactions will include computational things, however, in a discreet manner, helping build deep bonds between human to human and human to environment.

The ocular-centric approach predominant in the field of design, particularly textile and spatial design, focuses on visual aesthetics and visually mediated interactions. Whereas the non-visual materialities of a space, such as smells, are ignored in the design process, meaning that interior spaces with homogenously odourless environments lack interactions with the olfactory. However, multi-sensorial experiences are crucial to creating a holistic perception of an environment. The aim of this thesis is to investigate smell as a design material for spatial design. This research has been carried out using experimental design research methods, with the theoretical framework connecting smell as a design material to textiles and spatial and interaction design. Addition, modulation and subtraction of smells through textile surfaces and micro-climatic spatial zones have been investigated. Interactions with smells were explored through different modes of activation and dispersion of smells on two different scales; spatially near to body and far from body. The research findings show that atmospheric parameters play an important role in the detectability of smells, in that air flow carries smells and distributes them in a space. Humidity holds smell molecules in the air, and at higher temperatures smell molecules are extremely volatile and dynamic in their movements. Textiles have demonstrated to be good absorber of smells, and are breathable materials with regard to designing with plants and synthetic micro-encapsulated smells to create an olfactive dimension in spaces.These results have an implication for the design of spatial olfactive diversity and olfactory interactions, in that it is possible to disperse smells that are designed to transition from discrete to ambient, or vice versa. Interior textiles can be designed with the expressions of smells that add an olfactive dimension in addition to colours, patterns, and textures. The research presented in this thesis opens up for further interdisciplinary research with regard to developing the novel material systems proposed in this thesis – smell absorbers, dividers, and reflectors – which are responsive to existing smells and atmospheric parameters. Olfactory interactions have important applications from two perspectives: firstly, in relation to subjective and individual connections to people, places, and events; secondly, with regard to providing information about the near environment that is comprehended through the olfactory, in addition to being perceived by the other senses. Therefore, spatial olfactory interactions are essential to (re)connect human to the environment in which they live and work. These interactions in the real physical world are slow and analogue in nature, in comparison to fast digital lifestyles; smells can improve feelings of social connectedness, improving wellbeing.

This paper explores design strategies to use smells as a medium of interaction between the body and the space. In a living environment, encounters and experience of smells creates and manifests connections to the space. Along with the other sensory stimuli, smells communicates information about the space. Olfactory interactions can be expressed through its experiential relationship with the body. Design examples as discussed in this paper, express the aesthetics ofinteractionwith smells that are dynamic and temporal.Human perception connects through the patterns and weave the fluid movements across the soft boundaries of smells. Over a range from discrete to ambient presence of smells, this paper discusses tangible and intangible interaction with smells in the design examples. Through active or passive actuation of smells, designing for smell diversity in a living environment would create interactions at many different levels and will add to experiencing spaces in a multisensorial way.

Designing with non-visual attributes challenges ways of representation. This research explores methods for designing with invisible materiality within the research practice, as well as ways of representation through textiles when designing spaces. Exploring textiles and smells within a space, the research program investigates spatial interactions.

This research focuses on designing embodied experiences using tangible materials as expressions of smells. Through the spatial installations and performances Sight of smell, Touch of smell, and Smell, space, and body movement, haptics were explored as one of the methods of interaction with smells through textiles.

Through the sense of touch, this research also investigates ways of revealing, activating, and disseminating smells within a space. Smells were purposely added through the methods of dyeing, coating, and printing to the textile materials that did not inherently embody any smells, As a result, tactile surfaces create non-visual expressions of smell. Further ideas of research in this area would explore another perspective of designing with smells in spaces. As an example, by designing textiles being smell absorbers, dividers, and re ectors, could compliment the spatial concepts and deals with the already existing smells in a living environment.

In this licentiate thesis thinking through the olfactive dimension to design textiles is not only novel for the textile design eld; but also, its proposal for application in the spatial design is quite unique, and o ers a new dimension for spatial design. 

A built space directs the movements in the space, as such a building is experienced in relation to body and movement. This text questions the role of smells in defining the space and movement through it in terms of spatial continuity. In a dialectic approach between the textiles and the smells, the materiality of textiles is transformative not only in its tangible and physical presence, but also in the language of textiles. Textiles as design materials in spatial design communicate through different sensory stimuli to create an aesthetic atmosphere. Such as creating soft boundaries for a space that define movement and transitions within it . When applying these textile concepts to smells, however, new meanings and forms emerge due to the experiential quality of smells that are invisible to the eyes but perceptible to the olfactory. The dynamic expressions of smells can be articulated through design variables such as patterns, layers, textures, rhythm, volume, fluidity, temporality, and boundaries. Smells could be understood as a design material and can been applied in many scales.Investigating textiles and architectural spaces as containers of smells, the design explorations examine the material as a matter and performance in relation to the body and space. While exploring olfactive interactions one focuses on tactile senses as beyond visualperception and representation. Through the sense of touch, triggered by bespoke textile objects, smells had been revealed, activated, and disseminated in a space. Performanceand movement as design methodsareused to investigate spatial continuity in relation to the smells. Through the improvisations of movement, created expressions of smells in a space bring in the conscious dynamic state of smells into being. Designing with non-visual attributes challenges traditional ways of perception andrepresentation in architecture and textile design. This research opens up the field of design within architecture, textiles and interaction design to explore further the dimension of smells firstly at a material level, nature and processes of the materials and expressions in relation to the inherent or added smells. Secondly, developing new and adapting existing methods for designing with the invisible materiality of smells. Thirdly, further investigations on the interactions with smell and body in space at different scales and including this sense in designing the digital platforms for human interactions is a proposal for new ways of living.

This publication describes a workshop-performance that was held during the conference.The workshop involved an improvised performance, with three scenes thatwere acted out by the participants. The props provided were smell-embedded objectssuch as a container filled with rotten garlic, a jar filled with freshly picked moss froma forest, and a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Touch and body movement activatedthe smells in the space, and this was intended to take place using not just thehands but the movements of the whole body. For example, walking on an object mayrequire that the whole body balances, and can involve interacting with a material bydancing and jumping with it or carrying another object. The experiments conductedduring the workshop focused on embodied spatial interactions with smells.

Given the cultural conditioning of the senses, the smellscapes of everyday life (in homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces and cities) play an important part ineveryday experiences, emotions and encounters. Increased global mobility and climate change mean that unfamiliar smells are met more frequently, integrating with and altering the taken for granted smellscapes of our lives.

How do people of different cultures negotiate unfamiliar smells in a variety of settings? What emotions do scents 'in and out of place' evoke? What memories, knowledge and moral judgements are used to understand smells? What vocabulary is used to describe these experiences?

Everyday materialities are visible and invisible. Our visible research artefact (the charm bracelet) produces invisible research artefacts (the smells). Controlled remotely by an app, the smells enter different spaces and social contexts, at different times, for different durations. The object's mobility is integral to the question which it poses.

The exploration of material is in a performance, that is investigating how human interactions develop when spaces are designed using smell as a design material. In the digital world, the touch and the sensation to the physical materials are lacking in everyday life. However, at the same time, the need to be connected to ourselves through our body is ever growing. This however is quite unlike to our affinity of moving fast in all aspects of life. As Juhani Pallasmaa (2012) points out that a haptic architecture brings about slowness and intimacy which is understood and appreciated only gradually with time. Also, written by Ezio Manzini (1989) touch being the most analytic of all the human senses, can help us explore the shapes and surfaces of a material better than the eyes.

In an attempt to re-initiate the experience through the sense of smell and touch, this paper aims to question how can smells be used as a design material in our living environments. Speculating buildings and interior spaces, using invisible immaterial, this research is focusing on ways of designing interactions with smells and how these interactions open or close architectural spaces without having physical boundaries. In this paper, the design experiments are investigating how we will respond and interact with smell in architectural spaces.

About the exhibition

How can we design for the future? In this avant-garde exhibition architects, interaction, fashion and textile designers show their works in progress when they speculate about, collaborate on, and define how to strengthen the foundations of design for more sustainable forms of living. 

The exhibition Speculate, collaborate, define – textile thinking for future ways of living, is a work in progress by the PhD students in the ArcInTexETN project. ArcInTexETN is an EU-funded training network of early stage researchers exploring new expressions of living through textile thinking.  They collaborate in three scales – building, interior, and body – looking into methods for turning current scientific knowledge into the design of new forms of living.

With videos as their main medium, the students present different takes on the subject. In “Ahti”, a speculative short film about the first human being born in space, the story is set in the future. It’s 2076 and there is no water left on our planet Earth. Ahti wears the same suit every day, like a second skin. The skin has different properties that protect him and allow him to walk on any surface, levitate, communicate and store energy.

Have you heard about the Wolpertinger? It’s a hybrid animal whose appearance evokes the idea that, however different the parts are, they constitute a whole, functioning organism. With the animal as an analogue, a collection of videos are projections of different pieces of work, showing a patchwork of cooperation, exposing the working process of collaborative design.

The film “What is interior?” presents an interior landscape, a shifting view of this paradoxical space, narrated by a linguistic review that argues to define the term interior. The film gives an examination of the definitions that frame the term, as well as creating the fleeting textures that shapes it.

In addition to the video projections there are also three individual installations. So, bring your nose and your curiosity! This is not only an audio-visual exhibition.

As a collaborative proposal for a presentation at the Symposium, we suggest a performance/workshop format. The invited participant enacts a specific spatial atmosphere of a design studio, where smells are quintessential to a working space and also to the design process. This workshop/performance becomes a method to investigate, how the spaces can be arranged using the olfactive boundaries. If the tactile surfaces create non-visual expressions going beyond a graphical and visual representation. And how change in smells make a distinctive effect in design decisions and design processes for a designer.

Additionally, the workshop/performance is an experimental research presentation format that enables an activated state (smells) and gives a playground for learning. It is a way to display, explore and finally, to discuss the ‘designer experience’ conveyed by embodied interactions with the materials.

We use the design studio as  a framework which is susceptible to be adaptive, hence open for negotiation with existing conditions. We also estimate the importance for it to articulate the tactile, visual and verbal aspects of the designing environment. Therefore, studio as a stage, a material setting to improvise and enact with, is more specifically what interests us.

The aim of this workshop is creating games for interacting with smells by exploring different textile materials, shapes and forms of different sizes. Some smells will be pleasant and others will not. This workshop is intended to bring back the attention to human instinctive senses of touch and smell through the physical materials.

The idea of creating games is to provide a multi-sensorial experience and playful interaction with the textile objects and materials. This is challenging to distract the attention onto something analogue in the midst of the fast and the digital way of interactions within our environment. However, the sense of smell does not need a conscious attention, the smells around us send messages even without being focussed on the source of smells. These messages are interpreted subjectively based on individual experiences, and learnt associations for example, disgust or appeal. The reaction or reflex to smells happens while the other senses are stimulated at the same time. However, to be able to make the experience with smells more tangible, the interactions in the games are designed through the sense of touch. This gives a sense of almost a synesthetic experience.