Posted in Blog, Educational, Fast Company, Media, Thom White, WPA
WPA co-founder and design principal Thom White has kicked off a new column for Fast Company on experiential design. See the first installment in its entirety below and watch Thom’s author page for more.
The next shift in architecture is designing how people feel
Immersive journeys help people experience something that can’t be replicated at home.
Innovative design isn’t just about the physical space. The most boundary-pushing, impactful projects prioritize craft, community, and advocacy. While this is an ethos I’ve held since architecture school days, I’ve recently come to realize just how essential it is when designing for the future.
In 2012, Charles Melcher, a thought leader in publishing and communication arts, launched the Future of StoryTelling (FoST), a community and studio committed to bringing immersive, story-driven experiences to audiences around the world. A decade after the inception of FoST, the organization launched its Explorers Club. I was the only architect in its inaugural year-long travel group.
From ABBA Voyage in London to TeamLab’s Borderless in Tokyo to Art Basel in Miami, I have traveled the world with this cohort of professionals, stepping into immersive spaces that challenged us, and our preconceived notions of design. Over the course of these visits and conversations, I witnessed the benefits of experiential design, of projects that put the audience at the center and enabled them to connect directly to story, but more importantly with one another. To me, that’s what successful architecture looks like.
VISITORS RESPOND TO SENSORY EXPERIENCES
We’re all familiar with the five senses: smell, touch, sight, hearing, and taste. However, new research suggests that we may have up to 33 senses, including proprioception (how we perceive our body in space) and thermoception (how we understand temperature). Accounting for these sensations is critical with experiential design. In addition to thinking about how a visitor will physically move through a space, I try to consider how they might be activated by the presence of a certain smell or a change in lighting, seeing their journey not as a passive activity, but as a sequence of experiences that make them feel present. They know they are here.
A good example of this is the expansion of the Chrysler Museum of Art’s Perry Glass Studio, which opened last year and was designed by my firm. Visitors have the chance to see an artisan retrieving glass from a furnace before shaping the molten material using tools that surprisingly include a stack of wet newspapers. The activity is a multi-sensory experience, stimulating smell, thermoception, and sight. We carefully designed the audience’s journey through the building, including a second-level path that wraps a full 360 degrees around the hot shop theater, giving a bird’s-eye view above the artists’ workspace while immersing visitors in the glow, heat, smells, and collective energy surrounding the performance of making.
ONE-OF-A-KIND EXPERIENCES ARE THE WAY OF THE FUTURE
Instead of spending money on passive entertainment or material goods, today more consumers are opting to put their paychecks toward experiences. They’re seeking one-of-a-kind activations and places that will stay with them long after they’ve left a physical space.
AREA15 is a perfect example of a destination designed to fill this need. While Las Vegas is famous for its casino-driven attractions, AREA15 has succeeded as something far less common: a thriving off-Strip destination built around immersive art and entertainment. Since opening in 2020, Winston Fisher and his team have continually expanded and reinvented the project into a 35-acre complex, proving that continual evolution can itself become the attraction.
On an episode of the Future of StoryTelling Podcast in 2023, Fisher spoke about this future-forward mindset. “We’re built for AI,” he told Charlie. “We’re built for the metaverse disruption. We’re built for individualization, spectator to participant.” Many of the attractions at AREA15 embrace this innovative approach. For example, at Wink World, a 20-minute “psychedelic funhouse” created by Chris Wink, a founder of the Blue Man Group, infinity mirrors transform 2-D and kinetic art into immersive installations.
The opportunity to have a more immersive, one-of-a-kind experience gives AREA15 a competitive edge in the marketplace. “We don’t have a lock on creativity,” Fisher said. “We don’t have a lock on storytelling, but we’re this platform that allows it to thrive.”
DESIGN FOR COMMUNITY AND AWE
In the past, engaging with art was often regarded as a passive activity. However, today, people want to experience something that can’t be replicated at home. That starts with creating community-centric spaces that foster connection, immediacy, and participation.
At the Glass Studio we assumed that glass requires direct light to sparkle and shine, so we’d want a lot of natural light. But by immersing ourselves in the glass art-making community, we quickly learned that glass artisans often need to be in an environment with very controlled—and often dim—light to create their best work. Essentially, to see the glow of the glass, to detect that moment when it has cooled to a point where it needs to go back in the reheat furnace or be broken free. This lesson also extended to the glass displays. They need very deliberate lighting to make it come alive.
In addition to artisans, the Glass Studio space also focuses on the public, who attend events and exhibitions, and engage in self-guided tours of active process spaces. With this audience in mind, we sought to create a sense of awe, or frisson—that feeling of chills when something magical is happening—when genuine connection occurs. We drew a straight line between the front door and the furnace glow in the hot shop, immersing visitors in the experience from the moment they walked into the building. The immediate connection to the elemental heart of the space focuses your mind and inspires a sense of wonder.
That feeling, and the process of community-driven design that achieves it, is my obsession. It adds a layer of meaning to a space—and to life—that is so desperately needed in our often chaotic and disconnected world. Leaders in many fields, including architecture, are learning more about how to design intentionally for experiences and feelings.