The Interior Experience of Architecture: An Emotional Connection between Space and the Body

Abstract

This paper provides a phenomenological understanding of interior space to explore the emotional connection between space and experience. It focuses on the significant aspects of interior space, considering how people experience interior space and which aspects improve the quality of spatial and emotional experience. I have argued that the interior experience offers effective ways of stimulating emotional experience to create spatial perception as a way of understanding architecture. Interior experience can be developed through: (a) stimulating a lived body; (b) emphasizing materiality; and (c) generating emotional connection. This allows people to develop an awareness of the sensual aspects of the interior space and improve the quality of their emotional experiences. I have drawn upon representative case studies about spatial experience to explore how they use materiality to stimulate sensory effects and how the multi-sensory space connects with emotional experience, which is one of the fundamental aspects of this paper. I found that an integrated body and materiality are fundamental elements that are needed to enrich the spatial experience, even in an abstract dimension of the work without architectural form. Thus, this paper contributes to the understanding and knowledge of the relationship between interior space and experience with respect to improving the quality of the emotional experience in order to develop spatial experience and considering how experience intervenes in interior space to create a multi-sensory space.