The 5 Senses: How People Experience Place
You are walking down a street with your buddies on a Friday night in Downtown Austin, Texas. There is a buzz in the air. You look around and see lots of people walking, talking, playing an instrument, dancing, and wearing funky clothing . You see lots of cool clothing stores and restaurants serving all types of food. You hear a rock band playing down the street and decide to go there with your friends. On your way to the club, you smell all the delicious aromas wafting from all the food trucks. You stop at one and have the best barbecue of your life. You meet some other friends at the club and exchange high-fives and hugs. This is some night!
This is how most of us experience place.
While aspects such as density, floor-to-area-ratio, impervious cover, parking ratios, building heights, setback lines, build-to lines, etc are all important considerations for the development and evolution of our communities, they do not, by themselves, create great places for people. Oftentimes, these tools are used to make decisions to accommodate the car or some infrastructure deficiency but are not always useful in creating great places for people.
The way these tools are often used, written and discussed, you would think we would experience a place like this:
You are walking down a street with your buddies on a Friday night in Downtown Austin, Texas. You look around and see buildings ranging in height from 82 to 656 feet. You see lots of stores that have very high impervious cover ratios and minimal build-to lines, appropriate for such an urban environment. You hear a rock band playing down the street and wonder if the decibel level exceeds the standard. You stop at a barbecue food truck and immediately ask to see all of the required permits. You and your friends meet at a club and discuss the floor to area ratio of the building and the merits of the reduced parking ratios.
Of course, this is an exaggeration.
Instead of thinking of community as a mathematical formula or computer output, we should think about communities in terms of the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. We experience place through our five senses and great communities appeal to all of them. This piece will focus on why the five senses should be considered when creating a community that is welcoming to people. This is just a starter conversation and is by no means complete. I would love to hear your responses and grow the conversation.
By our nature, we want to see beauty. Beauty takes many forms and as the saying goes “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” There’s a wealth of literature showing the importance of mother nature, one of which is our desire to see and be a part of the outdoors. From trees to birds to water, we benefit from seeing and experiencing nature. This is one of the reasons why so many cities have green spaces. Investing in nature, whether it is a pocket park in downtown or buying thousands of acres for a greenbelt, is a wise investments for many reasons. As Albert Einstein once said “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
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| The Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, TX provides people and dogs with a great outdoor experience. All photos are by Paul DiGiuseppe unless otherwise noted. |
From the young, single person to the old, happily married couple, most of us want to see and be around other people. Isn’t that why most of us like to people-watch? Even more than this, we need to see people so we know we are not alone and have the ability to form relationships. We are social beings, we need to be with other people. And speaking of beauty, let’s highlight our best companions: dogs. Places that are dog-friendly are people-friendly. Great communities have places where people go such as taverns, coffee bars, restaurants, parks, squares, trails, tree-lined streets, and places to sit.
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| This street performer in Montreal attracts a crowd on this market street. Photo courtesy of the City of Austin Planning and Development Review Department. |
Another eye-catcher is architecture and design. While most of us cannot determine the height of a building at first glance, we all know whether we think it is beautiful. A community needs to focus on creating well-designed buildings, streets, blocks, and communities to create places where people want to live, work and play. Inviting streets with shade and buildings close to the street, plazas or squares, and outdoor seating are important design elements needed to attract people. Great places should have life on the street with people walking, running or sitting at a fountain or cafe. Not only should the design be inspiring, the uses should be people-oriented with a mixture of retail, residential and office.
Just like with sight, we want to hear beautiful sounds. While we love our peace and quiet, soothing sounds should be part of any community. This is another example of where nature comes in: the sound of birds chirping, trees swaying, or water running its course down a creek create soothing sounds. If your community doesn’t have nature within it, hopefully you live close to it. Hopefully some nature, such as a park, will come to your community if it’s not already there. Even the most urban places have great parks and trails: The Trail at Lady Bird Lake in Downtown Austin, Central Park in New York, the Boston Commons, Audubon Park in New Orleans.
While we all enjoy soothing sounds, city dwellers need to hear the beautiful sounds of the city. Those of us in Austin have the benefit of living in the “Live Music Capital of the World,” and are fortunate to have a wide selection of music venues and even more musicians. For most of us, it is wonderful to be able to have so many great choices. And what creates a stronger vibe than walking down a street hearing music? I empathize with those who live close to those venues that amplify into residences or neighbors that play it a little too loud. I merely point out that in general, music is a must to making us happy.
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| Split Squad plays at the Gingerman in Austin, TX during South by Southwest in 2013. |
Another sound that we social beings seek out is sound of other people. Whether we are having a one-on-one conversation, hearing kids play or hear a group of people chatting, we enjoy the sound of other people’s voices. Not only that, we need to have two-way interactions so that we have something to give and receive and feel part of a community.
Noise is part of the beautiful chaos that is urban communities. Noise from cars, trucks,sirens, motorcycles and buses can all be noisy irritants but are needed for most of us to get around and keep society moving. Maybe if they go slower, they will be quieter and a needed muffler repair could go a long way. Hopefully, technology will reduce noise. I don’t know about you, but the noise of the city makes me appreciate quiet even more.
Great communities have great food. Think about it, can you have a great experience in a community without food? Food helps us experience real places in a real way and helps us form a great memory (if the food is great). Doesn’t all the great ethnic foods taste better when found in the ethnic communities versus a mall? Need more convincing about the importance of food to a community? Look at the growth in urban farms and community gardens right in our own neighborhoods that provides us with fresh food. What tastes better than a freshly picked tomato or orange? Also, many cities have seen an explosion of mobile food trucks serving an amazing diversity of delicious food along our market streets and neighborhood centers. When you think of cities like Miami, New Orleans, New York, Houston, Austin or Providence, one of the first things you think about is the food.
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| People enjoying great food at DePasquale Square in Providence, RI. |
Along with food, the country is seeing a revival of craft beer brewers, vineyards and distillers of whiskey, gin, tequila and vodka. Many of our great communities boast wonderful, locally made spirits and drinks that are being enjoyed by locals and visitors. Being a beer geek, I know cities such as Portland, Maine and Oregon, Seattle, Austin, Boston and Denver are hotbeds of the local craft beer scene.
Food brings people together. As the Italians like to say “Good food, good wine, good friends, good times” and “It is around the table that friends understand best the warmth of being together.”
As social creatures, touch is a must. Shaking hands, kissing, patting on the back and hugging are all needed for us to feel happy, loved and appreciated. We feel more connected to our community through touch. Touch helps release oxytocin, the happiness chemical. Hugging and petting a dog is also a must for most of us, especially when the dog looks in your eyes and wags its tail (and dogs love being petted). People-friendly places are great places to meet friends and family and greet each other with touch. When we meet friends at a tavern, park, coffee bar or some other gathering place, we usually start with a hug or handshake. More and more studies are showing the emotional benefits of touch.
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| A daughter and mom enjoying a hug during the 2014 Viva Streets festival in Austin which promotes streets for people. |
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| Robin the Boxer gets a big hug from a friend. Robin gets lots of hugs from many friends. |
Touch isn’t only reserved for the warm-blooded. Trees and flowers are also meant to be touched; this is literally “getting in touch with nature.” Getting a chance to touch a plant or tree helps keep us to stayed rooted and make us feel relaxed and happy.
Like taste, smell triggers emotions and memories. Paired with food, smell is part of the experience of place. Smelling the great aromas of those ethnic foods and eclectic flavors will draw us to a place. If you have had the chance to go to a place with lots of mobile food trucks or brick and mortar restaurants, the aromas are diverse and change as you walk. Great places have great aromas that draw us to it and make us want to stay. Market streets with cafes are a great place to enjoy this sense.
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| Outdoor cafes are part of the wonderful experience that makes up Providence, RI's East Side. |
“Stop and smell the roses” is certainly true for great communities. These communities have lots of flowers which produce their own wonderful aromas. So stop and smell them. The aromas of plants can bring about such a calmness and promote thoughtfulness.
Cities can also have odors such as exhaust and garbage. Fortunately, technology and social changes have resulted in improvements to many things including odor. But like anything else, you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good.
What do you think? I’d really like to know.
This opinion is strictly my own and does not reflect the opinions of my employer, wife, parents, brother, dog, cat, friends, or anyone else I may come across.
