The Bridge of Senses

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267999

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NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS RISING STARS : concepts or ideas submitted by young talents (aged 30 or less)

Project title

The Bridge of Senses

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Description

Despite the fact that we have five senses, for many people sight is the predominant one, what makes our cities absolutely flavorless. The project of Bridge of Senses illustrates the potential of senses by example of city of Warsaw. It’s spatial arrangement encourages human being to see, listen and feel during the walk from one side of the river to another. The main objective of this project is to animate people to detect stimulants by other senses than it is generally admitted.

Where is your concept/idea being developed or intended to be implemented in the EU?

Please provide a summary of your concept/ idea

The Vistula river divides the city of Warsaw into 2 parts. One of the factors intensifying this separation is Poniatowski Bridge which connects both parts of the river. Despite its attractive localization and catchy sights, the bridge is used only by cars that generate a lot of noise. To make things worse, the space under the bridge is dark, dirty and not adapted to the needs of people with disabilities. This all makes that walking from one shore of the Vistula river to another is a terrible experience. That's why this bridge is not used by pedestrians. In our project, we transform the bridge into green promenade which becomes a place of integration. What's more, instead of closing the car traffic, it could be moved below the river bottom, parallel to the existing subway tunnel, without doing any harm to the animals living in the water. The Bridge of Senses is divided into 5 parts - each one dedicated for one of the human senses. Walking across the bridge becomes a multisensory experience, engaging our sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Starting from an outdoor marketplace under the bridge (taste) and a space dedicated for urban farming (smell), the passer-by walks near tactile installations (touch), music toys and stage in front of the river (hearing) to finish with a beautiful view of wide Vistula river (sight). All these elements are accompanied by art and light installations, making the bridge an attractive space also after dark. The Poniatowski Bridge is currently used to get from one shore to another only. The Bridge of Senses can become a place, where it's worth to stop and spend some time as well.

Please give information about the key objectives of your concept/idea in terms of sustainability and how these would be met

The area on both sides of the Vistula River in Warsaw belongs to Natura 2000 - the European network of important ecological sites. However, the noise and pollution produced by cars have a very unfavorable effect on the threatened species living there. The advantage of transforming a road bridge into green area is not only reduction of carbon emission, but also creation of a green corridor between both parts of the river. It can connect wildlife population separated by human activities over the years. What's more, the Bridge of Senses invites people to contribute to sustainability by themselves. A part of the bridge is dedicated for urban farming, where inhabitants can create a common city garden to support biodiversity, improve air quality and mitigate urban heat island impact. Thanks to the greenery planted on the bridge, it becomes a new green axe of the city.

Please give information about the key objectives of your concept/idea in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience beyond functionality and how these would be met

The project of Bridge of Senses is an answer to the researches by neuroscientist, proving that every significant experience of architecture is multi-sensory. As the human body moves, sees, touches, hears and even tastes within a space - the architecture comes to life. When a passer-by walks from one shore of the Vistula river to another, all of his 5 senses are stimulated. Sometimes the senses are mixed, delivering a multisensory experience that is much richer than the combination of its individual parts. For example, the outdoor marketplace is generally associated with taste, but it's also an encouraging exhibition of scents. Then, when we get closer to the shore, we pass near music toys. For sure, they are associated with hearing, but to make a sound we need to use our touch. The same thing concerns tactile installations. We use our sense of touch to modify their appearance, which is received by human's sight. All these elements are designed in such a way that one sense never dominates the experience of other ones. The qualities of matter, space and scale of the Bridge of Senses are measured by the eye, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle. By designing experiences that stimulate more of the senses, we create more engaging and memorable architecture and increase the quality of life.

Please give information about the key objectives of your concept/idea in terms of inclusion and how these would be been met

Our cities are full of different kinds of diversities. We can distinguish at least several types of them: social diversity (young and elderlies, healthy and disabled, etc.), cultural diversity (different ethnic groups, different religions), economical diversity or political diversity. Each of these groups have different expectations of how to use the urban space, which brings a lot of conflicts and unfavorable impact to the city. People are losing their ability to communicate, the emotions are moving to the virtual world and the real senses disappear. However, no matter what age we are or what kind of disabilities we have, our brains are multisensory. The Bridge of Senses blurs the boundaries between people by encouraging them to see, to listen and to feel. By our project, we want to animate people to receive stimulants by using other senses than it's generally admitted. That gives an opportunity for a blind person to see using the sense of touch or to a deaf person to see the sound. That all is accompanied by art, lightings and facilities for disabled. In fact, it’s mainly people who attract people. The more interactions between people happens, the bigger sense of citizenship becomes. Thanks to mixing all the senses, the Bridge of Senses can become a new public space in the city, integrating people from various social groups.

Please explain the innovative character of your concept/ idea

Throughout history, architects created their buildings almost exclusively for one sense - the visual. However, one of the most exciting developments in cognitive neuroscience concerns the growing realization that our perception is far more multisensory than had been previously acknowledged. That means that we lose really a lot when our buildings are designed primarily for their eye appeal. Synaesthetic design is a brand new theory in architecture, which means mixing all our 5 senses in such a way that a solution meant to stimulate one of our senses only, can stimulate several of them. There are many different visions of the future of architecture, but in my opinion, synaesthetic design is going to play an important role in architecture in the years ahead. However, it's not enough to mix our five senses only - we have to do it in so called 'congruent' manner. For example, combining an alerting music with relaxing scent in a shop will most likely result in sales decline. We did a lot of researches to achieve congruency when designing experiences that engage more of the senses on the bridge. That allowed to find many surprising connections between the senses that we all share. I believe that the key to innovative character of architecture is not to create new technologies or new materials. It is much more important to cooperate with representatives of other disciplines who can share with us their knowledge about human's brain and human's health. Only that can result in designing urban space which is better adapted for human needs.

Please detail the plans you have for the further development, promotion and/or implementation of your concept/idea, with a particular attention to the initiatives to be taken before May 2022

The idea of Bridge of Senses is presented by example of Poniatowski Bridge in Warsaw, but it can be implemented in every city and in every scale. This project depicts a design rule on how to transform our cities to improve the quality of life, by using human senses, art an light. Architects and city authorities can adapt it to the needs of their local communities in their own ways. In my opinion, the best way to promote an idea is to talk about it and explain to as many people as possible. After hearing a presentation, people can understand a project much better than after viewing visualizations only. Just after graduating in 2016, I became a member of the Association of Polish Architects (SARP) in Katowice. We started to cooperate with University of Silesia in organizing an interdisciplinary conference entitled Senses in Architecture and Urban Landscaping (SAUL) in Katowice. The key objective of this conference is to talk about architecture with people representing other professions, like psychologists, ecologists, biologists, etc. During the next edition, which is planned to November 2021, I am going to make a detailed presentation about the Bridge of Senses and the idea of synaesthetic design. Besides SAUL, I am going to participate in conferences outside Poland as well. Thanks to SARP's cooperation with international organizations, like Coventry University Architecture Society (Great Britain) or the Cabinet of Architecture (Czech Republic) I hope that my idea can reach as many people as possible.

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that the proposed concept/idea has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Rising Stars Awards more than once in the same category.