Ta i trä (Exploring the tactility of wood for a restaurant environment)

Abstract

“Ta I trä” is the Swedish translation of “Knock on wood”. A direct translation would be touch wood. The saying “ta I trä” or “knock on wood” is said in order to avoid bad luck. Touch is arguably a very important sense in architecture. Touch is a huge part of how we experience and navigate the world. Our ability to touch helps us understand and explore our environment, as well as connect with people. There is a gap in today’s architecture, where touch and tactility are undervalued and a bias toward vision predominates. Limiting architectural design to only its strongest visual moments gives a one-dimensional experience. Architecture is far from just a visual experience. It is an extension of nature in our built environment. In a similar way to a forest, architecture engages all our senses, creating a richer experience of space. As with the forest, food is an experience that involves all the senses. Sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing all influence each other in a complete sensory experience. The design proposal is a wood building and a multisensory restaurant, which is a concept that focuses on treating all the senses to create an immersive experience that enhances the flavor of the food. It is located at Kungstorget in Gothenburg which has a history connecting it to both wood and food. The thesis works with textural investigations and iterations exploring a variety of technics that can change the visual and touchable tactility of wood. The thesis explores both tactility and design with the goal of making a more tactile and touchable architecture. Some research suggests that wood, tactility, and touch potentially could affect emotions and mental health. The design proposal is made with the focus on making a more tactile and touchable architecture with the knowledge that it potentially could have deeper effects than just spatially. The first conclusion made for this thesis is that you can use closeness in design by either working with the material to human or human to the material, as a way of creating opportunities for touch. The second conclusion made is working with surfaces we naturally touch and surfaces we naturally don’t touch. Because we explore with touch, we can use more complex or unique textures on surfaces we naturally don’t touch which potentially could invite touch.