Sensory environments: An analysis of Portuguese Architectural Curricula

Abstract

Architecture is corporeity, so architectural space must be conceived from the body and for the body since space is captured through bodily and sensory activities. Therefore, architecture must attend to all the senses involved in its perception. Thus, each architectural project, in addition to solving rational problems and meeting functional, technical, and other requirements, must be able to evoke and reflect the different sensory worlds of each culture. Studying the case of Portuguese curricula in architecture, it is possible to offer insights into how the approach to knowledge of the sensory worlds is handled in academia by undertaking a documentary analysis. In a very real way, not enough attention is given within teaching practice to our corporeal and holistic essence. Studies of architecture need to also include an ethnographic dimension, to consider the situations which emerge when the teaching of architecture becomes detached from all of our senses other than simply the visual.