Haptic Design Research: A Blind Sense of Place

This paper focuses on the role of haptics, i.e., the sense of touch, in the built environment and reports on the development of haptic design parameters to support architects in attending to the haptic implications of their design decisions. Haptic qualities and constraints in the built environment were identified with the help of people who are congenitally blind and with professionals working with them. Following the classification of haptics into active, dynamic, and passive touch, the built environment unfolds into surfaces that can act as “movement,” “guiding” and/or “rest” plane. Techniques are suggested to check the haptic qualities of a design.

keywords: blind, design process, haptics, parameters, senses, universal design