This project conducted a beanbag experiment involving taking the elevator to produce the mood of comfort. It aimed to use this material subject to proof that the designed sensory experiments can influence people’s sensory and emotional capacities. The vision of beanbag in the elevator has motivated people to sit and make themselves comfortable. It has proven that comfort as a structure of feeling can associate with taking the elevator.
According to Crowley (2001, p.142), comfort is a modern incarnation of self-conscious satisfaction with the relationship between one’s body and its immediate physical environment. Beanbag is a sealed bag containing dried beans and PVC pellets which moves with the sitter to provide a more seating arrangement (Vink, 2005). This type of material object offered the participants more flexibility in sitting positions, allowing them to adjust their bodies comfortably and relax. Comfort is not a structure of feeling that we would commonly associated with taking the elevator. However, putting a beanbag in the elevator not only providing a comfortable environment but also giving the participants relaxing times by sitting on the beanbag when they take the elevator.
The bean bag experiment as Crowley (2001) described, was an attribute and comfort applied to a middle ground between necessity and luxury. When take the elevator as a routine activity, we often feel normal to stand and do not expect to sit. Based on the experiment, the participants found that comfort was more related to relaxed, at ease, restful, calm and safe when they experienced the beanbag. The bean bag experiment provided a common humanity on the basis of physical comfort. The feeling of comfort was mainly determined by the comfort of the backrest and by the softness of the seat. When the elevator was moving, sitting on the beanbag provided the participants unusual experiences and unexpected mood of safety. In other words, comfort would be felt when more was experienced than expected.
As Williams (1961) points out, comfort is a structure of feeling. This designed sensory experiment by putting a beanbag in the elevator has proven that a structural feeling of comfort can operate in the most delicate and least tangible part of seating. Comfort as feelings of relaxation and well-being do not often exist in the elevator culture. My sensory experiment justified the aesthetic design of elevator in addition to its physical features may affect the feelings of comfort. At the cultural level, changing the qualities of material objects such as the designed sensory experiment of beanbag transcended the boundaries of our expectations and emotions in our normal routine activity. Surrounded by the comfortable beanbags, the community who often take the elevator will feel a sense of temporality, randomness, almost like at home.
References:
Shove, E. (2004) Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organisation of Normality. London: Berg
Crowley, N. (2001) The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Williams, R. (1961) The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Vink, P. (2005) Comfort and Design. U.S.: CRC Press
