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Somaesthetic Design

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We work with a Somaesthetic Design research program. We draw upon the theories of Richard Shusterman on somaesthetics, joining the two words soma and aesthetics, where:

  • soma is our  "living, purposive, sentient, perceptive body or bodily subjectivity”
  • aesthetics is the process of training your sensory appreciation abilities, allowing for “an awakening from the mindless, joyless behaviours" of everyday life

Somaesthetic Design entails a qualitative shift from a predominantly symbolic, language-oriented stance, to an experiential, felt, aesthetic stance permeating the whole design and use cycle. 

Our research program is both an analytical project, but also, by necessity, a pragmatic study of methodologies to improve our functioning as designers and in our design work; as well as a practical study where we test those pragmatic methods on ourselves and our design work to render concrete experience.