Our bodies are in constant dialogue with our surroundings. Our understanding of architectural and interior space is predicated on this although it is not always very obvious. We tend to think of it and record it as a visual experience.

As a consequence, we tend to analyse buildings and interiors through conventional visual representation, which does not take into account our other senses. We concentrate on what things ‘look’ like. We challenge that approach by asking students to analyse buildings and people using space through observing and experiencing dance and movement within architectural space.

By considering the interplay between our bodies and buildings, we can gather insights into the habitability of buildings and our environment, and how we occupy and understand space.

In this paper we will be exploring our sensory experience of space and ways of expressing it, and to use this as a basis for the design process. We will demonstrate how an understanding of how the narrative of our movements through a building is central to the design process, which discusses the dialogue between built form, it’s textural and material qualities, and our haptic response to it.

To do this we will be looking at the body and its dynamic relationship with buildings and discussing experimental ways of notation that incorporate the dialogue between body and building and thinking of this as a creative process that develops with the involvement of dancer/artist/ student.

The vehicle we will use for this is through analysing an on-going project at the University of Portsmouth where students work together with dancers and artists.