explored how we experience city spaces through our bodies and senses—what we see, hear, smell, touch, how we move, how we feel. This project focused on More London, a business development on the south bank of the Thames near London Bridge, and asked: what does it feel like to be in its public spaces, and how do they shape our experience?
Inspired by Suzie Attiwill’s idea of “spatial inversion”—where outdoor areas between buildings can feel like indoor spaces—I looked at how More London blurs the boundaries between inside and outside, public and private, open and enclosed. These qualities made it a rich setting to investigate how urban design can speak to our senses, and how space can feel more like a room than a street.
London Bridge is one of London’s oldest and busiest areas—a fast-moving, high-energy place where people weave past one another on crowded pavements. Finding a quiet moment or personal space can be a challenge. But just a short walk east along Tooley Street brings you to the More London development: a modern site designed with open public areas between sleek office buildings. Here, the space opens up. The buildings create a sense of shelter—like the walls of a room—even though you’re still outdoors.
However, something didn’t quite connect. While the environment looked inviting and well-planned, it felt emotionally distant. The sharp edges, shiny glass, and hard surfaces seemed to create a barrier between the place and the people moving through it. This sparked a deeper exploration into what was missing: how do materials, shapes, sounds, and layout affect our senses and our ability to feel truly in a space?
To investigate, I drew on the work of designers and architects like Joy Monice Malnar, Frank Vodvarka, and Peter Zumthor, who explore how this environment spoke to our senses. I also used creative ways to record and reflect on the atmosphere of the place—from sketches and sound recordings to short films and sensory maps. One key tool was the Sensory Flow diagram, which I developed for this study to help make sense of this invisible, felt experience, and later adapted and reused in different projects.
Related articles
Mace, Valérie (2014) Sensing the Urban Interior - [in]arch conference proceedings, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta.
Mace, Valérie (2016) Mapping the atmospheric experience - Rencontre Annuelle d'Ethnographie, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France.
Presentation
Mace, Valérie (2016) La programmation de l’atmosphère dans l’espace urbain - Rencontre Annuelle d'Ethnographie, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France.
References
Attiwill, S. (2011). Urban and Interior: techniques for an urban interiorist. In R. U. Hinkel, (Ed.), Urban Interior - informal explorations, interventions and occupations (pp. 12-24). School of Architecture and Desing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Baunach: Spurbuchverlag.
Malnar, J. M. & Vodvarka, F. (2004). Sensory Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Zumthor’ P. (2006). Atmospheres. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhauser.