Teaching to understand the urban sensorium in the digital age: lessons from the studio

This paper proposes a cinematic technique-based method for teaching urban design studios to improve students' appreciation of the connection between the human cognitive-sensorial system (the human sensorium) and the environmental qualities of public spaces (the urban sensorium). Students learn how to do street analysis by way of flâneurie and using audio–video devices; how to use cinematic storyboarding as part of the design process; and how to present the final project as a movie (in addition to a physical model and drawings). A pedagogical goal of the studio is to sharpen the designer's mental and cognitive skills necessary to establish sensorial relationships between people and the built environment, and to present such relationships in the optimum media.