Vol. 1 No. 1 (2023): Transformational Experiences Beyond Borders: Partnership Development for Sustainable Futures
Research Session 2: Placemaking, Architecture & Design

Eliciting Desired Experiences: Design Affordances to Communicate Users’ Latent Aspirations of the Built Environment

Damian Rogers
Swinburne University of Technology
Linus Tan
Swinburne University of Technology
Anita Kocsis
Swinburne University of Technology

Published 2023-12-01

Keywords

  • desired experiences,
  • design affordances,
  • built environment,
  • design aspirations

Abstract

Affordances are cues to the actual and possible actions in the environment influenced by our experiences (Gibson, 1979, 2014). Harry Heft explains affordances as ‘perceptible properties of the environment that have functional significance for an individual’ (Heft, 2010, p.18). The significant elements of the environment framed by the context of a person’s experiences give insights into how the environment is perceived (Heft, 2010). Heft describes the concept of affordances as meanings that exist from a relationship perspective between the perceiver and the features of the environment (Heft, 2010) and ‘meaningful things can take hold of us’ (Heft, 2010, p.25).