Sensing the Place:

How does the historic environment

make us feel?

www.thersa.org/heritage

Jonathan Schifferes

Associate Director

Public Services and Communities

a

• Alex Proimos, via WikiCommons, licensed through CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/

• Uploaded by vchoen, accessed via WikiCommons and licensed through CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Magic qualities?

• Experiments show golfers play better if they are using clubs they think were used by golf legends.

– https://hbr.org/2012/07/youll-golf-better-if-you-think-tiger-has-used-your-clubs

• Evidence shows that the most productive and innovative industries favour old buildings.

– https://www.hlf.org.uk/new-ideas-need-old-buildings

Sensory navigation

The imagination required to engage with the old yet familiar, in the present day, stimulates creativity in our brains (…a valuable commodity!)

Sensory navigation

…and yet navigating historic environments can feel intuitive…

– ‘read’ the visual landscape (church spires in town centre)

– engage latent sensing capabilities (Bridge Street more likely down a hill than up one)

– activate dormant sustainability instincts? (warmest room in house; coolest side of street; flood risks etc.)

• Stephencdickson, via WikiCommons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Giving spatial expression to

heritage in the built environment

• We need to better harness technologies and approaches that help us understand, interpret and contribute to the heritage of our localities.

• Mapping heritage data is one stimulus; we also need to create the tools for citizens to take active roles.

The Heritage Index

RSA data shows that it is heritage activities – as opposed to heritage assets – which are correlated with well-being in the UK (at local authority level).

The benefit of heritage comes from living it, rather than living amongst it.

The best heritage projects create a ‘sense and feel’, building on the ‘magic’ of the tangible.

• John Goldsmith, via Geograph, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Empowering people to create their

own heritage stories…

of their homes, their families, their profession – helps us appreciate how the built environment has enabled and constrained the opportunities of previous generations.

DIY blue

plaques,

Cambridge

We need to feel ownership

…not just over the decisions to restore, recycle or raze buildings, but in the very presentation of place history – the telling of the history of our place to others – if we are to feel a link between our personal identity and the identity of our cities and neighbourhoods.

Emscher

Landscape

Park

wayfinding

‘The city was built like this for

these reasons’

We need to build visual literacy and design literacy among the public, in ways which recognise that long-term sustainability is systematic adaptation: the ability to respond to an ever-changing context throughout time.

Heritage, identity and place

A sustainable future city is built on citizens curating, creating and conserving links from local heritage to local identity…

…and nationally?

• Ministère Français de la Culture et de la Communication — http://www.familiscope.fr/datas/Logo%20Monuments%20Nationaux-quadrichromie-positif_Taille5cm1(1).jpg, marque déposée, https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6459778