Picture: Yoshihiro Koitani + Aby Helfon y Ramón Helfon

Written by Camilla Ghisleni | Translated by Diogo Simões

The skin absorbs matter, and the world is contemplated, touched, heard, and measured through our bodily existence. Juhani Pallasmaa, a Finnish architect known for propagating sensory architecture, defends the notion that, unlike vision, touch is the sense of proximity, becoming a main axis by covering the entire body. It is a fact that, when speaking of touch, the first image that comes to mind is usually contact with hands. However, there are other ways to feel architecture that can be developed in projects, such as the touch of bare feet on a particular surface.

The vast majority of people agree that coming home and taking off shoes after a long day is a very pleasurable feeling. An activity that was even more widespread after the pandemic years in which we got used to leaving everything considered contaminated outside. This care was endorsed by a recent study from the University of Arizona, USA. This study pointed out that shoe soles can carry up to 400,000 viruses, bacteria, and parasites.

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