Relating material experience to technical parameters: A case study on visual and tactile warmth perception of indoor wall materials

Experiential aspects of materials are addressed rather intuitively by architects during the material selection process for buildings. This paper explores the possibilities of relating material experience in architecture to technical material parameters and uses the perceived warmth of indoor wall materials as a case study. Various building materials were assessed technically and their perceived warmth was evaluated by participants. As people experience a building and its materials through multiple senses, the separate effects of vision and touch were considered. Results show that the senses used for evaluation have a major impact on the perception of warmth, and that a distinction should be made between the visual warmth and tactile warmth of a material. The overall perception of warmth was shown to correspond to its visual perception. Furthermore, the perception of material warmth was correlated with several technical material parameters, such as the thermal effusivity, the surface gloss and the hue and saturation of the material color. The color study suggested that the material color has a larger effect on the perceived warmth than other material parameters. An indication of the relationships between the perceived material warmth and measurable technical material parameters offers architects insights on how to change the experience of warmth by changing specific technical parameters and thus allows to select materials in a better informed way.