The project's intention is to create a therapeutic sensorial space that not only provides university students a safe environment to deal with their stress and anxiety, but also brings a unique, psychedelic experience that activates multiple sensory abilities.
This project is held by RMIT Bachelor of Design Studies.
The path of senses:
A therapeutic sensorial space not only provides University students a safe space to deal with their stress and anxiety, but also brings a unique psychedelic experience that activates multiple sensory abilities.
Nowadays, almost everything is happening more and more rapidly than ever before, including technology, education, culture, and society. This fast-paced norm of life can lead to higher demands and potential higher occurrences of negative well-being influences on university undergraduates. In this design project, two questions have been integral to the research: 1. How do Vietnamese university students know they are under stress and 2. Why do many students develop unhealthy stress-coping mechanisms?
From these questions, a core aim of this spatial design project is to explore what we can learn from these university student’s behaviors that could inform a spatial design project that helps to alleviate some of the stress associated with learning in universities in a fast-paced society. Supporting this project, numerous studies have shown not only academic pressure, but also financial problems, personal well-being, issues in interpersonal connections, and unfavorable living conditions are also a major source of stress for them (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2017). Sometimes, stress caused by these situations has a positive effect in helping them to be more motivated to study and work, but if prolonged and unsolvable, this can leave uncountable negative consequences on college students (Tran, Nguyen & Tran, 2014). When faced with stressors, understanding how University students react can be exceptionally important since it determines how negatively the source of stress affects physical well-being, mental health, and academic performance.
Responding to this issue, the “The path of senses” spatial design project focuses on the reasons Vietnamese University undergraduates chose to cope with stress by utilizing unhealthy stress-coping methods, such as liquor and substance. Additionally, it also looks for the positive sides of alcohol and substance use on the human body and mind in the process of dealing with anxiety. Located on the rooftop space of Building 2, RMIT University Saigon Campus, this student space has the design intention to include a healthy coping strategy: safe space for students to deal with stress, whereas acts like a cheat-code sensorial experience that replicates the highness of substance use. This way, the space holds an ability to free students from their typical thought pattern, which helps break the cycle of chronic anxiety and depression.
