This study aims to define design poetics as a category of design practice set apart from commercial, industrial or market-led design that generates a collection of experimental artefacts which investigate the everyday life of contemporary culture. It is argued that in creating an active interplay between users (human agents) and objects, poetic design involves a different kind of production (which is not about improving the functionality of a product) and alternative forms of "consumption" (which is not about a 'using up' of objects), by developing new practices of living with things. As such it is suggested that design poetics depends on the production developed by consumers as a creative users (postproducers), within unconventional experiential and social scenarios of living. In changing the bilateral relationship object-user poetic design develops objects from the point of view of the user - its activities and models of operation - and this aspect is related to an emotional and experiential evaluation. Thus the study proposes a re-evaluation of objects and users through experiential, narrative and performative criteria in order to understand their various roles and functions. In proposing these particular points of evaluation, poetic objects are distinguished as a particular category of objects together with the practices they engender or support; and within a network of relationships and contexts, as specific sites of interaction.1 In this light, it is shown that poetic design proposes a class of objects that respond to needs beyond the objects' instrumental (functional, practical) power; but to their contribution to life experience, embodying a variety of processes and manifestations. They translate immaterial interactions and make these interrelations visible.

Mindscape, the subject of this dissertation, is a centre for creative and holistic development in Sunnyside, which will demonstrate how built environments communicate with users through their perception and sensory exploration. The topic covers various fields. The context of the study will be discussed initially, followed by the brief itself. Thereafter, the findings resulting from research conducted in the fields of developmental and environmental psychology ill be provided. Architectural theory will then be investigated. The study will conclude with the interpretation of these findings into a new architectural form, supported by design studies and analytical tools. / Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / Unrestricted