Question 1

What is experiential design?

Accepted Answer

Not what a room looks like. What it does to your body when you enter. The composition of light, material, scale, sound, and ritual arranged so a person moves through a place and is changed a little by the passage.

Question 2

What do the five elements mean, and how do I design with them?

Accepted Answer

Every project is auditioned against wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Wood is direction—the entry, the axis. Fire is warmth—the hearth that gathers. Earth is ground—plaster, tile, courtyard. Metal is the edit—what has been refused. Water is depth—the quiet a house needs to feel old. Together they are an old checklist for balance: where is the movement, where is the warmth, where does the ground hold, where does the edge cut, where does the room breathe.