Moving from passive acceptance towards collaborative design: Design research in building Healing Residential Air environments

This study investigates the pathways and potential of sensory experience design and co-design in shaping healing air environments within the Chinese urban residential community background. Despite growing attention to the healthy residential environment, the distinctive high density, building norms, and cultural factors pose implementation challenges. Using Research through Design (RtD), this research integrates sensory ethnography and case study to examine how design promotes occupant healing experience through air healing environmental co-creation. Preliminary results indicate that air healing environment is evolving from space element to sensory mediation and experience coordination. It demonstrates value in facilitating occupants’ environmental agency and well-being, but confronting limitations of industrial standardization and personalized-perception integration. The study attempts to establish a contextual co-design framework, offering practical and theoretical insights for air healing environments. It explores how design interventions can support the transition from standardized air environment quality control to personalized air healing experience through sensory translation, experience prototyping, and participatory frameworks.