Defence of dissertation in the field of spatial planning and transportation engineering, Shiv Bhatta, M.Sc. (Phil.)

People prefer to use wood in the built environment in many ways such as furniture, artefacts, and building-construction materials. Peoples’ subjective experiences of living spaces are influenced by the types of materials used to create such living spaces. Therefore, understanding the touch quality of wood materials could be beneficial to architecture, researchers, other stakeholders including the end-users to help improve the sensory experiences related to the comfort and satisfaction of living in the wood-built environment. The tactile sensory experience is one of the aspects of human perceptual experiences of the materials.

This thesis explores tactile qualities of wooden materials and the ways to improve the tactile sensory experiences. The sensory experiences of discriminative touch, emotional touch, and thermal touch were explored using wood and wood-based materials as test objects. The results are promising for the modelling of thermal comfort and user satisfaction in the wood-built living environment. Findings of this dissertation also can serve as the guiding principles for wood-product designing and marketing.

The name of the dissertation is "Looking at wood through the skin: A multidisciplinary approach to explore the tactile quality of wood materials"

The opponent is Senior Research Scientist, PhD Lynette Anne Jones from MIT, United States.

The custos is Professor Marketta Kyttä from the Department of Built Environment, Aalto University.

The public can join the defence remotely. Please follow the (Zoom application) link https://aalto.zoom.us/j/427744149 (Meeting ID: 713 112 352)
For SIP, H.323, or Skype for business connection- contact the doctoral candidate.

Electronic dissertation: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/43615

Doctoral candidate’s contact information:
Shiv Bhatta, Dept. of Built Environment
[email protected]
+358 50 430 6146