A recent SEGD Sound Design and the Built Environment event highlighted a disconnect that is less often discussed: the gap between the design concepts presented and the sensory reality people eventually experience.
Hosted at Antfood in Brooklyn, the event brought together sound and built-environment professionals including Emilie Baltz, James Cathcart, Léonard Roussel, and Steve Keller. Their discussion highlighted how heavily design presentations rely on visualization as the primary method of communicating intent.
In a discipline that is inherently visual, this reliance makes sense. Design ideas can evolve from sketches and floor plans into highly detailed renderings that closely resemble the finished product. The tools for creating and refining visual representations are extensive and deeply embedded within the profession.
The same cannot be said for sound. The panelists discussed the lack of standard tools for modeling or communicating the sonic qualities of a space during the design process. Without considering acoustics early in a project, architecture can unintentionally make sound design far more difficult. The result is often reactive solutions—acoustic panels added later or sound experiences awkwardly inserted into spaces that were never designed with them in mind.
A rendering may simulate what a space will look like, but it rarely communicates how that space will feel through sound, touch, or atmosphere. Prototyping acoustic experience remains a far more abstract challenge.
New technologies are addressing this issue, such as Arup’s SoundLab in New York, where designers can model and test how sound behaves in proposed environments. The investment reflects a growing awareness of how sonic experience shapes the way people interact with space.
The broader takeaway extends beyond sound alone and points to the larger gap between design representation and sensory reality: what tools and strategies can bring touch, hearing, and even smell into the design process earlier? What considerations introduced at the beginning of a project can inform a more inclusive, multisensory experience later on?
Perhaps the future of design presentations is not simply showing what a project will look like, but creating opportunities to experience how it will feel—through physical prototypes, curated sonic environments, or other immersive forms of storytelling. Ultimately, the success of a space is measured not only by what people see, but by what they sense.