Part 2
Change begins where someone can see it.
Sight is our most dominant sense-the one we trust the most and question the least.
Before we ever touch, hear, or smell a room, we see it. We take in light, colour, form, and texture, and in those first few moments, we don’t just observe a space-we begin to believe something about it.
We believe what we see.
That’s what gives sight such power in design. It becomes not just a tool of aesthetics, but of belief-shaping. Through sight, we anticipate how a space will feel. We expect comfort, or control, or coldness—based on visual codes we’ve been taught and absorbed. A hotel is supposed to be warm and inviting. A hospital should be white and hard. Offices must be linear, structured. Laundromats should be dull, mechanical.
But where do these beliefs come from? And why must they stay?
Design has the power to interrupt those expectations. A hospital can be full of colour and light. A laundromat can become a space for community, reflection, or even joy. Offices can feel soft, curved, and human. Sight, then, becomes more than just seeing—it becomes liberating.
Sight is the First Filter of Experience, the eye is our first filter through which we interpret the world.
But sight is not neutral. It’s shaped by memory, culture, time, and mood. What we think we see is often a mirror of what we’ve seen before-what we’ve been told is beautiful, clean, efficient, appropriate.
As designers, we can choose to reveal or conceal, to direct or mislead, to amplify or soften. We choreograph visual journeys—deciding what appears first, what hides in shadow, what glows in contrast.
We can even work with the limitations of the eye. Limitation creates opportunity—spaces can unfold unexpectedly, walls can disappear in mirrors, and reflections can create alternate realities. We use illusion, not to trick, but to reimagine. Just as the ocean seems endless, though it is not. Just as the moon appears to follow us when we are in a car, though it does not. Sight allows us to believe in what isn’t, and that belief is powerful.
Sight Is Emotional
We don’t just see space—we feel through sight. A dim room can comfort or frighten. A saturated colour can agitate or inspire. Natural elements like plants or water instantly shift the mood, softening the hardness of the built world.
Light touches surfaces and brings them alive. Shadows fall and suggest movement. Texture seen—but not touched—already begins to speak.
As designers, we are not merely placing furniture or painting walls. We are directing perception. We are shaping belief systems about space, and by extension—about care, worth, intimacy, joy. We decide whether a space invites someone in or keeps them at a distance.
When we work with sight, we are working with what people believe is possible.
Seeing as Resistance
To redesign is to see again-to look closer, deeper, with new eyes. And perhaps the most radical thing we can do is to show someone a space they didn’t expect. A laundromat that doesn’t feel transactional. A workspace that doesn’t feel exhausting. A home that doesn’t look like a house.
Because once someone has seen differently, it becomes harder to return to what was.
Change begins, always, where someone can see it.
What’s one space you’ve seen that defied expectation? What did it change about the way you see the world?
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