The OBSERVE tool was developed to guide learners through a process of gentle yet incisive self-reflection, laying the foundation for truly personalized spatial design. Its primary function is neither diagnostic nor evaluative; rather, it is narrative and exploratory, helping individuals recognize and articulate who they are, what they desire, and what makes them feel well.
Among its main objectives is the stimulation of self-awareness, understood as the ability to identify personal tastes, needs, memories, and preferences related to living spaces. In particular, the tool enables the emergence of elements that often remain implicit: atmospheres, daily rituals, materials, or colors that evoke comfort or discomfort. This process values subjectivity and actively involves the learner in the design of their environment.
Additionally, the tool facilitates deep communication between who administers the questionnaire and who completes it. Responses become fertile ground for empathetic dialogue, trust-building, and mutual openness. The facilitator does not take a directive role but acts as a guide, encouraging storytelling, embracing emotions, and translating the emerging content into design-relevant materials. The questionnaire also helps construct an initial identity framework, which can later be expanded using other sensory, experiential, or design tools.
This initial framework is neither rigid nor static; it evolves alongside the individual and can be integrated over time. The current version of the tool is designed to foster dialogue that is both profound and playful, activating memory, imagination, aesthetic sensibility, and emotional awareness.
For this reason, it can be used not only as a written exercise but also as a foundation for creative activities: visual collages, drawings, collections of images, cut-out keywords, or hand-colored and decorated elements. In this way, the questionnaire becomes a multi-layered narrative experience, capable of engaging even individuals with vulnerabilities, resistance, or partial expressive skills.
Data interpretation
Responses collected through the OBSERVE tool should be understood as narrative traces rather than objective data to be measured or rigidly classified.
The recommended approach is qualitative and phenomenological, focused on deep listening and symbolic decoding. Every word, image, drawing, color choice, or preference serves as a signal that may reflect emotional references, latent desires, unexpressed needs, or relevant relational content.
The facilitator, during or after the completion process, can note recurring words, repeated metaphors, internal contrasts (e.g., between desires and fears), significant omissions, or elements that emerge with particular strength. It is important to maintain a non-judgmental perspective:
observe not only what the learner chooses to share but also what they avoid, minimize, or emphasize. These observations are not meant to become psychological interpretations but should be treated as narrative material useful for creating a more sensitive and coherent design space.
In this sense, every response – verbal, visual, or graphic – can serve as a key to inform spatial design. For example, if a learner expresses a love for light, open spaces, nature, or a particular atmosphere, this information becomes valuable for defining colors, materials, furnishings, and functional layouts that align with their lived experience. Likewise, a painful memory, an avoided word, or a tone of distrust can guide the designer to avoid overly intrusive or overstimulating solutions.
The collected data has no diagnostic value; its purpose is relational and design-oriented. This tool does not produce a “profile” of the learner but rather creates an emotional and symbolic map that accompanies and guides environmental decisions. When integrated with other tools in the process (sensory, experiential, or design-based), this material helps transform neutral spaces into environments that are recognizable, welcoming, restorative, and identity-affirming.
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
