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Encounter
Category
Product Design / Research / Experience Design
Date
© 2021 - 2023
Concept
The project moved from research to object, ending not with a conclusion but with something you can actually sit in. Encounter takes the shape of a chair fitted with a garment across its back, sleeves lined with magnets, so that bringing the sleeves together around yourself recreates the sensation of being embraced. It's a deliberately literal answer to a problem that's usually discussed only in the abstract: rather than writing about the psychological weight of touch deprivation, the project builds a position for the body to actually experience it again. Encounter doesn't ask people to think about loneliness from a distance, it gives them a structure to sit down and feel less alone in, even if only for as long as the hug lasts.
Loneliness
What does a hug actually do for us?
We are living through what researchers now call an epidemic of disconnection. A 2018 national survey by Cigna found that nearly half of 20,000 American adults feel alone more often than not, and four in ten feel their closest relationships don't run deep enough to matter. Sometimes the best medicine really is free. Wrapping your arms around someone, or letting them do the same for you, is one of those rare acts that costs nothing and gives back everything: security, warmth, a sense of being cared for that lingers long after the embrace ends.
The evidence keeps stacking up in hugging's favor. As people age, loneliness becomes less an abstract fear and more a daily reality: millions of older adults now name the television as their primary companion. Physical closeness pushes back against that. Human contact steadies us, dulls our fears, quiets the background noise of worry that isolation feeds. A long, unhurried hug can do what meditation or laughter does, pulling us fully into the present moment, and given that we've been held since infancy, that early lesson in being loved never fully leaves us. Even in adulthood, regular affection keeps reinforcing a quiet sense of self-worth.
Underneath all of this is chemistry. A hug releases oxytocin, sometimes nicknamed the cuddle chemical, alongside serotonin and endorphins, the body's own cocktail for bonding and pleasure. Family therapist Virginia Satir once framed affection almost like a dosage: "we need four hugs a day for survival", more for maintenance, even more to actually grow, as if love were something we could run short of if we're not careful.
But what happens when the thing we're hugging isn't a person at all?
It sounds strange to hug a pillow, but the comfort is real. Holding something soft and enveloping, the way a child clutches a favorite stuffed animal, brings a similar sense of stability, even in the middle of genuine stress. Research published in the journal Psychological Science backs this up: touch, even simulated touch from an inanimate object, measurably eases our deepest anxieties about mortality. Lead researcher Sander Koole put it simply: even brief, seemingly trivial touch can help people cope with existential unease. Interpersonal contact, it turns out, is powerful enough that even an object standing in for another person can offer a genuine sense of meaning.
Then came COVID.
Loneliness was already a quiet crisis before the pandemic. Stay-at-home orders and social distancing didn't create the problem, but they poured fuel on it. For the millions of Americans living alone, months went by with almost no human contact at all, and even those with housemates found their world outside the front door shrinking to almost nothing. Early surveys estimated loneliness climbing by up to a third within the pandemic's first month, with emotional distress nearly tripling in that same short window.
What is ENCOUNTER?
Humans are a social species. We are built to need a safe, steady circle of contact around us just to function, let alone thrive. Take that away, and the nervous system responds exactly as you'd expect: heightened vigilance, a sharper sense of vulnerability, and underneath it all, a growing hunger to reconnect.
So, how often do you feel lonely? If your honest answer is sometimes, or even always, you're in enormous company. A recent survey of 20,000 Americans suggests loneliness isn't just common anymore. It's reached epidemic proportions.
Exhibition
Encounter began as research into loneliness, a condition made sharper by the pandemic, when physical touch, one of the most basic human needs, became something people had to live without for months at a time. What started as an inquiry into isolation ended as a physical object: a structure built to hold and be held.
