Design studio Inxects has developed a wearable device that translates environmental stress signals into physical sensations to allow users to feel humanity’s impact on nature.
The Gaia Communications System (GCS) includes a sensor-equipped vest and wrist sleeve that collects data about the health of plants, soil, air and ecosystems before translating these readings into haptic feedback in the form of vibrations.
Danish studio Inxects designed the system to give people an intuitive and visceral way to understand the suffering of plants and animals due to pollution, climate change and habitat destruction.
This type of sensory engagement is expected to have a deeper impact on the human psyche than simply reading facts and data.
In particular, the studio envisions Gaia being used by architects, who can walk through project sites to listen, test and feel the natural environment before starting to design.
Inxects founder Pavels Hedström, an architect himself, said he was inspired to create Gaia while working in the corporate construction industry, which he saw as prioritizing human growth and industrial progress over concerns for other life forms.
“Despite attempts to create ‘sustainable architecture’, I noticed a huge disconnect,” Hedstrom told Dezeen. “We were designing projects for tropical climates while sitting in an office in Denmark – quite far from the ecosystems we were impacting.”
“This experiment has exposed a larger issue: the gap between humans and nature. While we have access to vast amounts of environmental data, we struggle to change our behavior – largely due to a fundamental lack of empathy for non-human life.”
When conceptualizing the communication system, Hedstrom relied on the behavior of animals such as ants, which can detect carbon dioxide levels through specialized organs and use this information to clean or change their nests.
Gaia’s built-in sensors can measure carbon dioxide levels, temperature and relative humidity to determine changes in air quality, while clarity and pH are measured to determine the water quality of rivers and wetlands.
There’s also a spectral sensor that analyzes wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye to detect early signs of plant stress and a bioacoustic sensor that picks up animal and insect communications to monitor biodiversity.
“I found inspiration in the world of insects — species like ants, which detect carbon dioxide changes, and bees, which sense temperature and humidity,” Hedstrom said. “They rely on these specialized environmental sensory systems to make decisions vital to their survival.”
“GCS is based on this biomimetic principle, providing humans with an extended sensory system to reconnect with the environments we live in,” he added.
Hedstrom also sees a connection between Gaia and the “deep listening” practices of many indigenous cultures, where people adjust their behavior around small changes they detect in the natural environment.
“The ultimate vision is a world where we no longer need to rely so heavily on technology to connect with nature,” he said. “But until then, projects like GCS can help reduce the gap between humans and the rest of nature.”
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In addition to the sensors, the Gaia vest contains a battery, solar panels for power, a microcontroller, an LED light and five haptic motors on the heart, upper back, lower back and kidneys – areas selected for their high sensitivity to vibrations.
The vibration patterns are modeled on the human pulse, with faster, irregular rhythms indicating signs of stress such as polluted water or decreased biodiversity.
Currently, these are compatible with any sensor manually selected by the user, but in the future Inxects hopes to create a more complex feedback system where multiple sensors can operate simultaneously and different rhythms and intensities represent different indicators.
The studio says it expects users to be able to learn to “read” these overlapping patterns intuitively over time, similar to how blind individuals have learned to “see” images through vibration patterns on the tongue through devices like Wicab’s BrainPort.
Hedstrom said scientific studies support the idea that humans can learn a new sensory language based on touch. He has tested the Gaia System himself and said he found the elemental sensations surprisingly powerful.
“The vibrations were like stress signals, triggering a physical response like an adrenaline rush,” Hedstrom said.
“Over time, with repeated exposure, the reactions became less traumatic and began to appear more like a form of communication – as if the system were relaying messages from the life forms being observed.”
The Gaia prototype will be on display at the Strange Adaptations exhibition at the Copenhagen Architecture Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of 2024.
Inxects intends to continue testing and improving the device, which Hedstrom sees as falling somewhere between conceptual exploration and a functional product.
Aside from architects, he says he can see Gaia being used by urban planners, politicians and other decision-makers.
Inxects was founded by Hedström in 2021 to explore the intersection of architecture, wearable design, technology and environmental awareness. His previous work includes a jacket that can make drinking water from fog, which won a Lexus Design Award in 2023.
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