In 2018 Google debuted its first home installation at the Milan Furniture Fair, aka Salone del Mobile. Although the company's debut of its domestic software was not something new or revolutionary, it allowed for the multi-billion dollar company to enter the realm of spatial design through their industrial design products. For this year's Salone de Mobile, Google has teamed with Suchi Reddy, founder of Reddymade Architecture, Muuto's Design Director Christian Grosen, and the team from the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University to create an immersive design installation which addresses the topic of neuroaesthetics. 

Google has already established itself as a front runner in enhancing the possibilities of home goods and design, however, according to their VP of Hardware design, Ivy Ross, Google wants to understand what's happening in your psyche. "We’re at a place in our trajectory of society which says step into your individuality, know who you are, what you want, and what works for you,” says Ross. “We have to be able to, as makers in the world, support that.”

Although images of the installation are under wraps, the collaborative project set to feature at Salone on April 9th, will showcase three rooms which will be decorated with furniture from the same line, but will not be identical to each other. Each room will exhibit a difference in color, scent, sound, and lighting. Once visitors enter each room they will be given wearable bands which have sensors that will measure biometric data such as heart rate, skin temperature, motion, and skin conductivity. Each guest is give five minutes to explore each room. Although each guest may express a like or dislike to each space, the data gathered from the wearable band may help indicate their actual psychological responses are to each space. 

Thanks to an algorithm developed by the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins led by Susan Magsamen, each guest will be provided with a visual report explaining how their bodies responded to each room. Could Google's experimental room provide data that can help designers create better spaces? According to Ross the goal isn't about collecting people's data, "we want to give people the gift of reflection.” As a result, the experience sounds like an intimate data portrait rather than some wellness extension of the surveillance economy. Google’s team has spent the last few months testing these three rooms on its own campus, tweaking their designs by spending time in them to ensure that they elicit different physiological reactions from different people."