Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Design (MDes) in Interior Studies / Exhibition + Narrative Environments
Department
Interior Architecture
First Advisor
Can Altay
Second Advisor
Francesca Liuni
Third Advisor
Jeffrey Katz
Abstract
The marathon is defined not by motion alone, but by the changing conditions a body moves through—and remains within—over time. Breath, cadence, heat, sound, crowd compression and attention fluctuate, producing phases that structure the race from within. These interior states are difficult to access by spectators from the sidelines, yet they are precisely what shape the runner’s experience.
This thesis begins with a simple but unconventional question: How can an exhibition translate the runner’s physical sensations and emotions into a multidimensional experience for spectators who do not run? Through a sequence of pop-up exhibitions placed along the New York City Marathon route, this thesis structures the runner’s sensory and emotional shifts into staged phases. The three exhibition sites are selected by considering both the actual marathon route and the runner’s emotional trajectory—moments of 1. adrenaline, 2. exhaustion, and 3. fortitude. Designed as temporary installations for the single day of the race, these exhibitions can only be experienced during the event itself. Even without running, spectators dwell within multisenseory environments that translate the runner’s condition so that these states are not only conceptually understood, but physically felt. Spectatorship thus shifts from passive viewing to a durational, embodied mode of participation.
As spectators pause while runners continue forward, moving and stationary bodies become sensorially aligned through designed stimuli. Pneumatic structures allow spectators to encounter the runner’s physiological condition as a multisensory experience: color indicates the runner’s physical zone, layered sound translates the current BPM, and repeated expansion and contraction register respiratory rhythm as spatial movement. Approaching the final pop-up, completion emerges not as knowledge but as physical release.
This thesis expands the marathon beyond a race and celebration reserved for runners alone, allowing spectators who gather to support them to enter the experience of that specific time and place. Through temporary, site-specific installations, spectators move beyond the role of external observers and become participants who sensorially engage with the runner’s shifting condition. In this way, exhibition design operates as a method of translation between different bodily experiences, allowing spectators to encounter the marathon’s physical and emotional states through their own bodies, without actually running.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Harin, "The Marathon without Running: Experiencing a runner's sensorial journey" (2026). Masters Theses. 1597.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1597
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Audio Arts and Acoustics Commons, Environmental Design Commons, Exercise Physiology Commons, Exercise Science Commons, Furniture Design Commons, Interior Architecture Commons, Interior Design Commons, Psychology of Movement Commons, Sports Studies Commons