As everyday environments become increasingly organised, efficient, and predictable, familiarity can cause them to fade from conscious attention.

This Master’s thesis explores how design might create conditions for renewed encounters with the ordinary through the concept of the Sense of NOW: brief moments when familiar surroundings unexpectedly regain presence.

Through practice-based research combining observation, documentation, design interventions, and participatory workshops, the project identifies recurring conditions that may encourage such moments.

Rather than producing or guaranteeing the Sense of NOW, design can create opportunities for renewed perception, leaving meaning open to individual interpretation and valuing small encounters, everyday experience, and openness.