To “live with the senses.” Hugo Kükelhaus (1900-1984) cultivated a philosophy of being that included intuition and feeling. “It is not the brain that thinks, but the human that experiences.” Hugo Kükelhaus’ most enduring legacy are two theoretically and experimentally accomplished investigations of sense processes and the phenomenology of perception: the Allbedeut¬–means everything–infant toys (1930) and production of first set of 32 “play” stations for the Expo’67 in Montreal. Kükelhaus’ interest in psycho-physiological substratum of learning, the erfahrbar (that which can become known through experience), led him to experimental investigations into creative consciousness and sense-based learning. Works by Kükelhaus was included in the MOMA exhibition, Century of the Child: Growing by Design 1900-2000 in 2012. This paper examines the design culture implications of the work of Hugo Kükelhaus whose interest in the physical and neural substratum of cognition and perception resulted in profound if little-recognized contributions to contemporary theories of perception and design processes. Kükelhaus examined experimentally the diverse/differential relations between environment and sensory organs in order to determine a somatically –founded method for arousing and promoting design investigations. The enduring topicality and necessity of Kükelhaus’ is illustrated here by a survey of ‘the experience field for the development of the senses’ and “play” machines which provide a delightful, but meaningful introduction to the world of physics and technology. Those “play” machines can be found all over Europe were designed to promote the connection between the physicality of the body and the critical nature of its irrational, intuitive imagination.