Atmospheres (Architecture)

This article addresses the orchestration of domestic lighting as an object of anthropological study. It takes Bedouin domestic architecture in southern Jordan as a starting point in an analysis of how light is used as means of safeguarding spaces as part of hospitality practices central to Bedouin culture. By arguing that things are ‘ecstatic’ in the sense that they transcend their own tangibility, the article shows how objects, such as tinted windows, impose themselves on other objects to shape the particular visual presence of the world that informants opt for. Such a presence of the world is analysed through the notion of ‘atmosphere’ as the perception of the world through a contemporaneity of subjective emotions, cultural ideals, and material phenomena. Thus, while boundaries between interior and exterior may be upheld by tangible material strategies, such as walls, these boundaries may also simultaneously be permeated by the ecstasy of material things, which aim to safeguard other aspects of life through less tangible strategies.

Casting the fallen soldiers of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) as 'martyrs' plays a crucial role in the legitimation discourse of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The government has succeeded in integrating many 'martyr families' into a state-revering political cult. This ethnographic study draws on theories of affect and atmosphere to investigate how practices around saintly dreams and their materialization in photographs and gravestones of martyrs have challenged the state narratives and discourses. I approach the veneration of martyrs through both affective and narrative sources and explore gravestones as new saintly localities. These localities are spaces of divinely intermediation with intimate connection to the transcendental realm. The multifaceted atmosphere of these sites offers nonconformist and heterogeneous entanglements in which dream-images of martyrs allow for the momentary subversion of the state's political cult.

This chapter explores the random configurations of lighting elements of billboards and outdoor screens in historical public spaces. This chapter built a theoretical base on a systematic review of research indexed in Web of Science (WOS) as hot topics and highly cited in the field published in the last five years. Reflecting on the case of Old Cairo, the argument distinguishes between the three concepts of smartness—smart city, smart community, and smart places—and identifies the differences between conventional places and smart technology. The change in urban nightlife atmospheres and the loss of belonging are the main findings of systematic research for how to reconstruct nightlife atmospheres to enhance belonging in public spaces in Cairo’s old districts. A critique of the transformation of nightlife atmospheres in public spaces of historic significance is offered due to the random use of technological elements, whether implemented by local authorities or residents. Findings also have implications for urban planning and design guidelines.

The main objective of this text is to warn against atmospherics. However comfortable it might
appear, an atmosphere is politically suspicious because it numbs a body into an affective embrace
of stability and permanence. It becomes doubly suspicious because a body desires to be part of the
atmosphere. For this reason, I rethink both affect and atmosphere ontologically rather than
phenomenologically. I argue that an atmosphere is engineered by subsuming individual affects
to what I call, following Sloterdijk, an atmospheric glasshouse. I suggest that this happens in
four steps: a distinction between inside and outside through partitioning; inclusion of the
outside inside; illusion of synthesis; and dissimulation. In order to do this, I begin with air as
the elemental paradox of ontological continuum and rupture. I carry on with the passage from air
to atmosphere while retaining the discourse around continuum and rupture. Finally, I indicate a
way of rupturing the atmospheric continuum through the ontological movement of withdrawal
from the atmosphere. The ultimate goal of the article is to sketch a problematic of atmospherics
that puts together without synthesising an elemental ontology of continuum and rupture.

In this article, I deal with airs and sounds and scents, while keeping an eye on the law. My field of enquiry
is the interstitial area between sensory and affective occurrences, namely sensory experiences that are
traditionally thought to be a causal result of external stimuli, and affective experiences that are mostly
associated with emotional changes and generally allude to something internal. I am arguing that there is
no constructive difference between internal and external origin of occurrences. In its stead, I suggest the
concept of atmosphere, namely an attempt at understanding affective occurrences as excessive, collective,
spatial and elemental. However, it quickly becomes apparent that an atmosphere is legally determined.
The law controls affective occurrences by regulating property of sensory stimulation. At the same
time, the law guides bodies into corridors of sensory compulsion e an aspect of which is consumerism in
capitalist societies. The law achieves this by allowing certain sensory options to come forth while suppressing
others, something which is particularly obvious in cases of intellectual property protection that
capture the sensorial. I deal with the law in its material, spatial manifestation and in particular through
what I have called the ‘lawscape’, namely the fusion of space and normativity. I employ a broadly Deleuzian
methodology with insights from radical geography, affective studies, urban and critical legal
theory in order to develop and link the various parts of the text.

Fieldwork is being stretched in new directions across time and space. In this article we examine the kinds of emotional and affective encounters constructed in online interviews. We draw on Lefebvre's notion of rhythm and Ash's concept of 'affective atmospheres' to help identify moments of disjuncture in research interviews. These moments of disjuncture can be prompted by researchers and participants not being able to share a range of senses (touch, smell and taste) during Skype interviews. The technology does not sink into the background but instead can, for some, prompt an uncomfortable 'affective atmosphere'. Finally, we argue that bodies, performance, digital interfaces, movement, senses, emotion and affect need to grappled with methodologically as increasing numbers of researchers turn to online interviewing.

The Anzac Dawn Service is an established and increasingly well-commemorated Australian national day. Its rhythms are known to many Australians, and include music, readings of ritual texts and moments of scripted silence and stillness, all of which take place in familiar commemorative environments. This article takes up one aspect of these ceremonies: the particular role and impact of darkness in shaping how and what participants perceive of the Dawn Service. It draws on renderings of darkness as generative of atmosphere, linking this to national identity and commemoration. In doing so, the analysis engages with scholarship concerning geographies of darkness, spatial aspects of national identity and the ‘Anzac’ narrative.

It dwells on three aspects of this process: first, that darkness recasts the built environment as mysterious and shadowy, drawing together representational and non-representational aspects of the event; second, that by obscuring the presence of other bodies, darkness conjures the crowd of participants as unknowable and therefore imagined to each other; and finally, the dawning light introduces a sense of special temporality, as the inevitability of the changing light conditions moves participants through a range of affective states linked to a specifically national narrative.

Atmospheric heavy metals have important environmental and health threats. To investigate atmospheric deposition and contamination of heavy metal elements in the glaciers of the eastern Tibetan Plateau (ETP), we collected the surface snow (cryoconites) samples in the Lenglongling Glacier (LG), the Gannan Snowpack (GS), the Dagu Glacier (DG), the Hailuogou Glacier (HG) and Yulong Snow-mountain Glacier (YG) in summer 2017. Samples were analyzed for concentrations and enrichment factors (EFs) of Al and trace elements (Pb, Co, Cd, Ba, Mn, Ga, Sc, V, Zn, Cr, Ni, Cu, Rb, Sb, Cs, As, Mo, Li) using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Results showed that the concentrations and EFs of heavy metals (e.g. Sb, Cu, Cr, Ni, As, Mo) were generally high value in YG, GS and LG, while were relatively low value in DG and HG, implying that ETP glaciers may have been affected by atmospheric anthropogenic pollutants deposition to varying degrees. Comparing the heavy metal concentrations in the glaciers with those in the precipitation of middle/eastern China cities and also the South Asian cities, we find that the glacial heavy metal concentrations were generally low level, though the anthropogenic pollutants were still significantly enriched. Taking the spatial distribution of As and Ni concentration/EFs in the glaciers and surrounding urban precipitation as an example, we find that the heavy metal pollutants were probably transported to the glaciers through three routes from the surrounding densely populated area of Asia. The MODIS AOD and NCEP/NCAR wind vector also demonstrated that the atmospheric pollutants originated from anthropogenic emissions of urban areas of both South Asia, and northwest and east China, mainly caused by the large scale atmospheric circulation (e.g. the South Asian Monsoon, westerlies and Eastern Asian Summer Monsoon). Therefore, control of these potential pollution emission sources of the surrounding densely populated areas in Asia could be important to ETP glaciers in future perspectives.

The following essay proposes to investigate the perceptual and emotional aspects related to the visualization of architectural images. The field of research is limited to a well-defined category: figurative representations as the photographic and digital images of contemporary architecture. In particular, two types will be analysed: the un-built architecture produced by Studio MIR and Bloomimages compared with the photographed built architecture. Using figurative images as a tool of reading, the aim of this work is to identify and classify three types of affective spaces capable of generating a specific kind of perception, producing a sensorial classification of atmosphere for architecture. The study of the Psychology of Art, as well as Aesthetics and Neuroaesthetics can be a valuable tool in understanding the phenomena of the present, considering the marked pictoriality of these images. The application of the analytic methodology, developed in these disciplines, can suggest a new way of "looking" at the project, paying attention to the representation of the atmospheres, which characterizes the experience of felt space.

A rise in social science scholarship on atmospheres has raised questions on how to articulate complex material and imperceptible events and encounters. Responding to Peter Adey's Air Affinities, this review proposes the need to traverse geopolitics and geopoetics to more fully engage these. Going further, it argues that such traversals are key to approaching specific situations and devices of what we call 'atmospheric policing'. Exploring recent examples of tear gas and sound warfare deployment in occupied Palestine, the review shows how discourses on atmospheres may be used to bring accountability into ecologies of violence.

Atmospheres have a diffuse, ungraspable nature that makes them problematic to represent. Diverse artistic manifestations have relentlessly tried to grasp air infused with properties. Ether is the concept chosen to test the way the history of atmospheric representation was initiated; a cultural artefact whose representation permeates our present imaginary. Such substance has been the image of sensual assimilation, of psychological life and complex ambient effects. Before ambient was subject to technical representation, images of air within can be called 'a state of animation' opened up the ways of seeing and producing ambiances. Several case studies are analysed as a useful vehicle for atmospheric representation. Two main strategies have been identified. The first one is the representation of chance, ambiguity and openness, the creation of conditions to let atmospheres leave its accidental traces. The second consists in the precise distribution in space of particles or discrete elements whose initial position is irritated by diverse agents. Both are still recognisable in our days.

Despite a growing interest in atmospheric phenomena within management and organization studies, a distinct line of research on atmospheres can hardly be identified. The present article reviews existing concepts of atmosphere in management and organization studies to promote a common understanding of how to conceptualize atmospheres. On the uppermost level, dualistic and non-dualistic concepts of atmosphere are distinguished. This article shows that non-dualistic conceptions are more appropriate for researching atmospheres than dualistic conceptions, but still need further development. In case of this paper, it is shown that considering the socialites of atmospheres is especially important to foster such a development. Furthermore, it is suggested that a full-range consideration of atmospheres needs to take both aesthetic and anaesthetic elements into account. In sum, the article pleads for a more systematic discussion of non-dualistic conceptions of atmosphere and seeks to mark a starting point for a distinct and coherent area of research on atmospheres within management and organization studies.

This article addresses the House of Soviets, the most prominent building in the centre of Kaliningrad, Russia. Using Juhani Pallasmaa’s theory of “sixth sense”, the building is seen through notions of atmospheres and diffusion, rather than the focused attention implied by its formalist construction. Local people have nicknamed the building the “monster” or “robot”, for its giant size and forbidding appearance. However, its status as an urban ruin implies spatial and temporal meanings that have “humanized” the building. The article focuses on the experience of urban exploration in the House of Soviets for one afternoon in the spring of 2013 with two Kaliningrad residents. This paper avers that the changing form of the House of Soviets in its state of decay promotes its appreciation as a work of art as it falls apart. Decrepitude and pillage, vandalism and littering are reclaiming the space as it promotes sensory imagination and engagement with “the terror of time”. The article includes photographs taken while exploring the building.
Cette publication porte sur la Maison des Soviets, le bâtiment le plus réputé au centre de Kaliningrad, en Russie. Par le biais de la théorie du sixième sens de Juhani Pallasma, cette construction est perçue à l’aide des concepts d’ambiances et de diffusion, plutôt que selon une attention portée sur sa construction formaliste. La population locale a surnommé ce bâtiment le « monstre » ou le « robot », de par sa taille géante et son apparence hostile. Toutefois, son statut de ruine urbaine implique des significations spatiales et temporelles qui l’ont « humanisé ». Cet article se concentre sur l’expérience d’exploration urbaine réalisée dans la Maison des Soviets lors d’un après-midi, en 2013, accompagné de deux habitants de Kaliningrad. Cette publication cherche à affirmer que la forme changeant de la Maison des Soviets, dans son état de délabrement, valorise sa reconnaissance en tant qu’œuvre d’art alors qu’elle s’effondre. La décrépitude et les pillages, le vandalisme et le dépôt d’ordures réhabilitent cet espace tout en mettant en avant l’imagination sensorielle et l’engagement envers la « terreur de l’époque ». Cet article inclut des photos prises lors de l’exploration du bâtiment.

Drawing upon Foucault's notion of biopower and Böhme's theory of atmospheres, we analyze The Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (The CELL), a nonprofit institution in Denver, Colorado dedicated to preventing terrorism. Specifically, we argue that The CELL rhetorically induces visitors to submit to and actively participate in continuous surveillance by subjecting them to a strategic succession of atmospheres that affectively and emotively enlists their bodies in its cause. This largely material rhetoric utilizes the design aesthetics of controlled movement, simulation, interactivity, and pseudodialogue. We conclude by reflecting on the implications for rhetorical and security studies. We are standing in the middle of the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, a popular retail and restaurant district located in the heart of the city. It is midday. So, the mall is crowded with a combination of tourists, shoppers, and local business people on their lunch breaks. It is bright and sunny, and we are awash in the sounds of the city: the chirping birds that inhabit the tree-lined streets, the idling engines of the buses that continuously transport visitors up and down the mall, and the half-heard conversations of people casually going about their daily routines. The sounds are familiar and comforting. Suddenly, there is a thunderous explosion, and the ground trembles. We instinctively recoil, covering our ears with our hands. Almost immediately, we are engulfed in a thick cloud of smoke and debris. Panic-stricken people frantically race past us in all directions , and the once soothing sounds of the city have been replaced by anguished screams and distant sirens. In the midst of the chaos, we see burned and bloodied bodies lying in the street. We want to run, but are frozen in fear. While the terrorist attack on Denver described in the preceding paragraph never actually happened, our experience of it was, nonetheless, very real. We experienced the attack as captive participants in an immersive simulation at the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (aka: The CELL), a $6 million, 6,000 square foot, permanent exhibition located in Denver. The CELL, which opened its doors in 2008, markets itself as " a nonpro-fit, nonpartisan institution dedicated to preventing terrorism through education,

Säkulare Atmosphäre: ‚Entschleierung' und urbane Raum im Iran des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts«. Drawing on sociological approaches to urbanism and secularization, as well as the affective turn in anthropology, this article explores the implementation of secular policies in Iran after the 1936 Unveiling Decree. I argue that constructing transparent social relations reflects the emergence of a new level of secular binds and relies upon the modalities of urban infrastructure and architecture. I find that modernization and secularization in Iran are interlinked by transformations in urban planning that tended to eliminate sites of ambiguity and to homogenize structures and forms of interaction in public and domestic spaces. The article makes use of autobiographical narratives that give witness to manifest changes in the urban atmosphere between the 1930s and 1950s. I will show how the Pahlavi regime took an active role in attempting to build a secular city by invoking segmentations and divisions in urban spaces to promote a secular atmosphere and limit religious ideas.

In recent years, the theory of atmospheres has extended beyond phenomenology and aesthetics, informing a wide variety of descriptive practices in the humanities. Diverse scholarly fields such as anthropology and architecture, musicology and art criticism now include the notion of atmospheric space in their methodological toolkits. The descriptive practices of lived space, however, entail several theoretical questions, concerning the potential and limits of giving voice to first-person experience. In the introductory essay of the 2019 special issue of Ambiances, we address the methodological perspectives emerging from the articles and discuss several question concerning the theory of atmospheres and the practices aimed at describing them.

Public places are places where all citizens, irrespective of their race, age, religion, or class level (social or economic), cannot be excluded. It serves to improve the lifestyle experience of its inhabitants, as well as promote social connections. All citizens are responsible for it and are interested in it, and the intervention for change must be the responsibility of all without exception. As such, bottom-up urban planning is essential for urban environments and for transforming nightlife in public places in order to create more meaningful experiences and instill a greater sense of identity and community.

Transforming Urban Nightlife and the Development of Smart Public Spaces analyzes the patterns of transformations of nightlife in public life. The book investigates urban nightlife transformations and the challenge of enhancing the sense of belonging in sensitive areas such as local communities and historical sites. The chapters present new insights to control the chaotic intervention related to the elements of traditional or digital technology, whether from citizens themselves or local authorities. The objective also is to document urban nightlife transformations that enhance the sense of belonging in historical sites. Important topics covered include urban-gamification, digital urban art, urban socio-ecosystems, and reimagining space in the urban nightlife. This book is ideal for urban planners, developers, social scientists, technologists, civil engineers, architects, policymakers, government officials, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in urban nightlife and nightscape and the smart technologies used for transformation.

Comment expérimenter la possibilité de vivre au fond des mers en mobilisant les ressources de l’architecture ? L’article compare différentes manières d’expérimenter les ambiances rencontrées au sein du monde sous-marin, à partir d’une recherche sur les maisons sous-marines réalisées entre le début des années 1960 et le milieu des années 1980. La première partie dresse un panorama des enjeux de la colonisation du fond des océans afin d’examiner les motivations de différentes démarches d’expérimentation d’habitats sous-marins, qu’elles adoptent une approche technique ou architecturale. La deuxième partie interroge le récit que fait l’un des pionniers, Robert Sténuit, de son séjour dans la première maison sous-marine immergée par Edwin Link en 1962. La troisième partie analyse la scénarisation des ambiances d’un village sous-marin, au design et à l’architecture très soignés, que Jacques-Yves Cousteau immerge et filme en 1963. La dernière partie de cet article restitue la démarche de l’architecte Jacques Rougerie, de ses recherches des principes fondateurs d’une architecture subaquatique à ses premières maisons sous-marines revendiquant une attention aux ambiances produites par cet environnement.

"Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos opens the book with his latest contribution to his comprehensive project of re-theorising spatial justice with a piece titled ‘Spatial Justice in a World of Violence’. Through a close reading
of the photographic series Fortunes of War, Life Day by artist Eric Lesdema,
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos is interested in how these images reveal peripheral
spaces at the edge of violence which impose an ethic of spatial responsibility on the
viewer in the act of turning away and looking elsewhere. While no acts of explicit
violence are shown in the images, we are left with no doubt that violence is ubiquitous
along the spatio-temporal continuum. This continuum of violence between
bodies raises questions of complicity and responsibility. Do we submit to a state
of affairs in which space is saturated with the everyday and immobilised violence
of the ‘engineered atmosphere’ – or is it also possible for bodies to withdraw from
the atmosphere, through ruptures and folds within the continuum? Such a notion
raises the ethical possibility of the ‘emergence of spatial justice’." Chris Butler and Edward Mussawir (eds)

Following the principle of “spatial inversion” (Attiwill, 2011), whereby spaces between buildings habitually referred to as exteriors become interiors, this paper presents the background research, methodology and key findings from a case study framed as a perceptual documentation of an urban interior, the More London Estate, a riverside business development in London, England. The location sits at the boundaries between inside and outside, private and public, enclosed and open space. This distinctive position and promise of interiority makes it an ideal site of enquiry. The objective of the research is to uncover connections between the way we feel and our sense of belonging by investigating the correlation between the site’s embodied atmosphere and its perceptual affect on the body. The methodology is inspired by Peter Zumthor’s (2006) writings on atmospheres, James J. Gibson’s (1966, 1986) studies of ecology and perceptual systems, and Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka’s (2004) work on sensory design. Key findings reveal a duality in existing perceptual narratives, and the recognition of the way the urban interior resonates with our senses provides a framework for reflection and an incentive towards sensory transformations.

This paper presents results of two large surveys (in English and Spanish) conducted from April 2007 to April 2008. The objective was to gather empirical information about Extraordinary Architectural Experiences (EAEs). The survey produced the largest number of personal testimonies of EAEs ever collected (2,872).  This paper presents 14 responses that cover the process, nature, and effects characterizing such extreme atmospheres. The findings show a phenomenology of sudden and surprising arousal, spontaneous unfolding, intense/profound/vivid perceptions, high state of consciousness, no talking and silent/introspective manners, strong bodily reactions, and remarkable levels of recall. EAEs were overwhelmingly reported to be emotional, sensual/physical/perceptual, timeless, and pleasurable.

My attempt in this paper is to illustrate some of the major developments in current phenomenological aesthetic research in the field of Atmospheres, showing how this concept has first consolidated through phenomenological approaches and has then concretized in the context of contemporary architecture. A main issue in this regard is the theoretical-philosophical basis on which the new contexts of this project are based and are therefore marked by a sensitive and perceptive approach toward the inhabited space. Through the concepts of experience, sensitive perception , and predisposition to places I will investigate how Atmospheres today represent an aesthetic way to interpret not only the inhabited space, but also the architectural project in modern and contemporary architecture.

In this chapter, I consider the lived relationship between atmosphere and place, drawing on three works by British-African novelist Doris Lessing (1919–2013), who regularly in her writing offers lucid accounts of place atmospheres in London, the city she emigrated to from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) shortly after World War II [2]. These three works are:
 Lessing’s 1969 novel, The Four-Gated City, which depicts the emigrant experience of a young Southern Rhodesian woman named Martha Quest, who arrives in battle-scarred London immediately after World War II (Lessing 1969);
 Lessing’s 1960 In Pursuit of the English, a journalistic account of the author’s first year in London (Lessing 1960);
 Lessing’s short story, “Dialogue,” published in the 1978 Stories and one of her most encompassing depictions of the lived complexity of place atmospheres (Lessing 1978).

In this chapter I will address the concept of explosion in relation to two problem areas: knowledge and evolution.  I will make use of both theoretical writings and documents such as Lotman’s letters, autobiographical interviews and television lectures for the general public. This array of sources will contribute to showing how his scientific thought, feeding on metaphorical images and ‘explosive’ insights, is inseparable from his aesthetic sensibility and, in general, from real life understood as ongoing creativity.

This research investigates the production and experience of immersion in architecture and virtual reality (VR), aiming to disclose VR’s cognitive effects and to understand why architects still underuse it for designing. Assuming that cognition is not restricted to a subject’s brain, this study adopts an enactivist perspective on cognition, implying that it extends through the entire organism, including its sensorimotor coupling with the environment. Immersion is approached from a phenomenological standpoint, prioritizing, whenever possible, the author’s first-hand experiences. Some theoretical aspects that emerged were investigated through practice, whether experiencing third-party immersive experiences or producing the two ‘practice studies’ developed for this thesis. The concepts of technology and immersion were studied to evaluate the pertinence of the term ‘immersive technologies’ and to ground theoretically the possibility of an ‘art of immersion’. Immersion in architecture and VR is analysed, arriving at the concept of atmosphere as a possible common ground between experiences. The notion of representation, in its turn, guides the discussion on the production of architecture. The relationship between body and architectural representation is also investigated, disclosing how efficiency became increasingly the standard, which implied the reduction of subjective aspects and the disengagement of the body in designing. The findings show that the software available for developing VR immersive experiences are either too complex, demanding the development of skills that are not usually part of the architects’ domain, or too limited, restricting experimentation. The analysis of the perception of immersion and atmosphere disclosed some subjective aspects related to the instrumentalizing of architects’ imagination, which hinders the perception of alternative uses of VR. Finally, it is argued that the most significant potential of VR for architects is related to the unlikely atmospheres it can bring to presence, allowing architects to experience and be affected by spatialities that are not only a digital reproduction of the look and/or behaviour of a physical environment.

This paper presents Mnemosphere, an interdisciplinary research project that investigates how the memory of places can be designed and communicated through experiential spaces capable of stimulating emotions. The research reflects on memory enhancement for the design of temporary exhibition spaces within the atmospheric dimension. It is approached with a particular focus on the topics of colour and emotions as one of the leading research axes. Through a visual research methodology, the project proposes the creation of ‘emotional landscapes’ related to the atmosphere and memory of places: rationed thematic atlases made up of images collected through a massive Open Call. The result is the translation of formal characteristics of the images (figurative, geometric, organic, abstract, among others) towards purely chromatic information by identifying the most recurrent hues of every atlas while paying particular attention to brightness and saturation, as these two colour properties are also fundamental for semantic purposes. The ultimate aim of the research is to define the morphological elements that represent the collective and individual memory in a system that could allow the further codification of parameters and guidelines for design practice.

In this paper we will see, how the aesthetic contribution of the philosophy of intimate space in Gaston Bachelard is in tune with the creation of a space of "meditation" in Le Corbusier. Our main points will be focused on: 1) Bachelard's poetic space can relate to our everyday life, and 2) Le Corbusier's architecture serves as a concrete example of a philosophical and aesthetic contribution. At the same time, we will see how the man makes space, and consequently, Le Corbusier anthropocentrism, in the examples of the Couvent in Sainte-Marie La Tourette and the Cabanon, is represented by an apparently bare architecture that is revealed only when one inhabits it.

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum (9/11 MM) employs affective rhetoric to enshrine the trauma of September 11 in support of U.S. nationalism. Applying Brian Massumi's understanding of affect as intensity, I examine how the site's rhetoric amplifies affect. The memorial pools and many signifiers of destruction magnify affective intensity through scale and repetition. The 9/11 MM continues its affective onslaught through an excessive number of shocking visuals and narrative details in its historical exhibition. The site's affective intensity culminates in a non-linear and non-narrative memorial space of seemingly infinite individualized mourning. The article discusses the site's political and social impact by considering Nigel Thrift's idea of affect in the built environment as imbedded thought and Georg Böhme's theory of atmosphere, understood as the reciprocal relationship between affective urban space and its impact on people.

In this paper, I examine the theoretical aspects of worldbuilding in Murasaki's and Tolkien's imagined worlds and accentuate the role of aesthetic landscape creation through which spatio-temporal layers are negotiated. As a starting point, I refer to Thomas Ryba's Husserl, Fantasy and Possible Worlds (1990), where he evaluates the believability of secondary worlds via Husserlian phenomenology. To shed light on Ryba's statement that authors must be "adept at describing the qualities of characters and the world in which they live" (232) through the lens of engagement, I contend that critically acclaimed imagined worlds such as Heian Japan in The Tale of Genji (c.1000 A.D.) and Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) demonstrate two fundamental qualities: the physical environments possess aesthetic qualities and the emotional experience of the place is integrated into the fabric of worldbuilding, generating an aura of believability.

Until recently, architecture has been mostly evaluated over its stylistic and visual characteristics. Whereas, the architectural space is primarily vital and therefore, it should not be evaluated independently of its environment and users. Pallasmaa emphasizes on the significance of experience and connection with the environment in architecture. Phenomenology, which aims to create sensory perception, is about creating an abstract experience beyond tangibility. Sensing beyond physical entities in spatial experience deepens meaning. Buildings and cities, essentially provide the necessary view to understand and confront the human existence. It is, therefore, important for architecture to be seen as the subject of phenomenology. This paper explores the relationship between phenomenology and architectural space through experience, sensation, and meaning. It argues that the relationship between human and built environment will be strengthened to the extent that the mentioned features could participate in the space.

The philosophies of substance presuppose a subject which then encounters a datum. This subject then reacts to the datum. The process ontology presupposes a datum (firstness) which is met with feelings (secondness), and progressively attains the unity of a subject (thirdness). It is in this sense that our bodily experience is primarily an experience of the dependence of the actual presentational immediacy upon the virtual causal efficacy, and not the other way round. To put it bluntly, the world does not emerge from the subject, but processes of subjectification emerge from the interactions between the body and world. The chapter is meant to provide the basis for the panel that will stage an encounter between cognitive neurosciences and architecture.

The digital has expanded the medium of architecture, bringing with it a focus on architectural surfaces. This paper presents a theoretical discussion centered on spatial æffect or how architecture operates as an atmospheric machine. The argument is that architecture’s double, atmospheric and meaningful architecture, architecture that affords mental transport across time and space, emerges when instead of focusing on the backdrop to the action or on surfaces, architects consider dimensionality and play with the experiential assemblage of the many material and immaterial elements that constitute space. Engaging in the production of architecture’s double is not only necessary for creativity and spatial diversity, but also for enchantment, which can drive attachment to places and help create and sustain a sense of belonging.

NOTE: Highlighted few corrections made after receiving the formatted .pdf. : the a-e ligature, typo, spacing and bibliographical references (referenced in text).

When catastrophes strike urban centers causing widespread damage to the built fabric, extensive coverage of events usually focuses on the material dimension of destruction and on the ordeal of residents that are displaced to safe locations. Far less attention, however, is dedicated to the dimension of human space, i.e. that dynamic entity connecting places and their inhabitants, exceeding the material constitution of physical space, and describing the existential dimension of lived experience. Human space as understood in this work gathers contributions from several disciplinary fields such as affective science, aesthetics, phenomenology, anthropology, history and architecture. All these studies converge on the centrality of the experiencing subject in the constitution of space, with particular emphasis on the affective dimension of experience. One particularly interesting – albeit so far under-explored – subject is the temporal dimension of affectivity in relation to space: how emotions are re-enacted over prolonged timespans, and if the connectedness of feelings and space is capable of intersubjectively bridging across subjects. This
hypothesis is especially relevant to understand the capacities for survival of human space through disastrous events, considering parts that are lost and those that may survive, being hinged to the materiality of places.

Abstract

Die in kommunikationstechnologischen Medien vermittelten Immersionswelten durchdringen und überwölben zunehmend die Lebenswelt. Apparative Immersionen bestehen in erster Linie aus dem Erlebnis hergestellter Atmosphären, die Befindlichkeiten auslösen, durch welche die abstrakt-symbolischen Interaktionsräume überhaupt erst leibliche Relevanz erhalten. Eine Klärung des Verhältnisses von Immersion und Atmosphäre steht bislang noch aus. Hierzu wird ein Atmosphärenbegriff entwickelt, der an die Phänomene des Immersiven anschließbar ist. Das Erleben von Atmosphären hat einige besondere Merkmale, die von den vorliegenden Atmosphärenkonzepten nicht berücksichtigt werden. Besonders der Aspekt der Zeitlichkeit, der sich als zentral für die Entstehung von Atmosphären erweist, wird nicht hinreichend in die Entwürfe einbezogen. Darauf reagiert eine Atmosphärenkonzeption, die auf drei an den Paradigmen des Em-bodiment und Enaktivismus orientierten Theoriemodulen aufbaut. Diese erlauben die Affizierung der leiblichen Befindlichkeit durch Umweltwahrnehmungen zu konzeptualisieren, wie sie für Atmosphären typisch ist. Atmosphären können hernach als ein Gemütszustand neben Emotionen und Stimmungen verortet werden. Es zeigt sich, dass Atmosphären als eine eigene Kognitionsform für imaginär vollendete Zukünfte organischer Zustände auffassbar sind, die dem Subjekt im Latenten verborgene Handlungen und imaginäre Körper-Umwelt-Relationen vermitteln. Immersionswelten können nunmehr aus der Leiblichkeit des Menschen verstanden werden, womit auch die Medientheorie und Soziologie eine neue Untersuchungsperspektive gewinnt. Im Zeitalter der Immersion tritt eine neue Art von Vergesellschaftung auf, die atmosphärisch vermittelte Intensitäten zum Gegenstand hat.

Abstract (English)

Immersive worlds provided by technological media are more and more protruding and overarching the lifeworld. Technologically enabled immersions essentially consist of the experience of atmospheres which trigger states of mind and thereby establish a connection between abstractsymbolic realms and bodily relevancies. A profound analysis of the relation between immersion and atmospheres is still outstanding. In this paper a concept of atmospheres is presented that relates this type of experience to the phenomena of immersivity. The perception of atmospheres is characterized by some specific cognitive attributes that are not taken into account by the current concepts of atmospheres. In particular, temporality, which proves to be central to the constitution of atmospheric experience, is not sufficiently credited. In order to address this conceptual challenge, the concept of atmospheres developed in this work is based on three theoretical modules that are derived from the paradigms of embodiment and enactivism. The synthesis of the modules allows for a conceptualization of the affection of bodily and mental states by the perception of environmental objects and situations, as is typical for atmospheres. In this way, atmospheres can be considered certain states of mind, alongside moods and emotions. It is shown that the atmospherical colouring of perception can be understood as the type of cognition for the arousal of implicit readiness to act and for potential future operations or body-environment relations. By showing that immersive realms are based on atmospheric cognition, media theory and sociology also gain new perspectives. With the upcoming age of immersion a new type of socialisation emerges that is based on atmospherically mediated intensities.

The museum spaces of Carlo Scarpa are deeply rooted in first-person experience, through the sensuous use of materials and a sophisticated interaction between architectural features and exhibited objects. This paper investigates how the architect leveraged suggestions of movement implicit in the expressive qualities of human figures, particularly statues, to provide visitors with an affectively charged experience of space. Scarpa exploited the statues’ gestures and gaze to establish a corporeal communication with subjects, creating theatrical situations that exude atmosphere. By analyzing three of his designs – Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, Castelvecchio in Verona, and the Canova Museum extension in Possagno – through the lens of suggestions of movement, the study intends to highlight the dynamics of these “atmospheric generators”, clarifying some characters of Scarpa’s work that remain otherwise opaque to critical appraisal.

Atmospheric perception is a vital aspect of how viewers engage with works of visual art. Yet art historical discourse has barely paid attention to atmosphere as a critical concept. To remedy this deficit this essay explores how works of visual art afford atmospheric experiences. Drawing on philosophical work on atmosphere and mood by Heidegger, Schmitz, Böhme and Griffero, it will be argued that atmospheres are at the core of our affective involvement with art. How an artwork solicits this affective involvement depends, among other things, on the media it employs. This will be demonstrated by discussing two examples: a painting and a work of installation art. Both works seem to articulate the same atmospheric character but the perceptual conditions they offer for experiencing this atmosphere are different. As a result, the works emphasize different stages in the process of atmospheric perception. Juxtaposing them helps to better understand-and enjoy-this process.

Between 1990 and 1994, Peter Zumthor (Basel, 1943) carried out an  enlargement of an old country house built in the seventeenth century in Canton of Graubünden, with a very modest program: a kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms and a heating system. Under the same roof joins the primitive element and its expansion, through an intimate gesture in which a wooden skin blends with what already exists to form an unique element, whose horizontal lines define rhythms that harmonize both actions.
Despite the apparent simplicity of the action, when we deepen in the study of the project and the house itself, it reveals some concepts that transcend the spatial definition of the house, making essential an beyond-the-visual analysis. Here, the architecture is felt by the other senses: the hapticity and the smell of the wood -rooted in the culture of the place- which links the new space and the old one, the whisper of the foreboded nature that is framed by horizontal windows, the heat of the chimney, understood as the center of the home.
These are topics that anticipate the placement of the architect in front of the landscape, the act of inhabiting (next Heidegger's conception of-being-in-the-world), the light, the matter, or the atmospheres -which are mentioned for the first time- that he will develop in his later works.
The joining with the archaic, give us the opportunity to analyze the house from its deepest meaning, and the essential points that become a series of spaces in a real home; as well as, to study the inhabitant's shelter which in addition to provide his physical needs in a comfortable way, preserve his privacy and show his personality.

Signage systems, as part of environmental graphic design of the cities, are almost exclusively conceived as informative tools under the visual domain. Although their participation to the overcrowded landscape of signs populating our urban landscapes is not underestimated, their possible contribute to the generation of atmospheres is undervalued. Pursuing a shift from the semiotic to an aesthetic interpretation, the paper propose an investigation on elements and strategies of signage systems as generators of atmospheres of the city. The design of information and orientation systems should not only be limited to the graphic design domain, but should also address other architectonical and perceptive issues, taking care of the relationship between signs supported by physical elements and their presence in the city. This approach permits more profound and satisfying aesthetic experiences other than indicate more conscious movements into the urban fabric while giving information about places to citizens and visitors.

Atmospheres have a considerable effect on the body and mind and the
ways in which we inhabit spaces and correspond to our surroundings. Architecture contributes to the dialog between the senses and the (electronic and physical) environment. As a form of atmospheric interface, architecture augments or intimates sensible ambient human-computer interactions. This paper explores how a number of architects—Frank Lloyd Wright, Luis Barragán, Iannis Xenakis, Bernard Tschumi, Peter Zumthor—have staged, composed and modeled atmospheres to produce architectural backdrops as receptacle for sensory and emotional
engagement with the ambient. These examples form a baseline for considering ways in which computational design practices can create atmospheric architecture—sensory spaces of effect and affect.