The Architectonics of Atmosphere

Abstract

When architects present their projects they habitually speak of atmospheres, employing it as a tool to move us. But do they genuinely feel this “obscure object of desire” or is it imagined?1 With its nebulous and mercurial nature, can one aim to design atmospheres, or are they merely by-products of architectural designs? How can we design an atmospheric space? This thesis is ultimately a search for the architectonics of atmospheres, built from the author’s deepest inquiries about the architectural experience. This thesis scrutinizes the particular ecstasies that draw us towards atmospheric environments, culminating to three design investigations. Each investigation illustrates the ways for how atmospheres ought to be understood and involved at the forefront of the design process with varying uses of media. Drawn from Peter Zumthor’s list of nine elements to atmospheric designs, the goal of this thesis is to develop a constructive methodology to create felt spaces beyond the geometrical sense: spaces that move us. Ultimately, architecture is a vessel for our inhabitation, crafted through an unhurried process strengthened by continual empathetic feedback atop of the pragmatic. In the creation of affective spaces, atmospheres are envisaged as a critical design tool.