Perceiving and creating atmospheres: how ecological-enactive cognition can explain and inform architectural practice

Abstract

The notion of atmosphere has taken prominence in contemporary architecture discourse, in which it is used mainly to denote the affective characteristic of inhabitable spaces. In this paper, we employ the ecological-enactive approach to cognition to explain how atmospheres are perceived and created. According to that approach, cognitive systems actively explore meaningful possibilities for action in their environments. We thereby construe the perception of atmospheres as the possibilities for being in certain moods by exploring what the place affords. The perception of atmospheres is, therefore, a meaningful activity that is ultimately related to the organism’s biological interests, which we argue, is a type of meaning that cannot be fully conveyed descriptively. From this, it seems to follow that architects cannot foresee the atmospheres of a place during the designing phase of their projects. We avoid this undesirable conclusion by evoking the material engagement theory and the situated aspect of cognitive performances. Accordingly, skillful architects can imagine the intended atmospheres of a place by creating what we call proto-atmospheres, which involves creatively thinking through and with their tools.