Designing Atmospheres

Cities grow and change. New urban space emerges and existing urban spaces are being changed. We expect from these spaces not only to fulfil important functions, but also to possess particular spatial qualities. How can such qualities be defined and evaluated? Jürgen Weidinger, professor for landscape architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin answers to these questions by engagement with the phenomenon of atmosphere. This way, the spatial quality of urban places, such as parks, promenades and squares, can be augmented. Weidinger offers a method for the designing of atmospheric places. This approach can also serve to evaluate design concepts and realised projects. The reader presents comments by internationally active landscape architects as well as writers from different fields such as environmental psychology, theatre studies, the arts and literature studies. Cities grow and change. New urban space emerges and existing urban spaces are being changed. We expect from these spaces not only to fulfil important functions, but also to possess particular spatial qualities. How can such qualities be defined and evaluated? Jürgen Weidinger, professor for landscape architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin answers to these questions by engagement with the phenomenon of atmosphere. This way, the spatial quality of urban places, such as parks, promenades and squares, can be augmented. Weidinger offers a method for the designing of atmospheric places. This approach can also serve to evaluate design concepts and realised projects. The reader presents comments by internationally active landscape architects as well as writers from different fields such as environmental psychology, theatre studies, the arts and literature studies. Städte wachsen und verändern sich. Neue Stadträume entstehen und bestehende Stadträume werden verändert. Von diesen Orten erwarten wir, dass sie nicht nur wichtige Funktionen übernehmen, sondern auch über besondere räumliche Qualitäten verfügen. Wie können diese räumlichen Qualitäten beschrieben und bewertet werden? Jürgen Weidinger, Professor für Landschaftsarchitektur an der Technischen Universität Berlin, beantwortet diese Frage durch die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen der Atmosphäre. Die räumliche Qualität städtischer Orte, wie Parks, Promenaden und Stadtplätze kann in dieser Weise gesteigert werden. Weidinger bietet eine Methode für das Entwerfen atmosphärischer Orte an. Dieser Ansatz kann auch dazu dienen, Entwurfsideen und realisierte Projekte zu bewerten. Im Sammelband äußern sich neben international tätigen Landschaftsarchitekten auch Autoren aus den Bereichen Umweltpsychologie, Theater-, Kunst und Literaturwissenschaft.

This book offers an ethnographic exploration of the role that atmosphere plays in work processes undertaken within an urban design studio. It provides understandings of how architectural practices are fuelled with atmosphere in various configurations throughout different design phases of selected projects for construction. From the outside architectural practices commonly appear well-ordered and carefully considered, established by proof and rationally justified. This book though poaches on architects’ preserves in order to draw attention to features of unpredictability and uncertainty within the design phases. By opening up into the ‘machinery room’ of urban designers, the goal is not to spoil the plaster saint cover of a ‘starchitect’ business, but to remind about the crucial value that pockets of doubt issuing questions rather than answers, open-mindedness instead of single-mindedness, play to the processes of design production and creativity. The book identifies these pockets as atmospheres enveloping the architectural practice.

Atmosphere is a term often used in everyday life to describe how a consumption space feels and has long been an important theme within marketing. There has been renewed interest in atmosphere over recent years in marketing and beyond, with the concept at a crucial point in its development. However, research about atmosphere is often confined into disciplinary silos. Consuming Atmospheres unsettles such disciplinary boundaries by delivering an interdisciplinary collection of cutting-edge work on atmosphere and consumption. Specifically, the book brings together experts from various disciplinary backgrounds to explore how atmospheres are designed, experienced, and researched. Within these three thematic parts organising the collection, atmosphere is explored across a range of consumption and geographic contexts, including pop-up stores, music festivals, tourist spaces, town centres, sports stadia, amusement arcades, food and drink, urban squats, and seaside piers across England, Scotland, Denmark, and Slovenia. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students within marketing and beyond, given the chapter authors have backgrounds in marketing, consumer research, geography, sociology, youth studies, art and design, place management, and law. It may also be of interest to practitioners endeavouring to co-create more effective consumption atmospheres, such as marketers, retailers, and place managers.

We live in atmospheres, we talk about them and we move through them. They offer us an important route into comprehending several aspects of human life and experience, what is important to people, the environments life is played out in, and the processes of change and possible futures. Atmospheres are an ephemeral yet inescapable element of our everyday experiential and conceptual environments. They are continually beyond our grasp as they undergo constant transformation. By interrogating atmospheres, this book arrives at new ways of thinking about the relationships between people, space, time and events. Atmospheres and the Experiential World explores the ways we engage with these affective modes, and the possibilities they offer for researchers, designers and policy-makers to make and intervene in the world. Chapters propose an approach to atmospheres that is not fixed to certain forms or boundaries. Instead, this book argues that atmospheres should be conceptualised as dynamic and changing configurations that allow analytical insight into a range of topics when we think in, about and through them. This book offers scholars, designers and creative practitioners, professionals and students a research-based way of understanding and intervening in atmospheres.

A sought-after interior designer shares his principles for transforming four walls, a floor, and a ceiling into stunning poetry in space. Jim Howard creates luxe yet comfortable homes for sophisticated clients around the country. His design work is known for the sort of evocative atmosphere that characterizes the world’s great spaces. “Atmosphere” is the magic of a place, the embodiment of all its power to capture your attention and embrace you—some might call it the “wow factor.” But even as it excites, atmosphere also soothes, offering an overall feeling of well-being and calm. Howard wrote this book to convey all he has learned about crafting atmosphere at home, wherever that home may be, whatever aesthetic it might have. Doing so isn’t just a matter of rules or formulas; it is a science as much as an art, which Jim shares in a dozen captivating chapters.

How will the human body, collective and individual, cope with the estimated increases in global air temperatures and in the earth's corresponding thermal stress? Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation offers an in-depth examination of design strategies that situate the body and its bioclimatic milieu at the core of their spatial formation. Drawing upon ten paradigmatic projects in urban design and landscape architecture - from Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire, to the city of Chandigarh in India - the book investigates the designers' bioclimatic aims and their spatial outcomes. Woven throughout the book, the evocative photographic essays of Iwan Baan showcase the selected projects as inhabited spaces for everyday life.

Combining ideas of sustainable development, strategic marketing and branding with space design and architecture, this volume offers contemporary perspectives on the development and impact of 'atmospheric quality' in tourism and hospitality service situations. Topics discussed include: silent airports, ambient odours and, co-created atmospheres.