Isabella Bower
Deakin University, Australia

Isabella (Ph.D. candidate with the School of Architecture Built Environment and the School of Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience Unit) has suggested a range of five articles to try and cover her own interdisciplinary approach to research — from the single study (assembling team, techniques, what we communicate to practice) through to the bigger picture (moving beyond novelty to producibility and global collaboration). She pulled out a quote from each article on what she finds particularly relevant.

“An interdisciplinary approach that integrates social scientists, health researchers, architects, building scientists, and engineers coupled with controlled experiments and interventions to isolate the effect of individual building factors on specific mental health outcomes is needed.”

Hoisington, Andrew J., Stearns-Yoder, Kelly A., Schuldt, Steven J., Beemer, Cody J., Maestre, Juan P., Kinney, Kerry A., Postolache, Teodor T., Lowry, Christopher A., and Brenner, Lisa A. 2019. “Ten Questions Concerning the Built Environment and Mental Health.” Building and Enviroment 155: 58–69 • p. 64.
DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.03.036
paper [EN]

“How much can we simplify 'reality' in a VE and still induce presence in a participant? How many sensory modalities need to be stimulated, and which minimal multi-sensory stimulation works best for each task? To any neuroscientist studying perception, it would seem obvious that such questions go to the roots of the mechanisms of sensory perception: what are the building blocks of our perceived world? What proportion of our perception is determined by the external world and what proportion is determined by our internal state?”

Sanchez-Vives, Maria V., and Slater, Mel. 2005. “From Presence to Consciousness through Virtual Reality.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6: 332–339 • p. 337.
DOI: 10.1038/nrn1651
paper [EN]

“In the scientific literature as well as in applied domains like interior design and architecture, systematic effects of color on emotion are frequently assumed.”

Wilms, Lisa, and Oberfeld, Daniel. 2018. “Color and Emotion: Effects of Hue, Saturation, and Brightness.” Psychological Research 82, 5: 896–914 • p.896.
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-017-0880-8
paper [EN]

“Reproducibility is not well understood because the incentives for individual scientists prioritize novelty over replication […] This project provides accumulating evidence for many findings in psychological research and suggests that there is still more work to do to verify whether we know what we think we know.”

Open Science Collaboration. 2015. “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.” Science 349, 6251: aac4716, 1–8 • p. 6; 7.
DOI: 10.1126/science.aac4716
paper [EN]

“A response to pervasive failures to replicate previous research makes the transition to open science methods necessary, and despite the challenges, early adoption of open practices will likely pay off for both the individual and science.”

Allen, Christopher, and Mehler, David M.A. 2019. “Open Science Challenges, Benefits and Tips in Early Career and Beyond.” PLOS Biology 17, 5: e3000246, 1–14 • p. 10.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000246
paper [EN] [OA]

Paola Sabbion
University of Genoa, Italy

Paola (Ph.D. lecturer at the Department of Architecture and Design) has suggested that the sense of Landscape lies in the expressive forms of the environment, namely as it is sensuously and affectively perceived. Expressive features of objects in space, human behavior mechanisms, as well as socio-cultural patterns and practices, contribute to form an aesthetic response, as a structure of feeling that arises from these interrelations.

“The making, as long as it concerns a shaping and establishing of the geometrical space and its contents, cannot […] relate to the concrete qualities possessed by the space and the things within it. Or, more precisely: it does not relate to the determinations of things, but to the way in which they radiate outwards into space, to their output as generators of atmospheres. Instead of properties, therefore, I speak of ekstases — that is, ways of stepping-outside-oneself.”

Böhme, Gernot. 2017. The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. Ed. by J.P. Thibaud. Ambiances, Atmospheres and Sensory Experiences of Space, 1. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge • p. 32.
book [EN]

“If the aesthetic enjoyment of landscape is based on behavioural relationships between the observer and his visible environment, it is to be expected that places will vary in their capacity for stimulating aesthetic response, and that this variation will depend partly on the intrinsic properties of such places and partly on the behaviour mechanisms which govern these relationships.”

Appleton, Jay. 1975. The Experience of Landscape. London and New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons • p. 238.
book [EN]

“My constant attempt to de-axiologize atmospheric perception, freeing it from any romantic-organic cliché urges me to say that even the most chaotic and anonymous city has a specific atmospheric charge. Even cold and abstract buildings, anonymous ‘non-places’ and ‘non-buildings,’ even a merely built-up city or its unpleasant suburbs arouse some atmospheric effect.”

“Obviously, the existence of negative atmospheres does not mean that they cannot be corrected or rejected, but only that the atmospheres generate an expansive affective field, which can be more or less aggressive but not necessarily harmonious and comfortable, as the linguistic and common-sense use of the term ‘atmosphere’ sometimes wrongly suggests.”

Griffero, Tonino. 2021. “Urban Atmospheres and Felt-Bodily Resonances.” In The Affective City: Spaces, Atmospheres and Practices in Changing Urban Territories, volume I, ed. by S. Catucci and F. De Matteis, 25–50. Alleli | Research, 88. Siracusa: LetteraVentidue • p. 42.
book [EN]

“The suggestion that we do not first perceive an object of a certain geometric shape or material, but rather that we begin with a more global sense of its character, is expressed in this notion of a bodily physiognomy. We might find support for this view in nineteenth-century aesthetics, specifically in the concept of empathy as explored by a number of German writers. The term itself is translated from Einfühlung, meaning literally ‘feeling in,’ and relates to the bodily response of the viewer when experiencing an artwork.”

“The ability to be ‘moved by’ an experience has its roots in our ability to move, which gives us a kind of inward knowledge of what it feels like to move in the way that a form suggests.”

Hale, Jonathan. 2017. Merleau-Ponty for Architects. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge • pp. 54–55.
book [EN]

“Landscape, on the one hand, appears to encapsulate the notion of fixity — of a text already written — of the production of meaning and the creation of dominating power. Landscape is solid. Practice, on the other hand, is about fluidity, flow and repetition. It is about the negotiation between continuity and change. Practice has been seen by social and cultural theorists as an antidote to the representational — as an unexamined component of the everyday.”

“The term ‘structure of feeling’ simultaneously brings the fixity of structure and the flow of feeling into account. In this formulation structure is not fixed and eternal but a part of a process. Feeling is not just ‘personal’ but moulded (not determined!) by the social. Structure and feeling do not inhabit two ends of a spectrum but are interconnected and productive of each other.”

Cresswell, Tim. 2003. “Landscape and the Obliteration of Practice.” In The Handbook of Cultural Geography, ed. by K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, and N. Thrift, 269–282. London: SAGE Publications • p. 270.
essay [EN]

Chiara Jutzi
University of Salzburg, Austria (Dept. of Psychology, Ph.D. candidate)
University of Cambridge, England (Dept. of Architecture, visiting scholar)

Chiara (Ph.D. candidate in Social Neuroscience and Psychology) investigates the potential beneficial effects of the built environment in the face of threat. It is fundamental that psychological needs are satisfied by the built environment in order to experience wellbeing therein. Here, she presents five articles focusing on wellbeing — a state of psychological need fulfillment and the absence of threat. The selection includes (1) insights regarding specific architectural features promoting wellbeing, (2) theoretical ideas on the measurement of wellbeing, (3) the concept of need fulfillment related to space, and (4) an innovative wellbeing evaluation approach. Lastly, it entails (5) a recent empirical study translating these theories into an experimental design.

“Mental health outcomes, broadly defined, include emotions, cognitions (e.g., depressive thoughts) and behaviours related to emotional well-being. Exploratory associations have been made between individual’s mental health and features of the built environment, including residential floor level, […] access to greenspace, […] and exposure to indoor air pollutants.”

Beemer, Cody J., Stearns-Yoder, Kelly A., Schuldt, Steven J., Kinney, Kerry A., Lowry, Christopher A., Postolache, Teodor T., Brenner, Lisa A., and Hoisington, Andrew J. 2019. “A Brief Review on the Mental Health for Select Elements of the Built Environment.” Indoor and Built Environment 30, 2: 152–165 • p. 153.
DOI: 10.1177/1420326X19889653
paper [EN]

“Self-determination theory has focused on the social-contextual conditions that facilitate versus forestall the natural processes of self-motivation and healthy psychological development. Specifically, factors have been examined that enhance versus undermine intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and well-being.”

Ryan, Richard M., and Deci, Edward L. 2000. “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.” American Psychologist 55, 1: 68–78 • p. 68.
DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
paper [EN]

“The satisfaction of basic needs is a must for humans, and some of it can now be achieved through virtual communications and services. As such, virtual space might have come to form in recent years, jointly with physical space, a ‘double space’ for the satisfaction of human needs in two spaces, rather than the traditional single physical space as the only arena permitting this gratification.”

Kellerman, Aharon. 2014. “The Satisfaction of Human Needs in Physical and Virtual Spaces.” The Professional Geographer 66, 4: 538–546 • p. 538.
DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2013.848760
paper [EN]

“Being able to make the link between increased wellbeing and an increase in the productivity, or performance, of building users requires new definitions and methods. An innovative wellbeing valuation approach is presented, consisting of a multi-item scale to measure and quantify the wellbeing outcomes experienced by building users.”

Watson, Kelly J. 2018. “Establishing Psychological Wellbeing Metrics for the Built Environment.” Building Services Engineering Research and Technology 39, 2: 232–243 • p. 232.
DOI: 10.1177/0143624418754497
paper [EN]

“The glaring gap in linking variations in physical features of architecture to psychological states is surprising. It has been previously suggested that this can be attributed to methodological and disciplinary incongruences between architecture and psychology. Architectural research connecting the human response to design relies on philosophical constructs, whereas traditional psychological research investigating the human-environment relationship relies on observation and subjective measures.”

Tawil, Nour, Sztuka, Izabela M., Pohlmann, Kira, Sudimac, Sonja, and Kühn, Simone. 2021. “The Living Space: Psychological Well-Being and Mental Health in Response to Interiors Presented in Virtual Reality.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, 23 (special issue on “Therapeutic Environments: Existential Challenges and Healing Places”): 12510, 1–20 • p. 1.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph182312510
paper [EN]

Ludovica Gregori
University of Florence, Italy
New European Bauhaus Prize 2021

Ludovica (Ph.D. candidate in the “Sustainability and Innovation for the Project” program, Department of Architecture) investigates post-emergency scenarios, identifying open public spaces as the tool to foster social interaction and support positive processing of traumatic experiences. The study of temporary post-emergency settlements can provide time-sensitive resilient urban answers to improve social liveliness. The design strategies focus on proxemics, urban sociology, and environmental psychology. This project proposal won the New European Bauhaus Prize in 2021. Here Ludovica has suggested readings span from the first approach to urban sociology (Gehl) to a recent reflection on cognitive sciences and design (Ruzzon) to underline the importance of observing and understanding people’s needs and activities to promote interaction. Social interaction is associated with wellbeing, based on sociological and neuroscientific literature. She has included movies and documentaries as storytelling means to explain the immaterial components of a place, such as its atmosphere.

“Something happens because something happens because something happens. That life between buildings is a self-reinforcing process also helps to explain why many new housing developments seem so lifeless and empty. Many things go on, to be sure, but both people and events are so spread out in time and space that the individual activities almost never get a chance to grow together to larger, more meaningful, and inspiring sequences of events. The process becomes negative: nothing happens because nothing happens.”

Gehl, Jan. 1971. Life between Buildings: Using Public Space. Copenhagen: Arkitektens Forlag • p. 75.
book [EN]

“Only through the comprehension of habits embedded in daily experiences, as for example learning, dwelling, or working, we can understand the proper emotions expected and the configurations coupled with them. […] Designers must carefully interpret [users’] expectations, engaging only a few thin lines floating in the air, the affective symbols, physiological signatures, sensations, or background bodily feelings, connecting them with human experiences.”

Ruzzon, Davide. 2022. Tuning Architecture with Humans: Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design. Milano and Udine: Mimesis International • conclusions.
book [EN]

“Attachment to a home is a powerful thing.”

JR, and Varda, Agnès (directors). 2017. Faces Places (original title: Visages Villages). Paris: Cine Tamaris.
video [EN/FR]

“Deaf from birth, the architect evokes how his disability led him to develop an alternative way of listening using his whole body as a resonance chamber of sound vibrations. Learning from elephants, Boonserm has developed an architecture of the senses where sound vibrations become the voice of space.”

Bêka, Ila, and Lemoine, Louise (directors). 2022. Big Ears Listen with Feet. Paris and Bordeaux: Bêka & Partners.
video [EN]

“The number one activity is people looking at other people. This is a point that is overlooked in many designs. […] We come to the question: why do some plazas work and other do not?”

Whyte, William H. (director). 1980. The Social Life of the Small Urban Space. New York, NY: Municipal Art Society of New York • minutes 04:59; 11:08.
video [EN]

Eleonora D’Ascenzi
University of Florence, Italy

Eleonora (architect and Ph.D. candidate in the “Sustainability and Innovation for the Design of the Built Environment and the Product System” program, Department of Architecture) has suggested five texts to explore how people experience their surroundings in virtual reality. She focused on the influence of digital design on perceptual processes, the illusion of immersion, and the sense of presence.

“Individuals are not passive recipients to their environment, taking selective ‘snapshots,’ but actively interpret the environment. Therefore representations can never be neutral or just static ‘pictures,’ which should impact upon the form(s) of representation utilised.”

“An individual’s awareness is determined by what they choose to attend, not merely on the stimulation entering the senses.”

Johnson, Angie. 2009. “Visualisation Techniques, Human Perception and the Built Environment.” In Northumbria Working Paper Series: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Built and Virtual Environment 2, 2: 93–103 • p. 96.
paper [EN]

“As stated by Denis Berthier: ‘in the visual modality, the virtual is defined as what imposes itself to visual perception with the strength of the real.’ Both actual in this sense, the real and the virtual can meet in this phenomenological context and form a new space, where a lot of plays on illusions become imaginable.”

Guez, Judith. 2015. “Creating with Illusions between the Real and the Virtual / Créer avec les illusions entre le réel et le virtuel.” Hybrid. Journal of Arts and Human Mediations / Reveu des arts et médiations humaines 5 (special issue on “Realities of illusion / Réalités de l’illusion”): n.p.
DOI: 10.4000/hybrid.1247
paper [EN] [OA]

“Point of view clearly had something to do with personal location, but it was itself an unclear notion. It was obvious that the content of one’s point of view was not the same as or determined by the content of one’s beliefs or thoughts. For example, what should we say about the point of view of the Cinerama viewer who shrieks and twists in his seat as the roller-coaster footage overcomes his psychic distancing? Has he forgotten that he is safely seated in the theater? Here I was inclined to say that the person is experiencing an illusory shift in point of view. In other cases, my inclination to call such shifts illusory was less strong.”

Dennett, Daniel C. (ed.). 1981. Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1978). Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press • pp. 314–315.
book [EN]

“Perceptual judgments of particular spatial properties are not veridical in VR. […] For instance, in-depth distance intervals have consistently been shown to be perceptually compressed in VEs [virtual environments]. Specifically, when real-world distances are accurately rendered in a VE, they will appear much shorter.”

Campos, Jennifer L., Nusseck, Hans-Günther, Wallraven, Christian, Mohler, Betty J., and Bülthoff, Heinrich H. 2007. “Visualization and (Mis)Perceptions in Virtual Reality.” In Visualisierung in der Simulationstechnik, ed. by R. Möller, 10–14. Aachen: Shaker • p. 10.
paper [EN]

“Experiencing presence requires the reproduction of the physical features of external reality; the possibility of interaction and free action, and the creation and sharing of the cultural web that makes meaningful — and therefore visible — both people and objects populating the environment.”

IJsselsteijn, Wijnand A., and Riva, Giuseppe. 2003. “Being There: The Experience of Presence in Mediated Environment.” In Being There: Concepts, Effects and Measurements of User Presence in Synthetic Environments, ed. by G. Riva, F.A.M. Davide, and W.A. IJsselsteijn, 3–16. Amsterdam and Washington, DC: Ios Press • p. 13.
paper [EN]

Gianluca D’Agostino
Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy

Gianluca (Ph.D. candidate in the “Architectural and Landscape Heritage” program, Department of Architecture and Design) investigates the role of emotions in museums and how the affective turn can support the encounter between archaeological heritage and the public’s plurality. The suggested readings aim to frame his transdisciplinary approach to research by involving museography, cultural heritage mediation, and neuroscience. By assessing and measuring the emotional responses of their visitors, museums can foster new connections to enhance the perception, understanding, and memory of Cultural Heritage.

“Today, curators are very keen to experiment with new ways of establishing dialogues with visitors, whose role is consequently shifting from recipients to partners and co-producers of experiences. But most interestingly, often curatorial intervention goes further than interaction for its own sake, and purposefully leverages on the sensory experience in order to attempt to elicit specific affective responses in visitors. The experimentation with multisensory modes in museums is connected with the affective turn, more specifically sensory activation is a crucial tool for curators to engage visitors’ emotions.”

Varutti, Marzia. 2023. “The Affective Turn in Museums and the Rise of Affective Curatorship.” Museum Management and Curatorship 38, 1: 61–75 • p. 69.
DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2022.2132993
paper [EN]

“Atmospherics […] Its central premise is that the environment has the capacity to influence people’s behavior via sensory and emotional mechanisms, and that this influence can be manipulated in perceptible ways through design choices. Applied to visitor research, atmospherics offers a possible organizing framework for the study of visitors’ affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to the physical cues of the exhibition environment.”

Forrest, Regan. 2013. “Museum Atmospherics: The Role of the Exhibition Environment in the Visitor Experience.” Visitor Studies 16, 2: 201–216 • p. 202.
DOI: 10.1080/10645578.2013.827023
paper [EN]

“If it is true that the curator’s intervention can actually influence the visitors’ experience and interpretation, are museums themselves willing to receive and listen to visitors, are they interested in their emotional experiences and responses? Is it possible to develop new dialogues with visitors through emotions?”

Varutti, Marzia. 2020. “Vers une muséologie des émotions.” Culture and Musées: Muséologie et recherches sur la culture 36 (special issue on “Emotion in Exhibitions”): 171–177 • n.p.
DOI: 10.4000/culturemusees.5751
paper [FR] [OA]

“Affective responses do not just happen spontaneously and uncontrollably, […] but occur through the ability of the visitor to both desire, seek out and mediate that response. It is, therefore, a contextual response, depending not only on the site/exhibition, but the visitors’ relationship to it, their own political and social contexts, and their own skills at recognizing and working with their emotional responses.”

Smith, Laurajane, and Campbell, Gary. 2016. “The Elephant in the Room: Heritage, Affect and Emotion.” In A Companion to Heritage Studies, ed. by W. Logan, M.N. Craith, and U. Kockel, 443–460. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology. Chichester: Wiley • p. 445.
essay [EN]

“Taking cognitive processes and emotions into consideration saves us from designing inadequate museum experiences. For instance, as we know, the crowding of objects in the exhibition rooms is harmful to the perception of an individual object for various reasons: perceptual aspects (the objects are too close), attention-related aspects (too many stimuli can be distracting), semantic satiety (too many experiences of the same type), and memory difficulties in remembering the objects seen. […] I believe that the definition of the museum should include respecting the needs of our brains. It is a fundamental condition for a greater appreciation by visitors of our heritage.”

Banzi, Annalisa. 2022. “The Brain-Friendly Museum: How Psychology and Neuroscience Could Help Museums to Be Brain-Friendly.” In The Brain-Friendly Museum Using Psychology and Neuroscience to Improve the Visitor Experience, ed. by A. Banzi, 1–5. New York, NY: Routledge • pp. 1–2.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003304531-1
essay [EN]

Alessandra Pelizzari Corbellini
Iuav University of Venice, Italy
International PhD Program Villard d’Honnecourt

Alessandra (artist and Ph.D. candidate for the Doctoral Program in Architecture, City and Design at the Iuav University of Venice — track: Villard d’Honnecourt International Doctorate) has suggested that it is possible to intuit what intuition is, even if it is very difficult to describe it. However, it is possible to observe how it works and how it is transmitted and, thus, indirectly grasp a description of its essence.

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”

“We should not hoard knowledge; we should be free from our knowledge.”

“The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. Zen practice is to open up our small mind.”

“While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life. The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.”

Suzuki, Shunryu. 1970. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Ed. by T. Dixon. New York, NY and Tokyo: Weatherhill
• pp. 21; 85; 33; 48–49.
book [EN]

“Artistic expression is engaged with the pre-verbal meanings of the world, meanings that are incorporated and lived, rather than simply intellectually understood.”

“The task of art and architecture, in general, is to reconstruct the experience of an undifferentiated inner world, in which we are not mere spectators, but to which we inseparably belong. In artistic works, existential understanding arises from our very encounter with the world and with our being-in-the-world — it is not conceptualized or intellectualized.”

“The encounter with any work of art implies a bodily interaction. The painter Graham Sutherland expresses this view on the artist’s work: ‘in a sense the landscape painter must almost look at the landscape as if it were himself — himself as a human being.’ In Cézanne’s view, ‘the landscape thinks itself in me, and I am its consciousness.’ A work of art functions as another person, with whom one unconsciously converses. When confronting a work of art, we project our emotions and feelings on to the work. A curious exchange takes place; we lend the work our emotions, whereas the work lends us its authority and aura. Eventually, we meet ourselves in the work. Melanie Klein’s notion of ‘projective identification’ suggests that, in fact, every human interaction involves the projection of fragments of the self on to the other person.”

Pallasmaa, Juhani. 2012. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses (1996). 3rd edn. Chichester: Wiley • pp. 28; 28; 69.
book [EN]

“Whether it comes from suffering, or whether it comes from joy, we all experience as human beings this moment of illumination at some point in our lives: a moment when we suddenly understand our own message, a moment when knowledge, by shedding light on passion, detects at once the rules and relentlessness of destiny — a truly synthetic moment when decisive failure, by rendering us conscious of the irrational, becomes the success of thought. That is the locus of the differential of knowledge, the Newtonian burst that allows us to appreciate how insight springs forth from ignorance — the sudden inflection of human genius upon the curvature of life’s progress. Intellectual courage consists in actively and vitally preserving this instant of nascent knowledge, of making it the unceasing fountain of our intuition, and of designing, with the subjective history of our errors and faults, the model of a better, more illuminated life.”

“We must underscore the role of the act of attention in the experience of the instant. For there is no real evidence of such an experience other than in an act of will, in the consciousness that intensifies itself to the point it decides to act.”

“Since attention has both the need and the power to recapture itself, it is in essence to be found entirely in its resumptions. Attention is also a series of beginnings; it is constituted by those mental rebirths that occur in consciousness when it heeds time’s instants.”

Bachelard, Gaston. 2013. Intuition of the Instant (1966). Trans. by E. Rizo-Patron. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (NUP) • pp. 3; 11; 20: original italics.
book [EN]

“The enigma of an autumn afternoon (1910): ‘on a clear autumn afternoon, I was sitting on a bench in the center of Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. Of course, it was not the first time I had seen this square: I had just come out of a long and painful intestinal disease, and I was almost in a state of soft sensitivity. The whole world around me, even the marble of the buildings and fountains, seemed to me to be convalescing. At the center of the square stands a statue of Dante. The warm and strong autumn sun illuminated the statue and the church façade. Then I had the strange impression of looking at those things for the first time, and the composition of the painting revealed itself to my mind’s eye.’”

De Chirico, Giorgio. 2008. “Meditazioni di un pittore” (1912). In Scritti (1911–1945): Romanzi e Scritti critici e teorici, vol. I, ed. by A. Cortellessa. Milano: Bompiani • trad. by A. Pelizzari Corbellini.
book [IT]

“Dancing for me is an ontological state with certain rules and laws that are different from those that govern everyday life. When I dance, I find myself halfway between an observable and an unobservable reality. I have the feeling of being in a passage area, in an area between one thing and the other. My perception becomes sharper as I dance, both actively and passively. It is a state that I often compare to eroticism. My observation-based faculties are more lucid when I dance. The space becomes more three-dimensional because I split it with the movement of molecules that, while copulating, fly all around and split with each dance movement. Dance is active, but also passive in the sense that you let yourself go to the ‘now moment.’ It is subjectivation and at the same time objectification. Dancing, for me, also involves a fusion of bodily matter and non-material principles.”

“It also has to do with the fact that ‘physical’ time or ‘body’ time are not the same as ‘mental’ time. My dance teacher, the Japanese Min Tanaka, proved that mental time is faster than physical time. Sometimes the thought is too fast. To communicate through the body and become tangible through the body — which constitutes and offers an overall experience that is different from that through speech — it is necessary to give the body more time. Abandoning oneself to the body, one is always amazed at the speed with which time passes. When you focus on conceptual issues, ten minutes can seem like an hour [...]. This condition of sensory acuity and openness that is often precluded to us in daily life continues to be a special experience for me. Dancing is like taking a bath in your body. Dancing opens up a world where I am freer than anywhere else. There are no limits, everything is allowed. It’s not a matter of recklessness — it’s pretty hard not to think about anything when you’re dancing for two hours straight. What is needed are mental issues that are physically developed. Certain things that come to mind while dancing are not paid attention, while others continue to think.”

Vermeersch, Pé. 2021. A Blind Walk: Outdoor Workshops.
video [EN]

Guilherme Nunes de Vasconcelos
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais — UFMG, Brazil

Guilherme (Professor at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais — UFMG) has suggested five works to illustrate his approach to the theme of atmospheres and more specifically to the conception of proto-atmospheres. His research interests revolve around issues related to immersive technologies and architecture, and the following references were of fundamental importance in unveiling aspects that reoriented his work as a researcher.

“Bringing forth a world through enaction and niche construction involves physically engaging with the environment, which mutually determines both agent and environment. This environment, as it is brought forth by us, is the only world with which we engage.”

Rolla, Giovanni, and Figueiredo, Nara. 2023. “Bringing Forth a World, Literally.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 22: 931–953 • p. 8.
DOI: 10.1007/s11097-021-09760-z
paper [EN]

“Charming in summer, this room would be no less so in winter, when heated by a stove placed within the thickness of the wall and stoked from an adjoining room. Various flues can be used to convey heat and to allow the temperatures of spring to prevail in the season of ice and snow. The floor must be of marble, and under the table there must be a carpet on which to rest the feet. If you have the ceiling painted, insist on a calm and serene sky, with few clouds, to cheer the soul and incline it to the sweetest and most tranquil enjoyment. Such are the sensations appropriate to this room, and such is the aim to which it should tend.”

La Camus de Mézières, Nicolas. 1992. The Genius of Architecture: Or, the Analogy of That Art with Our Sensations (1780). Trans. by D. Britt. Texts and Documents: A Series of the Getty Center Publication Programs, Architecture. Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities • p. 140.
book [EN]

“In this light, good architecture should be primarily concerned with creating the moods appropriate to positive emotions that support ethical human action, articulated in the form of a narrative program, inevitably enhancing a wholesome (whole and holy) and healthy life […] Thus, proper architecture can be expected to reveal that we belong (and experience purpose), that we may be ‘at home’ in the earth: on the earth, under the sky.”

Pérez-Gómez, Alberto. 2016. Attunement: Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press • p. 33: original italics.
book [EN]

“Humans have developed the morphogenetic habit of building and then using what they have built for changing (willingly or unwillingly) what the world affords and how the world is revealed. […] In what follows, I use the term Creative Thinging to designate a long-term commitment to the discovery of new varieties of material forms, so far as it is possible in a given historical situation, through a saturated, situated engagement of thinking and feeling with things and form-generating materials.”

Malafouris, Lambros. 2014. “Creative Thinging: The Feeling of and for Clay.” Pragmatics and Cognition 22, 1: 140–158 • p. 144: original italics.
DOI: 10.1075/pc.22.1.08mal
paper [EN]

“It is the indetermination of affordances unfolding in action that can be experienced as imaginative. When affordances are conceived as possibilities that get determined in actual activity in real-life situations, any engagement with affordances can be more or less imaginative depending on the determination achieved already. Such indetermination is amplified by the multiplicity of affordances unfolding concurrently, reciprocally determining each other. When an inviting affordance is still early in the process of enactment (it is still largely indeterminate), coordination with this affordance, given the current situation, may be experienced as imaginative. For instance when the architects at the start of the project imagines what an installation might look like. Conversely, the further an activity has unfolded, the more determinacy and convergence across timescales, the less of an imaginative character engagement with an inviting affordance has.”

van Dijk, Ludger, and Rietveld, Erik. 2020. “Situated Imagination.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences n.n.: 1–23 • p. 17.
DOI: 10.1007/s11097-020-09701-2
paper [EN]

Dylan Chau Huynh
Aalborg University, Denmark

Memory, as a cognitive function, plays a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the world and influencing our daily experiences. This collection of suggested readings delves into the intricate interplay between memory and the built environment, exploring the profound impact that our recollections can have on our perception, interaction, and interpretation of the spaces we inhabit. The importance of comprehending memory as a dynamic function becomes evident, underscoring its role not only in individual cognition but also in shaping collective experiences within the constructed landscape. This compilation of literature converges on the notion that memory and the built environment share a symbiotic relationship. As we navigate the spaces around us, our memories, whether individual or collective, become integral elements shaping our perception, behavior, and overall experience of the built world.

“Memory allows us to learn from the past, understand the present, and plan for the future. […] Our sense of self and our capacity to project ourselves into the future depends on our personal memories.”

Purves, Dale, LaBar, Kevin S., Platt, Michael L., Woldorff, Marty, Cabeza, Roberto, and Huettel, Scott A. 2013 (2008). Principles of Cognitive Neuroscience, second edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press • p. 243
book [EN]

“The image is the product both of immediate sensation and of the memory of past experience, and it is used to interpret information and to guide action. The need to recognize and pattern our surroundings is so crucial, and has such long roots in the past, that this image has practical and emotional importance to the individual.”

Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press • p. 4
book [EN]

“Among children living in urban environments, those who had everyday views of nature (e.g., a tree outside their apartment window, instead of a view of concrete) performed better on tasks that measured working memory [...]. These findings suggest that greater exposure to natural environments may be associated with a range of important benefits.”

Bratman, Gregory N., Daily, Gretchen C., Levy, Benjamin J., and Gross, James J. 2015. “The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition.” Landscape and Urban Planning 138: 41–50 • p. 42
DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.02.005
paper [EN]

“Students were tested within their standard classroom environment, then moved to a different environment for their second test. The results of this were statistically analyzed and compared between genders and school years. The study demonstrated an impact, with students performing statistically worse when tested in an area that is removed from their standard environmental classroom context.”

Seddon, Michael. 2019. “Context-Dependent Memory: Do Changes in Environmental Context Cues Affect Student Recall?” Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal 11, 3: 25–34 • p. 25
paper [EN]

“Participants navigated a virtual reality environment in which they picked up objects and put them in a backpack, and later put down the objects. From time to time, they were probed to report which object was currently in their backpack. Controlling for distance traveled and time elapsed, participants were slower to respond if they had walked through a doorway after picking up an object.”

Zacks, Jeffrey M. 2020. “Event Perception and Memory.” Annual Review of Psychology 71: 165–191 • pp. 172–173
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010419-051101
paper [EN]

Federica Pompejano
Sara Rocco
Land-In-Pro project
University of Genoa, Italy

Federica ( PhD in Preservation of the Architectural Heritage | Assistant professor and researcher at the Department of Architecture and Design, | Land-In-Pro project PI) and Sara (PhD in Preservation of the Architectural Heritage | Land-In-Pro postdoctoral fellow) are delving into pivotal topics related to our recent past, which left important tangible and intangible legacies within landscapes, not fully acknowledged as heritage. These are still on the verge of being incorporated into present narratives. The future is frequently perceived in a dualistic manner, seen as a potential threat and a source of innovation. They aim for a heritage future perspective that moves beyond the concept of "selective" and "authorized," allowing new heritage-making transitions from present-past to foreign futures.

"The landscape tells — or rather is — a story […]. It enfolds the lives and times of predecessors who, over generations, have moved around in it and played their part in its formation.”

“To perceive the landscape is therefore to carry out an act of remembrance, and remembering is not so much a matter of calling up an internal image, stored in the mind, as of engaging perceptually with an environment that is itself pregnant with the past."

Ingold, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York, NY: Routledge • p. 189
book [EN]

"The story of a scar never concerns indifference; the narrative potential of the scar is a possibility and a promise we ought to embrace.”

“There is somebody behind the existence of a scar, responsibility and choices are involved, and in a scarring process, the open wound turns into a scab on its way to finally becoming a scar.”

Storm, Anna. 2014. Post-Industrial Landscape Scars. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan • pp. 1–2
book [EN]

“The idea of landscape scars challenges a layered understanding of heritage per se.”

"The scar metaphor suggests that heritage is an integrated and crucial part of human living with all its inherent contradictions and ambiguities. It is a perspective that attempts to discern wholeness out of complexity and divergences.”

Storm, Anna. 2014. Post-Industrial Landscape Scars. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan • p. 4
book [EN]

“Moments where there are ‘residues of resonances’ that we encounter in landscape.”

“It is in these moments of ‘resonance’ — or affective intensity — I argue that it is possible to engage with different registers of memory, which, in turn, makes some aspects of industrial pasts legible in the contemporary landscape.”

Walker, Amy. 2021. “Everyday Resonances of Industrial Pasts.” In Geographies of Post-Industrial Place, Memory, and Heritage, ed. by M.A. Rhodes II, W.R. Price, and A. Walker, 52–67. London and New York, NY: Routledge • p. 54
essay [EN]

“I used the term [‘imaginary’] instead in an attempt to evoke the potentiality of ideas about space, environment, and politics, in a way that relates strongly to memory, past experience and knowledge, yet allows for these to be made real in the present, and projected creatively into possible futures.”

“[Imaginary is] an interaction of the concrete and abstract that is potentially very productive and rooted in experience and practice as well as discourse.”

Haines, Sophie. 2012. “Meaningful Resources and Resource-Full Meanings: Spatial and Political Imaginaries in Southern Belize.” In Imagining Landscapes: Past, Present and Future, ed. by M. Janowski and T. Ingold, 97–120. Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception. London and New York, NY: Routledge • p. 98
essay [EN]

Federica Sanchez
Lombardini22, Italy

Federica (Master in Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design, Iuav University of Venice) has suggested a cluster of literature papers and other media to explore the connection between space and time perception in relation to the architectural experience. This investigation aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of how we perceive spatial elements, including time as an integral component of our experiences. Together with the Tuned team at Lombardini22 (Milan, Italy) and the MySpace Lab (Lausanne, Switzerland), she carries out research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, focusing on human interaction within built environments.

“The hippocampal system is critical for storage and retrieval of declarative memories, including memories for locations and events that take place at those locations. [...] Place cells coexist with grid, head direction, and border cells, all likely to interact with each other to yield a global representation of the animal’s changing position, which may be used to guide the animal to particular locations in the environment. [...] Changes in the environment, which lead to global remapping in the hippocampus, induce changes in the firing locations of simultaneously recorded grid cells.”

Moser, May-Britt, Rowland, David C., and Moser, Edvard I. 2015. “Place Cells, Grid Cells, and Memory.” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 7, 2: a021808, 1–15 • abstract, pp. 12, 10
DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a021808
paper [EN]

“Time perception is a fundamental element of human awareness. Our consciousness, our ability to perceive the world around us and, ultimately, our very sense of self are shaped upon our perception of time in loop connecting memories of the past, present sensations and expectations about the future. [...] The nature of time is rooted in our body. Constellations of impulses arising from the flesh constantly create our interoceptive perception and, in turn, the unfolding of these perceptions defines human awareness of time. [...] Our results suggest that underestimations in interoceptive time perception are connected to different psychological conditions characterized by a diminished processing of high salience stimuli from the body. Conversely, overestimations of the duration of interoceptive stimuli appear to be function of subjects’ ability to correctly perceive their own bodily information.”

Di Lernia, Daniele, Serino, Silvia, Pezzulo, Giovanni, Pedroli, Elisa, Cipresso, Pietro, and Riva, Giuseppe. 2018. “Feel the Time: Time Perception as a Function of Interoceptive Processing.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 12: 74, 1–17 • p. 1, abstract
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00074
paper [EN]

“Nothing is more intuitive, yet more complex, than the concepts of space and time. In contrast to spacetime in physics, space and time in neuroscience remain separate coordinates to which we attach our observations. [...] Extensive studies have separately examined the brain mechanisms of representing space and time. A common philosophy in most of these studies is that space and time are preexisting categories; therefore, the research goal is to understand how we sense them. [...] Navigation and memory are deeply connected. Analogous to map- and path-based navigation, there are two forms of hippocampal system–dependent memories: memorized facts (or semantic memory) and one’s personal experiences (episodic memory). To reexperience egocentric episodes, we project ourselves back in space and time (episodic recall), whereas traveling into the imagined future represents planning (prediction). The neuronal mechanisms used to create and recall episodic memory are analogous to those evolved for computing first-order (neighborhood) and higher-order (e.g., shortcuts, detours) distances to explore the physical world via path-based navigation. Similarly, neural algorithms that support map-based navigation are consonant with those needed to create and remember semantic knowledge.”

Buzsáki, György, and Llinás, Rodolfo. 2017. “Space and Time in the Brain.” Science 358, 6362 (“Neuroscience: In Search of New Concepts”): 482–485 • pp. 482–483
DOI: 10.1126/science.aan8869
paper [EN]

“When a rat reaches an intersection in a maze, it pauses and looks left and right, as if considering which path to take. As it does so, place cells fire corresponding to positions along the possible paths, thus providing neural evidence that the animal is “thinking” about locations that would be encountered if it traveled down each route. This principle — that route planning involves considering the future using representations that were laid down in the past — can be applied more broadly to explain the involvement of the navigational system in other core cognitive functions such as episodic memory and prospective thinking.”

Epstein, Russell A., Patai, Eva Z., Julian, Joshua B., and Spiers, Hugo J. 2017. “The Cognitive Map in Humans: Spatial Navigation and Beyond.” Nature Neuroscience 20, 11: 1504–1513 • p. 1513
DOI: 10.1038/nn.4656
paper [EN]

“Marey had created systematic multiple exposures on a single plate, and the result was uncanny: the movement was split and frozen into a series of what was potentially an infinite number of phases spread out over the surface of the same plate. The experiment that led to this solution shows Marey’s attempt to incorporate into the photographs both the temporal and the spatial coordinates of the graphs.”

Braun, Marta. 1992. Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press • p. 64
book [EN]
video

Julia del Río
ANFA AdCo, California
Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain
Gapont Atelier, Liechtenstein

Julia (Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Architecture) emphasizes how the theory of brain plasticity supports the idea that environmental factors play a significant role in shaping the structure and functions of the human brain. By promoting environments rich in sensory, motor, and emotional stimuli, we posit that cognitive decline associated with aging can decrease.

“The design of the physical environment is a promising way to improve the social health of people with dementia; these environments are designed to compensate for impairments related to advancing age and neurocognitive disease.”

Bourdon, Etienne, and Belmin, Joël. 2021. “Enriched Gardens Improve Cognition and Independence of Nursing Home Residents with Dementia: A Pilot Controlled Trial.” Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy 13, 116: 1–9 • p. 2
DOI: 10.1186/s13195-021-00849-w
paper [EN]

”To examine the effects of training on navigation performance, broad cognitive performance, and hippocampal integrity, participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), assessment of navigation performance, and assessment of several cognitive functions before, immediately after, and 4 months after termination of a 4-month training phase [...] supporting that spatial navigation experience may modify hippocampal volumes in humans.“

Lövdén, Martin, Schaefer, Sabine, Noack, Hannes, Bodammer, Nils Christian, Kühn, Simone, Heinze, Hans-Jochen, Düzel, Emrah, Bäckman, Lars, and Lindenberger, Ulman. 2012. “Spatial Navigation Training Protects the Hippocampus against Age-Related Changes during Early and Late Adulthood.” Neurobiology of Aging 33, 3: 620.e9-620.e22 • p. 620.e10
DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2011.02.013
paper [EN]

“Fully immersive VR can induce psychological immersion and high presence; lifelike VR may narrow the gap between reality and the virtual world. The high level of immersion and visual realism trigger autobiographical memories; a combination of the enriched environment, which is almost like reality, and VR may enable patients with cognitive decline to feel emotionally stable.”

Yun, Seo Jung, Kang, Min-Gu, Yang, Dongseok, Choi, Younggeun, Kim, Heejae, Oh, Byung-Mo, and Seo, Han Gil. 2020. “Cognitive Training Using Fully Immersive, Enriched Environment Virtual Reality for Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Dementia: Feasibility and Usability Study.” JMIR Serious Games 8, 4: e18127, 1–11 • p. 8
DOI: 10.2196/18127
paper [EN]

”Sensory experiences can trigger emotional memories; a feeling of pleasure can be created when remembering previously positively experienced emotions; [...] Evidence-based multisensory environment (MSE) design guidelines are a first step to provide the means of enabling carers and care providers to design conditions that promote wellbeing.”

Anke, Jakob, and Collier, Lesley. 2017. “Sensory Enrichment for People Living with Dementia: Increasing the Benefits of Multisensory Environments in Dementia Care through Design.” Design for Health 1, 1: 115–133 • pp. 117, 130
DOI: 10.1080/24735132.2017.1296274
paper [EN]

”An approach to care for people with Alzheimer’s results in treatment when it systematically compensates for functional losses of dementia by linking environments to specific brain dysfunctions [...] Memory dysfunction and emotional and personality changes tend to arise from damage to the limbic system — the hippocampus and amygdala — while damage to the temporo-parieto-occipital association cortex results in different forms of language, visual, and movement disorders.”

Zeisel, John, and Raia, Paul. 2000. “Nonpharmacological Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Mind-Brain Approach.” American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias 15, 6: 331–340 • pp. 333, 335
DOI: 10.1177/153331750001500603
paper [EN]

Serkan Can Hatıpoğlu
Eskisehir Technical University, Turkey

Serkan (faculty member at the Department of Architecture) has suggested five publications from his latest interest “step out self” as a means of developing new approaches to overcome the dichotomy of subject-object relations. This is part of his studies on atmosphere and poetic being. The inquiry commenced with several publications of Heidegger concerning the concept of “dwelling.” His suggestions on making space, first and foremost, in the existential dimension to which the human being belongs have prompted Serkan to explore contemporary ways of it. The concept of poetic dwelling and making, as a process of letting-be or engaged releasement (Gelassenheit), is related to the disclosure of concealed phenomena. There are numerous parallels to be found between this approach and the ideas of several philosophers and researchers.

Beyond the publications, he has also proposed musical compositions by Guillaume Ferran; video arts by Murat Fırat (@murat_fiart); and chaotic collages by Kitasavi. His next studies will focus on what renders the experience a “poetic” one in space.

“Grandeur progresses in the world in proportion to the deepening of intimacy. Baudelaire’s daydream does not take shape in contemplation of a universe. He pursues it — as he tells us — with closed eyes. He does not live on memories, and his poetic ecstasy has become, little by little, an eventless life. The angels whose wings had once shown blue in the sky have blended into a universal blue. Slowly, immensity becomes a primal value, a primal, intimate value. When the dreamer really experiences the word immense, he sees himself liberated from his cares and thoughts, even from his dreams. He is no longer shut up in his weight the prisoner of his own being.”

“If we want to determine man’s being, we are never sure of being closer to ourselves if we ‘withdraw’ into ourselves, if we move toward the center of the spiral; for often it is in the heart of being that being is errancy. Sometimes, it is in being outside itself that being tests consistencies. Sometimes, too, it is closed in, as it were, on the outside.”

Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space (1958). Boston, MA: Beacon Press • pp. 195; 215
book [EN]

“Quite effortlessly, poetry allows nature to speak and painting touches us in its representations of nature through colours, forms, and atmospheres. The characters that appear in nature are nevertheless understood as mere metaphors in theory, as anthropomorphisms, or as projections.”

“Forms of presence, by contrast, are modes in which a thing characteristically steps out of itself. I call these ecstasies.”

“Forms of presence or ecstasies of things [...] These ecstasies are used explicitly by some natural beings, humans included, to mark their presence and to indicate who or what is present.”

Böhme, Gernot. 2017. Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces (2013). Ed. and trans. by A.C. Engels-Schwarzpaul. London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury • pp. 38; 46; 51
book [EN]

“This is indeed a space for exploring amazing singular objects, all these objects become part of a powerful overall atmosphere, an experience that cannot be isolated to the objects themselves, but relies on the way these objects are allowed to step out of themselves.”

Bjerregaard, Peter. 2015. “Dissolving Objects: Museums, Atmosphere and the Creation of Presence.” Emotion, Space and Society 15: 74–81 • p. 6
DOI: 10.1016/j.emospa.2014.05.002
paper [EN]

“As an operatively diffused constellation of meanings, an atmosphere does not present itself as an object of intentionality in the same way that the small pencil sharpener on my desk does. When I perceive the pencil sharpener on my desk, then my intentional awareness is drawn toward a spatially circumscribed object in front of me. The object sits on my desk and is more or less contained by the edges of the desk, such that I can clearly delineate where it begins and ends. An atmosphere is different in at least two respects. First, instead of being directed toward a localizable object, an atmosphere is diffused through a given world in a porous and non-containable way. When we enter a room and sense a specific atmosphere there — let us say an eerie atmosphere — then it would be difficult to pinpoint with precision where the atmosphere is located. Specific phenomenal features may well present themselves in a more focal way than others — modes of lighting, a disquieting silence, specific architectural aspects, etc. — but those features are expressive articulations of an atmosphere, which is irreducible to localised things.”

Trigg, Dylan. 2020. “The Role of Atmosphere in Shared Emotion.” Emotion, Space and Society 35: 100658, 1–7 • p. 3
DOI: 10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100658
paper [EN]

“The essence of an object’s ‘being’ also becomes the way it tones and is toned by other things. The important point here is that, when focusing on the ecstasy of things, what is needed is not an understanding of what a thing is but how the totality of (temporary) ecstasies makes it what it is and, by extension, how these ecstasies affectively shape the way objects are perceived by the viewer.”

Bille, Mikkel. 2015. “Hazy Worlds: Atmospheric Ontologies in Denmark.” Anthropological Theory 15, 3: 257–274 • p. 261
DOI: 10.1177/1463499614564889
paper [EN]