Fabrication of Atmosphere

by Fsun Tretken
The investigation of atmosphere as a condition and tool for interior architecture during the 2014 MIARD Graduation project
derives from the wish to employ this phenomenon in order to inform our thinking and formulations of design. It is an attempt to
challenge the relation of nothingness, atmosphere, body, form and space.
What are the conditions of atmosphere? How can we interrogate these and reveal the ways in which they
interfere with domestic space? Can we, as Silvia Benedeto1 states, understand interior space through an
atmospheric lens? If we consider atmosphere a strategic tool to re-structure spatial experience, through its
immaterial features and transient qualities2 and a tool to constitute the aura of an object, a room, then it can be
employed to design the interior with the most ephemeral of means colour, smell, light, darkness, texture,
imagination, transition, play.

Silvia Benedeto, On Atmospheres and Design, GSD Spring 2013

Smitheram and Simon Twose, Occupying Atmosphere, http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/44851/42_JanSmitheram,-Simon-Twose_Occupying-Atmosphere.pdf last accessed May 2014.
1

2 Jan

Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube, 19631965

We wanted to synthesize architecture and technology in a way that each would exchange the characteristics of the other, that is to
say, de-materialize architecture and to materialize technology. But materialize, not in the sense of hardware, but in the sense of
making certain things palpable, that are usually invisible. Like the omissions of certain technologies. So the big project here is the
sublime, and the sublime on a level of nature, were creating artificial nature sublime, but also on the level of technology, where the
omissions in this technology, this invisible and fast communication almost beyond our ability to control it, happens. Besides wanting to
foil the conventions of heroic Fair architecture we wanted to delve into the aesthetics of nothing and engage in substance without form.
Diller on the Blur Building by Diller & Scofidio, Defining Atmosphere

Nothingness
Reading the quote by the architect Liz Diller one could wonder what she means by delving into the aesthetics of
nothing. The word nothing immediately catches my attention. Nothing? Nothing is not a noun, it is a pronoun
that we associate with nothingness. And surely, some would consider the study of nothing or nothingness to be
foolhardy. But nothingness has been a subject worthy of research to physicians and philosophers since ancient
times such as Aristotle, who distinguished things that are matter and things that are space. In his argumentation,
space is not nothing, but a receptacle in which objects of matter can be placed. Ren Descartes, on the other hand,
denied the existence of space. For him, there was matter, which left no room for the existence of nothing. Diller
refers remotely to nothing as substance without form, and her description of nothingness remains undefined. It is
obviously an attempt of a definition, an approximation to a meaning, e.g. in relation to its aesthetics. The nothing
that Diller relates to could be denominated as the aura of an object to speak in Walter Benjamins words or the
atmosphere surrounding a built object.
Atmosphere
But, what is atmosphere? The notion dates back to the 17th century and derives from two Greek words: atmos
and sphaira defining a layer of gas surrounding a material body. In Earth Sciences and Physical Geography
atmosphere stands for a gaseous envelope surrounding the earth or any other celestial body. In the world of Fine
and Visual Arts atmosphere can be referred to as the descriptive tone of a novel, a symphony, a painting or a
film. Atmosphere is also a key term in phenomenology. Following Hermann Schmitz3 it is not one of the five
senses but the corporeal feeling with which atmospheres are by nature experienced, namely by their tendency to
affect the human.4 Gernot Bhme continues that corporeal feeling not only allows us to feel something but to
feel our sensitive state and to be put into a certain mood.
At the same time, the notion of atmosphere is used in everyday speech to describe a situation, the air or the
climate in a particular place or simply a feeling or a mood. We talk of specific atmospheres that fill spaces that we
inhabit.
Accordingly, we perceive atmospheres subjectively, they dont appear as things or res in our world. Still, neither
are they phantasies nor our own projections onto our environment. In fact, they form relations of qualities of the
environment and the human condition.5 Besides its diffuse expansion the interplay of different elements is
crucial for atmospheres, thus, one could argue that atmospheres are synaesthetic features. In reverse this would
suggest that these atmospheres could be created by different elements. Therefore, crucial for the theory on
atmospheres is that these are not only experienced but also produced. In another essay Gernot Bhme departs
from stage setting and architecture to reference light as an important means of staging and modifying space.

Hermann Schmitz, Neue Phnomenologie (Bonn, 1980)

Bhme, Atmosphere as Mindful Physical Presence in Space in Building Atmosphere, Oase #91 Journal for Architecture,
(Rotterdam, 2013)
5 See for instance Review on Gernot Bhme Atmosphre. Essays zur neuen sthetik by Andreas Rauth, Jitter Magazine,
http://www.jitter-magazin.de/atmosphaere.php, last accessed May 2014.
3

4 Gernot

If we think of architecture we find atmosphere referring to the sensorial qualities of a space, it alludes to an
immediate form of physical perception, and is recognised through our emotional sensibility. Naturally, the
atmosphere in a given space or interior is very much determined by the way a space is used and our perception
of the space is to a large extent also what we experience. And how we experience the materiality of a space
synaesthetically, here the corporeal feeling drives the synaesthetic experience. Synaesthetic qualities6 are
perceived through the sensitive state they engender in our bodies.7
Furthermore, inherent to Atmosphere is that it represents the distinctive quality, the character that has the
potential to transform a space into a place. Here, atmosphere is an Other than the built form, the structure and
material, it is most often ephemeral. Depending on weather, light and temperature conditions, it is subject to
change. And once we abandon the outdated modernist paradigm, according to which only function shall inform
the design and instead acknowledge crucial parameters that constitute the atmosphere of an object, a room and
space alike thermic conditions colour, smell, light, darkness, aura we can enrich our vocabulary and modes of
expression as architects and designers.
Embracing these ideas one could reason that borders and boundaries, body and gaseous medium, matter even in
its molecular form and nothingness, hence the material as much as immaterial, are determining factors for the
atmospheric qualities of a given space.
Peter Zumthor in his publication titled Atmospheres8 constitutes architectural atmospheres as this singular density
and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty...under whose spell I experience what I
otherwise would not experience in precisely this way.
However we read the definitions deriving from different disciplines, it seems that atmosphere remains in the
realm of the affect, the immaterial and the surrounding. It might be ephemeral, even invisible to the human eye
at times, but continues to be perceivable by our other given senses. Hence, atmosphere exists because we
perceive it, we live in it, we live and we create it. This assumption draws on the above given physical definition
that the Earth is a body in space surrounded by atmosphere. Following this thought the human being itself
represents a material body that becomes part of atmosphere. Conclusively, the human shall be an integral
component and actor in the fabrication of atmosphere out of nothingness.

6 Synaesthetic qualities such as cold, warm, fine or soft are so called because they are experienced using different sensory qualities that can
substitute one another.

7 Gernot Bhme, Atmosphere as Mindful Physical Presence in Space in Building Atmosphere, Oase #91 Journal for Architecture,
(Rotterdam, 2013)
8 Zumthor, Peter (2006). Atmospheres. Birkhuser, Switzerland.