Abstract

The emotions we experience in the spaces we inhabit help to shape our moods, thoughts and behaviours. From this perspective, the concept of atmosphere offers a fundamental interpretative framework for understanding the bodily-affective dimension of architecture, taking the form of a unity of perceptual qualities that characterise a place and foster processes of resonance. 

A sensitivity to affective-sensory dynamics, which has always been rooted in architectural practice, is re-emerging today with renewed interest thanks to aesthetic inquiry and advances in cognitive science, which provide new ways of interpreting the body-space relationship. The AURA project, situated at the intersection of architecture, phenomenology and neuroscience, studies the situated and multi-component nature of atmospheric impressions through phenomenographic exercises and experimental trials. By prioritising in situ approaches and site-specific experiences in spaces endowed with a particular ‘aura’ – that is, characterised by a particularly intense and perceptible atmospheric quality – the project aims to address the scarcity of empirical data collected in real-world contexts and to bridge the gap between the complexity of architectural experience and controlled laboratory conditions. 

By treating the body, mind and environment as a unified system in which emotion and cognition co-generate in a recursive manner, the project develops a multi-perspective research model that integrates self-report techniques and (neuro)physiological measures to investigate how specific atmospheric qualities influence the architectural experience and promote forms of affective attunement between the individual and space.