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 m… Show more
If architecture is an expression of human creativity through multi-sensory embodiment, then learning, creating and experiencing architecture should also be multi-sensory and embodied. In this article, we challenge the separation of mind and body through Sheets-Johnstone’s mindful bodies concept. We define a mindful body in architecture as one that documents, analyses and memory maps the moving body in different qualities of movement to create diverse spatial experiences. A mindful body approach to creating architecture involves: (i) engaging in meaningful movement and documenting the body, (ii) documenting embodied interactions with dynamic, animate elements in the built environment, (iii) connecting our body’s movements with emotions and memories, (iv) designing spaces that produce diverse movements and atmospheres, and (v) designing architecture based on these spaces. We hypothesize that if designers engage in a mindful body approach to design, they can create spatial experiences that help us make sense of ourselves, others and the world. A mindful body approach to design can result in architectural spaces that activate our attentional switches, connect haptic experiences and memories and reveal wonders.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence’.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.