Making the Invisible Visible

This subject studies the perception of atmospheres in architecture and explores ways to communicate their transient, immaterial and vague qualities. The subject focuses on the life experiences of built architectural spaces as an engaging means for their deep knowledge and a fundamental condition for architectural design. Thus, it aims to open a territory for the enquiry of architecture through its more ambiguous qualities. These are a place’s scale, its soundscape, its lights and shades, its colours and textures, its scents or the changing presence of people in buildings. By a series of experimental exercises, the students are asked to develop innovative notational systems to analyse the atmospheric qualities of a case study and to produce a single representation that expresses its atmosphere as the final submission of the subject. Thus, it is a practice-based subject that encourages the exploration of the built environment through in-site observation and that is conducted through creative work.