Elements of Architecture explores new ways of engaging architecture in archaeology. It conceives of architecture both as the physical evidence of past societies and as existing beyond the physical environment, considering how people in the past have not just dwelled in buildings but have existed within them. The book engages with the meeting point between these two perspectives. For although archaeologists must deal with the presence and absence of physicality as a discipline, which studies humans through things, to understand humans they must also address the performances, as well as temporal and affective impacts, of these material remains. The contributions in this volume investigate the way time, performance and movement, both physically and emotionally, are central aspects of understanding architectural assemblages. It is a book about the constellations of people, places and things that emerge and dissolve as affective, mobile, performative and temporal engagements. This volume juxtaposes archaeological research with perspectives from anthropology, architecture, cultural geography and philosophy in order to explore the kaleidoscopic intersections of elements coming together in architecture. Documenting the ephemeral, relational, and emotional meeting points with a category of material objects that have defined much research into what it means to be human, Elements of Architecture elucidates and expands upon a crucial body of evidence which allows us to explore the lives and interactions of past societies.

This book provides a presentation of the concept of “atmosphere” in the realm of aesthetics. An “atmosphere” is meant to be an emotional space. Such idea of “atmosphere” has been more and more subsumed by human and social sciences in the last twenty years, thereby becoming a technical notion. In many fields of the Humanities, affective life has been reassessed as a proper tool to understand the human being, and is now considered crucial. In this context, the link between atmospheres and aesthetics becomes decisive. Nowadays, aesthetics is no longer only a theory of art, but has recovered its original vocation: to be a general theory of perception conceived of as an ordinary experience of pre-logical character. In its four parts (Atmospheric turn?, Senses and Spaces, Subjects and Communities, Aesthetics and Art Theory), this volume discusses whether atmospheres could take the prominent and paradigmatic position previously held by art in order to make sense of such sensible experience of the world.

Atmosphere is an essential concept for Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. In his text Atmospheres (1996), Zumthor identified a series of themes that play a role in his work in achieving architectonic atmosphere. OASE exchanges ideas with Zumthor about the current relevance of this text, and about the practice of bringing together these elements in the design and construction process. Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa relates atmosphere in architecture to examples and theories from other disciplines like psychology and the visual arts. Zumthor and Pallasmaa also introduce the work of contemporary architects who in their view succeed in truly creating atmosphere through construction.

How will the human body, collective and individual, cope with the estimated increases in global air temperatures and in the earth's corresponding thermal stress? Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation offers an in-depth examination of design strategies that situate the body and its bioclimatic milieu at the core of their spatial formation. Drawing upon ten paradigmatic projects in urban design and landscape architecture - from Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire, to the city of Chandigarh in India - the book investigates the designers' bioclimatic aims and their spatial outcomes. Woven throughout the book, the evocative photographic essays of Iwan Baan showcase the selected projects as inhabited spaces for everyday life.