Touching Architecture: Affective Atmospheres and Embodied Encounters

This book is about perception, emotion, and affect in architecture: how and why we feel the way that we do and the ways in which our surroundings ​and bodies contribute to this.

Our experience of architecture is an embodied one, with all our senses acting in concert as we move through time and space. The book picks up where much of the critique of architectural aestheticism at the end of the twentieth century left off: illustrating the limitations and potential consequences of attending to architecture as the visually biased practice which has steadily become the status quo within both industry and education. It draws upon interdisciplinary research to elucidate the reasons why this is counter-productive to the creation of meaningful places and ​to articulate the embodied richness of our touching encounters. A ＂felt-phenomenology＂ is introduced as a more​-than visual alternative capable of sustaining our physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.

By recognising the reciprocal and participatory relationship that exists between atmospheric affect and our (phenomenological) bodies, we begin to appreciate the manifold ways in which we touch, and are touched, by our built environment. As such, Touching Architecture will appeal to those with an interest in architectural history and theory as well as those interested in the topic of atmospheres, affect, and embodied perception.

Anthony Richard Brand is Lecturer in ​architecture history and theory at The School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.