Architectural atmospheRES: the emotiONal impact of ambiANCES measured through conscious, bodily, and neural responses.

Project Information

RESONANCES

Grant agreement ID: 101025132

DOI

10.3030/101025132

Project closed

EC signature date 19 March 2021

Start date 1 August 2021

End date 31 July 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 251 002,56

EU contribution

€ 251 002,56

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI GENOVA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RESONANCES (Architectural atmospheRES: the emotiONal impact of ambiANCES measured through conscious, bodily, and neural responses.)

Reporting period: 2023-08-01 to 2024-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Topic:
Our spatial experiences are conditioned and altered by architecture. How we perceive architectural spaces affects our psychophysical wellbeing, behavior, and emotionality. This argument is not a new one. However, we have yet to consolidate evidence in this regard experimentally. Architectural research has started to interact with neuroscientific knowledge by combining their theories and experiment-based investigations. Driven by constant technological progress, their synergy fosters the study of how people perceive, imagine, and interpret the totality of sensory properties that constitute our surroundings. Design expertise can advance into a different dimension, shifting the focus from buildings’ technical performances to people’s emotional experiences, especially given the time spent indoors. The manipulation of ambient conditions (such as lights, textures, materials, and forms) composes what we commonly call “atmosphere.”

Goal:
The RESONANCES project aims to study architectural atmospheres. By performing a series of experiments (based on our conscious experiences, physiological behaviors, and neural signals), this research analyzes our emotional responses to the built environment and observes how interventions in atmospheric qualities can influence them.

Impact:
The value of this MSCA project lies in the opportunity to assess — through neuroscientific criteria and methodologies — the physiological bases of atmospheric perception to understand better the link between design variables and altered emotional states. Our experiments contribute to addressing the current lack of empirical data in elucidating evidence of how built spaces affect us emotionally, especially in a nonconscious way.

Conclusion:
The RESONACES project formalized an architectural theory concerning atmospheric perception, elaborated a lexicon informed by phenomenology and neuroscience, built a database of affect-based stimuli specifically conceived to study spaces, and performed experiments with subjective indicators and (neuro)physiological correlates to analyze emotional responses to architectural atmospheres. Our experiments consolidated empirical evidence of how spaces emotionally influence us, showing atmospheres (what is ephemeral and ineffable par excellence) exist, matter, and prime our everyday lives.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The RESONANCES project achieved the following key results in studying our emotional responses to architectural atmospheres:
1. We improved the theoretical framework about architectural atmospheres to advance with (neuro)physiological experimentation by building archives of bibliographical quotes and references, publishing essays and books, and promoting a research network focused on the emotional involvement with architectural environments.
2. We formalized an architectural theory on atmospheric perception by working in the interdisciplinary domain of architecture and neuroscience, collaborating with designers, philosophers, and scientists, and performing theoretical and experimental investigations.
3. Since affect-based stimuli specifically conceived to examine architectural spaces are missing, we crafted and tested ATLAS, a database of visual atmospheric stimuli. It collects a series of spatial patterns born from a systematic selection of generators of atmosphere. Generators of atmosphere are architectural features designed to afford atmospheric effects (such as lights, colors, materials, and proportions). ATLAS is an open-access tool that supports researchers interested in studying emotional reactions to architectural configurations by providing reliable, standardized, and reproducible stimuli available as images, videos, and VR models.
4. We designed and performed a series of (neuro)physiological signal-based experiments to recognize and measure atmospheric emotions by combining first-person approaches (self-report questionnaires) and third-person methodologies (heart rate, electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and eye movement monitoring + EEG recording).
5. Results collected through behavioral and (neuro)physiological tests generated open-access databases addressing the current lack of empirical data.
6. We shared competence acquired in analyzing atmospheric dynamics from a (neuro)physiological perspective via conference attendances, seminars with graduate students, theses supervision, and peer-reviewed publications.
7. We advanced expertise in atmospheric design and phenomenography, promoted neuroscientific training for architecture students, incentivized research-informed design approaches, and set up an international research network.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Progress beyond the state of the art:
The RESONANCES project tested an unprecedented, interdisciplinary approach to integrate theoretical considerations about architectural atmospheres with quantitative methods purposely designed to assess our emotional responses to space. We use a neuroscience-informed methodology combining self-report procedures with nonconscious measures of autonomic and central nervous system activity.

Impacts:
Besides crucial effects on the MSCA fellow’s growth and career, the RESONANCES project inspires that slice of the architectural community craving a more evidence-based approach and believing neuroscience can provide it. Our research contributes to bridging the gap by translating neuroscientific knowledge about how we emotionally interact with the built environment into design principles customizable according to the specific project, context, and inhabitant.
 

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