Individual atmospheres - A pedagogic experience of design and communication

International audienceThe sensations and the meanings rendered from the experience of an architectural atmosphere depend directly on the inhabitant. The architect, helped on multiple disciplines, lay out a wide palette of resources to characterize an abstract space and turn it into a singular one. Normally, the architect works with all the sensory possibilities that can interact between the architecture and the inhabitant. In consequence, the architectural atmosphere turns into something special with the power to influence his user. Nevertheless, the capacity to be moved by an architectural atmosphere also depends on the cultural, perceptive and psychological capacities of the individuals. The architecture research group "Atmospheres", from the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Spain (UPV), deals with how to design and communicate specific architectural atmospheres, and, at once, to frame both activities in the architectural pedagogic field (International Workshops: Atmospheres, 2010; Alter+Actions, 2011... Teaching experiences in interdisciplinary courses in the E.T.S. Arquitectura, UPV). The authors want to offer the result of this pedagogic experience centred on the individual definition of architectural atmospheres from different and autonomous working parameters, which can operate together: Psychological profile of the hypothetical inhabitant. Place where the atmosphere is located: from the sociocultural to the physical one. Natural element (alive or inert). Movements. Clothing. Objects placed in the atmosphere. Light (natural or artificial). Sound... The results obtained have stated that the thinking and the architectural design of different atmospheres hold in their capacity to interact with the individual who experiences them, reinforcing or altering his habits. At the same time, according to this way of education, an effort for communicating every design alternative is developed. As a result, a new holistic way open up for the expression of the architecture. Indeed, most of them use the new media technologies (graphical design, audio, video, happenings, snigglings)