Urban ambiances as common ground?

<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The aim of this paper is to point out various arguments which question ambiance as a common ground of everyday urban experience. Such a project involves four major points. First, we have to </span><span style="font-size: medium;">move beyond the exclusive practical aspects of everyday life and</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> bring the sensory to the forefront. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Under such conditions, sensory cultures emerge where feeling and acting come together. Second, </span><span style="font-size: medium;">we must put common experience into perspective</span><span style="font-size: medium;">by initiating a dual dynamic</span><span style="font-size: medium;">s</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> of s</span><span style="font-size: medium;">ocialising the sensory and sensitising social life. Ambiances involve a complex web comprised of an ‘existential’ dimension (empathy with the ambient world), a ‘contextual’ dimension (degree of presence in the situation), and an ‘interactional’ dimension (forms of sociability expressed in the tonality). Third, we have to initiate a political ecology of ambiances i</span><span style="font-size: medium;">n order to better understand how ambiances deal with fundamental </span><span style="font-size: medium;">design and planning issues. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Far from being neutral, the notion of ambiance appears to be bound up with the socio-aesthetic strategies underpinning changes to the sensory urban environment of the future. Fourth, </span><span style="font-size: medium;">we have to </span><span style="font-size: medium;">question what </span><em><span style="font-size: medium;">in situ</span></em><span style="font-size: medium;"> experience is all about. Three major research pointers enable to address this issue: the embodiment of situated experiences, the porous nature of sensory spaces, and the sensory efficiency of the build environment. Ambiances sensitize urban design as well as social lifeforms.</span></span>