Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation

'Atmosphere Anatomies' illustrates how the atmosphere can affect sensory and physiological well-being when incorporated as a meteorological medium into the disciplines of design, particularly urban design and landscape architecture. Using paradigmatic projects, the essays in this book discuss the diverse techniques and contexts that have focused on the atmosphere as an essential part of the design process. Woven throughout the book, the evocative photographic essays of Iwan Baan showcase selected design projects in their function as everyday spaces, which should be both delightful and inhabited. The critical and visual examination of these various projects illustrates that the integration of atmosphere creates spaces of social, emotional, and environmental relevance. 'Atmosphere Anatomies' builds on this premise and explores the role of architecture and design in the context of increasing climate change, health challenges, and the sustainable use of our resources. AUTHOR: Silvia Benedito is an architect/urbanist and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Benedito is the co-editor of the book Thermodynamic Interactions: An Exploration into Physiological, Material and Territorial Atmospheres. Iwan Baan is an architecture and documentary photographer. His works are published regularly in architectural magazines such as Domus and a+u, and newspapers including The New York Times. In his photographs he focuses on the connection between architecture and the surrounding environment. 335 illustrations

About the Author :
SILVIA BENEDITO is an architect/urbanist and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Benedito is the co-editor of the book 'Thermodynamic Interactions: An Exploration into Physiological, Material and Territorial Atmospheres' IWAN BAAN is an architecture and documentary photographer. His works are published regularly in architectural magazines such as Domus and a+u, and newspapers including The New York Times. In his photographs he focuses on the connection between architecture and the surrounding environment.

Review :
An ambitious collection of essays that proposes a new framework for understanding landscape design.--Elissa Rosenberg "Landscape Architecture Magazine" It is rare--and always thrilling--to discover a book that makes us think differently about architecture, by helping us to understand hitherto inscrutable aspects of it.--Alice Rawsthorn Atmosphere Anatomies reconsiders atmosphere as design media. Silvia Benedito's timely text recalls the origins of sensibility as a unique form of human cognition and social construction. Her book offers a profound challenge to our contemporary understanding of climate as abstract, ubiquitous, and disembodied. Benedito proposes a practice of precise microclimatic design based on empirical evidence derived from historical cases found across a range of cultures and climates. Benedito's extraordinary drawings illustrate the material properties, thermal performance, and embodied experience attendant to these diverse landscapes.--Charles Waldheim "Professor and the Director of the Office for Urbanization at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University" Atmosphere: in architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture, the term is usually associated with impressions that resist analytic investigation. Through the detailed study of a series of seminal projects, from 18 th -century Rousham Garden to modernist Chandigarh, and from Renaissance Villa d'Este to contemporary realizations such as the Geometric Hot Springs in Chile, Silvia Benedito brilliantly demonstrates that atmospheres can actually be described and interpreted with great precision. In a time of environmental anxiety, her call for a paradigmatic shift centered on the atmospheric opens new and important perspectives for the design disciplines.--Antoine Picon "G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University"