Ambiances, demain | Ambiances, tomorrow | Ατμόσφαιρες, Αύριο

The Congress is organized jointly by:

• The Department of architecture of the Polytechnic School of the University of Thessaly, Greece.
• The International Ambiances Network, Scientific Thematic Network of the French Ministry for Culture and Communication, France.

This initiative is supported by:

• Laboratory “Ambiances, Architectures, Urbanités”, CRENAU-CRESSON, integrated research unit, CNRS – French National Centre for Scientific Research, Centrale Nantes, National School of Architecture of Grenoble, National School of Architecture of Nantes, France
• LECAD, Laboratory of Environmental Communication and Audiovisual Documentation, research unit which is part of the University of Thessaly’s architecture department, Greece.
• Bureau of Architectural, Urban and Landscape Research at the French Ministry for Culture and Communication, France
• National School of Architecture of Grenoble, France
• National School of Architecture of Nantes, France
• Grenoble Alpes University, France

Congress coordination

Call for Papers

The selected proposals bring partial responses and arguments relating to the general theme of the Ambiances, tomorrow via six themes.

Particular interest was given to proposals that provide for possible cross-over and hybridation between various different fields and expertise:

• Research that straddles several disciplinary fields.
• Research that combines research practices and design activities.
• Research that incorporates diverse sensorial possibilities.
• Research that draws from both art and science.

1. Ambiantal experiences and experiments

This theme focuses primarily on ambiances in terms of experiences and experiments. Such notions are key to research into ambiances because they pose a dual question about how to gauge ambiances and how to effect them. Experiencing ambiance is as much about being able to act as being able to manipulate or manufacture it.How is such comparative experimentation shared by the scientific community and by artistic initiatives suitable for encouraging thought and action and for highlighting unexpected singularities that could renew our relationship with the world and with doing – both in design processes and in the constant updating of a situation?

Framing the question of ambiances in terms of experimentation opens new possibilities by focusing on multiple technical, social or aesthetic standards currently in force. Starting with an exploration and production of spaces and uses, the focus is on clarifying arrangements, processes and experimentation support media. This session seeks contributions that are underpinned in some way or other by research highlighting different forms of experience, either through a specific type of production (space, arrangement, materiel object, work, site, medium, etc.) that makes it possible to deliberately alter a habitat, or through practical experiments that combine physical, sensorial and social dimensions.

2. Traces, notations and representations of ambiances

If we take the three terms « traces », « notations » and « representations » either separately or together as processes, how can we gauge ambiances – or have them gauged – in terms of their tangible, intangible and mutable qualities within a perspective in which territories, spaces and the environment are experiencing huge changes (urbanism, climate, etc.)? What traces do experiences of ambiances leave and what traces can we leave of such experiences? What experiences of notations and representation(s) can research draw upon within the perspective of a « future of ambiances »?

At the present time, when there is an overlap between research and design in the pre-project phase, there is a genuine window of opportunity for the future of ambiances. In the light of traces, ratings and other representations, would any expression of ambiances not be an operative moment that forges a link with design and with this posture whose tricky task it is to design spaces and use these to produce experiences. What is actually representable in an ambiance? How and by means of which media may we produce an expression of ambiances?

3. Projecting and manufacturing the ambiances of tomorrow

The world around us is in a constant state of adaptation. People, places and sensorial information interact as part of an unlimited dialogue. The new ways of envisaging the materiality and virtuality of our still-gestating world will undoubtedly make it possible to produce unprecedented architectural and urban experiences in terms of both tailored solutions and more comprehensive offerings. What part will mobiquity (mobility + ubiquity) and augmented reality play in these restructured interactions of the subject with its sensorial environment? What adaptations may we expect for the sensorial citizen vis-à-vis his or her social environment? Is the future of the world all-phygital (physical + digital)?

How are these changes transforming design processes and project methodologies? How do they contribute to renewing the very framework of architectural production? How do designers3appropriate the hybridation of digital and physical universes in their projects and how do these new digital applications renew the conception of ambiances in tomorrow’s world?

4. Ambiance, atmosphere, climate: theory, politics and criticism

Methodological issues on how to gauge ambiances are related to theoretical and critical imperatives. We invite participants to clarify them, especially the respective reach of the notions of ambiance, atmosphere and climate. Ambiances affect us politically. Certain atmospheric « dissonances » can sometimes trigger strong emotions and disagreements. In other words, a highly-charged atmosphere/ambiance affects our behaviour while remaining difficult to gauge and to describe clearly. Atmospheres are shared but they can divide. Cities, urban landscapes and countries are criss-crossed by atmospheric charges, powers and resistance. How can we describe, conceptualise, theorise and criticise these?

The Arab Spring, indigenous movements, Occupy Wall Street, Republican protests in France, anti-austerity protests in Europe, etc. – contemporary urban public spaces everywhere are being used to hear and relay the calls of citizens to « change the world ». Although these peaceful occupations and/or collective marches enjoy a large media echo and lend a particular tone to the televisual or radio landscape or to the World Wide Web – other less obvious or proactive movements with a lower profile, and sometimes emanating from the private sphere, are helping to slowly reconfigure the sensorial framework of the urban experience and contemporary urbanites. How is it possible to gauge and describe these transformations at work when most of them are part of long, pending or incomplete processes underpinned by complex socio-political issues? How can a focus on the socio-political dimension of ambiances/atmospheres foster a critical reflection concerning the sensorial evolution of the urban world?

5. Ambiances and territories in transformation

Contemporary societies are now more than ever in a dynamic of change that impacts the production of space and lifestyles. In particular, globalisation and digitisation can be seen as two key vectors in this dynamic that ceaselessly transforms urban territories and their periphery as well as rural areas. We wish to tease out the sensorial dimension of these changes, firstly by analysing their impacts on the environment and practices and also in order to envisage the roles (technical, political, performative, etc.) of ambiances in the production of tomorrow’s territories.

We believe three avenues are particularly worth exploring in this respect. The first concerns the production of territories and constructing approaches and images concerning their competitiveness. The second focuses on the spaces produced and the day-to-day situations rendered possible and seeks to analyse their capacity for including or excluding inhabitants. It also examines the overlap between different worlds and between real and virtual spatialities in the experience of places. Lastly, the third avenue focuses on the spatial and temporal scales concerned by these transformations and their implications for understanding how these territories are set to evolve.

6. Ambiance as heritage of the future

Can we make ambiance part of heritage? In other words, can we safeguard the ephemeral and intangible qualities of a place in order to transform it physically? Or, put another way, can we make a territory part of heritage through ambiance, i.e., transform certain physical aspects without destroying the spirit of the place and the way in which it « makes » territory?

We are familiar with the effects of folklorisation, dehumanisation or loss of authenticity that stem from over-exclusive comprehensive protective measures, radical changes in use or historical reconstructions that are just too perfect. We succeed in protecting the material itself but we have turned it into an image or a pure representation and we have destroyed the ambiance (take, for example, the use to which the notion is put in cultural tourism policies or in sensorial marketing).

But we also know of certain architectural reconversion or urban renovation projects that do succeed in preserving the quality of the original buildings or streets while also adding in the improvements necessary for contemporary day-to-day living. They reinforce a sensorial memory in line with the necessary evolution of societies and their edifices. So, is ambiance not the instrument par excellence for constituting the heritage of the future?

To put it another way, the contention underlying this thematic focus could be expressed as follows: « Constituting heritage » previously consisted of classifying « architectural objects » to protect their tangible substance; nowadays, it involves identifying « urban entities » in order to preserve their intangible substrate, and tomorrow it may very well consist in enhancing « territorial ambiances » to safeguard them over time through contemporary forms and lifestyles.