Drawing Atmosphere: A Case Study of Architectural Design for Care in Later Life

Daryl Martin,Christina Buse,Sarah Nettleton

doi:10.1177/1357034x20949934

Abstract

In this article, we use an entry to an international architectural student competition on future care to explore how social norms about older bodies may be challenged by designs that are sensitive to the spatial contexts within which we age. The power of the My Home design by Witham and Wilkins derives from its hand-drawn aesthetic and thus we consider the architects’ insistence on drawing as a challenge to the clear and unambiguous image-making typically associated with digitally aided architectural designs. The hand-drawn images of My Home prompt a focus on care as enacted through the relations between material environments and things, and the atmospheric qualities these relations evoke. Throughout our analysis, we argue for greater attention to the ways in which embodied practices, everyday affects and materialities can be represented within architectural design, and the role of hand drawing as a creative methodology in this process.

Highlights

In this article, we use an entry to an international architectural student competition on future care to explore how social norms about older bodies may be challenged by designs that are sensitive to the spatial contexts within which we age
Previous research has highlighted the significance of environmental factors within care settings: as a typical example, ReedDanahay (2001) argues that residential care settings are driven by institutional processes that dislocate them from anthropological markers of home
Just a first step in much wider processes of place making which, as we have previously argued, relate to how places are used in practice, by those who inhabit them in everyday ways (Brown et al, 2019; Martin, 2016; Martin et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

We use an entry to an international architectural student competition on future care to explore how social norms about older bodies may be challenged by designs that are sensitive to the spatial contexts within which we age. A focus on atmosphere can offer ‘a means for bridging between emotion and affect, the personal and the general, and the discursive and nonrepresentational’ (Bille et al, 2015: 36) Such a focus is important because patterns of social inclusion and exclusion can be intensified through practices of spatial design (Tonkiss, 2013) and, orchestrated through the atmospheric qualities designed into the built environment (Bohme, 2013b). Previous research has highlighted the significance of environmental factors within care settings: as a typical example, ReedDanahay (2001) argues that residential care settings are driven by institutional processes that dislocate them from anthropological markers of home Such processes work against experiences of dwelling and the material cultures of home making practices (Latimer and Munro, 2009). It is our argument that drawing, as a creative methodology, offers much scope for evoking a nuanced understanding of the intangible and emotional qualities of our social worlds (Hurdley et al, 2017)

Objectives

Conclusion