Envisioning ambiances: Representing (past,present and future) atmospheres for architecture and the built environment

Laurent Lescop,Anetta Kępczyńska-Walczak,L Lescop,A Kępczyńska-Walczak

doi:10.1051/shsconf/20196400002

Abstract

The concept of “ambiance” has been shaped over the years by questioning the interactions between three attractors: architecture and the city, climatic and sound phenomena, uses and perception. Studied in pairs, each of these attractors refers to very different disciplinary fields; architecture and phenomena concern the physics of the city, architecture and uses interest sociology and uses and phenomena are rather turned to comfort. Studies concerning ambiances are therefore highly interdisciplinary and raise many questions: living spaces, urban renewal and heritage, urban prospective and the city as a stage. For this, many conceptual and technical tools are mobilized: digital tools for simulation and immersion, investigation, surveys and storytelling, prototyping, field action. What may be new in the field of academic studies is the awareness of artistic creation as a resource for the use of digital tools, storytelling and the representation of complexity through original means.

Highlights

The substantive “ambiance” does not have a direct translation in foreign languages, and the outlines of its definition remain blurry
The concept of “ambiance” has been shaped over the years by questioning the interactions between three attractors: architecture and the city, climatic and sound phenomena, uses and perception. Each of these attractors refers to very different disciplinary fields; architecture and phenomena concern the physics of the city, architecture and uses interest sociology and uses and phenomena are rather turned to comfort
If we consider the year 1995 as our starting point to locate the first definitions of ambiances, it appears that the concept has become richer, twenty years later, and has spread across the world, in turn making it harder to understand

Summary

Ambiance as reference

The term of “ambiance” is a relatively recent one. It appeared for the first time in Les Nouveaux Contes cruels de Villiers by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, in 1885. The emergence of what I would call a secret emotion, as its origin and explanation are not easy to pinpoint, takes place through a work of skilful variation around repetitive themes or the sound of the same tune. Such is the case of Stockhausen, who, by playing with duration, throws his audience into a hypnotising and meditative universe

Ambiance as method

Ambiance and education

Ambiance and digital instruments

Ambiance and physical phenomenology

Ambiance and heritage

Envisioning ambiances