Urban landscapes and the atmosphere of place: exploring subjective experience in the study of urban form

Abstract

Urban landscapes are produced through the combination of material forms and subjective human experience. Drawing on the concept of atmosphere, we argue that human experience of urban spaces drives alterations to the built environment, making it critical that these are studied in tandem. Atmosphere is created through the combination of human activity, individual emotional responses and subjective perceptions of built forms. Though unique to the individual, it can also create a shared feeling of place. Drawing on ethnographic methods to examine people’s experience of the Balsall Heath district in Birmingham, UK, a series of examples is used to illustrate how the interrelationship of subjective experience and built forms creates different atmospheres within the neighbourhood. These, and the desire to alter them, are in turn driving morphological change.