Choreographing Aesthetic Atmospheres

My design research practice explores our relationship to air and how designing with atmospheric phenomena can constitute a new design practice: an Aesthetics of Air. Whilst Sumartojo & Pink (2018) contend that ‘atmospheres themselves cannot be designed’, I put forth that we can design or ‘choreograph’ the conditions from which atmospheres arise. I am interested in our experience of air in lived space and how atmospheric encounters can be shaped by choreographing the complex, transient and dynamic matrix of breezes, scents, moisture, radiant light, dappled shade, textures and sounds. In this paper I will expand on these ideas and my practice in designing ‘with’ phenomena: describing the process of developing the atmospheric installation ‘Outside_In’.