On the Architect's Atmospheric Responsibility

If we assume that a space can influence the human dynamics that take place within it, regardless of the critical subjectivity of the individuals who wander through it, the introduction of affective and atmospheric considerations into the architecture project can be regarded as a strategy for conditioning the relationships and behaviours of the users of a building. This problematization, analysed by Douglas Spencer in his book The Architecture of Neoliberalism - How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance, questions the ethical and political aspects of a design strategy that take advantage of the affective capacities of space: with what legitimacy can the architect condition the feelings of those who use the buildings he or she designs? And according to what principles does one choose the direction in which these feelings are to be led? This paper will attempt to frame this problem starting from two opposing examples of how the affectivity of space can be interpreted from a political perspective: on the one hand, the already quoted Douglas Spencer, who reads the affective project of architecture as a social control strategy of the neoliberal system; on the other, Susanne Hoffman’s participatory method, which uses the atmospheric characterization of space as a language which is accessible to architects and users alike, allowing the latter to gain a certain degree of control over the transformations of their life environment. These two positions will be taken as examples of the risks and opportunities that the inclusion of the affective dynamic in design poses from the standpoint of social progress. The goal is to show how the risk of a technocratic drift of affective design, although inevitable, can be dealt with through the architect’s critical acknowledgement of what may be the consequences of his or her design choices, and the necessary assumption of responsibility derived from them.