(In)stable Boundaries–towards Adaptive Architecture: Interrelated Changes in Architecture, Atmosphere and Human Experience

Adaptive architecture has been investigated in its functional as well as technological capacities and potentials to respond to changing environmental conditions as well as user interactions – from kinetic façades to variable interiors. Yet, its dynamic aesthetics of various spatial, visual, and auditive states require further exploration, especially in relation to occupant perception and experience. We propose the phenomenological concept of atmospheres as a lens through which the aesthetics of adaptive architecture can be observed as fundamentally relational: as co-constituted by “ambient qualities and human condition.” As these ambient qualities are getting more dynamic and are becoming increasingly manipulable with adaptive architecture, their critical reflection and negotiation is urgent; it has to involve occupants.