1. In order to understand urban complexity we need to consider urban phenomenon as a holistic, integrated environment:
- Not only the physical context (architecture / urbanism) and conditions (natural light, temperature, wind, orography, etc), or the social and cultural structures or the individual sensible reactions.
- Urban phenomena, urban ambiences are composed of the interaction of all these different - material and immaterial - elements.
/// Urban ambiences: physical context + social and cultural structures + sensible reactions ///
2. We need a research perspective able to deal with these “in between” transversal urban configurations as indivisible situations:
- Configurations that are always dynamic and in continuous variation and evolution. Not only space and matter: time is an essential parameter of urban ambiences > temporal methods.
- This temporality is not just chronological or linear; between repetition and difference, the rhythmical impression of urban ambiences structures our relation to the environment in terms of attention modes > refrain (ritournelle). Deleuze / Guattari, Lefebvre.
- These rhythmical patterns characterize our urban experience and generate a place identity, understood as a living expression of men–environment interaction, beyond a prevailing patrimonial perspective. Place identity is composed by every element that allows recognition, identification of the place, but also appropriation and integration (inhabitant <> place).
Situated Experience:
Rhythm (first degree of abstraction/reflection: effect, experience, body) >
Ambience (second degree of abstraction/reflection: atmosphere, environment) >
Identity (third degree of abstraction/reflection: recognition, appropriation and integration)