Until a few years ago, architectural discourse had rarely addressed atmosphere in a systematic manner, despite its constitutive role in spatial experience. The recent atmospheric turn, rooted in the broader affective turn within the humanities and social sciences, has renewed attention to the bodily, sensorial, and emotional dimensions of space. This shift has been further reinforced by advances in cognitive science, which provide conceptual and methodological frameworks for understanding how we engage with the built environment. The following review synthesizes key contributions that outline the current state of theoretical inquiry on atmospheres and inform contemporary design thinking. The literature is organized into thematic areas reflecting the domains and objectives of the AURA project: from foundational notions and definitions (FRAMING ATMOSPHERES) to their contextualization within the architectural discipline (SITUATING ATMOSPHERES) and their translation into design strategies (DESIGNING ATMOSPHERES). The review then collects approaches grounded in spatial practice and field experience (EXPLORING ATMOSPHERES), before focusing on the multisensory dimension of atmospheres (EMBODYING ATMOSPHERES). Subsequent sections examine the ways atmospheres are articulated, communicated, and narrated (DESCRIBING ATMOSPHERES), mapped, visualized, and represented (IMAGING ATMOSPHERES), and finally investigated through (neuro)physiological experimentation (EXPERIMENTING WITH ATMOSPHERES).
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