Atmospheres and Sensus Communis: Literary methods for the analysis and design of urban sites

This article questions how architects and urban planners can deal with atmosphere as a crucial quality of urban places. Their challenge is the mediating character of urban atmospheres; balancing between spatial and material arrangements and the embodied, perceiving subject, between urban places and the people using them. Following Arendt ‘s sensus communis, we argue that atmosphere requires a multi-perspectival view of the architectural or urban project. Literature provides a viewpoint to analyze urban spaces as well as to make projections for their future. A study using narrative tools to trace urban atmospheres in Antwerp’s former harbor docks will be discussed.