Architectural atmospheres: affect and agency of mobile digital images in the material transformation of the urban landscape in Doha

Authors:

Clare Melhuish (The Open University, UK)
Monica Degen (Brunel University, UK)
Gillian Rose (The Open University, UK)

Biographical details:

Dr Clare Melhuish is Research Associate on the research project ‘Architectural Atmospheres: the impact of digital visualising technologies on contemporary architectural practice’, which is funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, and runs from 2011-2013. She is a social anthropologist specialising in the study of modern and contemporary architecture and built environment, who also has a background in architectural criticism. The research project is based in Geography at The Open University in the UK, under the directorship of Professor Gillian Rose, an acclaimed scholar in visual studies, with a particular interest in the uses of visualising technologies. It is run in partnership with Brunel University, where Co-Investigator Dr Monica Degen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, specialising in urban design and urban regeneration.

Paper title:

‘Architectural atmospheres: affect and agency of mobile digital images in the material transformation of the urban landscape in Doha’

This paper presents findings from the research project ‘Architectural Atmospheres: the impact of digital technologies on architectural design practice’, focused on the design of Msheireb Downtown in Doha.

A concern with ‘atmosphere’ has entered the commercial mainstream of architectural practice and urban development, as digital visualising technologies allow the creation of increasingly sophisticated imagery. We
will consider some of the issues which digital visualizations give rise to, in terms of affording certain forms of architectural and spatial design and thereby scripting specific versions of the social, embedded in spatial
settings.

The research project explores how the making of Computer Generated Images may be understood as a craft practice within the discipline of architecture and design, which is having a significant impact on the material
transformation of the urban landscape and everyday urban life in Doha. We will ask how the evocation of ‘atmosphere’ through the digitalised production of these images mobilises ideas and aspirations for the construction of a ‘new kind of place’ and urban lifestyle, both as an imaginary and a reality, in the Islamic and Arab context.

Drawing on ethnographic research in the eight offices in the UK which have been involved in designing the Msheireb project, we will describe how digital images are ‘crafted’ through the assembled technical and artistic expertise of architects and visualisers, within an overarching process of sharing and negotiation between designers, consultants and client. We will show how these images move around through a global network of localised sites during this process, as visual artefacts in both electronic form and different physical
formats, before becoming embedded in the spatial and material landscape of Doha itself. We will suggest that, as crafted images, they acquire as much tangible and emotive substance as objects with social and political
agency in their own right as the future buildings they evoke and represent.

Contact:

Dr Clare Melhuish, clare.melhuish@open.ac.uk
Tel + 44 207 916 0957