ABSTRACT
Atmospheres do not give in to the will of designers. Urban designers engage in atmospheres in order to design their products and services. In design processes that embrace moments of uncertainty the designers approach their work in a symmetric power relation with materials and materiality. Atmospheres in urban design are thus not primarily situated in interpersonal affairs, but envelop relationships between humans and non-human bodies, including biotic and abiotic matter, that interweave, exchange and collaborate in ways that mark the bodies mood-wise. When designers form their impression of places and images, they draw on their skilled vision, which involves a multisensory imagination of felt sensations that no outsider is expected to master. Economic calculation, scientific measurements, isolated and standardised test trials are methods well applied in order to understand everything from particle pollution, material consumption, to physiological reactions and crowd behaviour.
