Simbürger, Wiltrud; (2024) Climatic Landscapes and Interior Weathers: Climates and Atmospheres of Three Italian Renaissance Villas. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

An architectural designer’s study of the relationship between climate, atmosphere and architecture, this thesis takes a look at three villas from the Italian Renaissance: Villa Aeolia, designed by Francesco Trento, Andrea Palladio’s La Rotonda, and Vincenzo Scamozzi’s La Rocca Pisana. It analyzes the climatic environments of the villas, their interior climates and the atmospheres – understood as affective manifestations of climate – they convey to the inhabitant. The thesis studies the design decisions as well as the climate conceptions these decisions were based on, as revealed through the architects’ writings and the canonical treatises available during their lifetime. Climate and atmosphere are key topics of today’s architectural discourse. The thesis understands them as facets of the overlying debate on anthropogenic climate change that has reshaped our relationship to the climatic environment. My approach is an attempt to address the split between two specific perspectives in the discourse. On the one hand, techno-scientific approaches understand climate in a functional way and focus on environmental sustainability. On the other, atmospheric approaches focus on designing specific climatic conditions in building interiors (e.g. of temperature, air movement or humidity) to emphasize the bodily experience of climate. By studying a set of historical examples, I aim to show how such disparate manifestations of climate can be braided together into rich climate-aware building designs. I propose this braiding as a contemporary architectural design strategy that responds to our reshaped relationship to the climatic environment. The chosen research methodology reflects my conviction that studying climate and atmosphere by looking at historical buildings cannot be based on historical research and spatial analysis alone, but needs to include insights gained from bodily experiences. To this end, I developed two research methods. Writing climospheric travel diaries enabled me to create climate panoramas for each building that combined historical facts, observations, and bodily experiences. Creating perceptual drawings that oscillate between visual analysis and sensual engagement allowed me to discuss climate and atmosphere simultaneously.

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