Toward the Creation of Meaningful and Emotionally Engaging Architectural Experiences: Atmospheric Design and AI

Abstract With the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its integration into the architectural design process, it is essential to study how the integration between atmospheric design and AI can help in creating more meaningful and emotionally engaging architectural designs. This chapter uses a narrative literature review method, which was conducted in three phases. The first phase extracted the parameters that play a role in the emotional experience of atmospheres, through a literature review on architectural atmospheres and their emotional impact. The second phase studied the categorization and measurement of emotions. The third phase assessed case studies that use AI and machine learning to evaluate the impact of art and architecture on emotions, through the lens of the parameters extracted from the first two phases. The results show that AI has the potential to analyze and predict the emotional impact of architectural designs. It also shows that there is a lack of theoretical atmospheric base which considers cultural, social, age, and gender differences in perception during the phase of data collection, in order to train machine-learning models. Designing atmospheres is a complex process that depends on generators of atmospheres, determinants of each individual, as well as composition of the elements in order to create an emotionally engaging harmonious whole. Collaboration between AI, machine learning, and experienced architects is necessary while taking the next steps to integrate AI in architectural practice.