There is an elemental conviction that great architecture must move us. It should trigger an emotional response: the drawing in of breath on entering a Gothic cathedral. But how is it possible to create highly contemporary architectural spaces that are infused with atmosphere, ambience and mood? Evoking Through Design: Contemporary Moods in Architecture highlights how up-to-date architectural technologies and techniques can be combined with traditional knowledge and design skills to enhance the sensorial qualities of space. Moods range from the lighthearted, the colourful, playful and happy to the painterly, the nebulous, the drama of chiaroscuro light and shade, the gloomy and the cavernous.

A visually stunning title, Evoking Through Design features built work and speculative projects that highlight how contemporary practices are using devices such as spatial compositing, surface articulation, novel manipulations of matter and computational code in order to constitute spatial conditions radiating in delicate and sophisticated atmospheres. The theoretical foundations of the subject are also explored through core essays on key themes: the historic lineage of the evocation of atmosphere and moods in architecture; the more recent preoccupation with speculative realism in architecture; the human body and atmosphere; and picturesque techniques.

Contributors: Benjamin H Bratton, Matias del Campo, Mario Carpo, Marjan Colletti, Eric Goldemberg, John McMorrough, Juhani Pallasmaa, Andrew Saunders, and Michael Young.

Featured architects: Alisa Andrasek, Isaie Bloch, Mark Foster Gage, Jason Payne, Gilles Retsin, François Roche and Camille Lacadée, and Roland Snooks.