The Great Outdoors. Reflections on the interior/exterior dichotomy through the lens of the climate

Architecture is increasingly called upon to invent new scenarios within which the dynamics between the built and the natural environments will develop. Further to issues of structure and form, contemporary design draws upon climate-based strategies, placing an emphasis on architecture’s non-spatial traits and on a re-evaluation of the relationship between inside and outside. This contribution focuses on a cultural understanding of the climate and its connection to the design project. It explores how such a treatment has informed our own experience of inhabiting space, reminding us that architecture, in its efforts to establish an appropriate framework for human activities, is always bound to atmospheric conditions, to the regulation of the climate, to the immaterial qualities of space.