Identifying spatial meanings of atria in built environment and how they work

Abstract

This paper focuses on atria in built environment in order to identify what kind of spatial meanings and values we can find in atria, how we perceive them, and to what degree the architectural properties of the atria are correlated to social meanings. For this, four shopping centres (malls) located in London, UK, were selected, and an online survey questionnaire in terms of the affordance theory was carried out to get substantial ideas of how they work. Throughout an in-depth analysis and evaluation of empirical data, it can be argued that atria help us to draw a spatial structure; they afford revealing oneself to or concealing from others due to the positional priority; lead us to resting, standing or waiting along the atria’s edge; provide a clue for descending or ascending to other floors; afford making aware of activities and facilitating social behaviours; and give us useful information with regard to wayfinding. It is clear, therefore, that atria should be understood as not a separate or independent space but rather an integrated, co-dependent, and comprehensive space from the aspect of the overall spatial configuration.