THE

CULTURAL VIEW : FROM CLIMATE TO W EATHER IN ARCHITECTURE

Toms Garca Priz
International Phd. Associate Professor. ESTAG, University of Granada

ABSTRACT
Much has been written on architecture and climate, on their relationships, on their mandatory
interdependence, on the necessary attention to an invisible and intangible medium that
conditions our life and our spaces. It is the sign of our time, a time marked by the need to
recognize ourselves in a place that is increasingly determined by the (natural and artificial)
hybrid essence of its air environment.
However, what is proposed here is not a reflection on the climate, or at least exclusively. By
climate we mean the set of values/average weather in a particular region over a
representative, long-medium term. Weather is then understood as the phenomena occurring
in the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time so that it more closely affects the
experience of the man and his surroundings. The climate is not something that can be seen or
perceived by our body. In contrast, the weather actually is, through its meteorological
phenomena (rain, wind, snow, etc.) or variables (temperature, humidity, air velocity, etc.).
In that sense, we will try to establish an architect-meteorologist relationship (the climate is
studied by a climatologist), architecture-weather focuses on a certain sky that does not just
talk about climate, but also about phenomena and weather. Therefore, the task of this text is a
transversal reading that will allow us to approach the sky that is so neglected by critics; a sky
that has become the atmosphere involving the climate and especially the weather, but it
additionally speaks of the emotional relationship that man has established with his
surroundings, with the vagaries of time and with its own historical, technical, cultural and
social past.
Keywords: Atmosphere, Architecture, Weather, Climate, Landscape

Sustainable Development Symposium | 6th annual European postgraduate symposium | 1