Affordances of place: The applicability of theory of affordances to architecture in context of place

Within the scope of this thesis the concept of place, atmosphere and the theory of affordances have been examined in order to draw a theoretical framework to define how the theory can be used to research the perception of atmospheres delineated as the immediately perceived meaning of places. The literature research suggests that place is immediately perceived as a general atmosphere. How atmospheric affordances are perceived is examined with the help of the theory of affordances to decipher the immediately perceived place meaning. Bringing the concepts of place, atmosphere and affordances together by forming a theoretical structure, their relationships are established. The hypothesis that good atmospheric affordances have positive contributions to the slow growing sense of place constructed in time, and that this eventually leads to the embracement of urban environments and production of socially sustainable environments has guided this research. However this research is limited to the explication of the perception of immediately perceived place-meaning by the concept of atmosphere and the theory of affordances, while the long term contributions to sense of place have been reserved for future researches. Majority of detected literature considered the theory of affordances in context of action and social affordances provided by the environment. Since it has been observed that the studies on atmospheric affordances are limited, it is considered that this thesis could prove useful to the researches on the topic.