Figure 1: A picture of the outside kiosk of the De L’Eglise metro station on a sunny winter day.

Beth A. Uzwiak and Laurian R. Bowles in their introduction to a special issue of The Senses and Society interested in Paul Stoller’s ‘sensory poetics’ excavate the concept of the palimpsest to “consider field notes as archeological layers of ethnography.” (Uzwiak and Bowles, 2021). The method of inquiry used in the explorative field work and the writing of observations in this probe takes up this palimpsestic approach as it studies the various layers which compose the atmosphere of the metro station. This paper will trace out three dimensions that compose the station’s atmosphere: the sensory, the affective and the emotional. Following work in affect theory by Margaret Wetherell and Sarah Ahmed (2012, 2014) and ethnographic work on atmospheres (Sumartojo & Pink, 2019; Edensor, 2012; Adey et al., 2013; Bissell, 2010) all three dimensions are considered as being integral parts of atmospheres and inseparable from one another.    

Also following Uzwiak & Bowles, this paper situates it’s interest in the sensory, affective and emotional dimensions of existence as emerging from Indigenous, Black feminist and trans epistemologies that have emphasized the importance of embodied experiences as knowledge (Anzaldúa, 1987; Lorde, 1984; T. Minh-Ha, 1989;  Million, 2009; Preciado, 2013). Moreover, design is approached as a method for thinking speculatively, that is, to imagine how design could come to shape different worlds (Escobar, 2018). Considering the metro station as a public space, this inquiry asks for who is the metro station built? (Hendren, 2020). What are its characteristics in terms of architecture, design and accessibility? What do these afford? But also, what do they hinder, and thus, who do they exclude?

The probe will first outline the methodology used, and then detail the sensory, affective and emotional dimensions of the atmosphere. The architectural, visual, tactile, auditory and olfactive dimensions of the station are addressed separately then brought together through the concepts of multi-sensoriality and rhythm. The sensory design of the station favors public intimacy and creates rhythms. Rhythms are also constituted through the embodied practices within the station and may be understood through the lens of affects. Two situations in the metro are explored through their sensory-affective dimensions, one as an affective surge and the other as an incongruency of tempos. These bring attention to situations of (in)accessibility, getting through the station and away from the cold. Lastly, the emotions involved in the observation of atmospheres, notably feelings of compassion and empathy are addressed. These open to larger questions of the meaning and possibilities of designing public spaces.

Methodology

The methodology used for this exploratory research is situated in the tradition of the sensory anthropology of David Howes (2004; 2019), the sensory ethnography of Sarah Pink (2009; 2006) and the multimodal approaches to field research proposed by Elliott and Culhane in  A Different Kind of Ethnography (2016) and François Laplantine in The Life of the Senses (2015). The methods of participant sensation, interviews and audiovisual recordings were used to first develop an attunement to the atmosphere of the station and second as materials to reflect on retrospectively. Observations were conducted every day for one week during a particularly cold week in January at various times of the day, with effort made to observe a wide variety of times. Observation notes were taken and subsequently some observations were made using recording devices and focusing on one aspect of the station that was observed and noted previously. Three different types of recording devices were used: a GoPro camera, a sound recorder and a hybrid camera mounted on a monopod. Each device was used for different purposes. The GoPro allowed observation of embodied movement in the station (for example, seeing more closely the moments of opening the doors and going down the stairs while holding the railings). The sound recordings allowed one to pay special attention to specific sounds that were amplified by the device, and the camera for its sensitivity to light, which helped one to discern the structural and architectural elements (for example, the circulation of lighting).      

As Dara Culhane and Denielle Elliott (2017) argue and as the research team of Peter Adey, Laure Brayer, Damien Masson et al. (2013) experienced in their field research of train stations in London and Paris, recording devices engage the ethnographer (and their body) with its environment in specific ways that are different from participant observation and note taking. Each new method of observation is a “mode of experience” (Adey et al., 2013: 303). For Adey et al. its “purpose is not simply to record data (such as video footage, imagery or sound), but rather to produce a disposition which encourages sensitivity to events through equipment, movement and collaborative experiences emerging throughout the spaces of the site, both as and after they happened.” (2013: 303). This approach is exploratory and helps to ‘slip into atmosphere’ by being attuned to its different sensory components (Adey et al., 2013).

Once these observations were conducted, interviews were held with 5 acquaintances that regularly use the station. Due to COVID health measures, the interviews were conducted with acquaintances instead of passersby in the metro. The interviews happened in two stages. First, I invited participants to meet me one at a time in the station to observe it together. They were given the prompt to observe its multisensory elements and their effects on them. Subsequently, I invited the participants to create an audio-description or immersive (multi-sensory) description of their trajectory through the station encouraging them to give details about their impressions. I recorded the second part of the audio interview at my house, not far from the station.

Figure 2 and 3: Two images side by side. The left one shows the inside of the entrance level of the station. The second shows a drawing of the first image made using the technique of rotoscoping.

Architecture, the senses, multi-sensoriality and rhythmicity

Architecture

The De L’Eglise metro station has two entrances. The main one is situated at the corner of a commercial street and Central avenue in a residential area in the south of the city of Montreal. The station is composed of three levels, linked by long and straight staircases and escalators. The first level marks the entrance, the second level is where tickets are bought and where passengers go through turnstiles and the third is where the platform to the metro train is.  

This station opened in 1978 during the first phase of the extension of the Montreal metro that had originally opened in 1966. The architect studio Lemay and Leduc oversaw the project and collaborated with the artists Antoine Lamarche and Claude Theberge for the realization of the concrete bas-relief that decorates the interior walls of the station. The entrance level is decorated only with the concrete bas-relief, while on the ticketing level small panes of wall are covered with rectangular red glazed tiles. Both motifs are found on the platform level, which adds brown- and orange-coloured tiles as well as round circles of concrete along the platform on both sides of the tracks. The shapes of the bas-relief lines are said to evoke movement (animation)[i]. Indeed, the architects stated that the design of the structure was meant: “to express the movement of the crowds by the structure itself” and “to accentuate the movement of the structure by the play of natural and artificial light” (cited in Cantieni, 1987: 33). Unlike other stations in Montreal, this one is rather narrow and has low ceilings, except for the entrance level that is structured by contrasting concrete and large window panes, letting natural light come in and flow onto the second level.

The two platforms are not on the same level, like most of the stations in the city; they are placed one over the other and are only accessible from one direction. This was an incidental architectural element that was decided after the ground collapsed during the first phase of construction (Cantieni, 1987). The architecture of the station was not only guided by artistic intentions but also shaped by the natural elements of the soil. It is also guided by considerations having to do with the ways the kiosks can integrate themselves in the landscape of the city. Evidently, we can anticipate that one of the main objectives of the architectural decisions were oriented by concerns of facilitating the flow of people from outside to the platform and onto the metro car to their next destination.

Visual

As the architects intended, the play of lights in the metro station is noticeable, especially on sunny days. The kiosk on Wellington Street is composed of concrete rectangular arches of interlocking sizes, which gives the appearance of contemporary design. This could make it stand out, as it contrasts with the local residential architecture of low, red brick three story apartment buildings. Yet, this effect is mitigated by its height, similar to the adjacent buildings, and the colour and texture of its aged concrete that make it blend in the surrounding landscape. The interlocking arches extend into the architecture of the entrance level, creating a ceiling the shape of an upside-down staircase. At the highest level, the wall adjacent to Galt Street is composed of large square window panes surrounded by black metallic frames approximately two stories high. On the perpendicular wall which gives onto Wellington Street, three horizontal rows of windows allow passengers to see connecting buses come along and are long enough to give a feeling of continuity between the commercial street and the interior of the station. Narrow rectangular windows run along horizontally at the conjunction of the walls and ceiling that descend in the winding staircase form. The placement of the windows let the light circulate from the ‘front’ (parallel to Wellington Street) to the ‘back’ of the space of the entrance. Moreover, the use and the placement of concrete and clear glass creates an appearance of high contrast, apparent when recording or taking pictures of the space with zones of over and under-exposure that make it difficult to capture the actuality of the appearance of the light inside the space, both light and dark at the same time. Instead of representing the actual light of the space, these images convey how the two materials absorb or let light flow through in contrasting ways.

The light that is filtered through on clear days goes down onto the second level which is directly under the first and shares a common well where the staircases and escalator are placed. After passing the turnstiles, and going down either the staircase or escalator, the natural light is progressively replaced by neon lighting. This trajectory accompanies the movement of the passengers from outside to underground, and as intended by the architects, accentuates the structure of the building from open and integrated into the city, to a narrow and hidden underground tunnel. Although the windows on the upper level allow natural light on sunny days, participants described the metro station as generally dark, even in the daytime. The general color scheme of the station is dark, the walls and ceilings are concrete and the floors of brown tiles although on the lower levels some sections of walls are decorated with small glazed rectangle tiles of orange red and brown.

Touch

The change of the quality of the lighting is accompanied by a similar and gradual change in ambient air temperature. As natural light diminishes from top to lower level, the ambient air becomes warmer. This is one of the most important sensory elements of the station, as it strongly influences the practices and activities of the passengers and other dwellers of the station. While the lighting, smells or sounds we’re not observed to orient the movement of the passengers, the extreme winter weather and the metro station acting as shelter, affected the pace at which the passengers went by, the places they stood to wait for their bus and the un-dressing or dressing of winter wear. It is also this phenomenon which draws a line of demarcation between two different kinds of ways of inhabiting the space of the station; going through it to transit or staying there to keep warm. This issue will be detailed later.

Station dwellers come into contact with surfaces through touch. The station is primarily a place of passage; its structural elements encourage passengers to circulate from the outside to the platform and the other way (escalators, stairs). There are no places designed for lingering, expect a few benches on the platform. Even in the entrance where people wait for their buses and a screen has been provided for passengers to check the arrival times of the connecting transportation, no benches or other surfaces allow for them to rest their bodies. Even the concrete surfaces discourage tempting to resting a back or shoulder on its uneven and rough surfaces.

As Arseli Dokumaci shows, buildings and other material objects have properties which shape their affordances for their users and this has an important impact on accessibility (Dokumaci, 2016). Affordances are defined as the possibilities offered by the physical properties of an environment in collaboration with its users (Gibson, 1979) Dokumaci shows how disabled individuals, who may find themselves at odd with various affordances when their bodies do not meet with the design of certain objects, come up with creative choreographies to cope with these shortcomings (Dokumaci, 2016; 2020; 2023).

In this perspective, various elements of the structure of the station can be seen as either allowing for or hindering the smooth passage of its users, according to the limitations of individuals’ capacities and the buildings affordances. Participants that were interviewed noticed the elements that were at odds with their journey to and from the metro platform and that involved their contact with the structure of the station. For example, they described the heaviness of the doors that needed to be pushed with the whole weight of their bodies in order to open, and the necessity of hanging on to hand railings when the stairs were slippery with water and snow.

Indeed, the circulation of passengers to and fro is hindered by the elements of the weather that create strong air currents at the doors and slippery surfaces on the floors. Moreover, traveling up and down from one level to the next is not experienced in the same way for all visitors. The staircases are long and steep, and there is no escalator that goes down from the first level to the second one. This leaves persons who have varying mobilities (such as people with disabilities or the elderly) or who are carrying large bags or carts to have to “improvise” with these unforgiving designs through “unspectacular choreographies of the everyday” (Dokumaci, 2023: 5).

For example, I observed various techniques being used to go through the revolving doors. These involved pushing the door either with one’s hands, with a further kick from the legs or pushing with one’s shoulder or holding the other side of the door. Most notably, people sometimes assist each other through collaboration: pushing one side of the revolving door while another person at the opposite holds it back, they can go through at the same time with less effort. “J” in our interview mentioned how she intentionally looks for these moments of collaboration. Also, people going down the stairs using canes for balance or canes for low vision or blindness improvise ways of getting through the various levels by holding the hand railings. Moving carts up and down also requires different techniques, moving the cart one step at a time. The veterans of these techniques can be observed to approach the stairs with determination, while others, less accustomed to the painstaking process hesitate at the top of the stairs before engaging in it. In this second situation, the hesitation can be perceived as an invitation for assistance, and some passengers will help carrying down loaded carts. Indeed, bodies working together contribute to changing the affordance of the structure. Dokumaci thus extends the notion of affordances to individuals, where “(…) people can enable the emergence of, or directly become, affordances for one another, especially where no other affordances exist.” (Dokumaci, 2020: 100). These collaborations contribute to creating access where the architecture of the building has limited affordances.

Figure 4 and 5: Two images side by side show screen shots of video made with a go pro camera. The one on the left shows the stairs and escalators going down from the entrance level towards the turnstiles. The second one on the right shows the platform level where there is a long tunnel, a row of fluorescent lights above and an adjacent dock. 

Sound

Participants described the metro station’s soundscape as generally quiet and composed of repetitive sounds. Many pointed to the rhythmic nature of the sounds and noises they hear when going through the station and how this created a sensation of familiarity. All three levels have individual soundscapes that weave into one another as passengers go through them.

On the first level the sound of the wind hisses through the heavy swivel doors, culminating in a gush of air that disappears when they are opened. The monotonous and ongoing light chug of the escalator that brings passengers up from the turnstile level adds to these various tempos of openings and closings. Voices of people speaking are few, sometimes seeping in with other sounds from the street corner when the doors open. The iconic winter sound of plastic boots dragging pieces of rock and salt across hard floors is the most audible on this level. The soundscape of the second level mixes the soft chug of the first single escalator with the louder one of the double escalators that goes down towards the third level. It is punctuated by the beeps of metro cards being swiped at the turnstiles and the low conversation between passengers and ticket office personnel. At this level, the sound of metros coming and going is already audible, becoming stronger further along the descent towards the platform. Participants described the platform level as a space of quietness, tranquility and comfort. M. for example gave a detailed description of the sound of the metro arriving to the platform: at first progressive and calm and becoming rapidly more intense as the metro arrives at the level of the platform. He also pointed out to the fact that the train does not screech but goes by with a recognizable whoosh.

The sounds of the metro in combination with the general quietness, allows J. to relax and turn her attention to other activities such as reading while she is waiting for the metro. J. mentioned that she can anticipate when the metro will arrive at the platform from the progressive amplification of its sound as it arrives in the station. This allows her to be focused on her reading until the train comes to a complete stop. Here the auditory atmosphere creates habits and specific ways to engage with the space. Indeed, memories of a place come to shape how people engage in them since they shape expectations of what will happen in the future (Edensor 2012; Sumartojo & Pink, 2019). Passengers that anticipate the atmosphere of waiting for the metro as a moment of quietness come to it prepared, with a book, or listening to music on their phones, which in its turn participates in the creation of this atmosphere.

Multi-sensoriality and rhythms

As Erin Lynch, David Howes and Martin French (2020) demonstrate with the example of the casino, the overall sensory experience of a space is given not by the individual sensory experiences but of the interaction between the different senses, including social interactions (or lack thereof) and how these participate in atmospheres. At the Montreal Casino, the lights, sounds, the maze-like structure, the celebratory food and drink and the shared excitement at card tables are meant to excite the senses and fabricate a commercial ‘joie de vivre’ where risk taking is understood as synonymous to fun (2020). Montreal’s public transportation has very different objectives in terms of design. Indeed, its atmosphere can be characterized as mundane, continuous, and quotidian. Nonetheless, this atmosphere, like that of the casino, is also produced by the interaction and co-mingling of different sensory experiences in interaction with different visitors and dwellers.  

When describing their experience at the platform level, participants explain how the cumulation of dim lighting along with the sensation of heat, the subdued acoustic environment and having only few people around leads to an experience of quietness, comfort, and a moment of interiority. F. commented that she could have fallen asleep on the bench while we observed the platform together while R. characterized the feeling of this space as associated to contemplativeness and being in their thoughts. D. noticed that while they go through the station and wait for their train, their attention is mostly turned inwards, and that this feeling made it harder to notice the architecture or the public art in the station. As mentioned earlier, J. related how she attends to other personal activities while waiting for the train and M. remarked that the warm air reminded him of the feeling of arriving home in winter.

Indeed, public transportation is qualified as a moment of being alone with others, where verbal communication is generally scarce (Bissell, 2010). David Bissel reminds us that the experience of public transportation has been elsewhere qualified as a moment of ‘intimate alienation’, where it is understood principally as a mode to transport workers to and back from their workplace and involving moments of proximity, intimacy or interiority amongst others. Moreover, the rise of the use of mobile phones in public spaces is said to have reduced the amount of verbal and in person communication (Green, 2002). Yet, Bissel argues that communication between passengers is not only verbal but could also circulate in affective, non-verbal and non-representational ways (2010). While being alone with others in the mundane experience of waiting for the train could be explained by an approach on normative social practice, where the social norm is to keep to oneself, here the combination of sensory elements – hot air, dim lights, monochrome colour scheme, predictability of the sound of the metro going by and absence of physical contact with other passengers – seem to be important elements which reinforce this type of (a)sociality. 

Juhani Pallasmaa is a well-known architect and architectural theorist who has writtn extensively on the senses and architecture (Pallasmaa, 2012). In his article Space, Place and Atmosphere. Emotion and Peripheral Perception in Architectural Experience he explains how atmospheres are also experienced through peripheral perception:

“An atmospheric perception also involves judgements beyond the five Aristotelian senses, such as sensations of orientation, gravity, balance, stability, motion, duration, continuity, scale and illumination. Indeed, the immediate judgement of the character of space calls for our entire embodied and existential sense, and it is perceived in a diffuse, peripheral and unconscious manner rather than through precise, focused and conscious observation. This complex assessment also includes the dimension of time as experiencing implies duration and the experience fuses perception, memory and imagination.” (2014: 230)

This quote demonstrates how an atmosphere can be composed of embodied and proprioceptive sensations, in addition to various sensory qualities. These exist in a temporal dimension where past experiences may come to shape atmospheric attunement and each atmosphere may be shaped by its own internal temporalities with its durations and (dis)continuities. Indeed, the cumulation of the sensory properties of the platforms’ atmosphere are not distinguished separately or perceived from without, rather they are felt together within the atmosphere. These also exist with their own temporal dimensions, from one visit to the station to the next, and within the atmospheres, as rhythms and tempos, perceived sensorially and proprioceptively.

The feeling of rhythm in the metro station, including continuities and disruptions, was an important element of the atmosphere described by the participants and felt by myself during the field research. The combination of sensory elements along with the material configuration of the metro creates rhythms within the different levels of the metro and between them. For example, a few participants noted that the sequencing of halls and stairs or escalators created a general rhythm in the journey up and down the station. F. noted how the movement of the escalators that go down from the second level to the third along with the motif of the bas-relief above and the continuous sound of the escalator created a sense of tempo. The movement of passengers are equally rhythmic where most will walk at similar speeds across hallways and stairs, through turnstiles etc. J. explained that she noticed how passengers move around routinely, with certainty in their movements, getting across doors, staircases and turnstiles with dexterity.

As public transportation is organized through regularly scheduled intervals, rhythms appear as a central component of the place of the metro station. The feeling of rhythm was partially planned by the architectural design that intended it to “express the movement of the crowds” and bring attention to the “movement of the structure”. The repetitive sounds and the practices of people add to the rhythm of the station’s atmosphere. Rhythms bring together the dimension of space and time and of the senses and affects. Indeed, rhythms are partially perceived through the senses - temperature, sounds and movements can be seen, touched, heard and felt. They are equally an affective dimension of the atmosphere as they shape anticipations, attachments, and attunement.   

Building upon the rhythmanalysis of Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 2004), Tim Edensor shows how rhythms are an important part of social life. They allow us to understand place as being “(…) dynamic, part of the multiplicity of flows that emanate form, pass through and centre upon place, and contribute to its situated dynamics.”(Edensor, 2010: 3). For scholars of affect theory such as Kathleen Stewart or Julian Henriques, in addition to being an aspect of social practices, rhythms are also contribute to the ways in which atmospheres and affects are shared (2011; 2010).

Henriques, studying the dancehall scene in Kingston, Jamaica, points to the ways that rhythms are registered, felt and experienced by the body. In his theorization, affects revolve around repetition, potentially creating attachments. He names his approach rhythmic materialism which “suggests that affect is expressed rhythmically – through relationships, reciprocations, resonances, syncopations and harmonies. Affect is transmitted in the way wave dynamics are propagated through a particular medium – which may be corporeal, or material, or sociocultural.” (Henriques, 2010: 58). In his study, affects are produced by the repetition of practices involved in the dancehall scene on many levels, from the cyclical organisation of parties, to the dancing and the repetition of rhythms in the music.  

As Margaret Wetherell reminds, affects and atmospheres exist in correspondence with social practices. For her, affects are not simply contagious on their own, they are processes and practices iwhich people are actively ‘caught up in’ (2012). Rhythms can thus be understood as being one way that atmospheres are actively created through individuals’ engagements in them. For example, passengers engaging with the affordances of the metro station create shared rhythms. Together, passengers create the atmospheres they are caught up in. Their engagement with the space is not only fashioned by the architecture but also by sensory elements, as when cold temperatures increase the speed of people moving forward.

Affective surges and access

If affects are shared through rhythms, as the example of the practices of the metro users show, they also manifest themselves in moments of arrhythmicity, when the regular hum-drum shifts and atmospheres re-configure. Atmospheres and the affects that compose them can be understood as processual, always changing and becoming. As they continually emerge, they offer both a dimension of change (flare-ups, surges, intensities) and of continuity (recurrence, repetition, background feelings) (Sumartojo & Pink, 2019; Wetherell, 2012; Stewart, 2011). Continuities may arise and be shaped by social practices, crystalizing in patterns (Wetherell, 2012) or sticking onto bodies (Ahmed, 2014).

Affective surge as arrhythmicity

Additionally, the metro station is conducive to circulation through different levels at a calm but regular walking speed. The habitual social practice of keeping to oneself and being with oneself amongst others is broken when passengers (and workers of the station) meet and interact. This creates an affective surge, the feeling that something is happening, admits the mundane non-happening quiet movements and ongoing circulation. The atmosphere of the metro is of the mundane and the everyday, what Kathleen Stewart names ordinary affects. In this context, affects materialize as “a surging, a rubbing, a connection of some kind that has an impact.”(2007: 128). These continually compose and re-compose the worlds they shape; they are “worldings” (2007). A typical situation in which these surges occur is when people meet to facilitate access by holding or pushing the door for others and help carry carts or heavy bags. For example, I sensed an affective surge shaped around a moment of inaccessibility and changed the atmosphere that I observed:    

It is a sunny and cold afternoon. I am standing at the second level of the station, near the turnstiles. The escalator going up from the second level to the third has broken down and the station staff has to go back and forth between their booth and the escalator to turn it back on. The atmosphere is generally quiet and calm, as it is a moment of the day when there is less passage. A few elderly persons walk slowly past me and towards the main entrance. A blind man with his cane walks confidently by the ticket booth and heads towards the escalator that had stopped once more. The worker in the ticket booth steps out to turn the escalator back on and starts chatting with one of the elderly men that waits at the bottom (while the two others go up). Their voices rise up over the distant sound of the metro going by. The change in the soundscape, the ordinary but unusual social interaction between staff and passengers outside of the ticket booth, and the starting back up of the escalator come together and shift the feeling of the atmosphere. (fieldnotes)  

Similar to the observations by Bissel on a train in the UK, here the spatial characteristics of affects emerge as “a relation between bodies, objects, and technologies” (Bissel, 2010: 272). Stairs, escalators, turnstiles and canes are in relation with the bodies they are in contact with, enabling passengers to go about their business or stopping them in their tracks. In this particular instance, the affective surge or flare-up takes place in the context of a reorganization of the affordances of the structure of the building. Inaccessibility creates “counter-rhythms” (going slower) or “arrythmias”, disrupting the habitual rhythm and therefore feel of the atmosphere (Edensor, 2010).

Co-presence of atmospheres

Dwellers of the metro station who are not passengers, such as staff, people who panhandle or people who sit by the platform, function in rhythms different from those of passengers. Passengers tend to go through the station, only stopping at the platform level to wait for the next metro cars to pass by and hop on. Those who stay stationary appear in contrast against this backdrop of steady circulation:

One habitual dweller of the station sits outside of its doors during the day. He comes and goes at different times, but he is often there, even in the coldest days. He asks for money and chats with anybody who has the time. Many people greet him with familiarity. I see him talking to the staff of the station who he keeps good relations with. When I go to the station for observation, I feel like I am entering a space that belongs to him somehow. I recognize his relation to this space is very different from my own. (fieldnotes)

Different atmospheres co-exist within the space of the station shaped by various co-exiting quotidian rhythms (Edensor, 2010). The atmospheres and their sensory dimensions shift from one level to the next. Rhythms come to shape the atmosphere of passage, at the platform waiting, and of non-passengers who use the space to pan-handle or stay away from the cold.     

Both of the above situations disrupt the habitual rhythm and intended purpose (or designed affordances) of the structure of the station. Indeed, the structure as planned by the architects, affords for passage and circulation of able bodies. Its structure was not planned or designed for other types of mobilities than those walking skillfully the numerous slippery stairs, moving up and down escalators and standing upright at the entrance level (where there are no benches) or for other types of usages than those of passengers. These moments of (in)accessibility, which are also mundane in the space of the metro station, create moments of affective surge.

If for Kathleen Stewart affects are “transpersonal or prepersonal – not about one person’s feelings becoming another’s but about bodies literally affecting one another and generating intensities” (2007: 128) the rejection of subjectivity in thinking of affects (as pre-individual or pre-personal) is challenged by authors such as Margaret Wetherell and Sara Ahmed (2012, 2014). Wetherell, situating affect in intersubjectivity proposes to think of them as a type of social practice, which she coins ‘affective practice’ that bring together “bits of the body” with “feelings and thoughts, interaction patterns and relationships, narratives and interpretative repertoires, social relations, personal histories, and ways of life.” (2012: 14). Shanti Sumartojo and Sarah Pink echo Wetherell’s approach to affects by redefining atmospheres as partly composed of affects, but also of “phenomenological and sensual elements, and the social and cultural contexts in which they are consumed, interpreted and engaged with emotionally as well as affectively.” (2019: 252).

The example of the metro station illustrates how its various atmospheres come to be composed, undone and recomposed with affective practices, embodied movements, architectural and sensory elements. On one hand, inaccessibility modifies the rhythm of circulation, create sensory disruptions with the rising of chatting voices and affective encounters with the space and between its dwellers. On the other, having access to the station as a place to keep warm or to have access to a good passage of people to pan-handle, allows for other activities and habitations than those related to public transportation. The metro’s station atmosphere, affects and rhythms are brought together through the social practices of accessibility making.

Attunement and emotions

In Sumartojo and Pink’s work on atmospheres, researchers do not observe atmospheres from the outside, they are always already inside them (2019). Although this short study has been limited to the analysis of atmospheres after they have been observed (and with the help of recordings) I will now reflect on my experience in atmosphere and how this has shaped my understanding of the sensory design of the metro station.

Situating myself outside of the habitual practices in the space of the metro through adopting a practice of ethnographic research shifted my position in relation to the mundane atmospheres of the station. Indeed, as I stand or sit, observe, take notes, pictures, record sound or video, I am outside the regular activities usually undertaken by passengers. My perception of the metro stations’ atmosphere is shaped by my relation to it, that is my past experiences within it and my expectations of what could happen there (Sumartojo and Pink, 2019). My individual experience of the metro’s atmosphere is curated by what can be understood as my attunement in it. By changing my engagement with the space (in temporality) – staying and observing instead of passing through – my attunement is changed, and it becomes possible to be in another atmosphere. Both Stewart and Ahmed, in reference to the work of Martin Heidegger, highlight how being involved in an atmosphere through attunement shapes it in return. In this approach, attunement is a process of ‘worlding’: “an intimate, compositional process of dwelling in spaces that bears, gestures, gestates, worlds.” (Stewart, 2011: 445).  

When I am observing the station, I participate in the atmosphere of immobility. Through the practice of ethnographic observation, I bring into the atmospheres I co-create a mood of stillness and in this atmosphere, I become attentive to arrhythmicity. As I have shown earlier, these arise in moments of inaccessibility, when people go up or down stairs with carts, open doors together, walk slowly, or when people look to access the space of the metro for activities un-related to public transportation (such as panhandling or sitting on a bench). This involves myself not only as researcher but co-dweller of the space and place of the metro station. I experience this attunement in contrast to the one when I am a passenger, hurriedly walking towards my next destination, sharing that atmosphere with other passengers like me.   

Sara Ahmed, who is interested in the lasting effects of emotions and their political consequences, shifts Heidegger’s attunement from atmospheres to individuals. Indeed, she proposes to understand attunement as a form of sociability by showing how the moods of individuals (emotions) can come to compose moods or atmospheres. For Ahmed, Heidegger has overlooked the important question of non-attunement. She asks: If being attuned to an atmosphere means participating in it or creating it, what happens when we are not attuned? She writes:

“Attunement is not exhaustive: to be attuned to some bodies might simultaneously mean not to be attuned to others, those who do not share our leanings. We can close off our bodies as well as ears to what is not in tune. An experience of non-attunement refers then to how we can be in a world with others when we are not in a responsive relation (…)” (Ahmed, 2014: 223).  

Ahmed suggests that attunement requires “emotional labour”: “(…) you have to work to be attuned to those who are already ‘in the room’, perhaps by closing a (perceived) gap between how they feel and how you feel.” (2014: 224). In the situation of the metro not picking up the presence of people that are not in tune or exist within other rhythms, takes the work of changing pace and tuning-in to feel these other atmospheres. Of course, this slight modification of attention done in being in the atmosphere of immobility is not enough to “feel how they feel” and it is uncertain whether this could be attainable at all or necessary to develop an attunement that could re-shape “non-responsive relationships.” This work, to try and feel how others feel, while accepting that it is not possible, opens to many more questions regarding what designs and architectures mindful of the senses could do or not do.

Sensory Design and World-Making

As I observed the station, I was getting cold and the battery of my camera was dying twice as fast as usual as my hands had to be in small gloves to manipulate the material. Sensory dimensions of public spaces not only shape our experiences of them, but they may also have life and death consequences. In the middle of a temperature drop in Montreal, heat becomes an important resource.

The metro station usually closes its doors at 1 am making the entrances inaccessible until it’s opening at 5:30 am. While I was going to the metro station regularly for observations, I learned of the death of Stella Stosik, a homeless woman who had been found outside of a closed metro station in the center of Montreal on Jan 21st (Madger, 2022). Shew was 60 years old and was the second death of a houseless person recorded during the cold snap of that year. The year previous an Innu man named Raphaël André had died in portable toilet outside of a refuge that had closed (O’Malley, 2022). Indeed, local housing associations are in an ongoing conflict with the city over the accessibility of metro stations to the homeless (Gelper, 2022).

The heat of the metro becomes a public and political debate, of whom should have access to it and at which times. Following critical disability studies scholars, the question of design and of accessibility may be thought of as not only bound to rational architectural choices but to larger social questions of who public spaces are designed for. As Sarah Hendren asks, who has the built world been built for? (2020). Here, we could come to challenge the idea that metro stations should only be built for able-bodied travelers. They could also be built with the intention of increasing accessibility to a wide range of users and dwellers. This could include people who need to carry heavy things, are pushing strollers, who are using canes or wheelchairs. This could benefit passengers, STM workers, workers that own shops in the station. It could also include those who pan-handle or go to the station to keep from the cold. As Robert Rosenberg shows in Callous Objects, urban planning could be imagined as un-hostile architecture, including the homeless in its designs rather than excluding them from it (2018). Metro stations could have accessible bathrooms, they could have more benches, they could have elevators and they could share their heat with many visitors.

© 2023

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