This international colloquium explores how ambiances—light, wind, humidity, sound, temperature—shape the experience of island spaces and the relationships between communities, territories, and built environments. It is structured around five themes : sensorial architectures, digital sensing, geo-sensitive approaches, knowledge and skills, and arts and ambiances.

Argument

Beyond visible landscapes and material infrastructure, islands are lived and perceived through their ambiances—the textures of light, wind, humidity, sound, temperature, and seasonal variations that form the experiential fabric of island built environments. These sensitive and experiential qualities influence how communities inhabit space, remember place, and imagine the future, yet they remain underexplored within local research frameworks.

Over the past decade, the field of ambiances has largely been shaped by tourism-driven agendas, often influenced by European perspectives. The definition of ambiance tends to be ambivalent and is often referred to as a feeling, but the French pioneer of the notion of ambiance, Jean-François Augoyard¹, highlighted that ambiance is a creative and dynamic process that embraces science and technology, everyday usage, and the input of art. By attending to the sensory, affective, and climatic dimensions of island life, we open new pathways for interdisciplinary inquiry at the intersection of geography, architecture, environmental humanities, and community-based research.

Building on our previous colloquia on water-related issues and coastal transitions, this third edition of the CEDTI Colloquium turns its attention to the ambiances that mediate the relationship between land, sea, and human experience through the built environment.As climate crises intensify, coastlines erode, and communities face environmental instability, the relationship between people and their territories is increasingly marked by uncertainty and rapid change. In this context, ambiances become a relevant lens for observing, understanding, and supporting these transformations—what is at stake in adaptation and resilience, but also in cultural continuity and ways of inhabiting a place. The Island Ambiances colloquium invites participants to explore how sensory, spatial, and technological approaches can help us understand and support societies through these transformations. It aims to cultivate a shared vocabulary and interdisciplinary dialogue around the island ambiances, opening new possibilities for research, design, and community engagement across island regions.

Colloquium Themes

1. Sensorial architectures & spatial experience 

This theme explores how architectural forms, materials, and spatial configurations interact with wind, light, humidity, sound, and temperature to create distinct island ambiances. It invites discussion of vernacular strategies for comfort, microclimates, and the design of spaces responsive to atmospheric conditions. The focus is on architecture as both a sensor and generator of ambiances.

2. Digital sensing & environmental visualization

This theme examines the role of digital tools in capturing atmospheric data. In the digital age, atmospheric phenomena can be represented through digital twins, environmental modeling, and creative data visualization, also enabling the projection of future ambiances.

3. Geo-sensitive approaches to island ambiances

In the social sciences, and particularly in geography, the question of ambiances occupies a growing place in the analysis of the construction of the world, landscapes, and objects. The value of turning to emotions, the sensory realm, and a polysensory approach to grasp anthropized or natural spaces differently, as well as the engagement of the body as a constitutive medium of the experience of the world, form fruitful entry points for understanding the making of territories. To inhabit a place, and especially an island, is just as much to transform it as to be transformed by it, in a process that is at once emotional and phenomenological. Thus, apprehending ambiances—through the sounds, lights, colors, forms, and materialities of island places—constitutes another way of understanding the relationship between humans and their environment.

4. Knowledge and Skills on Island Ambiances

This track highlights academic, community-based, and participatory approaches to ambiances. It positions communities as holders of experiential archives and emphasizes collaborative methodologies that bridge science, culture, and lived experience. It raises questions about the specific competencies needed to develop, master, and study the ambiances of tomorrow.

5. Arts & Island Ambiances

The arts are privileged revealers of ambiances—whether through studying or practicing them. The colloquium therefore invites researchers focusing on artistic forms whose works capture, transform, or invent ambiances, along with artistic or project-based approaches that explore these dimensions of space through creation.

Submission guidelines

Submissions on site : https://www.cedti.net/colloquium-2026

Contact : submissions@cedti.net

Submission deadline : April 24, 2026​

Chronology of the colloquium

• Call for long abstracts (500 words max, MS Word Format) : March 13, 2026
• Abstract submission closes : April 24, 2026
• Abstract acceptance results : May 14, 2026
• Submission of presentation papers : June 30, 2026
• Notification of acceptance of articles : July 30, 2026
• Colloquium : November 17 to 19, 2026

Languages : English or French

Practical information

Location : Mauritius, (Venue to be confirmed)

Dates : 17 to 19 November 2026

• Day 1 : Keynote Speech, Research Presentations & Official Colloquium Ceremony
• Day 2 : Research Presentations & Immersive Visit
• Day 3 : Participative Workshops

Target audience

Researchers, professionals, doctoral students, academics and representatives in urban planning, geography, architecture, arts, social science & civil engineering.

Reading Committee

• Dr. Claudia Enrech, Télécom SudParis
• Dr. Faten Hussein, ENAU & CRENAU, Tunisia
• Prof. Laurent Lescop, CRENAU, France
• Prof. Mahfoud Tahlaïti, ICAM, France
• Prof. Nathalie Bernardie-Tahir, GEOLAB, France
• Dr. Pascal Joanne, Acoustics, CRENAU France
• Assoc. Prof. Yann Rocher, CRENAU, France​
• Dr. Maryam Siddiq, University of Engineering & Technology Lahore, Pakistan
• Dr. Louisette Fanjasoa Rasoloniaina, Laboratoire EVCAU, ENSA Paris Val de Seine Paris, France
• Dr. Pedro Manuel Sobral-Pombo, Islands and Small States Institute, University of Malta, Malta
• Dr. Elisabeth Sommerlad, Geographisches Institut, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany
• Prof. Salim Elwazani, Department of Architecture & Environmental Design, Bowling Green State University, USA

 ¹Jean-François Augoyard, “Pour une esthétique d’ambiance”, Ambiances [online], Rediscovering, published online October 13, 2020, accessed October 15, 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ambiances/3136 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ambiances.3136