Architecture as a Mediator of Shared Intentionality: A Phenomenological Re-reading of Social Interaction in Embodied Spaces

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.D., Departmt of Architecture, College of Arts and Architecture, Islamic Azad Univercity of West Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.

2 Asistant Professor, Departmt of Architecture, College of Arts and Architecture, Islamic Azad Univercity of West Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.

3 Asistant Professor, Departmt of Architecture, College of Arts and Architecture, Islamic Azad Univercity of Ardebil Branch, Ardebil, Iran.

10.22059/jfaup.2026.386303.673026

Abstract

Social interactions never take place in a vacuum. They always unfold within embodied and architecturally structured situations that orient bodies, perception, and action. Yet most theories of shared intentionality tend to neglect the role of spatial organization and architecture in the constitution of a common horizon of meaning, reducing sharedness primarily to internal mental states. This article addresses this theoretical gap by asking: How does architecture mediate the formation of shared intentionality in social interaction?
The study adopts a theoretical–critical approach situated within the horizon of phenomenology. First, through a careful conceptual analysis of texts in the philosophy of mind and phenomenology, three clusters of concepts are reconstructed and clarified: appresentation, as developed in Husserl and its intersubjective elaboration in Schutz; shared intentionality, as discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind and social psychology; and extended and distributed mind, as formulated in recent theories of cognition. This analysis purifies the concepts from common ambiguities and articulates their internal logic in relation to the problem of social interaction.
Second, these clusters are brought together in a systematic theoretical synthesis that proposes an integrated framework for understanding architecturally mediated social interaction. Within this framework, architecture is not treated as a mute backdrop but as a constitutive component of the distributed mind: a material–symbolic milieu that structures the appresentational horizon in which "we" can intend, perceive, and act together. Appresentation is interpreted as the phenomenological mechanism through which a shared horizon of the situation—including absent others, norms, and possibilities—becomes experientially present, while shared intentionality names the socially articulated form of this horizon in joint action. The extended and distributed mind perspective grounds this account in a non-mentalistic view of cognition, where cognitive processes are spread across bodies, artifacts, and spatial configurations.
Third, the proposed framework is put to work through an interpretive–phenomenological reading of typical patterns of spatial arrangement in collective settings—such as seating layouts, axes of vision, thresholds, and focal points in gathering spaces. These examples show how specific configurations can foster or inhibit the emergence of shared intentionality by enabling or constraining mutual visibility, joint attention, and the bodily sense of "being-with-others." In this way, the analysis demonstrates that shared intentionality in social interaction is not simply produced inside individual subjects but is co-constituted in a field where bodies, signs, and architectural patterns are tightly intertwined.
The integrated framework advanced in this article forges a conceptual bridge between the phenomenology of appresentation, the philosophy of distributed mind, and theories of shared intentionality, thereby reframing architecture as a symbolic mediator of the lived experience of "we." This perspective offers a basis for critical readings of contemporary collective spaces and provides theoretical support for design approaches that treat the quality of social interaction and mutual responsibility not as secondary add-ons but as foundational dimensions of the language and logic of architectural form. In doing so, it invites architectural theory to take seriously the cognitive and ethical stakes of spatial configuration in the constitution of shared social worlds.

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References

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Journal of Fine Arts: Architecture & Urban Planning
Volume 30, Issue 3
September 2025
Pages 57-68

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