The co-design of urban places and the role of professional urban designers entails facilitating multidimensional processes to capture people’s dreams of attractive and inclusive future living environments. Nevertheless, many urban designers tend to focus on the material factors rather than the social and cultural ones. Based on findings from a case study and conceptual analysis, a systemic reflexive tool is offered to help scholars and practitioners to comprise the complexities of urban design. The Dreamcatcher tool highlights four perspectives of situated complexity and the synergies between them: place and setting; people and participation; vision and scope; and tools and methods.

Purpose: This study aims to explore aesthetic atmospheres and their affordances in urban squares to advance knowledge on the research and design of attractive living environments.

Design/methodology/approach: Descriptions of pleasant and unpleasant experiences of urban squares were collected using qualitative questionnaires with open-ended questions. The theoretical framework and the lens of aesthetic affordances were applied to pinpoint and understand the connections between the place attributes and experiences.

Findings: This study found four distinct aesthetic atmospheres formed by perceived synergies of both the material and immaterial aspects of the environment. It was also found that the atmospheres may shift. A model that shows the aesthetic atmospheres and their potential affordances as layered and emerging is presented.

Research limitations/implications: Everyday aesthetics considered as affordances open new research perspectives for the understanding of what generates attractive living environments – or not.

Practical implications: Aesthetics affordances may provide the design professionals and alike means on how to design places that engender specific aesthetic atmosphere.

Social implications: Gathering and discussing commonplace aesthetic experiences in everyday life may enhance democratic participation in place development among people with different levels of design expertise.

Originality/value: This study combines theories of place with a novel concept of aesthetic affordances to identify distinct aesthetic atmospheres. A holistic overview structure of how the various constituents of aesthetic atmospheres relate to each other provides new ways of studying and understanding urban aesthetic atmospheres.