Architecture and psychology in the 20th century: archetypes of human need and sanity.

History of Architecture Double Dissertation. Module AD3021N.

Paul Keedwell

Architecture and psychology in the 20th century: archetypes of human need and sanity In this dissertation I would like to demonstrate how the entire history of the modernist project has tended to mirror the evolution of the discipline of psychology the scientific study of human behaviour. Although the term architectural psychology was not coined until the 1970s, I would like to argue that the impact of psychology from the turn of the century to the present has been profound. In general, historical accounts of architecture have hitherto placed designers in their cultural context while mysteriously ignoring the psychological movements which helped fuel those cultural shifts. For example, most historical accounts of architecture by authors such as Pevsner1 or Frampton2 seemingly ignore the influence of the rise of psychology in the 20th century including psycho-analysis, socio-biology, social anthropology, behaviourism, social psychology, Maslow, Erikson, and evolutionary psychology on movements such as surrealism, constructivism, structuralism, determinist urban planning, and humane or healing architecture. I will give a critical account of how I believe psychology has shaped architecture, either consciously or unconsciously, and how the psychological vision of the architect or planner has matured from representational, through deterministic to interactionist. Alain De Bottons recent book The Architecture of Happiness3 concludes Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. However, there is little within his book to support this assertion. During this dissertation I have attempted to carry out a systematic review 1 of the history of architectural psychology in order to show that a better understanding of (i) the psychology of the architect, (ii) the psychology of the end user , including issues of personal space, identity and universal innate needs, and (iii) how the user interacts with his immediate environment, subculture, community and society will lead to a better understanding of the design process and thus help architects and urban planners design an optimal built environment, or at least an environment that minimises the risk of social and psychological harm. Through a better understanding of architectural psychology the architect should begin to appreciate the opportunities and limits inherent in the process of trying to create spaces for happiness and good mental health. The early psychology of aesthetics - Gestalt psychology and constructivism The influence of Freud and Gestalt2 was particularly apparent in the early 20th Century. Freuds interpretation of dreams fuelled surrealism, unconsciously influencing the dream-like quality of Gaudis Casa Batllo (particularly the dragonlike roof) and Park Guell, much admired by fellow Catalan Dali. The psychotechnical laboratory of Avante Garde constructivist movement ASNOVA in 1920s Russia, attempted to produce a pure lexicon of forms with 'psycho-organisational'
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An extensive literature review was carried out at the RIBA library, the JSTOR on-line catalogue and via catalogue searches at the Holloway Road library, London Metropolitan University and the Architecture Library at Cardiff University. Search terms included architecture, psychology, evolutionary architecture, environmental psychology, architectural psychology. A psychology based on (a) the Principle of Totality - The conscious experience must be considered globally (by taking into account all the physical and mental aspects of the individual simultaneously) because the nature of the mind demands that each component be considered as part of a system of dynamic relationships and (b) the principle of psychophysical isomorphism - A correlation exists between conscious experience and cerebral activity.

effects.4 The Gestalten was about capturing the essence of the whole rather than individual elements. ASNOVA followed the principles of Gestalt and Mnsterbergs psychophysical parallelism where the mind reflected physical processes. Their work had expressionistic elements, communicating a pure form of base emotion through the architectural equivalent of Munchs The Scream. It was also about the balance and harmony of pure geometry as mirrored in the work of Mondrian, but with the sensibility of Klee, who said that the colour red was like the call of a trumpet.5 Their approach was inevitably more sculptural than functional, which might explain (apart from the depressed Russian economy) why so few of their buildings were actually realised. Constructivism and Gestalt Constructivism was initially the architectural equivalent of expressionism in art and a symptom of the new found love affair with expressing the innermost qualities of human psychology. The early constructionist works putting their obsession with technology aside were breaking down the boundary between art and life or more accurately the boundary between art and certain aspects of human physiology and psychology. The physiological aspects with the skeletons and vessels of buildings exposed would ultimately influence the externalised frame and pipework of Piano and Rodgers Pompidou Centre in Paris. However, the psychological aspects, in terms of representation and effect were equally important. Gestalt psychology was founded in Germany in the 1910s and its influence extended across Europe, including Russia. Arguing originally against the structuralists (who took the position that phenomena could be pared down to certain primitive perceptual elements) the Gestaltists maintained that psychological phenomena could only be understood if considered as organised wholes, or Gestalten. It was the Gestalten that contained the essence of something like the appleness of the apple, rather than elemental aspects of curve and greenness. A melody can be understood even if constituent notes are slightly altered. Gestalt forms of psychotherapy promoted by Frederick Perls (1893-1970) focussed on broadening a persons sense of wholeness and selfawareness through the use of past experiences, bodily sensations and feedback in groups. The concept of wholeness heavily influenced the architecture of the OSA (Association of Contemporary Architects) founded by Alexander Vesnin in 1921. El Lissitzky, a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, architect, and major proponent of the Russian avant-garde described OSAs Leningradskya Pravda building in Moscow (1923) as follows: All accessoriessuch as signs, advertising, clocks, loud-speakers, and event he elevators inside, have been incorporated as integral elements of the design and combined in to a unified whole. This is the aesthetic of constructivism. This was a colder and more technological constructivist style than the designs produced by another major player in the constructivist movement the ASNOVA (Association of New Architects). OSAs Leningradskya Pravda building (1923) ASNOVA was started in 1923 by Nikolai Ladovsky, along with other avant-garde architects such as Vladimir Krinsky. Ladovsky's approach was often desribed as rationalist but this was misleading. His approach was highly intuitive, and also heavily influenced by Gestalt. Prior to setting up the school Ladovsky had defined architectural rationalism as 'the economy of psychic energy in the perception of

spacial and functional aspects of a building', in contrast with 'technical rationalism'. The group's research methods were particularly influenced by the work of applied psychologist Hugo Mnsterberg, and Ladovsky built a psychotechnical laboratory in 1926 based on his approach. Mnsterbergs psychology was grounded on the theory of psychophysical parallelism - which argued that all physical processes had a parallel brain process. He had penned the book Psychology and Industrial Efficiency in 1913 which had looked at the problems of monotony, attention and fatigue in the work place. He believed that the key to work place efficiency was matching job and worker and that successful matches generated satisfied employees, quality work and high productivity. ASNOVA combined certain elements of his studies with the approach of Gestalt in order to produce a lexicon of pure forms with 'psycho-organisational' effects (as Ladovsky put it). Their intention was the architectural equivalent of Edward Munchs The Scream we do not know why the figure is screaming but there is an identification with the fundamental emotion that is being expressed. Their approach was inevitably more sculptural than functional, which might explain (apart from the depressed Russian economy) why so few of their buildings were actually realised. An early example of a design for a skyscraper by Vladimir Krinsky (1920) and a design for a housing project by Ladovsky (1920) are typical of the approach (below, from left to right). The influence of ASNOVA was also seen in the popular science fiction film Aelita, which had interiors and exteriors modelled in angular, geometric fashion by Aleksandra Ekster. The parallels with the pure forms of progressive artists of the time: Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Paul Klee (18791940) are quite clear. Klee, Gombrich tells us, began a piece of work by relating lines, shades and colours to each other, adding a stress here, a weight there, to achieve the feeling of balance or rightness. This was not just about creating a Gestalt through trusting ones intuition, it was about expressing a route to a fantastic subject of his imagination. This would be more true to nature than any slavish copy. Kandinsky strived for an art of pure inwardness. In his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912) he stresses the psychological effects of pure colour the way in which bright red can affect us like the call of a trumpet. Mondrian aimed for a clarity and simplicity of form that somehow reflected the universal laws of the universe. Mondrian, Kandinsky and Klee were all mystics of their time who wanted their art to reveal immutable realities behind the ever-changing forms of subjective experience. In other words, they were attempting pure forms of psychic expression that, like the authors of ASNOVA, communicated feeling through the least amount of interpretation or psychic energy. Art and architecture of this period was about creating a communion between mind of designer and mind of viewer. In this sense the movement was not wholly deterministic there was a faith in the observer to connect with the fundamental psychic qualities of all beings through the work of the architect or painter. This was not architect as author but as facilitator in the same way that Perls the therapist was never didactic he would facilitate feelings of wholeness and humanity in his clients by encouraging them to be more aware of their own bodily sensations, memories and feelings. He would demonstrate techniques for doing this through intense group interactions, meditation, bio-feedback and so on - but would not impose any particular idea of self. Similarly great art, and architecture, would communicate a sense of self. Surrealism and Freud

In the climate of Freud there was a new appreciation of how architect and audience could be communicating on an unwilled and unconscious level. According to Gombrich, the surrealists were heavily influenced by the findings of Freud at the beginning of the 20th Century. Art and architecture briefly became an expression of normally hidden drives and fantasies which generally played out in the dream like state, and which Freud suggested could occasionally be expressed trough free association techniques, and in the psychopathology of everyday life, where Freudian slips provided windows in to the unconscious parts of the ego. Despite the fact that Gaudi never claimed to be part of the surrealist movement, it is often said that Gaudis architecture has a surreal, dream-like quality. Although Gaudi regarded himself as an inheritor of the gothic tradition brought into the modern age, it was his definition of modern that fascinated fellow Catalan Salvador Dali, who loved Gaudi more than he loved the surrealists. Gaudi consciously celebrated the organic beauty inherent in nature, particularly as Art Nouveau emerged as a major force in the decorative arts. It could be said that Gaudi was the only true architect of Art Nouveau. However, Freud has taught us that creative projects feed on the unconscious introjections of events and feelings surrounding us at the time. It seems unlikely that the surrealist movement, although apparently inspired by Gaudi, did not feed back in to Gaudis later works, like the roof of the Casa Botilio or the surreal arrangements apparent in Park Guell, at least at an unconscious level. Perhaps there was even some conscious collusion: Gaudi accommodated Dalis exhibitions of live art in Gaudis Park Guell. The dream like quality of Gaudis works seems to connect with people on a basic psychological level, in the same that the child in us is still attracted to the fairy tales of our childhoods. These forms promise a window in to the fantastic worlds of our dreams. However, there was no true interaction in the sense that the end users contributed to creating a new built environment. Also, the attachment to pure, universal forms inevitably led to a splitting off of more absolutist elements. Hence, in this movement were the seeds of structuralism and the International Style, which ultimately ignored the psychology of the end user. ASNOVA designs Le Corbusier, CIAM and the International Style architects as authors of wellbeing The users space is lived, not represented (or conceived).

This quote is from the philosopher Henri Lefebvre, who concerned himself with the phenomenology of human existence. It is aimed squarely at the early modernists, most notably Le Corbusier, whose pure white machines for living and whose city designs were concerned with providing some unattainable objective knowledge of reality6 which had nothing to do with allowing his residents a sense of identity and belonging. He was more interested in being the author of a brave new architecture than he was in gaining an understanding of his end-users aspirations, feelings and needs.
Nature versus nurture: parallel and opposing forces in psychology and architecture in the 20 Century Goodenough demonstrated that children who are born deaf and blind use the same facial expressions as other children to express the same emotions. She blazed a trail for other researchers like Jane Thompson and Irenus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, a German ethologist. Thompson took photographs of the emotional reactions of 26 blind children, aged from seven weeks to thirteen years, to certain situations, and had independent raters compare these reactions to those of sighted children, matched 5 6 for age in similar emotion-provoking situations. Later Ekman demonstrated that the same basic emotions are expressed in all cultures, but that it was the display rules within a culture that determined when they would be displayed. Later Noam Chomsky would examine the universal laws of grammar in the new discipline of psycho-linguistics. The structuralist movement in psychology was always in tension with the cultural relativists. In 1935 the famous social anthropologist Margaret Mead had published Sex and Temperament in Three 3 Societies, in which she concluded that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions. The cultural relativism that sprang from this, can be understood in terms of a welcome backlash against the genetic determinism of socio-biology, which implied that most behaviour was determined by genes. (It was short step from this stance to the discipline of eugenics and a twisted justification for the Nazis final solution). In a sense Ekmans work in the 1970s had brought the two opposing views together the expression of emotion was the result of a combination of innate process and local culture. Interestingly, the architectural movement of structuralism ran out of steam just as this more interactionist view of psychology was emerging.
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Olivier Marc argued, in Psychology of the House7, that the most aesthetically pleasing and most psychologically healthy built environment was one that emerged organically from the efforts of local people, serving their own needs, and using materials sourced from their own location. This might be true of the traditional rural environment, but it is not a realistic point of view to take when designing an urban environment. The squalor seen in shanty towns has grown organically around a city the result of rural migration - but it can not be said to be beautiful. Neither was it beautiful to live on the outskirts of Paris in the early 1900s. The modernist vision of the early 20th Century was primarily driven by the perceived need for urban regeneration. A universal and efficient solution was required. This mirrored an increasing interest in underlying structures in psychology that were not prone to cultural modifications or adornments. The behaviourist Watson claimed to have discovered the universal laws of classical conditioning in man and animals (which would be followed by Skinners laws of operant conditioning involving reinforcement and punishment of behaviour), and the early sociobiologists were finding evidence for Darwins original assertion that there were certain innate expressions of basic emotions that were common to all humans. These laws found their architectural parallel in Corbusier and His Five Rules of Architecture. There was no room for cultural factors in the genetic determinism of

socio-biology. There was no room for individual differences in the way people perceive the world in Watsons laws. Similarly, there was no room for manoeuvre when it came to Corbusiers white walls and clean lines, Domino structure and the Five Rules8. Similarly, continuing the tradition of Vitruvius and Da Vinci, Corbusiers Modular9 was all one needed to work out the perfect proportions of a building. The dominant criticism of Le Corbusier over the past 75 years maintains that his proposed city-schemes particularly his plan Voisin for the north east portion of central Paris in 1922 - would have killed off rather than improved the life of the city: first, by eliminating the traditional street; and second, by granting only limited space for cafs, community centres, and theatres.

Le Corbusiers Plan Voisin for Paris (1922) Le Corbusier is blamed for the socially alienating environments of post-war highrise developments that were built on the dictates of the CIAM 1947 consensus, and the growth of the International Style a style that is, by definition, insensitive to place and culture. Corbusiers dreams helped to create the dystopian tower blocks that now ring historic Paris, beyond the Peripherique, standing on neglected wastelands. De Botton writes, on this legacy of Corbusier3: There is something enervating about a landscape neither predominantly free of buildings nor tightly compacted, but littered with towers distributed without respect for edges or lines, a landscape which denies us the true pleasures of both nature and urbanisation.3 For Corbusier, New Yorks Manhattan, despite employing high rise buildings, was a failure of planning. He believed that it was wrong to wedge tower blocks in to a narrow network of streets, believing planners should knock Manhattan down and start again. Tower blocks should be surrounded by vast open spaces. Cars and pedestrians should never meet. Intersections were described by him as death traps. However, he failed to realise the co-dependence of the car and the pedestrian in the city. Traffic fuels the programs on a street which pedestrians frequent, and without the surveillance provided by traffic pedestrians feel vulnerable. As De Botton states, We admire New York because the traffic and crowds have been coerced in to a difficult but fruitful alliance.3 This alliance has created the wonderfully rich urban culture that many cities aspire to. Corbusier could only have evolved his 1925 mantra The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning10, without a disregard for street life. He states, Our streets no longer work. Streets are an obsolete notionWe have to create something that will replace them. From Le Corbusier : The city of tomorrow and its planning (1925)10 The concept of the flneur (the stroller) was presumably alien to him at the time. This word, first coined by Baudelaire in the 19th century was also celebrated by Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay, On Photography11, where she talks of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flneur finds the world 'picturesque.' The flneur is therefore in love with the street, and the unexpected surprises it many bring. Cornelia Otis Skinner describes him as a deliberately

aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgencywith the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savouring the multiple flavours of his city.12 According to Simon Richards, a lecturer in Art History at Leicester University, the antisocial effects of Corbusiers urban designs were not unintentional.13 Richards argues that Corbusier had a clear idea of what people should be doing in his cities, which can be traced to his interest in the Enlightenment philosopher Blaise Pascal.6 Le Corbusier once remarked, Pascal was always right, going on to say that he sought to build Pascals Desideratum. In summary, Pascal had argued that a vibrant social life distracted people from the more important activities of meditating in solitude and trying to set up a personal relationship with God. Richards therefore makes a strong link between Le Corbusiers antisocial urbanism and the intentions of Pascal, or rather a Pascalian concept of selfhood. If Corbusier had been psycho-analysed by Freud he would have detected more than a hint of narcissism: Corb was, after all the self-proclaimed saviour of the poor, with a flamboyant name appropriated from a distant relative. He would, in fantasy, single-handedly solve the problems of over-crowding created by rural migration to European cities. However, like so many other architects of the time, he would fail to convert an unconscious grasp of [his] own needs into reliable instructions for satisfying the needs of others.6 Despite Corbs claim to meet the functional needs of his end users, he did not base his formulas on any research in to what makes human beings react harmoniously with their environments in ways that encourage psychological health, but rather some instinctive notion that increasing access to light and air and space would increase well being. Later modernists like Toyo Ito commend him for his general principle of increasing an engagement with nature. In an early essay Ito reflects that Corbusier never forgot the human need for such simple, basic things as sun and greenery14 and that his own architecture similarly encourages an active relationship between human beings and nature14. However, in Corbusiers time the vision only became a reality for those who could afford it, with the possible exception of Unite Dhabitation in Marseille, positioned as it is in a good climate with exceptional views of the sea. When his highly formal open spaces, without any sense of ownership, program or place, were turned in to reality (for example, the experience in the outskirts of Paris), they soon became wasteland. Furthermore, his outside space was carved up by the car; his urban plans would never bring people closer to nature. The rise of environmental psychology The discipline of environmental psychology began in the mid 1940s in tandem with the rise of social psychology (appendix 1). Kurt Lewin is widely regarded as the father of the latter. He states: our behaviour is purposeful; we live in a psychological reality or life space that includes not only those parts of our physical and social environment that are important to us but also imagined states that do not currently exist".15 He drew together insights from topology (where topographical maps of life space were created), psychology (need, aspiration etc.), and sociology (e.g. force fields motives clearly being dependent on group pressures). In the inter-war period environmental variables were simply considered the causes and psychological variables the effects, reflecting the deterministic attitudes of the times. Post Lewin, however, experiments became more

sophisticated, incorporating social aspects of the environment. By 1972 David Canter, one of the main proponents of architectural psychology, was claiming that there had been a silent revolution over the previous 4-5 years in how the study of human behaviour could impact on design decisions, not just for the town planner but for the architects of all built environments16. The boost to the environmental psychology movement at this time was in part a reaction to the non-empirical approach of Archigram (Appendix 2), which, for all its well meaning rhetoric, tended to ignore the social and psychological context of homes and public buildings which existed in the real world, right now. Also, in the context of Vietnam, its mechanistic utopia looked menacing. The growth of environmental psychology was initially largely confined to the UK. The generality of American architects did not believe that the built environment could really influence peoples feelings and actions17. Richard Joseph Neutra (1892 1970), an Austrian immigrant based in California, and a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, famously said Let me design a house for a happily married couple and Ill have them divorced within a week. The American scepticism did not spring from nowhere, it had an empirical base. Famous sceptics of environmental psychology like Neutra frequently quoted the results of the Hawthorne Studies18 (see Appendix 3), which suggested that manipulating the physical aspects of the working environment had far less impact on the efficiency and esteem of the work force than being monitored and feeling valued by management. However, this merely spurred on advocates of the UK movement. Canter writes: Architects need an increasing awareness of the people for whom they designThe view of American architects is that the nub of architectural psychology is really socio-physical technology.16 In a similar vain, Alexander states: The belief that is widely held by planners in the US is that the physical form of an environment can have little effect on behaviour. Hence, architecture can be seen as a kind of amusement, a sugary treat. Architecture is not to do with making cities better to live in but is just an aesthetic. This is actually a backhand attack on utopian thinking. Alexander was aware of the views of Neutra: Like many US modernists he believes that psychological insights are too vague to be implemented in to a design of urban form. However, this is merely a way of avoiding saying what life was really about.17 The golden age of environmental psychology Following developments in cognitive and social psychology two main revolutions had occurred in both the complexity of manipulations of environment and complexity of interpretations of response. People perceived an environment due to cognitive processes, with evaluative responses rooted in affective responses, and inferential responses based on their symbolic representation.19 For example, the amount of stress created by noise was found to be related to the cognitive factor of control noise is much more stressful if we feel helpless to stop it or avoid it; it is less stressful if we know that we can escape it when we really need to.20 Stimuli now included streetscapes, room shapes, room orientations, seating arrangements and so on. Real environments were increasingly used in addition to complex models and photographic stimuli. Noise stimuli were more complex the transient peak index was employed to account for habituation: we can adapt to low continuous noise levels and experience only low grade stress as a result. Noise is much more stressful if it is both loud and intermittent.16

Experiments were starting to consider the whole life space based on Lewins work: high temperatures and poor ventilation had been shown to increase stress, reduce work efficiency and increase levels of aggression, but more so in overcrowded environments, and particularly when people were trying to perform tasks that require a reasonable amount of concentration.21, 22 By the time Canter was writing, there was a notion of a much more fluid relationship between environments and peoples psychological reactions to them comprehension of this, Canter believed, was essential. 16 This evolution was eloquently summarised by Dr Ifan Payne, in her article Backgrounds to Behaviour.23 She stated, There was a time when men were arrogant enough to believe that it was possible to quantify [the psychological effects of separate] aspects of the environment. These men were the psychophysicists in environmental studies who started between the wars. Now we are so arrogant as to believe that it is almost impossible to quantify the environment, in the traditional sense, and should concentrate upon understanding the structure, rather than measuring the individual bricks. She also stated clearly: There is a constant two way interaction between man and his environment. She gives as an example a man who lives in a hostile environment and needs to build a structure to keep out the wolves. However, that structure then shapes the mans psychological development: man and domestic animals live together in a confined space, so he needs a structure to keep the animals away from where he sleeps, and so on. However, there was a recognition that cultural pressures also come in to play. The building of the St Marks Cathedral in Venice is an example of culture intervening in this interactive process. There was a social need for a new cathedral. However the design of the cathedral was shaped by a desire to express freedom from domination by the Popes of Rome. The large internal spaces, with their particular acoustics, encouraged a whole new generation of musicians and composers who moved away from the a capella style of Rome and developed a new brand of richly instrumental music. New antiphonal effects of voice and instrument were created within the cathedral, which led to a new cultural phenomenon, and this led to further changes in the development of the Square. Thus the man-environment interaction occurs through a filter of society and culture, as demonstrated in the figure below. This new understanding required more detailed study of the meaning of the built environment for individuals. The main techniques used included Osgoods semantic differential24, which could place buildings in three dimensional semantic space, multivariate techniques using factor analysis, multidimensional scaling and observational techniques. Methods used in Environmental Psychology Multivariate techniques Charles Osgoods semantic differential technique used recordings of meanings of buildings for individuals on a series of bipolar adjective scales. To illustrate the point Payne gives the Parthenon as an example: Classical --x----------------------------------------------Romantic Beautiful -------x-----------------------------------------Ugly

New ---------------------------------------------x--------Old The individuals responses on the spectrum, indicated by crosses, could then be represented in three dimensional space as shown in Figure 4. This technique was used by Wools to obtain semantic ratings of different room interiors (architectural drawings), which varied in aesthetic detail and layout. The semantic tests were carried out on a variety of individuals from different backgrounds architects, housewives, and architectural students. Similar semantic profiles were elicited from the different groups, suggesting that there might be some universal truths about the way we humans wish to interact with interiors. Preiser also developed these techniques to study attitudes towards different types of student housing.

Old

Beautiful

Parthenon Classical Romantic

Ugly

New

The Parthenon placed in semantic space. A greater number of semantic variables could be examined by using a recently developed technique called factor analysis. This technique looked at the size of the correlations between ratings on different semantic factors to see which were essentially measuring the same thing. It could resolve the most central semantic elements of meaning for a building or interior space. Canters 1968 study found four main factors of value judgements as applied to built environments pleasantness, comfort, friendliness and coherence. The last of these relates to Gestalt psychology, and concepts of stability and harmoniousness. He also determined that formal elements like lighting, heating and noise were important determinants of pleasantness.

Payne explored the responses of individuals to six models of room interiors on 32 semantic dimensions. Factor analysis revealed 7 main factors: 1. A general emotional factor (pleasantness)

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2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

An activity factor A comfort factor An intensity factor A femininity factor A happiness factor A coherence or formality factor

Although these findings were interesting, most of the variance was explained by the first factor, which had tended to be the most pervasive factor over most other similar experiments. Furthermore, there is a general criticism that can be made of all studies of this type that the author of the study sets the parameters, in terms of meaning of a building. Furthermore, the condensed factors of meaning, which after all consist of a number of dimensions, (some of which might be rather conceptually disparate on face value), need to be defined post-hoc by the study author. As Martin Heidegger explains in his book The Science of Technology, science creates its own self-fulfilling world. Kellys Repertory Grid Technique, however, recognises that all individuals have a unique language to describe themselves and the world. Also, Kelly reasoned that every man could be his own scientist. Hence, in this technique, the respondents choose their own parameters. This has led to some intriguing associations in the context of environmental evaluation.

Results of a Personal Construct Evaluation. In this example, the constructs comfortable, spacious and simple dcor ran in similar directions. Other respondents associated comfortable with old-looking, warm and friendly, lived in, informal, and uncluttered. Multidimensional scaling The advantage of multidimensional scaling techniques is that participants are not told what dimensions to rate various built environments on. Rather, they are asked to choose a preference between 2 or more different stimuli, presented at the same time. This is rather similar to the way opticians choose the right prescription for us constantly asking us to make comparisons is this option clearer, or this option. The disadvantage is that you can only be left with a vague concept of preference, the detail of this being lost unless you undertake detailed interviews after the experiment. During the interviews the researcher has ot be very careful not to unconsciously or otherwise lead the individual to one value judgement or another. Multidimensional scaling can also be used to simply measure difference. In other words, if three stimuli are presented, the individual states which two are the most similar or which two are the most different. If all stimuli are presented in all possible combinations a matrix of similarities or differences can be drawn up. Again, this technique could be limited by the quality of the stimuli used. Cantor explains that as EP lab-based experiments evolved their representations of buildings developed from line drawings to 3D representations (as in Paynes study above), or even 3D holograms. However, these stimuli do not necessarily represent a place. Experimenters enhanced their designs to some extent by including photographs of people interacting with environments: they represented an indication of living, as opposed to a mere visit. Nevertheless, nothing can replace the real thing experiments carried out in vivo.

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Observational techniques and social psychology In the end an appraisal of existing buildings seemed to offer more to the designers of the time. What we are essentially carrying out in the appraisal of a building is often the essence of architectural psychology how various individuals react in thoughts, feelings and behaviours, positive and negative. Cantor admits, even as early as 1972, that these sorts of assessments, as opposed to the laboratory controlled experiments of environmental psychology, are gaining ground over architectural psychology (AP), because we cant wait for conclusions of AP studies. Just such an experiment was carried out by Hawkes et al, who used multidimensional scaling to explore acoustic experiences at the Royal Festival Hall. Contrast ratings were made by participants over 26 concerts along the dimensions of resonance, definition, proximity, balance, blend and brilliance. They were surprised to find that resonance and definition, which had previously been thought to be close to each other conceptually, were rated completely independently of one another. This was thought to be exciting because the traditional psychophysical techniques of the early 20th century had always assumed that as resonance increased so did a feeling of clarity. However, most of us would now claim that this is a facile semantic debate, and it is a judgment about whether an acoustic experience is good, bad or indifferent that matters. Conclusions on environmental psychology techniques Ultimately observational techniques and retrospective appraisals of existing built environments generally held the most attention despite the early promise of labbased work. As Payne concludes in her article, there is one limitation which is common to both factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Although both methods present the components of factors or variables, it is up to the experimenter himself to interpret the meaning of each dimension or factor. Also, Observation of people over a range of situations will point up common patterns of behaviour which bivariate experiments would have hit upon only by chanceIt is the patterns of behaviour we need to understandthe knowledge gained by bivariate methods is similar to the person who is unable to communicate learning words [but not the grammar].23 Mans iterative relationship with the built environment.

Personal space Hall was the first to define the study of personal space, which he called proxemics.25 Personal space could be divided in to roughly four zones, which in England, Europe and the USA could be defined approximately as follows; intimate (0-18 inches), personal social contact (18inches to 4 feet), unfamiliar social contact (4-12 feet) and public meetings (12-25 feet). Garfinkel26 had graphically illustrated what happens when experimenters deliberately break rules of social contact, by sitting close to someone on a park bench, for example: people reacted to this very strongly, becoming bewildered, embarrassed or avoiding the intruder. Early experiments by Robert Sommer were more precise.27 For example, he discovered that the optimum face to face distance for informal activity when

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two sofas were facing each other was 3ft 6 inches. His Standard Interpersonal Distances depended on gender, activity and place. He observed behaviour in different public settings. For example he noticed how people tended to sit furthest from the door and closest to the wall in a restaurant. Edwards examined ideas about orientation of furniture and room focus (see below).

An example of an empirical study comparing architect and tenant ideas about room focus.28 However, the application of rules about accounting for inter-personal space in the built environment are limited by the complexities of human motivation and wide cultural variations. Jouard29 performed a study which involved observing couples while they sat at pavement cafes in various cities and counting how many times they made bodily contact. London had the lowest per hour, with no contact at all between couples, whereas Puerto Rico demonstrated an average of 180 contacts per hour. However, norms also change over time. The results for the more cosmopolitan London of today would most likely demonstrate a much greater variance of results. The lesson, then, is to design for people of a specific culture, which may be impossible, or build in a great deal of flexibility. Territoriality, crime and defensible space Personal Space is linked to the concept of Territoriality and Defensible Space. In fact personal space is merely a portable version of territoriality. Altman30 defined three main classes of territory with different levels of permeability. Primary territories are private and restricted to the owner and carefully guarded against intruders. Secondary territories are more open to other people but are still not entirely available to all whereas public territories are supposedly self-explanatory but actually quite difficult to define. The boundary between public and secondary territories is fluid. Also, public spaces vary in the degree to which they are public for example the difference between Clapham Common and Hyde Park. When we settle for a while in a public space we often adopt a space around as a temporary private territory using what Sommer called markers like shopping bags or papers to stop other people coming too close. Sommer famously observed that people studying in libraries would create artificial barriers between themselves and others with piles of books, coats or bags. Felipe and Sommer31 carried out a study which involved deliberately sitting too close to people in libraries in the UK. Although not one of them asked the experimenters to move, they all signalled their discomfort nonverbally by moving somewhere else, leaving the library, turning away, or creating a barrier. Close proximity to a large number of strangers has been shown to cause stress in most people. It can also cause increased aggressiveness. Slowed down films of people walking on busy pavements demonstrate how much concentration is required to avoid bodily contact and eye contact. Avoiding the latter seems to be instinctive because eye contact normally indicates intimacy or aggression. An increased density of children in a nursery increases the amount of aggression and verbal expression of bad temper32 and the more crowded the prison the greater the incidence of riots and disturbance among inmates.33 Kelleys epidemiological survey of crime rates (per capita) in 175 American cities (Kelley, 1982) found a correlation with population density. This linear association was seen in suburban areas as well as inner city areas, which seemed to counter any assertion that

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there were independent factors at work that were to do with demographics and drift effects. However, it is not just population density which has been shown to affect crime levels it is the amount of defensible space. In 1972 Newman compared the incidence of crime in 100 housing projects in New York.34 Although generally crime was higher (per capita) in large buildings, the most important factor was the amount of public space that was not very visible, accessible or easy to escape from, like lifts and stairwells. These were the areas where crime took place. Hence, Newman argued that a housing development must contain defensible space that people in the neighbourhood can easily guard and protect. He argued that there were four main factors which needed to be considered when designing a hosuing development: 1. design personal areas of territory that people will be more likely to protect because they take ownership of it 2. avoid spaces where residents can not easily see what is going on 3. create a building which has a secure appearance or image to avoid opportunistic crimes 4. provide safe and easy access to the surrounding milieu, that, again presents adequate surveillance. Newman strongly believed that if Housing Estates were redesigned to follow these principles crime would be reduced. There would be increased shared responsibility for the communities. Although Newman never claimed that poor design was the only cause of crime, he later admitted (in 1976)35 that other social factors had a greater influence like the links between acquisitive crimes and the number of people in extreme poverty and/or claiming benefits. He conceded that changes in design could have only minimal impact in the face of these basic social problems. The International Learning & Information Network for Crime Prevention & Community Safety36, lists some general interlinking factors which relate to crime and insecurity. Although they clearly identify alienating built environments as being a cause of crime, this factor is set against a great number of important social shifts, the most important of which might be the free market. urbanisation (and the exodus from rural areas) government policies ("free market", withdrawal of public service subsidies, collapse of communism in the east) loosening social controls (more mobility, abandonment of religion and other traditional moral codes) prosperity - more things to steal alienating built environments (e.g.: peripheral housing estates, tower blocks, multi-storey car parking, automated transit systems) relative poverty/ inequality exclusion - underclasses, ethnic minorities increasing levels of drug misuse and offending to support addictions In relation to point 2 above, they put great store by the crime figures for Moscow since the introduction of Perestroyka in 1987. Crime rate in Moscow per 100,000 population (Source: UNICRI)3

Taken from the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) report: Crime and Crime prevention in Moscow, 1994.

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However, accepting that there are important socio-economic factors at play in determining the psycho-social health of our communities, it can be shown that, all things being equal, the built environment has an effect on crime. For example, the number of children in any given area tends to relate to the rate of vandalism. However, if two areas have relatively similar numbers of children, the areas with less defensible space have less crime.37 Longitudinal evidence is accruing to suggest that if you intervene in a neglected and crime ridden community in a way that increases the amount of defensible space the crime level drops and the self esteem of its inhabitants rises. One such example was the award-winning Traditional neighbourhood design project, in Diggs Town, Norfolk, VA, USA (see figure on page 18). Diggs Town is a low-rise public housing project; most residents are single African-American women and their children. Unemployment, crime, drugs, and decay plagued Diggs Town: "The residents feared for their lives and felt they had lost control of their community".38 The street pattern in the neighbourhood didn't allow access to the inner parts of the complex or easy supervision by residents. This isolated the central part of the project; it became a hub of criminal activity. In 1990 the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority awarded Urban Design Associates $17 million to redevelop Diggs Town. Parking islands and tree-lined, small-scale streets provided better access. According to a community police officer, police calls dropped from 25-30 per day to 2-3 per week. When asked what had made the difference, he cited a renewed sense of pride and self-esteem, which led residents to identify and engage with the community. Interviews with residents suggested that the physical form and image of Diggs Town had some effect on the stability of the neighbourhood.39 Newmans concept of creating an image of security through design had a significant impact on subsequent environmental psychology literature. Brown Altman (1981) demonstrated that Territorial Symbolism in residential environments may elicit or repel intrusions by burglars.40 In 1983 the same authors published an article entitled Territoriality, defensible space and residential burglary: an environmental analysis. They compared the features of burglarized houses on burglarized blocks with non-burglarized houses on burglarized blocks and non-burglarized houses on non-burglarized blocks. They determined that burglarized blocks looked less private (more public), and looked unoccupied. In contrast non-burglarized homes had salient secondary or primary territorial qualities: markers communicating privacy and individuality. In addition, non-burglarized homes had greater visual contact with neighbouring houses. Diggs town project to restore streets: before (left) and after (right).

Ardrey41 argued that the tendency to protect ones territory was innate. This could be true in part, although, again the question is complicated by individual, cultural and subcultural variations. For example, some people prefer to live in large households while others like to live on their own. Some people work more happily when others are around while others need space and solitude. The complexities of human interaction are now much better understood in terms of individual differences in personality, Most psychologists now agree that most personality dimensions fall under 5 main categories - the Big Five. These dimensions include the following:

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1. Agreeableness the degree to which you will adapt your behaviour to suit other peoples wishes. 2. Extroversion-introversion the degree to which you prefer other peoples company 3. Openness the degree to which you accept and embrace difference, related to creativity 4. Emotional stability how quickly you recover from criticism, for example 5. Conscientiousness love of process and getting the job done to the best of your ability It is readily apparent that these individual variations pose problems for architects who design an environment based on a perceived norm of social interaction.

Alienation and psycho-social harm In sociology and critical social theory, alienation refers to an individuals estrangement from the traditional community and others in general. It is linked to deindividuation (loss of sense of self), low self-esteem, criminal and anti-social behaviour and mental illness. Bad planning, of the kind highlighted thus far, can not take all the blame for the alienation seen our cities, as highlighted above. German sociologists Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tnnies relate alienation to the rise of capitalism, not the rise of the insensitive urban designer. Simmels Philosophy of Money describes how urban relationships become more and more mediated through money. Tnnies Community and Society describes the loss of primary relationships such as family bonds in favour of goal oriented secondary relationships. In White Collar (1951)42 the American sociologist C. Wright Mills conducted a major study of alienation in modern society; he described how modern consumption-capitalism has shaped a society where you have to sell your personality in addition to your work. However, there is no doubt that certain urban environments contribute to alienation and psycho-social harm by clearly failing to meet basic needs for a sense of belonging, territory, identity and safety (through defensible space). English Heritages reasons for deciding not to list the Smithsons Robin Hood Gardens are revealing.43 These include serious problems with design, which it claims failed its residents: Indefensibly narrow, twisting stairwells. There are far too few of them and their tightness is uncomfortable and quite threatening. They have never provided adequate access to those long decks and peoples front doors. The decks themselves - perhaps because they are not particularly generous and overlook constant traffic - never did fulfil their brief and work as community-fostering streets in the sky, as decks have in other estates. The shortcomings can also be seen in the atmosphere created by the prison-like boundary walls, intended to baffle traffic noise the bleak entrance lobbies and the isolated parking areas, where no-one can see whats happening and theres no easy way out. They go on to state that Robin Hood gardens had a number of features which made it fail to meet the grade for listing on a human level.

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The Smithsons strong promotion of streets in the sky (a popular concept in the 1960s) was to encourage the residents to feel a sense of belonging and neighbourliness. It was an attack on the decades-old dogma propounded by Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius that cities should be zoned into specific areas for living, working, leisure and transport. However, they failed to take in to account the difference between elevated streets with just one row of doorsteps and those which have dwellings on each side to encourage interaction and surveillance. Robin Hood Gardens was plagued by a high crime rate.44 In a non-empirical study of East End High Rise tenants published in the mid 1990s45, the artist Stephen Willats recorded verbatim accounts of psychological and social harm which he related to living in monolithic high-rise blocks. Examples included the following: From 8 floors up If you see something terrible you can only watch. Most activity is confined to the flat it is difficult getting a bike up to the flat and I dont like sharing a lift when I am hot and sweaty after a run. I feel disconnected with others I go to the shops to break my routine Some researchers have determined that the sense of alienation felt by the general population of high rise dwellers is related to the distance they live from ground level, however this is not a simple linear equation. A study carried out by the sociologist Christopher Bagley in the 1970s46 is one of the very few studies that has looked at the relationship between high rise living and mental health. For the population as a while no positive correlation could be found between the height of flat above the ground and the incidence of any mental health problem. (See Table 6 below). However, when the researchers examined genders separately, they realised that women were much less satisfied than men with being in high rise developments, as opposed to living in houses. They demonstrated a high rate of consultation for nervous illness (see Table 7 below). Those who suffered most from mental illness or neuroticism were the mothers of small children. It did not matter what floor they were living on it was the lack of a private garden that caused distress. This was an interesting finding because it suggested that it was local authority housing policy a poor fit between user and building - that was to blame for ill health, not high rise living per se.

It is nonsense to suggest, therefore, that all high rise living causes harm. However, careful consideration must be given to matching users to properties, and physical aspects of high rise developments. Designers should consider aspects such as defensible space and corridor width. Corridors such as those found in Corbusiers Unite Dhabitation, which are wide and have dwellings on both sides, might act more like streets than the narrow balcony-style streets created for many social housing projects in the UK. Furthermore, high rise units should be imbedded within a community and communicate with street life without being cut off by large concrete walls, as was the case in the Robin Hood Estate. Although street life is important to any urban setting, the effect of the street is lost when the street traffic is heavy. Appleyard47 compared heavy, medium, and light traffic streets; he found that on the street with heavy traffic people had withdrawn from the street altogether, leaving it to traffic. However, on the street with light traffic residents were more engaged in the street; children played

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outdoors more, and there was more ownership and awareness. According to Appleyard, "The contrast between the two streets was striking. On the one hand alienation, on the other friendliness and involvement" Loss of sense of place = loss of self A sense of place in an individuals different spatial domains (home, work, leisure) correlates with a greater sense of self.48 Prochanksys essay on the physical world socialization of self states: If a child learns who he is by virtue of his relationship with those who satisfy his needs, then it follows that contributing to that self-same knowledge are the toys, clothes, rooms and whole array of physical things and settings that also satisfy and support his existence.49 4 In his essay Semiology and Architecture (1968)50, Charles Jencks appears to expand these ideas in to the urban landscape. He argues that neural networks, what in psychology would be called cognitive schemata,5 are formed through the interplay of what he calls the inborn disposition to expect recurring patterns, and the discovery of patterns codified in language, culture, and the built environment. The schemata develop in sophistication the more this interplay is allowed to take place, and thus are fundamental to self-awareness and to the awareness of ones environment. Modernism, which, according to Jencks, advocated a built environment largely stripped of visual incident and detail, therefore contributed in some significant way to preventing this natural process from taking place, impoverishing the formation of the individual psyche. Hence, Jencks advocates a built environment rich in multivalent symbolism - or what Brown and Venturi referred to as an architecture of complexity and contradiction.51 This complexity would feed the development of the brain, its networks, memories and associations. The feminist scholar Elizabeth Grosz, outlined her philosophy for optimising human life through architecture during a conference on the State of Architecture at Columbia University in 2003. Based upon her reading of Freud and Bergson, she conceptualised architecture as a kind of prosthetic that simultaneously completes the human beings within it and opens them up to new potentials of action and thought in a kind of transformative evolution.52 The philosopher Karsten Harries has written that our technological culturewhich insists not so much on dwellings as on machines for working and living causes a loss of real identity, or a self-displacement which transforms man from an embodied self into a pure thinking subject. He states optimisticaly, No-one is better equipped than the architect to contribute to such a re-establishment. 6
4

Psycho-analysts from the Object Relations school had long known about how emotional attachments can be transferred on to objects in childhood. These transitional objects, like the comfort blanket, can provide some solace when we are separated from those who we attach to. The child who takes a comfort blanket in to an unfamiliar environment such as a hospital will be less distressed by maternal separation than one who doesnt. 5 Schemata are in essence the prisms by which we view self and others. They are our unique autobiographical narratives, held together by memory and emotion. They shape our understanding of self and external world. The psychiatrist, Aaron T Beck argued that critical comments in childhood can lead to distorted schemata, through which the past looks like a failure, the present is not much better, and the future hopeless.

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The eminent theorist and educator, Kenneth Frampton, makes similar claims. In his essay On Reading Heidegger (1974)53 he argues that it is the duty of architecture to represent and physically embody the public sphere, but also to provide for the establishment of an articulate realm on which man or men may come into being. Borrowing from Hannah Arendts The Human Condition (1958)54, Frampton calls this the space of human appearance. He advocates a built environment that ministers to the self-realization of manand mediates as an essential catalyst between the three states of his existence: first, his status as an organism of primal need; second, his status as a sensate, hedonistic being; finally, his status as a cognitive and self-affirmative consciousness. These considerations seem to overlap with Maslows basic human needs (see next section). They are often achieved, he argues, in the successful restaurant or public plaza which acts as a place of human discourseThe human beings entering that volume recognize who they are. Their own identity is partly generated by the moment of their occupying that space. Alexander a manifesto for avoiding psychological harm The urban planner Alexander wrote a long paper called Changes in Form (published in 1972) as a manifesto for avoiding psychological harm in the planning of our urban environments.17 His paper bravely highlights the deterministic element evident in the thinking of most urban planners: City planning is the design of cultureIn a successful culture [i.e. in a well designed city not determined by economics] the set of situations available to him are sufficient to allow all the inner forces, which develop him, free play. He goes on to underline that these basic inner forces are not merely concerned with sustenance, reproduction and comfort, growth and physical health. On these elements capitalism is doing just fine. However, there are strong psychological forces that drive us too. He quotes the work of Alexander Leighton who identified the basic strivings of man: Sexual satisfaction, the expression of love, the expression of hostility, the securing of love, the securing of recognition, the expression of spontaneity, orientation of terms of ones place in society, the securing and maintenance of membership in a definite human group, and the sense of belonging to a moral order and being right about what one does. If we assume that these ten strivings are at work in adults, Alexander writes, then it already becomes rather clearer that our present culture does not always provide adequate expression of these strivings. However, it was the ideas of Maslow, based on evolutionary principles, whereby human needs were presented in a hierarchy based on their survival value, which had most influence over Alexander. We had evolved, Maslow argued, to meet these needs in the right order, otherwise we would have had reduced or survival and reproductive potential in the early ancestral environment (see Figure 6)55. If we persistently do things in the wrong order, psychological problems may arise. Psychological pain is a warning that we are not meeting our primeval needs and we need to address this. The needs at the bottom of the hierarchy, Alexander argues, are broadly speaking met by modern cities, but further up needs are not being met consistently for most of us. However, within this basic hierarchy our needs should change with age, as we develop. The psychologist Erikson famously defined four main stages of adult development.56 He proposed that we could not pass through the latter stages until we had passed through the former ones. So, for example, adolescence and young adulthood were important for developing a firm sense of identity, as

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opposed to role confusion. Until one had achieved a sense of identity (versus confusion) it was impossible, Erikson proposed, to achieve the goal of the next stage true intimacy (as opposed to isolation). The following stage was to do with achieving generativity (versus stagnation) a sense of being productive in terms of ones career and ones own family, and finally, when approaching death, a sense of integrity was the goal. The alternative was facing death with despair. He argued that adults go through various crises in life as part of normal development. Successful psychological outcomes depended on resolving each crisis in an adaptive way.

Alexander combined these two theories in order to bravely propose 20 short, empirically based and refutable hypotheses about ideal city life, where there would be no psychological harm.
Alexanders Hypotheses for an Ideal City The broad headings under which these hypotheses were listed included the following: 1. Public discussion places needed sense of belonging, of self-actualisation 2. Places for young people to meet and challenge each other constructively (Eriksons identity vs role confusion). 3. Schools open to the city, not closed. (Adolescent feels more connected with society versus alienation) 4. Small group work stations happier, more productive 5. Split work and play leisure needed for sense of belonging 6. Windows in workplaces access to outside world 7. Old age islands old people like to live with other old people 8. Group houses where people live in communes (nuclear family unit too small for adequate support) 9. Homes link closely with street people will feel more connected with neighbours, safer and happier 10. Homes with walls that can be moved. Adaptable and flexible homes. 11. Teenage room/cottage/studio for self-exploration Eriksons identity need 12. Child care each house opens off a common area for supervised play 13. City hall small and easily accessible 14. Religious institutions open to community public displays 15. Frequently placed trees. 16. Better funeral facilities with longer ceremonies.

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For most of these headings Alexander quotes some evidence (e.g. distance of home from street correlates with incidence of nervous disorders) and/or relates the hypotheses back to Erikson, Maslow or Leighton. Some of these ideas about not being too far from a street seem reasonable but suggesting that older people tend to want to live with other older people is not necessarily true. Ultimately he seems mired in a swamp of determinism, even if he is putting forward hypotheses rather than autocratic laws. He states: Every one of the patterns that I have described can be discussed, tested, and improved, on the basis of simple feasible experiments. Yet the overall picture thus presented is as radical, as utopian, as the visions of the classical artists-architects. However, in his defence, Alexander claims his statements are necessarily sketchy shorthand, and hence might benefit from greater exposition. (They might also benefit from so many caveats that they become unworkable). Also in his defence, Alexander is perhaps ahead of his time by suggesting increased freedom and flexibility in the city, not more restriction. Importantly, he admits that some of the evidence to back up his proposals is weak, he has a faith in behavioural science to guide us rather than an autocratic faith in his own authorship, or what he calls the private vision of the architect. He has faith in people satisfying their own needs in their own way and is arguing for a system of urban design that is dictated by human psychological and social needs and not the needs of commerce. The legacy of the work of planners like Alexander, ultimately inspired by scientific observations rather than any particular ideology, and which can be contained within the umbrella of humanistic architecture, lived on in to the 1990s, and inspired the Congress for the New Urbanism. This congress reflected the often repeated claim during the 1970s and 1980s that real life was being destroyed by bureaucracy, consumerism, urban sprawl and high-rise development.6 It went on to produce an official Charter in 2000, inspiring people to get involved in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods and called on architects and planners to create environmental forms that inspired and sustained this involvement.57 Some sociologists, like David Riesman and Vance Packard, have warned that community style developments foster the other-directed character type, which craves social adjustment above all else and therefore exhibits an exceptional sensitivity to the actions and wishes of others. 6In other words a nanny culture breeds dependent personalities. It seems to me, however, that this is not a wholly disastrous side effect of fostering community relations if it is for the greater good.

The same things had been said 30 years before: Jane Jacobs, wrote, in her Death and Life of Great American Cities of 1961, that real people are not the statistical people of the planning authorities: Real people are unique, they invest years of their lives in significant relationships with other unique people, and are not interchangeable in the least. Severed from their relationships, they are destroyed as effective social beings. It is only through community relationships that people seem to exist at all: Impersonal city streets make anonymous people, she said, whereas a street rich in tangible enterprises gives them identity. Consequently she proposed four generators of diversity in order to help foment lively streets, and to give people a sense of their connection to the ever-larger social spheres of neighbourhood, district and city.

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Involving users in creating a sense of place As we have seen, early modernists had tried to find technological solutions to building design which effectively by-passed people. In contrast, determinist urban planners of the second half of the 20th century were sensitive to the perceived needs of their end users, but tended to generalize about them. As a result they commonly failed to create a sense of place. Planners of the 1950s and 1960s applied specific environmental psychology results to whole populations, when in fact there could be marked differences between people in how they respond to certain environments, even among sub-strata of a population. Denise Scott Brown remarked, Urban designers have tended to place themselves above the morass, planning for a subjectively defined good of the people. The architect Roberta Feldman, an architect with a PhD in psychology, was a convert to early environmental determinism until she moved to one of the best known new towns in the USA Columbia, Maryland, near Baltimore. She recalled: People didnt walk to the stores in the community centre. They got in their cars and went to the supermarkets so the lovely little town centre stores closed down, and [the town centre] became pretty dead.58 Disasters like this were partly due to the post-war obsession with zoning. An ascetic essay from 1966 called Planners People proves that planners had always aroused suspicion from those who questioned their objectivity. In this case criticism came from within their own profession. The authors - professional town-planners - asked why it was that planners drawings for downtown development schemes were always populated with the same stock-cast of six characters. These were always white, upper middle-class, law-abiding, cultured, and professional - just like the planners themselves. They concluded that planners included only those types amenable to their own ideals of urban living and overlooked the true heterogeneity of the city. Nevertheless, they placed these stock characters in real urban vistas, to lend them credibility.59 In his paper Creating places or designing spaces?59 Jonathan Dime considers the process of placemaking and tests the degree to which an architect can design a place independently of the people who will actually use it. He argues that while modern architecture has concentrated on the properties of geometric space, psychology has neglected to look at the physical context of behaviour. He concludes, not surprisingly, that we can not create a place for users merely by manipulating the physical environment on their behalf. Designing for specific groups It has been argued that socio-economic and educational factors play a role in determining environmental preferences, so that there tends to be agreement within socio-economic groups but differences between them60. For example, it has often been suggested that the working classes have a greater desire for interaction with their neighbours than do the middle classes. However, this is an overly simplistic notion. Roberta Feldman interviewed the inhabitants of Chicago and Denver in the US abut how they identify themselves through the places they call their homes or neighbourhoods. She found that most conformed to certain sub-strata of urban society, or settlement stereotypes. City people regarded themselves as urban pioneers, who valued diversity and vibrant communities, suburbanites valued privacy, safety and closeness to nature, and country dwellers valued a simple way of life. She concluded that there was no ideal type of housing development rather different people in different life stages prefer a variety of housing types, not just suburban homes, contrary to the developers assumptions.58

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Canters Psychology of Place 61 states that we can not identify a space as a place until we know what it looks like (the physical attributes), the behaviour associated with it, and the meaning of that behaviour to those who carry it out7. Norburg-Shultz and Lynch used cognitive projections of place (peoples sketch maps of cities) to determine that its essential qualities are orientation and identification. In other words, within a cognitive map that they are familiar with. people feel oriented and feel they belong. Lynch elaborated on this feeling of identification for him the need for a sense of place was to do with a sense of emotional security and the need to concretise ones own inner world in the form of buildings.62 However, there were physical characteristics which helped to define a place, according to Alexander he listed some 253 patterns which make up a place, to include birth spaces, gathering places, garden places, sunny places, high places, paths and goals, a place to wait, tree places, alcove, secret places, window places. 6 Although architects can look for patterns in these types of space, which might translate in to components of design, it is arguably more useful to pay heed to what patterns in an environment destroy a sense of place buildings with over 4 storeys, construction ignoring social space (the insensitively sited building), loss of the street, hidden public spaces, and so on.17 Identity However, of the patterns that Alexander listed to define positive places, a common characteristic was a sense of identity (Saarinen et al, 1982)63. This is defined by activity, social contact and memory more than certain positive physical attributes. Hence, the skating park underneath the Queen Percival Hall on the South Bank, although dark and architecturally brutal, has been imbued with a real sense of place as a skate park. It has become meaningful to skaters and tourists alike. Places rise and fall on the intentions people have for using them. Similarly Freetown Christiania in central Copenhagen, has been converted from factory to drop out commune. Places not visited since childhood can be reconstructed in the mind of someone through the triggering of memories of activity in a group discussion. A sense of identity attached to a space is thus sensitive to individual differences in behaviour, experience and attitude. Particular spaces will not have the same identity for everyone. Relph stated that chain restaurants like McDonalds areplaceless.64 However, Relphs nonplace might be someone elses place. Sixsmith was highly critical: Since no criteria of placelessness are given, one
7

Genereu et al (1983) refer to this last factor as the behavioural component in the meaning of places. They carried out experiments rating photographs of 20 settings for appropriateness of certain behaviours, ratings of occurrence and free lists of reasons to go that place and activities associated with it. They found that people clearly distinguish places based on related behaviour, and that this in turn is related to their global conception of places. So, if a beautiful beach is considered a good place for making love, it will be imbued with a more appealing, romantic meaning. Some behaviours, like walking, are considered normal in most places, whereas some, like watching TV, are clearly more place-specific. All other things being equal, a person will generally prefer to be in a place with many behavioural associations (such as a beach) rather than one with a few (such as a swimming pool).59

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assumes that if Relph dislikes a place then it is placeless for him and everyone else. 65 Individual difference Hence, environmental psychology evolved to consider the meaning of buildings to individuals with a particular set of demographics, practical needs (e.g. the elderly or young mothers), and goals. Alexander, in his article Changes in Form, bravely produced a list of hypotheses to be tested based on different strata of society. Now planners were studying how a particular subgroup of society would use a built environment and how they would react to it in terms of feelings, thoughts and behaviours (including the issues of psychological and social health) as opposed to predicting how an average person would react and behave. Furthermore, environmental psychology evolved to examine the structure of varying responses to the same environment, and different environments, over time, rather than a snapshot of response to one environmental condition. Experience across a range of contextual domains enabled researchers to build a response profile. Kellys Repertory Grid Technique66 recognises that all individuals have a unique language to describe themselves and the world. Also, Kelly reasoned that every man could be his own scientist. Hence, in this technique, the respondents choose their own parameters. This has led to some intriguing associations in the context of environmental evaluation (see figure below). Results of a Personal Construct Evaluation. In this example, the constructs comfortable, spacious and simple dcor ran in similar directions. Other respondents associated comfortable with old-looking, warm and friendly, lived in, informal, and uncluttered.67 Brauer (1974) carried out a study of individual differences in the use of different spaces by army recruits.68 In a subsidiary study he asked recruits to complete a 20 item Personality Research Form (Jackson, 1967).69 With the help of a collaborator he was able to suggest design implications based on responses to the 20 items of the questionnaire (Appendix 4). He concluded that people exhibit wide differences in their attitudes, preferences and behaviours in regard to buildings and that these differences are not to be neglected. This underlines the problem of applying concepts of place to some sort of generic architectural solution, without involvement of the specific population in the designing of it. However, one solution available to the designer is to provide flexibility. Or, at least, the designer can try to design for the broadest range of differences as he resolves many design requirements into a satisfactory solution. Flexibility of function adaptation by the user At the level of the use of rooms within a home the most important modernist example of a truly flexible house must be the The Rietveld Schrder House, the only completely realised architectural example of De Stijl plasticity in form. In the first floor living area there is no static accumulation of rooms, but a dynamic, changeable open zone. The space can be used open, or subdivided by a system of sliding and revolving panels. When entirely partitioned in, the living level comprises three bedrooms, bathroom and living room. In-between this and the open state is an endless series of permutations, each providing its own spatial experience. The facades are a collage of planes and lines whose components are

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purposely detached from, and seem to glide past, one another. This enabled the provision of several balconies. It is fair to say that De Stijl was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright who also accommodates flexibility in to his house plans, and who, in turn, inspired the fluid plans of Mies Van Der Roe. However Mies never designed a home that most people would be happy living in. Rather, each building had Mies own prescriptive narrative stamped upon it, as in his Barcelona Pavilion. As stated above, there is a balance to be struck between fluidity (his homes have no defined rooms) and the ability to create separate places within a home. While some of Mies and Lloyd Writes plans are permanently open The Rietveld Schroder House can always demarcate spaces within.

The Rietveld Schrder House (1923-24) The book Evolutionary Architecture by Eugene Tsui70 is a fascinating eulogy on how architecture can learn from forms in nature to be more efficient and less harmful to the environment. However, there are also some interesting references to flexible and liberating nature of his architecture and the psychological benefits inherent in his approach. He encourages a spirit of adventure: risk and daring is a measure of the compelling forces of being alive to move away from ones conditioning is the beginning of genuine evolution. The edifice is a living organism responding to changing spatial and functional needs, as in nature the shell grows with the snail etc. floors, walls and roofs need not enclose us in the same ways[they can] expand then contract, swivel fold, unfold. The idea of in-built flexibility has been addressed in the Office environment also. Herzbergers Central Beheer in Apeldoorn Holland (196772) is described by Herzberger as a settlement of smaller spatial units which are polyvalent. Arnulf Lchinger, of Herzberger Associates, writes: Constant changes occur within the organization, thereby requiring frequent adjustments to the size of the different departments. The building must be capable of accommodating these internal forces, while the building as a whole must continue to function in every respect and at all times." Although flexibility was incorporated for sound commercial reasons, a happy consequence has been a happy working environment enjoyed by workers who adapt and add individual work units as they need them.

The Central Beheer Building, Amsterdam; elevations and section.

Sporenburg Houses in Amsterdam (West 8), 1997)

User participation in design Urban graffiti can be seen as an attempt by individuals to enhance a sense of space by directly interacting with the environment while also giving it a territorial tag. Urban art and other acts of the imagination can help to give a city location a sense of place. Tutti Frutti (http://www.newislington.co.uk/tuttifrutti/) is an

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attempt by urban developers in Manchester to give prospective home owners a say in the design of their homes. The plan is modelled on the successful Borneo Sporenburg development in Amsterdam (West 8, 1997), where owner-investors had free reign to deign their own house within a fixed height and width: each house has its own identity and sense of place. Designing for the individual psyche Gerard Zaltman, a professor of Harvard Business School, set up a company called Fathom, which has developed systems to probe the conscious and unconscious thoughts of users about the buildings they use or will use. The key to the process is the use of Art Therapy. During initial sessions end users are asked to bring is to eight images that explain their thoughts and feelings about their most recent exposure to their built environment. Consultants than analyze the resulting graphic collages to determine underlying themes. These themes are taken to brainstorming sessions in order to develop design objectives pertaining to key psychological needs. Community participation Community architecture projects might work at their best when tenant activists become architects. Charlie Baker, trained as an architect but worked for a number of years as a professional photo-journalist. He returned to architecture through work as a tenant activist in Hulme in Manchester. He was a founder member of Build for Change, a community-based design and fabrication cooperative working on projects in Hulme, ranging in scale from furniture design to neighbourhood planning. The housing project (completed 1999), led by Harrison Ince Architects, incorporated an extensive user participation programme, which aimed to capture and sensitively embed users requirements within the final built scheme. The Local Government publication, Hulme Ten Years On (http://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/Hulme_10_years_on.pdf), cites user participation as a key factor in the improved quality of life of its residents. Another notable urban regeneration project was London Fields in Hackney where Baker brought together the council and squatters to agree and design a live-work scheme.. He is co-author of the Community Gateway Model for council housing.

The Sunnyside Plaza In the late 1990s, the Sunnyside neighbourhood in Portland, Oregon, USA, was dilapidated and plagued by problems of alienation, littering, crime and increased rates of psychological problems. In an attempt to invigorate neighbourhood stewardship, the community organised and created a public gathering space called The Sunnyside Plaza. Together they painted a giant sunflower in the middle of an intersection (see the figure above) and installed several interactive art features. According to an academic report, as a result of this collective placemaking the social capital increased, thus revitalising the community and stimulating a sense of well-being through increased social contacts.71 This demonstrates the power of handing over responsibility to communities for their own rehabilitation. Hence, participation of individual users or user groups in the design process, or the potential for permanent modification or customisation of a designed space, is probably what really gives a home or community meaning and hence a sense of place through this may be limited by changes in needs over time. This requires

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architects to act unselfishly by giving up a significant amount of authorship in a design. In essence, it is architecture without ego, the antithesis of absolutism. However, the application of semiology to architecture has explored the possibility of artificially creating a sense of place that most end users might relate to. To get around the problem of not being able to account for how a sense of place varies depending on the meaning for individuals, designers have tended to examine what Groat72 calls the signifiers of place (the physical elements conveying meaning) rather than the signified (the actual meaning behind an element, which can not really be known). However, what use is a signifier without the underlying meaning? Research has told us that the signifier of space can not be taken out of the context of a user(s) interaction with that space. In other words, there is no signifier that can be applied generically for all users. In summary, to maximise a sense of place, homes and public buildings should be built with the participation of specified users, with close consultation, or they should have an inherent capacity for manipulation and alteration by the users to meet their changing needs. In other words, there is a limit to what designers can achieve to create a sense of place ultimately the end users have to stamp their personality on to it. Rather than live in a Mies show home residents need to have a space designed for them or adapted to their needs, a space which can accommodate items important to them and create memories specific to that place through shared activity. In his essay On Reading Heidegger (1974)53, Kenneth Frampton despairs at modern architectures failure to create meaningful places. Hence, he argues, we tend in our desperation to celebrate non-place and kitsch found in the suburbs and the sprawl of cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Rather than celebrating the decorated sheds of post-modernism, he argues that these places are generating further alienation and loneliness. Such themes are played out in Putmans Bowling Alone.73 Putnam warns that our stock of social capital - the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities. Propaganda A political or commercial institution can, of course, impose a kind of impersonal and symbolic identity on a building or space, but this has little to do with individual psychology and more to do with propaganda. Hence these forms of place have been of little interest to both psychologists and architects alike. Relph64 would add that chain restaurants like McDonalds come under the same category. There are shadows of Alexander17 and his sense that psychological needs are at odds with commercial imperatives. It is important for most McDonalds restaurants to look the same, in order to communicate that the public knows what they are going to get its a safe bet that it will be a hamburger that tastes the same as back home. Nevertheless, one could argue that if a local McDonalds were to become the main regular meeting place for a certain group of young teenagers, it might acquire, over time, a sense of place for those teenagers, irrespective of the qualities of the physical environment. Psychology of the aesthetic Environmental determinism did not just concern itself with urban planning and sense of place. Environmental psychology studies had a lot to say about complexity and clutter (too much or too little complexity is bad), coherence (Gestalt inspired), elegance, contrast, right turning tendencies, preference for tall

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ceilings, and the communication of human qualities through choice of form or construction methods. Complexity and clutter Jencks and Venturi had argued for complexity in the urban streetscape, but further study revealed that there was a balance to be struck between complexity and clutter. According to xxx, The need to load, but not overload, our information processing capacities, and to be able to achieve an integration of the environmental stimuli acting upon us, demands that our environments should not be too cluttered or too complex Schwartz and Werbicks studies using movies of various scaled down streetscapes showed that too much or too little complexity were unfavourably regarded. Complexity was varied by using three different distances of houses from the steet and three different angles of view. A further study using coloured slides confirmed a relationship between complexity ond pleasure (Wohlwill, 1968). By extension, the natural environment is less cluttered and more acceptable than an overly complex urban setting. Urban environments can disorientate us with their complexity of symbols, frontages, lights, etc, whereas, in contrast, there may be many leaves on a tree but their similarity allows us to assimilate them easily. Scale might also be relevant: passing by mountains at speed creates less overload than the intrusion of a myriad of action-oriented environments, however natural (Brebner et al 1976). A critical factor seems to be the degree of awareness of human intervention related to the concept of intrusion. Some further support is provided by a study which showed that trees could make a streetscape more appealing (1978) without overloading perceptual capacities. De Botton believes that complexity is appreciated when organised in an orderly way. In fact, beauty lies between order and complexity. He cites as examples the terraced housing adjoining Diener and Diener apartment block in Amsterdams docklands, where each house has identical dimensions but within these confines there is an expression of inventiveness and exuberance, and Herzog and De Muerons Stone House (1988) where the rustic incoherence of the building materials are saved by the rational concrete frame. It is clear that his concept of balance in beauty is largely about the fight between coherence and incoherence, rather than about geometry or symmetry per se. However, individual differences come in to play. Intellectuals prefer wilderness for recreation over people with a lower level of education. This might be because the more educated are experiencing an information processing overload in their daily lives (through interpreting complex texts or difficult occupational decisions); hence, they crave the environmental opposite of this complexity when on holiday. (Don 1978). De Botton also concerns himself with the familiar theme of elegance. This concept is, to a certain extent, the polar opposite of clutter, but there is more to it than that. There is an element of man finding the most efficient solution to a functional problem. Hopkins portico (1991) that seems to require a cumbersome number of struts is compared to the pure elegance of Robert Maiilart Siginotobel bridge (1930) or Calatravas sculpture, running torso (1985). There is certainly an appreciation of efficient design within us that perhaps reflects our fascination with the evolutionary process, and how the most beautiful living things have been honed over millennia to be well adapted to their environments. Other observations

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Cunningham (1977) demonstrated that when shown floor plans of apartments there was a strong tendency for people to prefer the living room on the far right rather than far left corner. This could have been related to a right turning tendency in most of us, which would probably linked to cerebral dominance (the right side of the body generally having greater dominance than the left). However, the experience of a plan is very different to a the real choices people make in terms of a purchase or measure of satisfaction of people living in the resulting buildings. Barid et al (1978) discovered that the ceilings in many rooms are lower than most people would like them to be. Colour Although colour continues to be of intense interest to the interior designer the issue of how colour effects perception and mood is complex. It is almost certainly culturally sensitive but may also be sensitive to personality, context, and experience. The importance of experience is demonstrated in images of swans viewed through a blue filter they are still described as white, but affected by a blue light a phenomenon known as colour constancy. There is a folklore about colours which is culturally sensitive. For example, black is associated with funerals in certain cultures and not in others. There are certain generalities red excites and green calms. Bright colours are generally preferred over dull ones, but not for introverts (or presumably, gothic punks). Wexnersearly studies of mood associations found that red was eciting and stimulating, yellow was cheerful, jovial and joyful, ornage was distressed and disturbed, blue and green were tender ,calm and soothing, and black or brown were despondent, dejected, unhappy, or melancholic. Certain combinations of colour had different effects. It has been suggested that colours derive their meaning from the natural environment passive connotations of blue to the reduction of activity by primitive man as night fell while the active significance of yellows and reds to the rising sun, heralding the beginning of daily activities. Paderson et al (1978) found few effects of differing room colours when ratings were taken using a wide range of activities, in actual settings of different colour. However, they did not take in to account differing room types, like lounge or bedroom, or the style of the property (modernist, Georgian or Art Nouveau), which seem to have an effect on colour preference. Symbols Symbols are an important feature of some architecture projects. However, if these symbols are laden with straightforward political or other meanings they become less attractive. As xxx states, where artists employ symbols or metaphors of too common currency, or where, in Bruners terms, too little effort is required, or no emotional response is generated, then aesthetic judgement will go against the object. Hence, if a building was adorned with a large swastika, this would invite hostility not just because of the Nazi connotations but because the symbol is of too wide a currency. However, artists can sometimes usefully combine known symbols and contexts in uniquely ambiguous or interesting ways. Surprising combinations become more interesting than individual symbols alone, even if there may be no affective response. This category of possibility enhances our appreciation of the aesthetic. This, then, could be a defence of the better examples of post-modern architecture where symbols and historical architectural

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references, like the pediment or column, are employed out of their original contexts. A successful example would be Venturi and assocites extension to the National Gallery in London. Communicating humanity Although symbols can be added to simple boxes to give them significance, buildings that fail to communicate how society has changed can offer a feeling of stagnation or frustration. De Botton feels this both in Poundbury, near Dorchester a pastiche of country cottage living built in 1995 and in the drabness of most of Tokyos international style skyscrapers. However, although Poundbury holds no intellectual interest to the progressive architect this does not mean that there are not sectors of the population for whom Poundbury offers aesthetic pleasure. We should not ignore the fact that the Poundbury style has elements that are pleasing in the micro deliberate variation and complexity to ape traditional building methods, and built on a human scale, and in a rural context, as was the case for original buildings on which these are modelled. There is a human quality to buildings that were originally erected with local materials and to serve a local need that some more exciting modern projects lack. This highlights a separate issue to do with seeing the trace of the human hand in construction. It can be argued that man and making have become to separate, and that what pleases us most, aesthetically, is the trace of the man in the making. I believe that this explains the enduring popularity of Gaudi among the general population and most professional architects. It is apparent that most of his works were highly labour intensive. Machines could not create the irregular organic shapes which he envisioned. Furthermore, a lot of design decisions were made intuitively on site. The Arts and Crafts buildings of the turn of the last century also bear testimony to skilled manual labour, and are loved all the more for it. However, De Botton writes, despite its qualified success in capturing the spirit of country life in the eighteenth century the place was ultimately maddening for its disconnection from the psychological and practical demands of contemporary society. His concerns are for the effect on the psyche of living in a time warp. However, this is probably not a concern for the more elderly and/or conservative members of our society. De Botton is entitled to his views but is generalizing too much if he thinks that all of society would be best served by more contemporary planning. Art and Design Inevitably the study of what draws us to certain buildings overlaps with the study of what makes art interesting and affecting. Berlyne (1971)74 defines the commonly accepted ways in which art serves people and lists the four main dimensions: 1. Providing pleasure. 2. Informing us about ways in which we can reshape, transform, translate or symbolise the world. 3. Exercising our information processing capabilities (but not too much, as we have seen!) 4. Defining our personality or sense of identity (as we have discussed above). Somners book Tight Spaces; Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It75 notes how monolithic, unvarying concrete environments violate these principles. He cites graffiti art in subways as an attempt to soften a hard environment. Although the motivations are more complex than this (identity and the marking of territory

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are also key), he makes some useful points. Around this time architects are certainly starting to discover that wilful destruction and vandalism is more common in areas that are perceived as not giving pleasure while opposite effects are created by objects and environments which are experienced as aesthetically pleasing. Bruner, a psychologist and psychoanalyst wrote an essay called Art as a mode of knowing76 in which she highlighted four aspects of aesthetic experience that are rewarding: 1. Connecting with ones own experience. 2. The requirement of human effort a search after meaning. The category of possibility. The search for novelty that is knowable, and beyond our direct experience. 3. The expression of ones own basic drives through the art work (e.g. sex). 4. Generality in aesthetically pleasing experiences (feeling in tune with other who also appreciate the beauty of something). A good example of our appreciation of effort after meaning is provided by Gombrichs simple experiment.77 He increased the subjective pleasantness of a very ordinary academic painting by displaying it through unevenly rolled glass. Evolutionary psychology the new psychology of the aesthetic In his book Origins Of Architectural Pleasure78, Grant Hildebrand expands on the principles of architectural pleasure from the perspective of evolutionary psychology (EP). Although this discipline first took shape in the 1960s, following the lead of Maslow, its influence on the wider culture has only really been felt in the last two decades. The approach of evolutionary psychologists is distinct from the genetic determinism of socio-biology in the early 20th century. It is now accepted that genes and culture interact: they are both important determinants of human behaviour. Similarly, there is an acceptance that instinctive likes and dislikes are shaped by (genetically determined) instincts and culture interacting. Hence, EP as applied to architecture is concerned with certain universal truths about how natural selection shaped our aesthetic preferences in the Early Ancestral Environment (or EAE). This hypothesis has been tested by a number of authors.79, 80 The ancient Greek philosopher Heraticlus stated that a brook changes its appearance over time. However, we all respond similarly to a view of it. According to EP, characteristics of certain images are stored in archetypal abstraction. This determines whether a reaction to something in the environment is one of pleasure or repulsion.8 When we are in repose or sleeping we prefer to be in a protected environment what Hildebrand calls a refuge. We require more than mere shelter but a sense of darkness and enclosure. Heidegger tells us that to dwell is to be at peace in a protected place. These instincts would have had clear survival value in the EAE.
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Such a process is not consciously willed. For example, in the realms of human sexuality, heterosexual men are sexually attracted to female secondary characteristics like breasts and curved hips, whether they choose to be or not. These instincts are determined by evolution, because for the species to survive men had to be able to focus their desires on women rather than men. Within these generalities there will be variations in preference, but homosexuality will not be selected in favour of heterosexuality. Similarly, the sight of a snake causes intense fear in most of us, despite having had very little previous experience of snakes; this is because of our experiences with poisonous snakes in the EAE. There is a preparedness to feel more fear to this archetypal image than more modern dangers like guns.81

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However, when we are more active we want to be able to survey our surrounding environment for potential food or predators. During these times we would like to enjoy a view what Hildebrand calls the prospect. We did not evolve to live in boxes, Hildebrand argues, so Wrights destruction of the box was incredibly valuable to us. However, there is a balance to be struck between prospect and refuge. It would not be surprising, therefore, if buildings which give pleasure also provide us with clear demarcations between these two instinctive needs. Hildebrand argues that the need for prospect and refuge is signified in the theatrical balance between light and dark spaces in the successful home. Jorn Utzons acclaimed houses sited in Majorca (1990, 1995), and the Lloyd Wrights Edwin Cheney House (1904) demonstrate a return to clear demarcation between darker protected space (the refuge), and lighter space which is more open (the prospect). Hence, prospect-refuge juxtaposition approximates to the juxtaposition of sunlight and shadow. The love of dark recesses often matches the love of views. This, Hildebrand argues, is due to eons of survival in a predator-led environment. Her ideas are not without support. Gottfired Semper wrote that site selection for shelter building - preferences for high or low, light or dark - were shaped by survival pressures in the EAE.82 Such a contrast is not apparent in the designs of the villas of high modernists like Corbusier. Arguably, his obsession with a lack of distinction between inside and outside gave inhabitants of the Villa Savoye (1931) no true refuge.

Living Room aspects in Corbs Villa Savoye: there is no area of refuge. It is interesting that there might be gender differences within a family unit with regard to relative preference for prospect or refuge. Hildebrand quotes some research on gender specific reactions to paintings depicting landscapes. Females showed a greater affinity for landscapes with high refuge symbolism than did males, who did not reject refuge entirely but found it less compelling than did women. Mens preferred paintings were more concerned with prospects. Women were more likely to place male and female figures in refuge settings while males would place 62% of male figures and 26% of female figures in open spaces. This has been shown to be related to reproductive activity women who are pregnant or in childbirth are more vulnerable. Survival needs will also vary with age infants and the elderly are more vulnerable than young adults and will want to feel more secure. Hildebrand also considers the mystery of a space to be something we instinctively appreciate. This is consistent with the research in to a search after meaning which I have summarised above. Mystery arouses curiosity the need to explore. Scenes high in mystery, he states, are characterized by continuity between what is seen and what is anticipated. Pleasure in obtaining a form of knowledge for its own sake is strong, and this is satisfied by novel space. Frank Lloyd Wrights late small houses featuring tiny hallways that open on to impressive living spaces, Hildebrand argues, represent that trail of exploration. Hildebrand compares this to the pleasant clearing that was obscured by foliage in the early ancestral environment. Our ancestors, she argues, liked a sequence of spaces, light and pattern which encouraged foraging. An alternative theory is that partially obscured places might hide game or fruit that other hunters and foragers have missed.

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 The tight mysterious corridor of Lloyd Wrights small house (1952) is like looking down a narrow street towards the Palazza Publico in Siena. There is an instinct to explore with the promise of a reward at the end. Hildebrand uses Jungian language to explain the spiritual impact of Louis Kahns epic geometry claiming that his buildings, like his National Assembly Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962) - is a setting for the Hero myth9. However, when discussing Lloyd Wrights Falling Water it is the thrill of danger that draws us, according to Hildebrand it is Niagara Falls epitomised. Comparisons are made with the need to recreate some of the dangers that we experienced when hunting and foraging that make us feel alive. However, it is perhaps a mastery of those dangers that is important we can enjoy the excitement while still feeling safe. We are, he explains, at home in a natural environment that is in bloom. Green vegetation and flowers are signals of improving resources, and cues about good foraging sights. Hence, he explains, public parks are provided on the assumption that they improve psychological well-being and having our homes opened up to nature is preferred. Darwin believed that nature has an inherent quality of beauty. The biophilia hypothesis of E O Wilson83 proposes that human beings subconsciously seek contact with the rest of life and that these deep affiliations with nature are rooted in our biology. This theory has a growing base of support. Regarding nature is inherently pleasurable and much philosophical enquiry has been generated by this generally accepted fact.84, 85 The aesthetics of survival can not be applied to all buildings and to all people equally but they offer a new intriguing form of environmental determinism within architecture. Darwinian theories deserve more research. Clear hypotheses can be formed and tested and could enhance the built environment. The limitations of EP are that more than one hypothesis could be true at any one time and it can be difficult to separate them. Although it reasonably easy to test ideas about prospect and refuge it is more difficult to determine if our love of Falling Water, for example, is due to an instinctive drive to cope with danger or an instinctive desire to be near running water (fast moving water would have been safer to drink in the EAE). Humane architecture and healing environments Arising from the work of psychologists, a healing architecture is emerging: For instance, Days Places of the Soul86 lists a number of features of healing and peaceful environments. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Simplicity Silence Balanced proportions Texture for light to play on Axial focussing of spaces

Jung, Freuds contemporary, was aware of the universality of certain myths, or archetypes contained within all human stories, and evidence of a universal consciousness. The Hero archetype is self-explanatory we all fantasise about being the hero of any community we want to be loved and admired. This is one of our archetypal needs, perhaps linked with our desires for protection or status, which impact on survival and reproductive success.

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6. Slight variations and ambiguities of form living lines give a room a quality of life. 7. In therapy coloured light is more effective than pigments 8. Brick, tile, textile bring warmth 9. Avoid the rectilinear and harsh resolution of the rectangle 10. Use calming colours The idea that environmental factors can have stress-relieving effects is filtering in to high level debates within the NHS management structure. Frank Gehry recently designed a new cancer care unti in Scotland and confessed to feeling guilty about the issue of whether the extra money spent on his fees could have been put towards more cancer drugs.87 There is an assumption that architecture has a role in providing a calming environment and that this would lead to a better quality of life. The NHS even has a new set of yardsticks the AEDET (Achieving Excellence in Design Evaluation Tool Kit) about how therapeutic environments should be designed.88 A recent review89 suggests that patients have recover quickly after surgery if they had access to a window with a view of the natural landscape, that certain light and colour combinations increase immunity and that patients are more confident of being looked after well if they are pleasant, calming environments. Conversely, poorly designed or dilapidated environments dissuade people from seeking help. Barbara Crisps book Human Spaces, features a Therapeutic Garden for the Child and Adolescent Development Centre in Massachusetts.90 This is an integral part of the treatment of traumatized children with behavioural disorders. Cook writes, in the language of the evolutionary psychologist, The topography of the site was reshaped into a series of archetypal land forms carved by water: a cavellike ravine for safety and security, an upland wooded plateau for exploration, a mount for climbing, an island for seclusion, a pond for discovery, steep and shallow slopes that invite risk, and a large open glade for running and playing.

A Therapeutic Garden for the Child and Adolescent Development Centre in Massachusetts. This is a new form of determinism at aesthetic and ergonomic levels which might well have some universal truths within it, but it would be important, as always, to do a psychological assessment of the people who wish to feel healed. The repertory Grid technique might be appropriately used. Ultimately though, the physical features of the environment are probably much less important than quality of medical care, having a supportive social network and a sense of being cared for by staff in places designed for the soul. Conclusions The early modernist projects ignored psychology. The absolutism inherent in the development of the International Style contributed to social and psychological harm. Although this was sometimes due to poor execution rather than poor design, in the main it is reasonable to assert that unless you know who you are designing for and what makes them happy you will end up with harmful or bad architecture. In so far as architecture is a science as well as an art, and in so far as architects design for people, psychology is an inherent part of architecture. The ego of the architect should be humbled by research in the behavioural sciences for several reasons. Firstly, he can not save the world from capitalism

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and all the evils that it brings by changing the built environment. Attempts to reduce crime through planning alone will fail. Secondly, he can not dictate how people live and must be responsive to the needs of different sectors of the population. A built environment can not be designed on a one size fits all basis, and communities can not be divided in to simple zones. Thirdly, there is a balance to be struck in most elements of design to achieve a psychologically pleasing result. Absolutism is dead. Buildings need to be interestingly complex and mysterious while also mirroring the elegant simplicity and efficiency of nature. The box needs to be opened up, but not too much: our need for connection with nature is in balance with refuge. Public space is in balance with private and defensible space. We need to reside on or near streets that are lined with trees, and these streets should be full of life rather than be full of traffic. We need walkable neighbourhoods.91 Within a city, public space or a home people have different needs determined by differing personalities and goals, different stages of life and changing priorities. Culture dictates activity, a specific way of doing an activity, associated activities, and symbolic meaning for those activities. However, this is not a problem for the architect who builds flexibility in to his design, allowing it to evolve. Despite the complex challenges, (people are complex), architecture should avoid the fatalism sometimes expressed by contemporary architects like Toyo Ito (see Appendix 5). Ito deplores the alienation apparent in the virtual lives of modern Tokyo but, in his more introverted designs, decides to represent the problem rather than challenge it. The architect can actively intervene to reduce harm in a community where this is indicated. It has been demonstrated that involving communities in the revitalisation of their neighbourhoods increases social capital, and increases wellbeing. Depression, drug misuse, physical ill health and a failure to seek help from medical services (a fatal combination) are all related to lack of sense of place and the environmental dilapidation and neglect that goes with this. Architects can bring their technical experience and imaginative spark to a community that has lost its way, helping to restore a sense of place and reducing psycho-social harm. Artistic, aesthetic aspirations and theories about form are in tension with the psychological and social aspects of space, but they are not eclipsed by them. The science of psychology provides some parameters for design without prescribing the end result. When two disciplines meet real innovations can be made. Certain elements of environmental determinism can be usefully combined with a flexible system, which truly evolves with the user. As a result of this review I would like to set out a modest manifesto. If architects are to design for people they should: (1) be aware that psychologically healthy spaces need to be flexible enough to allow for individual differences, subcultural differences and changing needs over time, in order to achieve a sense of place (2) be aware of certain core, universal human needs while accepting individual and cultural differences, (3) avoid writing their own subjective scripts for what they perceive to be psychologically healthy buildings or cities, and (4) if they can not design ideal spaces for peace and happiness, at least aim to minimise psychological and social harm by understanding how a space gains meaning. Reference List

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Pevsner N The sources of modern architecture and design.(Thames and Hudson, London, 1968). Frampton K Modern architecture: a critical history.(Thames and Hudson, London., 2000). De Botton A The Architecture of Happiness(Penguin, London, 2008). Cooke C Russian Avant-Garde - Theories of Architecture, Urbanism and the City.(Academy Editions, London, 1995). Kandinsky W Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translated by M. T. Sadler.(Tate Publishing, London, 2001). Richards S Le Corbusier and the Concept of Self(Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 2003). Marc O Psychology of the House, trans. Jessie Wood(Thames and Hudson, London, 1977). Le Corbusier Toward an Architecture(Frances Lincoln Publishers, London, 2008). Le Corbusier Modulor and Modulor 2(Birkhauser Verlag AG, Basle, 2000). Le Corbusier The City of Tomorow And Its Planning. Trans. by Frederick Etchells.(The MIT Press., Cambridge Mass, 1971). Sontag S On Photography(Allan Lane, London, 1978). Skinner C O Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals.(Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1962). Richards S 'The Antisocial Urbanism of Le Corbusier'. Common Knowledge 13, (2007). Ito T Le Corbusier rendered into line drawings. Japan architect 14, 6-9 (1994). Lewin K. Defining the "Field at a Given Time. Psychological Review. 50, 292-310 (1943). Canter D Architecture and psychology. Built Environment June, 188-190 (1972). Alexander C Changes in form. Architectural Design March, 122-125 (1970). Mayo E Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation.(Routledge., New York., 1949). Hooper K Perceptual aspects of architecture. in Handbook of Perception. Vol 10. (eds. Carterette E C & Freidman M P) (Academic Press, New York, 1978).

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Appendix 1: Kurt Lewin and the rise of social psychology His field theory grew out of the Gestalt school while also being influenced by behaviourism. His simple proposition was that human behaviour is the function of both the person and the environment. This view was refreshingly new at the time. Back then most psychologists were wedded to the psychoanalytic theories that held human motives to be contained within the Id blind drives which express themselves from within. Like the early behaviourists, Lewin thought that behaviour could be explained to a degree by classical and operant conditioning we tended to learn relationships between stimuli in our surrounding environment and outcomes. However, he went further. Cognitive psychology had taught him that we create mental maps of our environments which are constantly updated by new experiences. The motives and goals of humans were a complex product of this field of influence. He believed that our behaviour is purposeful; we live in a psychological reality or life space that includes not only those parts of our physical and social environment that are important to us but also imagined states that do not 3 currently exist". He drew together insights from topology (where topographical maps of life space were created), psychology (need, aspiration etc.), and sociology (e.g. force fields motives clearly being dependent on group pressures). It was the well-integrated nature of this system that gave his theory power if a beneficial change in behaviour was to be encouraged the whole life space had to be considered. If only part of the situation was considered, a misrepresented picture was likely to develop. Empirically, Lewin manipulated complex situational variables in natural settings. For example, he intervened in situations where racial discrimination was evident. In one study, a gang of Italian Catholic men disturbed a Jewish community during Yom Kippur, In Lewins intervention the offenders were then subsumed with an experimental gang of deliberately racially mixed members. The feedback provided by the offenders revealed that their motives were not directly anti-Semitic, but were expressions of general hostility toward people who appeared to be succeeding better in a poor community. Likewise, it was not a problem that could be solved by sending the men to jail. It was decided that the solution was to eliminate the frustrations of community life by establishing better housing, enhancing transportation, and building recreational facilities. These changes would allow members of different backgrounds and groups to integrate. The plans were put into motion. The members of the gang kept in contact, and within a year, conditions had improved greatly. There seemed to be no change in attitude toward the Jews, but aggression towards them had ceased. It is easy to see how Lewins approach inspired a rapid expansion in environmental psychology and gave modernist planners more cause for optimism. Before Lewin came to prominence in the 1950s the influence on environmental psychology had been predominantly behaviourist manipulating simple stimuli like light, heat and noise, while measuring behavioural responses under laboratory conditions. They paid no attention to cognitive factors mediating response.

Appendix 2: The Archigram Story - an experiment in amplified living Archigram was founded in London in 1961 around a nucleus of young architects Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb. It is regarded as a reaction to the one size fits all approach of traditional modernism. Buildings could now be transported or plugged in or worn like clothes. In using psychedelic influences it could be said to be dreamlike but in fact the work had a serious message, and one that is increasingly recognised. One of Archigrams main accomplishments had been to reorient architecture toward changing social and ideological patterns, recognizing that individualism and consumerism were the prevalent postwar European and American social movements. In his 2005 book Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, Peter Sandler, Associate Professor of Architectural and Urban History at the University of California, writes Archigram architects wanted to provide the equipment for amplified living, and they welcomed any cultural rearrangements that would ensue. They caused intense irritation among town planners who had to deal with the social and psychological context of cities in the here and now. In his article Changes in Form, Christopher Alexander attacks Archigram. He was particularly incensed by what he called cities on legs (A Walking City, Ron Heron, 1964), citing this as an example of mad personal dreams not anchored in reality. No-one would want to implement them. He goes on to say that planners adhere to boring detailed facts whereas architects dream of unimaginable futures. Planners, in contrast, work by piecemeal incremental improvements. However, can we really say that Archigram did not consider social psychology in their abstract plans? The group never meant their designs to be taken literally, even if they did cause some understandable irritation. Their collective work was a polemic, fuelled by the power of dreams and imagination, which celebrated the flexibility and creativity of individuals, and focussed on how they can interact, in nomadic style with their environment. Parts of the city would move around the cityscape to where they were needed. In 1968, the group proposed to transport all the entertainment and education resources of a metropolis in an Instant City airship, which would fly from place to place and temporarily land in small communities to enable the inhabitants to enjoy the buzz of life in a city. Even when they designed a static building for a real site a leisure centre in Monte-Carlo, there were interactive elements. Their design was of an enormous circular dome buried underground by the Mediterranean. The seats, toilets and lights were mounted on wheels to be moved around into new configurations as the use of the building changed. In essence then, Archigram had a more humanistic and utopian vision than most socially conscious architects gave them credit for. However, ultimately, the cultural climate, once so empathetic to Archigrams optimistic vision of technology saving the city, turned hostile to their approach. The brutality of the war in Vietnam, for example, demonstrated the macabre side of technological advances. Their high-tech vision started to resemble that of HG Wells War of the Worlds. However, there is evidence that economic and social realities are really what brought Archigram to an end as social problems grew in urban areas, architects felt in desperate need of a new set of rules to guide them in how to improve social conditions in buildings and in cities. Exit Archigram and Structuralism and enter a new type of environmental determinism arising from the empirical approach of environmental psychology the study of how people interact with their built environments. This revitalised the modernist notion that architecture could bring about positive social and psychological change in urban settings.

Appendix 3: The Hawthorne Studies These experiments were carried out in the 1920s and 1930s in the Hawthorne Factory in Chicago on the effects of environmental manipulations on the work force. The first set of experiments showed how fatigue and monotony on an assembly line reduced productivity, while being supervised dramatically increased productivity. They also examined the effect of illumination: Workers were divided into test and control groups. Lighting for the test group was increased from 24 to 46 to 70 foot-candles whereas it was left unaltered for the control group. Production of the test group increased as expected, but production of the control group increased by approximately the same amount. The mere fact of being observed increased productivity. In the next phase of experiments a number of female workers with a known work rate were placed in a test room which was separated from the main assembly department by a 10-foot-tall wooden partition. They were exposed to 23 changes in the working environment. For instance, rest breaks were added and maintained at various lengths and frequencies, workdays were shortened or Saturday hours were eliminated. Temperature, humidity and lighting conditions were varied. The women had no supervisor, but they increasingly assumed responsibility for their own work and were allowed to share in decisions about changes in their work. An observer in the room recorded events as they happened. Surprisingly, output increased irrespective of the conditions that were varied. Furthermore, even when conditions were returned to what they had been before, productivity remained 25 percent above its original value. Absenteeism was only a third of that in the main assembly room. Output averaged 3,000 electronic products (relays) a week per assembler, compared with 2000 in the main factory. Mayo, the head of this research effort, attributed the results of the first two studies to the pride of the women in being part of something important and the satisfaction of having some control over their own destiny. Merely by asking for their cooperation in the test, Mayo believed the investigators had stimulated a new attitude among the employees. The assemblers considered themselves to be part of an important group whose help and advice were being sought by the company. The single most important discovery of the Hawthorne experiments was that workers had a strong need to cooperate and communicate with fellow workers. The study discovered that workers did not respond to the classical motivational approaches suggested in Frederick W. Taylors Scientific Management theory. According to Taylors popular theory, workers were motivated solely by self-interest. Scientific management theorists assumed that workers desired to perform their work with a minimum of effort and to receive more money. According to Mayo, the six individuals involved in the Hawthorne study became a team. In his research findings, published in a 600-page book, Mayo concluded: "...the eager human desire for cooperative activity still persists in the ordinary person and can be utilized by intelligent and straightforward management." In other words, the mere act of showing people that youre concerned about them usually spurs them to better job performance. Mayos studies suggested that consultation between work force and management gave workers a sense of belonging to a team. The Hawthorne experiments encouraged the development of human factors engineering and ergonomics, and they created pressure for management to change the traditional way of managing human resources. The studies encouraged participative support at the lower levels of the organization in solving organization problems. In essence, then, many believed that the Hawthorne experiments showed that social relations (management styles) were more important than physical environment in controlling productivity and well-being. In fact, there were probably other psychological mechanisms operating learning better skills, getting feedback, incremental piecemeal payments without fear of payments being reduced, and so on. In another famous study based in California factory workers were moved from high density slum housing to low density suburban area. When their lifestyles did not change in any significant respect this was regarded as evidence that architecture could not change social behaviour. However, there were big methodological flaws which environmental psychologists could drive a train through. In these experiments lots of independent factors could not be controlled for. Also, in the Hawthorne experiments, changes in behaviour were, importantly, not maintained indefinitely. In any case the findings of studies on a working environment could not be generalised to the bigger picture of urban design, including residential developments.

Appendix 4: Personality Traits and Resulting Design Implications.

Appendix 5: Koolhaus and Ito: Fatalism replaces the utopian dream Many contemporary modernists like Ito and Koolhaus, have given up on trying to change society through architecture, believing that society will always change itself if it needs to, and architecture will follow changing needs. In other words, they reflect on the organic tendency for an inevitable evolution of culture to affect the fabric of the city, rather than the other way around. As human needs change, some parts of the city become disused (the transitional junk space of the city), and are subsequently developed by younger generations. Koolhaus talks of his new plans for a building in Copenhagen (Architecture Today, June, 2008, p16), which will effectively deny direct access to the waters edge in contravention of local codes. However, he defends his new scheme as an engine for the city. His architecture is not directly encouraging a new way of living but indirectly, though facilitating the momentum of the citys own organic evolution. Many contemporary modernist projects deliberately reflect the stark realities of urban living - the hectic pace, disconnection from nature, loss of sense of belonging, materialism, and so on despite clearly having concerns about community. Perhaps it is hoped that this form of architectural comment will inspire helpful change. For example, Toyo Itos architecture is less about deterministic and humanistic social engineering and more about reflecting an age of fictional bodies, representing the virtual living 2 of our lives through new media , and of the predominance of the computer, which is undermining the units from which society is composed, from relationships between individuals to families, 2 neighbourhoods and localities . He goes further group relationships communities and localities that 2 are based on face-to-face relationships ...have been virtually destroyed. Hence Itos architecture is perhaps less about creating a better life and more about reflecting a potentially much darker one, in the hope that something better will emerge. Like Isozaki and Shinohara he has assumed a fatalistic 1 attitude toward the megopolis, regarding it as a manifestation of environmental delirium, devoid of 1 sense . He considers that a return to the conventional house, and conventional notions of community in architecture would engender responses, such as nostalgia, that are superficial and removed from urban reality. In other words, they would be pastiches of the old way of living, devoid of relevance to the modern age. He states If one cares at all about the future, therefore, one must eventually confront the 2 question of images of the house and the community based on fictional bodies. Itos earlier work, like the Silver Hut, is attempting to save the last remaining real unit the family by designing a compromise. Silver Hut is wrapped in translucent membranes to reflect the need for the urban nomad to embrace the fictional life of the city, but it is also able to accommodate urban dwellers that might desire a tight knit family. The idea that urban dwellers might want a house which allows for, at the same time, both family habitation and escape from family, Ito argues, would not have been conceivable in Corbusiers time. The question is whether the new modernists are merely repeating the mistakes of Corbusier by being insensitive to the real psychological needs of urban residents. They sound like Corbusier at his most didactic when he described his architectural forms as symbols of modern technology rather than places for people to live in.
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