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15 - Predicting user responses to buildings
- Edited by Jack L. Nasar, Ohio State University
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- Book:
- Environmental Aesthetics
- Published online:
- 05 September 2013
- Print publication:
- 27 May 1988, pp 195-211
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- Chapter
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Summary
An approach is discussed whereby architects can learn to predict user responses to the buildings they design. An argument for the importance of prediction in architecture is presented, initial research efforts are discussed, specific scale-and media-development experiments are reported, and two professional applications of the resulting instrument are described.
Background
The recent history of architecture has been marked by an increasing involvement of architects with client-user groups with which they had had little or no contact. Commissions are obtained by architects not only in their own communities, but also throughout the country and, for some firms, throughout the world.They are obtained not only from clients from the same socioeconomic class or even the ruling elite, as was the case in previous centuries, but also from client groups having widely diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds (Appleyard, 1969). Often the clients represent user groups with special age, health, or mobility problems (Carp, 1970). Occasionally, user groups or potential user groups are so large or ill-defined as to be virtually unobservable in any primary way. And almost invariably, because of pressures brought on by rapidly increasing construction costs, architects are expected to perform their services in the shortest conceivable period of time, “fast-tract” becoming the commonplace rather than the exception.
From a technological viewpoint, architects appear to be managing quite well under these circumstances. New buildings for all clients and users incorporate the finest materials and systems to provide physical conveniences far beyond those offered in previous times.
14 - A study of meaning and architecture
- Edited by Jack L. Nasar, Ohio State University
-
- Book:
- Environmental Aesthetics
- Published online:
- 05 September 2013
- Print publication:
- 27 May 1988, pp 175-194
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
There are few forms in architecture to which people do not attach some meaning by way of convention, use, purpose, or value. This includes the very mundane realization that a wood panel approximately 3 feet wide by 7 feet high is a door (object that one opens to pass through), the more subtle feelings of warmth and protection at the entrance to some buildings, and some of the most profound experiences of beauty and art. Indeed, the transmission of meaning through the architectural medium is essential to both the use and the enjoyment of architecture. Meaning is of considerable importance in perception (Creelman, 1966), “one of the most important determinants of human behavior” (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957, p. 10), and unquestionably involved with human feelings. Furthermore, it has been argued by architects and planners alike that in an increasing number of situations, the underload, overload, or confusion of meaning in architecture has become such that both the use and the enjoyment of architecture are seriously jeopardized (Brown, undated; McHarg, 1962). In consequence, it would seem appropriate at this time to undertake serious studies of the nature of architectural meaning to learn what is needed to create physical environments that can be satisfactorily perceived, felt, and used.
The research reported here was addressed to this problem, taking the point of view that the forms, colors, spaces, and other qualities of architecture are media through which architects communicate to the users of their buildings, and focusing on the “fidelity” of this communication.