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EDRA 42 - Environmental Design Research Association
Make No Little Plans Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association Chicago, Illinois May 25-28, 2011 Editors: Daniel Mittleman, PhD and Deborah A. Middleton, PhD EDRA42Chicago Conference Co-Chairs Sally Augustin Danny Mittleman Roberta Feldman, Chair Emerita EDRA42Chicago Conference Committee Saif Haq Vibhavari Jani Yusuke Kita Byoung-Suk Kweon Janet Loebach Deborah Middleton Kyriakos Pontkis Lubomir Popov April Allen Susanna Alves Cherif Amor Mallika Bose Arza Churchman Meredith Dobbie Mohammad Gharipour Tasoulla Hadjiyanni Robert Ryan April Spivak Thea Standerski Zhe Wang Nick Watkins Jeremy Wells HG (Helena) Yoon EDRA42Chicago Conference Sponsors Sustainable Design Sponsors The Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild Foundation HOK, Inc. Intensive Lunch Sponsor SAGE Supporting Sponsor Archeworks EDRA Board of Directors Lynne Dearborn, Chair Nicholas Watkins, Chair-Elect Mallika Bose, Secretary Shauna Mallory-Hill, Treasurer Robert Ryan, Past Chair Victoria Chanse Virginia Kupritz Byoung-Suk Kweon Janet Loebach Atiya Mahmood Kate O’Donnell, Executive Director (ex officio) EDRA Placemakers EDRA Wayfinders Keith Diaz Moore Karen Franck Nicholas Watkins Sherry Ahrentzen Lyn Geboy Danny Mittleman Wiley Clifton Montague Jack Nasar Lynn Paxson Thierry Rosenheck Copyright © 2011, The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) www.edra.org 1760 Old Meadow Road, Suite 500 • McLean, VA 22102 ISBN 978-1-257-76543-0 All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by copyright rein may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means – graphic, photocopy, recording, taping, or digital – without written permission of the publisher. Table of Contents Keynote Address Creating a Children’s Hospital by Engaging the City of Chicago...........................................................................1 Plenary Sessions Wishful Thinking or Welcome Change? Scrutinizing New Workplace Beliefs.....................................................2 Big Plans to Restore the Rustbelt: The Calumet Region of Indiana and Illinois ....................................................2 Design Practitioner Intensives Sustainable Charrette: Fully Integrated Thinking....................................................................................................3 Lost in Translation: The Design Challenges Faced by Multinational Corporations...............................................4 Implementing Person-Centered Design in Healthcare: Building Connections........................................................4 The Research Funders Speak: Support for Applied and Theoretical Research.......................................................5 Design Practitioner Professional Development: Writing and Administering Surveys...........................................5 Show Me the Data: The Essential Role of Research in Making the Business Case for Building a Better Hospital....................................................................................................................................................5 Watching Closely: Environmental Design Insights Courtesy of the Lincoln Park Zoo Gorillas............................6 Design Practitioner Professional Development: Post-Occupancy Evaluations in the Trenches.............................6 Design Practitioner Professional Development: Ask the Research Experts............................................................6 Career Award Winner Galen Cranz, PhD, Professor, University of California, Berkeley..........................................................................7 Service Award Winner Janice Bissell, PhD, Principal, The Practitioner’s Resource...................................................................................8 Refereed Full Papers How the Logic of Research Misunderstands the Logic of Design........................................................................11 Public Perception of Walkability: Assessing Perception Dependency on Scene Attributes and Respondent Characteristics .................................................................................................................................................18 Participatory Design in Positive Aging: Products of the First Cycle of an Environmental Design Action Research Project...................................................................................................................................32 Grandma’s World: Mapping Dancers in Beijing...................................................................................................38 The Morphological Evolution of the ‘Bazaar Streets’: A Configurational Analysis of the Urban Layout of Dhaka City...................................................................................................................................................50 Refereed Full Papers (continued) Lessons From The Road: Meaning and Community Identity Examined Through the Lens of the Roadside Attraction..........................................................................................................................................62 Children’s Conception of Natural Environments and Associated Play Activities in Santiago, Chile ..................72 Enhanced Photo-Elicitation for Accessing Alzheimer’s Perceptions....................................................................82 The Perception of Place in Planning for Urban Change: A Small World Paradigm.............................................91 Effects Of Garden Design On Quality Of Life ...................................................................................................102 Integration of Ecology, Sociology and Aesthetics in Urban Design: Fantasy or Reality? A Study through the Lens of Landscape Architecture ..............................................................................................................114 Positive Environments: Emotional Relief through Evidence-Based Design of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.........................................................................................................................................123 A Survey on the Social Activity of the Demented Elderly by RFID in the Special Care Unit...........................132 Emerging Learning Commons in Japanese Academic Libraries: Behavioral Aspects of Actual Usage and Communication Patterns .........................................................................................................................145 The Role of Built Heritage on Aesthetic Evaluation of Urban Landscape..........................................................154 Evaluating the Impact of Urban Form on Older Adults’ Social Activity and Public Health .............................166 Threshold In School – As Event and Place for the Autism Spectrum Disorder Pupil.........................................174 A Systemic Theory for Historic Preservation: Land Use Management Strategies as Preservation Policy.........181 Valuation of Cultural Heritage: Toward a Conceptual Model and Potential Evaluation Strategies...................189 Conceptual Foundations for Modeling the Sociospatial Structures of Activity in Facilities Programming.......197 The Architecture and Urban Design Project Viewed as a Catalyst of Identity: .................................................203 Analysis of Recent Contributions to ‘Montrealness’...........................................................................................203 Environmental Values and Their Relationship to Ecological Services...............................................................212 Rethinking Architectural Research......................................................................................................................218 Therapeutically Enhanced School Design for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Comparative Study of the United States and the United Kingdom ...........................................................225 Residential Experience of Rural Immigrants: Understanding Migrant Enclaves in Urban China......................236 Abstracts.................................................................................................................................................... 249-370 Posters........................................................................................................................................................ 373-467 Author Index............................................................................................................................................. 469-472 Author Index Author Index A Adams, Roxanne 301 Adams, Vera 373 Adhya, Anirban 279, 288 Aeschbacher, Peter 281, 334 Afshar, Maryam 249 Ahn, Changhoun 295 Ahn, You-Kyong 365 Ahrentzen, Sherry 287 Akagi, Tetsuya 374 Al Slik, Ghada Musa Rzouki 365 Alawadhi, Ahmed 268 Alden, Andrew 324 Allen, April 270, 365 Altinbasak, Ece 249 Alves, Susana 291, 359 Alward, Sarah 250 Amam, Willow Lung 272 Amedeo, Douglas 250 Amor, Cherif 252 An, So Mi 375 Anderson, Nadia 253 Andrews, Clinton 366 Angrisano, Neal 339 Anthony, Kathryn H. 362 Ashida, Haruka 376 Asojo, Abimbola 254, 296 Aspinall, Peter 342, 359 Augustin, Sally 2, 5, 6, 254, 281 Awwad-Rafferty, Rula 297, 312 B Badenhope, Julia 254 Balakrishnar, Bimal 268 Baran, Perver 287 Barker, Greg Allen 6, 342 Bartlett, M’Lis 255 Bartos, Ethan 345 Beacham, Cindy 255 Bergdall, Terry 256 Bernasconi, Claudia 18 Bestetti, Maria Luisa Trindade 257 Biavatti, Camila 341 Bissell, Janice 8 Blake, Sheri 317 Bloom, Michael F. 5 Boeck, David 32 Bose, Mallika 263 Bradley, Gordon 300 Brand, Jay 2 Brigman, Jonee Kulman 257 Brisby, Traci 258 Brösamle, Martin 11 Brown, Barbara 259 Budd, Christopher 2 Buechner, Simon 288 Bulone, Phil 285 Byrne, J. Kevin 259 Byun, Kyoungmee 377 C Calkins, Margaret 4, 312 Campo, Michael 324 Cannon, Molly Boeka 250 Capozzi, Christopher 82, 265, 266 Carlson, Laura 288 Cayton, Jennifer 363 Chandrasekera, Tilanka 260, 268 Chang, Chun-Yen 261, 355 Chang, Hyejung 250, 261 Chang, Yuan-Yu 261 Chapagain, Neel Kamal 348 Chaudhury, Habib 324 Chen, Caroline 38 Chen, Chan 331 Cheow, Puei Kuen 262 Chiang, Yen-Cheng 262 Choi, Jaepil 313 Choi, SeonMi 257, 378, 379 Choi, Sohee 380 Choi, Young-Seon 263 Chou, Wan Yu 381 Colman, Jennifer 258 Cook, Jessica 263 Corriente, Marina Mellado 348 Cosme, Sílvia 341 Coulombe, Simon 382 Cranz, Galen 7, 264, 265, 266, 279, 281 Crawford, Pat 307 D D’Souza, Newton 260, 268 da Cunha, Regina Tristão 341 Dalton, Ruth 288 Davis, Lee 270 Day, Adam M.B. 270 Dearborn, Lynne 287 Després, Carole 271 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Devlin, Ann 6 Diamond, Beth 250, 271, 278, 336, 343 Dieterlen, Susan 272, 279 Dobbie, Meredith 273 Dominski, Jason 6 Doyle, Michael 271, 273 Doyle, Philip C. 270 Drucker, Susan 5, 321 Duffey, Melanie 282 Dulaney Jr., Ron 274 Duncil, Barry 278 Durnbaugh, Aaron N. 2, 366 E Egan, Kate 324 Elabd, Aliaa 274, 275 Erickson, Doug 4 Ericson, Jonathan 288 F Feldman, Roberta 276 Fell, David 276 Ferdous, Farhana 50 Fernando, Nisha A. 277 Figueira, Kristen 383 Finlay, Karen 277 Flanagan, Robert 298 Flanders, Ben 256 Floyd, Myron 353 Foen, Fai 278 Fonseca, Ernesto 287 Fowlow, Loraine 62 Fox, Andrew 278 Franck, Karen 279, 281, 298 Fratinardo, Marlise 281 Frisius, Daniela Casanello 72 G Gadoury, Colin 82, 265, 266 Gaines, Kristi 225 Gale, Amanda 282 Ganis, Mary 91 Geboy, Lyn 324 Ghobad, Ladan 282 Gillem, Mark 283 Gilliam, Alex 283 Gilliland, Jason 284, 315 Ginsburg, Rebecca 300 Gobes-Ryan, Sheila 285, 321 469 Author Index Gobster, Paul 259, 353 Goetcheus, Cari 365 Goto, Seiko 102 Green, Raymond James 72 Greene, Margarita 285 Grese, Robert E. 300 Gross, Broc 297 Guerin, Denise A. 257 Guilford, Emily 252 Guindon-Bronsard, Valérie 271 Gulwadi, Gowri Betrabet 291, 297 Gumpert, Gary 5, 321 H Ha, Ji-Min 384 Hadjiyanni, Tasoulla 286, 287 Hajrasouliha, Amir Hossein 114 Hallowell, George 275, 287 Han, Jung-Ho 385 Haq, Saif 288 Harbison, Rachel 386 Harland, Joel S. 297 Harvey, Thomas E. 335 Harwood, Pamela 387, 388 Hasirci, Deniz 304 Hathorn, Kathy 325 Hayashida, Daisaku 328 Hayata, Naohiko 389 Heggernes, Laurel J. 297 Henderson, Phyllis J. 390 Heroux, Elizabeth 123 Hikita, Atsushi 327 Hillman-Healey, Christy 62 Hipp, Aaron 291 Hirata, Sonomi 293 Hoback, Alan 18 Hodulak, Martin 4, 317 Holleran, Michael 365 Hölscher, Christoph 11, 288 Honda, Tomotsune 391 Hornor, Jim 6 Horrigan, Paula 294 Host-Jablonski, Lou 287 HoVan, Ngoc 392 Hsu, Tan-Kui 132 Hu, Jianxin 282 Huang, Te-Sheng 298 Hunt, Jon 368 Hwang, EunJu 368 Hwang, Ji Hye 295, 311, 312, 393, 394 Hwang, Yao-Rong 132 470 I Ierodiaconou, Daniel 355 Iguchi, Aya 395 Imon, Sharif Shams 348 Irvine, Aliah 301 Ishikawa, Makoto 293 Itoh, Shunsuke 328 J Jaddo, Lahib 296 Jang, Miseon 396 Jani, Vibhavari 254, 296 Jazwinski, Christine H. 297 Jensen, Sara 297 John, Naiana Maura 397 Joplin, Amber 298 Jorn, Myounghee 398, 399 Juhasz, Joseph 298, 368 Jung, Eun Jung 400 K Kader, Sharmin 324 Kaller, Gregor 288 Kamada, Mitsutoshi 401 Kamel, Ehab 348 Kanakri, Shireen 402 Kaplan, Abram W. 300 Kaplan, Rachel 300 Kaplan, Stephen 300 Kapp, Paul 365 Kato, Akikazu 4, 145, 403 Kaufman, Andrew 301 Keable, Ellen 2, 321 Keddy, Karen 302 Kee, Chan 4 Kemper, Rebecca 302 Kepez, Orcun 249, 303 Keul, Alexander 366 Khasawneh, Fahed A. 145 Kilic, Didem Kan 304 Kim, Hye-Young 257 Kim, Jun 404 Kim, Jusuck 405 Kim, Min Kyoung 406, 407 Kim, Minseok 313 Kim, Suk-Kyung 304 Kim, Sun Young 408 Kita, Yusuke 305 Kivutha, Kwekwe 409 Kline, Rhonda 311, 410 Kocher, Sara 365 Kocs, Elizabeth A. 306 Komiske, Bruce 1 Kong, Chuijing 411 Koo, Jayoung 306 Kornakova, Maria 307 Kozak, Robert 276 Koziol, Christopher 365 Kramer, Carrie 338 Kremer, Peter 355 Kubala, Tom 337, 345 Kuo, Frances (Ming) 291, 308 Kuo, Nai-Wen 362 Kupritz, Virginia 321 Kweon, Byoung-Suk 308 Kwon, Jain 309 Kwon, Young-Gull 309 L Labbe, Delphene 412 Lake, Jordan 413 Langhorst, Joern 309 Lay, Maria Cristina Dias 154 Lee, Dongjoo 311, 312 Lee, Eunsil 310 Lee, Jae Hwa 414 Lee, Jaechoon 304 Lee, Jongmin 415, 416 Lee, Sangmi 301 Lee, Seunghae 311 Lee, Yeunsook 295, 311, 312, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423 Leslie, Eva 355 Levi, Daniel 365 Lewis, Kristin 350 Lim, Lisa 313 Lim, Soohyun 424 Limb, Eugene 6 Lin, Yu Fong 268 Lindsay, Georgia 264, 265, 266 Link, Felipe 285 Linn, Colleen 425 Lloyd, Richard 314 Loebach, Janet 284, 315 Lottrup, Lene 316 Luo, Yang 316 M Macedo, Silvio 336 Machemer, Patricia 307 Madani, Mehran 166 Maguire, Barry 174 Mahmood, Atiya 317 Mahon, Bonnie 4 Main, Debbi 263 Author Index Malkin, Jain 4 Mallory-Hill, Shauna 317 Marans, Robert 366 Marberry, Sara O. 5 Marmurek, Harvey 277 Marshall, Wesley 263 Masters, Jane M. 352 Mateo-Babiano, Derlie 91 Mavridou, Magda 11 Mayer, Robert 4 Mazumdar, Sanjoy 293, 328 McAllister, Keith 174, 426 McBain, Marsha 333 McCoy, Janetta 254 McKenzie, Kristyn 338 McLaren, Coralee 288 Mehaffy, Michael 337 Messaoud, Meriem Belhaj 271 Miklus, Melissa 278 Milota, Cynthia 427 Minner, Jennifer 365 Minnery, John 91 Mittleman, Daniel 2, 256, 321, 322, 323, 328 Modi, Sonal Mithal 348 Mohai, Paul 308 Mojtahedi, Amin 323 Monnai, Teruyuki 305 Montague, Kim 4 Moore, Gary T. 352 Moore, Keith Diaz 324, 365 Mora, Rodrigo 285 Morckel, Victoria 325 Morefield, Leslie 278 Morhayim, Lusi 264, 265, 266 Mori, Shiho 145, 428 Motoyama, Yui 429 Moxley, David 32 N Nanda, Upali 325 Narayan, Debarati Majumdar 326 Nasar, Jack 281 Newman, Galen 181, 327 Nippert-Eng, Christina 6 Nishide, Kazuhiko 262 Noh, Taejin 430, 431 O O’Connor, Zena 189 Oakley, Christine 166 Oh, Chanohk 434 Oh, Jiyoung 432, 433 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Ohno, Ryuzo 327, 328 Okely, Anthony D. 352 Opreane, Danielle 268 Orthel, Bryan 330, 365 Ou, Sheng-Jung 330 Owens, Patsy Eubanks 332 Oygur, Isil 332 P Pable, Jill 252, 333 Padmanabha, Aarthi 301 Papanikolopoulos, Nikos 286 Park, Changbae 333 Park, Jin Gyu “Phillip” 333 Park, Jin Kyoung 435 Park, Kyung-nan 436 Park, Nam-Kyu 310 Park, Soim 437 Patel, Kush 334 Pati, Debajyoti 252, 335 Pavlides, Eleftherios 265, 266 Paxson, Lynn 298, 368 Pearson, David 327 Pentecost, Ray 4 Pereira, Maria Lourdes 341 Perez, Yael Valerie 264, 335 Petit, Dana 336 Petzoldt, Natalie 363 Pillemer, Karl 365 Pippi, Luis 336 Place, Wayne 282 Ponsart, Carline 271 Pontikis, Kyriakos 337, 345 Popov, Lubomir 197, 285, 322, 338, 342 Popova, Margarita 322, 338 Prince, Ashley 338 Prochazka, Alena 203 Proffitt, Mark 438 Pukszta, Michael 363 Purcell, Terry 262 Q Quillien, Jenny 337, 345 R Rabig, Jude 4 Radja, Abdul Mufti 328 Rapoport, Amos 328 Rashid, Mahbub 339, 340 Rego, Isabel Estrela 341 Reis, Antonio Tarcisio 341 Ren, Lanbin 283 Rice, Arthur 336 Robinson, Julia 279 Rodrigues, Mirian 154 Roe, Jenny 342, 357, 359 Rofè, Yodan Y. 337, 369 Rogers, Carl 368 Roh, Dae-gun 439 Rohde, Jane 4 Rohlfing, Colin 3 Rollings, Kimberly A. 287 Rosenheck, Thierry 342 Rosenthal, Cindy Simon 32 Ross, Laurel 2, 366 Rowley, Joshua 440 Runge, Christian 343 Ryan, Robert 300 S Sagan, Hans 343 Schneekloth, Lynda 279 Schnobrich, Corey 344 Schramm, Ulrich 317 Schroeder, Herbert W. 212 Schwarz, Benyamin 218 Schweitzer, Will 259 Scott, Angelita 257 Seamon, David 337, 345 Seeger, Chris 254 SengKee, Chan 441 Senick, Jennifer 366 Seo, Hyun 442 Seo, Hyun-Bo 347 Shabha, Ghasson 225 Shambaugh, Neal 255 Shateh, Ali-Hadi 340 Shehayb, Dina K. 348 Shibayama, Yoriko 145, 443 Shibley, Robert 279 Shih, Chia-Jung 444 Shin, Jung-hye 347 Shitnaka, Akitomo 445 Shores, Kindal 353 Showers, Leslie 256 Sickler, Stephanie 446 Sieweke, Jorg 447 Silva, Kapila D. 348 Silverberg, Dana 448 Singh, Punya 449 Sinha, Amita 348 Skorupka, Aga 288 Sleegers, Frank 349 Smith, Erin 324 Socha, Chris 345 471 Author Index Son, Da-jung 450 Song, Jihyun 350 Song, Seung Eon 451 Spivack, April 4 Spooner, David 350 Spreckelmeyer, Kent 339 Springer, Tim 2 Stallmeyer, John 351 Stefanovic, Ingrid 345 Steggell, Carmen 317 Steimel, Allie 338 Sterne, Rita Hansen 351 Stigsdotter, Ulrika K. 316, 357 Su, Shiuan-Ru 352 Sue, Mayu 452 Sugiyama, Takemi 352, 353, 355 Sullivan, William 300, 355 Suntikul, Wantanee 348 Surratt, Melissa 356 Suzuki, Takeshi 328 Swanson, John 2 Sykes, Kathy 365 T Takehara, Misato 453 Taniguchi, Gen 145 Taylor, Zachary 82 Terzano, Kathryn 356 Tesar, Paul 250, 279 Thering, Susan 287, 357 Thompson, Catharine Ward 357, 359 Thompson, Jo Ann Asher 332 Torgrude, Sue 288 Touboku, Hiroki 454 472 Tsuchida, Hiroshi 455 Tural, Elif 360 Tzeng, Seungeon 456 Wolfe, Julie 367 Wong, Sally 6 Wonnett, Robert 279 V X van Oel, Clarine J. 361 Vandermark, Elizabeth 361 Vanucchi, Jamie 294 Varma, Annie 348 Villagra-Islas, Paula 272 Vo, Ngoc 268 Vujkov, Aleksander 334 Xu, Fang 459 Xu, Huiyan 460 W Wachter, Hans-Peter 32 Wakasugi, Sae 457 Walden, Rotraut 317 Walker, Verrick 252 Wampler, Janet 362 Wang, Chia-Hui 362 Wang, Zhe 363 Warners, Roemer W. 361 Watkins, Nick 6, 324 Waxman, Lisa 333, 364 Weidemann, Sue 321 Wells, Jeremy C. 345, 365 Wells, Nancy M. 287, 300, 356, 357, 365 Wener, Richard 366 Westlund, Anna 458 Westphal, Lynne 2, 300, 366 Whitlock, Stephanie 5 Wiener, Jan 288 Willow, Diane 286 Y Yamamoto, Rika 461 Yocca, David 367 Yokoyama, Yurika 328 Yoon, Hyegyung 311, 312 Yoon, So-Yeon 260, 268 Yoshinaga, Norio 462 Yost, Bambi 368 Yousefi, Maryam 463 Yun, Hae-Young 368 Z Zarchin, Inbal F. 369 Zervas, Deborah 288 Zhang, Bo 369 Zhang, Guixian 464, 465 Zhang, Yuben 466 Zheng, Hua 467 Zhu, Yushu 236 Ziebarth, Ann 368 Zimring, Craig 263 Zou, Jun 370 Zuin, Affonso 359 Chicago is the intersection of people and place. The history of Chicago is marked by seminal events intertwining people and place—from the rebuilding after the great fire of 1871, to Pullman’s company town, to a diaspora of Southern rural Blacks in the 1930s, to the riots of 1968. Interspersed among these events were ambitious inventions including Olmstead’s design of Riverside: the first planned suburb, the floating foundation that enabled the first steel skyscraper, the first hotel elevators, and the first Ferris wheel. Design history continues to be made in Chicago—from the sophisticated tools used by Studio Gang on the Aqua Tower, to the floating roof on the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago (Renzo Piano) that floods the structure with sunlight, to Mayor Daley’s programs for public greening and bicycle paths, to the innovative public sculptures in Millennium Park that encourage user interaction.. Today Chicago is the home of great museums; significant civic and neighborhood parks; public and art and sculpture. It is a city of ethnic neighborhoods, wide boulevards, botanical gardens and forest preserves. It is a city that has protected almost all of its shoreline for public use. Chicago is the incubator of great plans and urban invention. And for this reason, EDRA borrowed Daniel Burnham’s charge for its 2011 conference theme: Make No Little Plans. EDRA42Chicago is a new generation of EDRA conference, fully integrating its theme. We’ve made no little plans here. EDRA42Chicago retains the association’s traditional focus on research and practice that enhance human experience, both inside and outside structures, in spaces that are man-made and those that bear only the lightest human imprint. But this conference also grows EDRA’s missional commitments in several directions. • The paper submission and refereeing process has been revamped for EDRA42Chicago toward the delivering the highest level of conference quality possible. Delivery on this goal has been supported by receiving and processing over 450 program submissions, a 33 percent increase over the DC conference. • EDRA42Chicago has extended the track of Design Practitioner sessions begun last year in DC. We offered nine sessions explicitly designed to transfer research knowledge to design practice. • Mobile sessions, created this year, are an extension of the traditional EDRA tours with an intentional focus of providing in situ academic content. • This year, for the first time, Display Posters images appear in the proceedings. This provides you with a post conference view of these visual presentations. This EDRA program is large, varied, and robust. It represents the broad array of environment and behavior interests research and practiced by our members. It includes topics that have been grist for EDRA conversation for over four decades, as well as cutting edge—cyberspace—issues, non-existent a decade ago. EDRA members’ diverse interests and their dedication to enhancing the lives of others are EDRA’s greatest strengths. As you read through the pages that follow you will see that the mission of EDRA’s founders, first articulated 42 years ago, retains its vigor. EDRA42Chicago Proceedings Reviewers Erin Adams, Morteza Adib, Mariela Alfonzo, April Allen, Sarah Alward, Cherif Amor, Abimbola Asojo, Sally Augustin, Greg Barker, M’lis Bartlett, Lisa Bates, Cindy Beacham, Julio Bermudez, Mallika Bose, Angeal Bourne, Traci Brisby, J. Kevin Byrne, Ashley Calabria, Maggie Calkins, Tilanka Chandrasekera, Chin-Wei Chang, Chun-Yen Chang, Meldrena Chapin, Nancy Chapman, Habib Chaudhury, Chingwen Cheng, Youngseon Choi, Ji Young Choi, Jessica Cook, Anne Dahl Refshauge, Adam Day, Evrim Demir Mishenko, Ann Devlin, Beth Diamond, Keith Diaz Moore, Susan Dieterlen, Suining Ding, Meredith Dobbie, Michael Doyle, Ron Dulaney Jr., Jason Duvall, Aliaa Elabd, A.Sameh Elkharbawy, Jenny Ernawati, Andrew Fox, Marlise Fratinardo, Amanda Gale, Lyn Geboy, Hodjat Ghadimi, Mohammad Gharipour, Rokhshid Ghaziani, Ladan Ghobad, Alex Gilliam, Jason Gilliland, Sheila Gobes-Ryan, Denise Guerin, Gowri Gulwadi, Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, George Hallowell, Rita Hansen Sterne, Sonomi Hirata, Heidi Hohmann, Paula Horrigan, John Hu, Misun Hur, Lahib Jaddo, Vibhavari Jani, Christine Jazwinski, Sara Jensen, Didem Kan Kilic, Mihyun Kang, Shubhra Kannan, Stephen Kaplan, Ellen Keable, Suk-Kyung Kim, Nana Kirk, Jayoung Koo, Maria Kornakova, Jain Kwon, Christiana Lafazani, Joern Langhorst, Jessu Lara, Lisa Lim, Georgia Lindsay, Richard Lloyd, Janet Loebach, Lene Lottrup, Gabriela Luna, Yang Luo, Victoria Linn Lygum, Debarati Majumdar Narayan, Gesine Marquardt, Sanjoy Mazumdar, Janetta Mccoy, Lindsay Mccunn, Deborah Middleton, Danny Mittleman, Hiroko Mizumura, Victoria Morckel, Galen Newman, Crispino Ochieng, Eva Oliveira, Eric Orlando Jiménez Rosas, Patricia Ortega-Andeane, Bryan Orthel, Sheng-Jung Ou, Isil Oygur, Samira Pasha, Lynn Paxson, Yael Valerie Perez, Illène Pevec, Luis Pippi, Jena Ponti, Kyriakos Pontkis, Lubomir Popov, Isabel Rego, Jenny Roe, Yodan Rofe`, Christian Runge, Robert Ryan, Hans Sagan, Henry Sanoff, Lynda Schneekloth, Corey Schnobrich, Ulrich Schramm, David Seamon, Hyun-Bo Seo, Archana Sharma, Jung-Hye Shin, Frank Sleegers, Jihyun Song, April Spivack, David Spooner, Thea Standerski, Wei-Chia Su, Takemi Sugiyama, Lolly Tai, Jackie Teed, Kristin Thorleifsdottir, Zeynep Toker, Maria Luisa Trindade Bestetti, Elif Tural, Clarine Van Oel, Elizabeth Vandermark, Janet Wampler, Zhe Wang, Chia-Hui Wang, Nicholas Watkins, Lisa Waxman, Nanci Weinberger, Jeremy Wells, Kyle Whitfield, Julie Wolfe, Helena Yoon, Hae-Young Yun, and Bo Zhang EDRA42Chicago Proceedings Network Participants Mallika Bose (Active Living by Design) Barbara Brown (Active Living by Design) Darcy Varney (Children & Youth Environments) Yusuki Kita (Cities & Globalization) April Allen (Cultural Aspects of Design) Sanjoy Mazumdar (Cultural Aspects of Design) Saif Haq (EDRAMove) Sue Torgrude (EDRAMove) Jeremy Wells (Historic Preservation) Cherif Amor (Interior Design) Mohammad Gharipour (International Housing) Susana Alves (Nature & Ecology) Aaron Hipp (Nature & Ecology) Lubomir Popov (POE/Programming) Tasoulla Hadjiyanni (Residential Environments) Janet Loebach (Student Network) April Spivak (Work Environments) Invited Papers and Special Presentations Invited Papers & Special Presentations Keynote Address Creating a Children’s Hospital by Engaging the City of Chicago Thursday, May 26, 10:30am Bruce Komiske, MHA, FACHE Bruce Komiske, Chief of New Hospital Design and Construction, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, will focus on the importance and impact of engaging the Chicago community and cultural groups in a participatory process to fund and build the tallest children’s hospital in the world, the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Komiske’s address cross cuts interest in healthcare design, workplace design, children and youth environments, and participatory design, by discussing the development of this children’s hospital design program that integrated deep programmatic participation from over a half dozen Chicago area museums, each of which developed, integrated, and curated museum artifacts into the design of the hospital. Bruce Komiske is considered a “world expert” on all facets of hospital operations, planning, design and construction. He is an experienced healthcare executive who has had the opportunity to plan, build, operate and raise the philanthropic support for eight new hospitals, each more innovative than the previous, all from the owner’s perspective. In addition, he is a frequent speaker, author and consultant on the inclusive planning process, healing environments, engaging the community in a healthcare project, all facets of children’s hospitals, healthcare design and healthcare philanthropy for hospitals around the world. He is the editor and creator of Children’s Hospitals – the World’s Best Designed (Images Publishing), Children’s Hospitals – The Future of Healing Environments (Images Publishing), Maria’s Wish, the Story of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital (Images Publishing), and Family Partnership in Hospital Care (Springer Publishing). Prior to his position at Children’s Memorial Hospital, Komiske led the pre construction planning for the University of California San Francisco, (UCSF), Mission Bay Project, a $1.5 billion, Children’s, Women’s and Cancer Hospital. He received his Masters in Hospital Administration from Duke University and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 1 Invited Papers & Special Presentations Plenary Sessions Wishful Thinking or Welcome Change? Scrutinizing New Workplace Beliefs Big Plans to Restore the Rustbelt: The Calumet Region of Indiana and Illinois Friday, May 27, 10:30am Saturday, May 28, 10:30am Ellen Keable, Jacobs Global Buildings Consulting; Tim Springer, HERO-inc; Sally Augustin, Design With Science; Christopher Budd, STUDIOS architects; Daniel Mittleman, DePaul University; and Jay Brand, Haworth Lynne Westphal, U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station; Laurel Ross, Chicago Wilderness; John Swanson, Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission; and Aaron N. Durnbaugh, Chicago Department of Environment’s Natural Resources and Water Quality Division Workplace innovation draws on assumptions about changes in the nature of work, people, business, and technology. Projected benefits of new workplace are based on beliefs about the effects of places on human performance, satisfaction, and health. They seem true – but is there evidence? How much is wishful thinking? How much is visioning for the future? Does experience prove these beliefs are the right road to success? This session uses a Pecha Kucha format to discuss some of the most common assumptions behind models of “The Workplace of the Future”. These short, provocative presentations will draw on relevant research, organizational values, and practitioners’ own experience on the following common beliefs: 1. Collaborative Work Is More Important Than Individual Work. 2. Seeing and Hearing Work Activities Keeps People Connected and Collaborative. 3. People Can Work Anywhere. 4. Change Management Eases Acceptance of Workplace Innovation 5. Older Generations Should Adopt Newer Generations’ Ways Of Working 2 The Calumet region hugs the shore line of Lake Michigan from southeast Chicago through northwest Indiana, including the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Long before the Calumet Region became the largest area of heavy industry in the world, it was part of the most extensive network of wetlands in the Midwest area of the United States. Today, two decades after the decline of the steel industry, Calumet bears a legacy of both environmental riches and its industrial heritage. On a short drive, you might see bird-filled marshes, active industry and abandoned factories, slag heaps, popular riverfront fishing spots, landfill “hills,” and patches of forestland. While the region’s residents struggle with limited economic opportunities and share serious concerns about pollution, they are also enormously proud of the remaining natural areas and the local industrial heritage. The conference theme “Make No Little Plans” is a good fit for Calumet. Calumet has always been big – from the steel plants and infrastructure, to the passion and efforts people bring to caring for the region, to the flurry of plans to bring Calumet to its next phase. These plans include the Chicago Wilderness’s Green Infrastructure Vision, the Marquette Plan for northwest Indiana, and the Calumet Area Land Use Plan for Chicago. This presentation will discuss these plans, the partnerships that brought the plans into being, the research that informed them, and the future steps needed to make the plans a reality. Invited Papers & Special Presentations Design Practitioner Intensives Sustainable Charrette: Fully Integrated Thinking Wednesday, May 25, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm, HOK Chicago, 60 E Van Buren St., Chicago, IL Organized by Colin Rohlfing, Senior Associate, Sustainable Design Leader, HOK “Using a living systems thinking tool to bring about innovative design solutions and social change.” The creation of the built environment will someday revolve around the idea of Fully Integrated Thinking (FIT)—a living systems thinking tool created using the Biomimicry Guild’s ‘Life’s Principles’. It aligns and interconnects currently disconnected systems and decision-making processes through rethinking and repositioning a city as one system or ecosystem. By rethinking of the city as an ecosystem, we are able to align with both the wisdom and genius of the place (the natural environment) and how we have settled that place. It helps us fit in by modeling nature’s local best practices and leveraging those latent strategies, functions, and opportunities. This tool allows us to be able to look to the local/regional biomes and ask, “What are the regional realities that we can look to, and then relate to what we are doing?” FIT is the starting point. Species in place are naturalized—they do something beneficial for the system they are a part of, and the system becomes generative over time. How do human beings become naturalized to our place, and thus by default, become generative? To be naturalized, you fit in. Over time, an ecosystem will create more diversity, more resilience, more… life. In thinking of our legacy, how do we want to leave our cities for our children and grandchildren? Nature leaves a place better than it was. How do we become a naturalized, generative species? May 2011 – Make No Little Plans This charrette will focus on systems that have a correlation to the entire ecosystem of a city. Participants will engage select city sites on varying levels through various means of education and learning and will be challenged to answer the question, “How do human beings become naturalized to our place, and thus by default, become generative?” Participants will be equipped with a FIT matrix and will have to utilize triple bottom line thinking and Life’s Principles to create connections between the city sites, both visited and nonvisited. The ultimate goal of the charrette is to establish goals, strategies, and connections for the FIT systems listed below that will benefit multiple sites around the city, whether built or vacant. FIT Systems (how an ecosystem/city functions): Environmental Ecology, Water, Atmosphere, Materials, Energy, Food Social Community, Culture, Health, Education, Governance, Transport, Shelter Economic Commerce, Value Life’s Principles (how nature solves problems using its own “technology”): • Use Benign Manufacturing • Leverage Interdependence • Optimize Rather than Maximize • Resiliency • Integrate a Cyclic Process • Locally Attuned and Responsive . 3 Invited Papers & Special Presentations Lost in Translation: The Design Challenges Faced by Multinational Corporations Wednesday, May 25, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm April Spivack, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Martin Hodulak, Top Office Management; Akikazu Kato, Mie University; Chan Kee, Design-Environment Group Architects LLP For many corporations, business on a global scale has become a necessity in order to expand or maintain their competitiveness. In order to achieve the necessary global presence, executives of these corporations are challenged to establish and maintain international divisions outside of their own country. These executives are faced with the paradox of maintaining their original corporate identity, while remaining sensitive to the new cultural context in which they now operate. However, this paradox is not always recognized or respected by decision-makers, which can lead to a cookie-cutter approach to physical space design across national boundaries. Creating identical offices using the same processes in each locale ignores the important ways that national culture should influence the placedesign process and the ultimate physical form of office environments. The purpose of this intensive is to explore this paradox of flexible consistency from the perspective of the design of these international sites. To that end, we will invite a series of speakers with a range of related experiences to share their viewpoints. Participants will include: - Executives within multinational corporations, who have to meet local employees’ expectations while maintaining corporate values and routines. - Practitioners working with these organizations who have to adapt or find solutions to global models when the “one design fits all” approach may not work as planned. - International or national consultancy firms who, out of their own scope of work, have developed approaches and methodologies to resolve national culture-based conflicts. 4 In order to explore the most central issues, speakers will represent different professional perspectives and national cultures. Presentation: Design Challenges for Multinational Corporations, Speaking from Asian Perspectives When comparing offices for local organizations and multinational corporations, the situation is quite similar in Japan and Singapore. For local companies, the average floor area is smaller, and fewer provisions for privacy are provided. Along with discussing photos and floor layout plans, three Mie University master’s degree students will discuss their experiences in the United States and Singapore during an internship abroad program in summer 2010. Implementing Person-Centered Design in Healthcare: Building Connections Wednesday, May 25, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Speakers include: Margaret Calkins, PhD, CAPS, EDAC; Doug Erickson, FASHE, CHFM, HFDP; Bonnie Mahon, RN, BSN, MSM; Jain Malkin, CID, AAHID, EDAC; Robert Mayer, PhD; Kim Montague, AIA, LEED AP; Ray Pentecost, DrPH, FAIA, FACHA, LEED AP; Jude Rabig, RN, PhD; and Jane Rohde, AIA, FIIDA, ACHA, AAHID There has been a dramatic shift over the past several decades to include patients/residents/families as active partners in care, across the full continuum of care. However, insufficient attention has been directed at the important role and positive impact of patient/ family/person-centered care, especially with respect to the design and built environment of healthcare settings. This session will highlight some of the ways in which patient/family/person-centered care is being translated throughout the creative design process across acute and long-term healthcare settings to create very positive outcomes. This intensive is made possible by the generous support of the Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild Foundation. Lunch will be provided for all attendees and is sponsored by SAGE. Invited Papers & Special Presentations The Research Funders Speak: Support for Applied and Theoretical Research Thursday, May 26, 9:00 am – 10:00 am Speakers include: Stephanie Whitlock, Program Officer, Graham Foundation; Gary Gumpert PhD, President, Urban Communication Foundation; Susan Drucker, PhD, Treasurer, Urban Communication Foundation and Professor, Department of Journalism/ Media Studies, School of Communication, Hofstra University; Michael F. Bloom, Sustainability and Green Buildings Program Advisor, Office of Federal HighPerformance Green Buildings (MG), U.S. General Services Administration It would be wonderful to live in a world where all worthy research projects are fully funded. Unfortunately, we don’t. Speakers at this session will share information and insights on obtaining funding for applied and more theoretical research. Design Practitioner Professional Development: Writing and Administering Surveys Friday, May 27, 8:00 am – 9:00 am Speaker: Sally Augustin, PhD, Principal, Design With Science Show Me the Data: The Essential Role of Research in Making the Business Case for Building a Better Hospital Friday, May 27, 9:00 am – 10:00 am Speaker: Sara O. Marberry, EVP and COO, The Center for Health Design At a time of enormous uncertainty and pressure on healthcare leaders, an often overlooked opportunity is the connection between the built environment of healthcare and its impact on safety and quality. The Center for Health Design (CHD) has identified more than 1,200 studies that describe how the built environment can reduce infections, falls, medication errors, unnecessary in-hospital transfers, and staff injuries. In addition, economics is often a major barrier to incorporating cost effective building design innovations in healthcare settings. Many healthcare leaders do not fully understand the importance of balancing one time capital/construction costs with the multi-year operating cost savings of a facility. They need and want data to support the decisions they are making. In this presentation, Sara Marberry will show how data can be used to present the business case for better building design. She will describe the Fable Hospital®, a hypothetical facility that incorporated proven design innovations based on actual research and achieved remarkable results. Marberry will also share results and examples from CHD’s Pebble Project® research initiative, in which several pioneering hospitals have used an evidence-based design process to incorporate many design innovations into their projects. She’ll present several strategies for encouraging clients to fund research and examples of creative funding approaches. Design practitioners need a range of different information to do their jobs well, and often collect at least some of it using surveys. Attend for realistic insights and recommendations for writing and administering those surveys. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 5 Invited Papers & Special Presentations Watching Closely: Environmental Design Insights Courtesy of the Lincoln Park Zoo Gorillas Friday, May 27, 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Speakers include: Christina Nippert-Eng PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology, Acting Chair Department of Social Sciences, Illinois Institute of Technology; Sally Wong; Jim Hornor; Jason Dominski; and Eugene Limb We can learn a lot about places in which humans thrive by studying the spaces in which gorillas flourish. Sound far-fetched? You’ll be a believer by the end of this session. Nippert-Eng will also discuss observational research in a whole new way – observing gorillas leads to loads of insights for improving how observational research is done. Design Practitioner Professional Development: Post-Occupancy Evaluations in the Trenches Friday, May 27, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Speaker: Greg Allen Barker, AIA Post occupancy evaluation was initially recognized as a formal process using the structure and methods of environmental design research. This approach to POE has become increasingly familiar to and accepted by major institutions with both individual projects and major building programs, such as the United States Postal Service, The San Francisco Public Library, and US General Services Administration. However, the scope of effort to conduct such POEs tends to be more costly than most capital development programs are able to accommodate. This workshop reexamines the fundamental structure and methods used for POEs, taking the United States Postal Service Level One POE as an 6 example of modest scope POEs, and seeks to define a basic structure and set of research methods that can be used by project managers and/or design professionals without advanced research training for useful facility evaluations at a level of effort commensurate with most capital development projects. Design Practitioner Professional Development: Ask the Research Experts Saturday, May 28, 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Experts available include: Sally Augustin, PhD, Principal, Design With Science; Ann Devlin, PhD, Professor, Connecticut College; and Nick Watkins, PhD, Director of Research, HOK Are you a design practitioner facing a research challenge? If you are, bring your questions to this session and ask the research experts for suggestions on resolving them. Invited Papers & Special Presentations CAREER AWARD WINNER Galen Cranz, PhD, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, is the 2011 recipient of the EDRA Career Award. The accomplishments of Galen Cranz, PhD, in teaching, research, and design have inspired a generation of students and professionals. Her ability to transcend the boundaries of discipline, to cross from meticulous intellectual work to applied research and design, and her passion, integrity, and deep concern for the rightness of all things and places we use embody what is best about EDRA. Her decades of teaching and lectures at U.C. Berkeley and at numerous other national and international institutions and conferences have exposed individuals from many fields to the effect of the environment on people. In over three decades of teaching, she has served as a mentor and role model for students. Her survey classes in social factors in architecture at Berkeley have touched thousands of students while her graduate courses and advising have nurtured many others. Many of these students are currently practicing informed design, teaching, and carrying out research across the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Cranz’s research stretches in scale from the human body to large urban parks, and her work has also made social factors in design accessible to a wider audience beyond the academy. Her book The Politics of Park Design, A History of Urban Parks in America is a staple reading for landscape architecture students across the country. More recently, her book The Chair won the 2004 EDRA Achievement Award and gained the attention May 2011 – Make No Little Plans of the international media. For this book, Galen was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air by Terry Gross as well as on Australian and British radio. As the result of this research, she also consulted in ergonomics with furniture and automobile manufacturers. Additionally, although not formally trained as a designer, Dr. Cranz has transcended the role of researcher and academic by participating in and winning design competitions for urban parks. Perhaps most notable is her collaboration with architect Bernard Tschumi which was the winning entry for the competition for the design of Parc de la Villette in Paris. Dr. Cranz has played a significant role in advocating for assessment of designed spaces. For many years, students in her Social Factors in Design class worked in teams to conduct post-occupancy evaluations of buildings on the campus and in the community. This process not only taught design students about the difference between design intention and actual use, but also specific methods for collecting information: interviews, surveys, as-built drawings, etc. At the 2010 EDRA conference, she presented an assessment of this work and proposed a very critical need to shift from evaluation to assessment. It is due to this type of long-range view of the evolving nature of environmental design research as well as her impressive accomplishments in teaching, research, and applied design that we award Dr. Cranz the 2011 EDRA Career Award. 7 Invited Papers & Special Presentations SERVICE AWARD WINNER Janice Bissell, PhD, Principal, The Practitioner’s Resource, is the 2011 recipient of the EDRA Service Award. Janice Bissell, PhD has been a member of EDRA since 2002 and served the organization as a board member from August 2007 through July of 2010. Janice’s efforts go far beyond the service expected of board members. During the past five years Janice has served the organization through her tireless volunteer efforts to organize, improve and professionalize EDRA’s annual conference. Janice served as Conference Chair of EDRA 38 in Sacramento. As the single individual acting as conference chair, she secured conference sponsors, schedules, tours, plenary speakers, worked with the hotel to ensure that all details were addressed, and generally gave the conference a professional atmosphere. During the next year, Janice continued to work on conference related issues and became the liaison between the EDRA office and the Veracruz Conference Chair and committee for EDRA39. In preparation for the EDRA 40 conference, Janice continued to act as liaison between the EDRA office and the Conference Committee, working on improving conference quality. It is likely that EDRA would not have been able to successfully carry on with the EDRA 41 conference in Washington DC without Janice’s critical involvement. It is a testament to Janice’s commitment and service to EDRA that over the past five years she acted in her role as conference liaison/event organizer in a volunteer capacity. She committed to increasing the professional- 8 ism of EDRA’s main public event. She stepped in to assist local conference chairs and depending on the abilities of each did whatever was needed to ensure that the annual conference was worry-free for EDRA members Additionally, Janice’s presence on the board strengthened design practitioner representation within EDRA. This representation led to new and revised EDRA policies and increased revenues from additional sponsorships and membership. Efforts with the NAED and other initiatives demonstrated a clear and unwavering vision to bridge gulfs among research, practice, and policy. Much of Janice’s efforts were clearly driven by a sincere love for EDRA and what it represents. Such devotion was evident when she assumed responsibility over the EDRA business office following Janet Singer’s passing. Janice shouldered several early morning and late nights. During these odd hours she not only assumed conference organization responsibilities, but reviewed boxes of paperwork to prepare EDRA for a transition to its current Washington, D.C., office. Janice’s stellar track record in conference organization and management and her passion for EDRA as an organization makes her a unique and outstanding member of this organization. Janice’s commitment to EDRA and its mission makes her the recipient of the 2011 EDRA Service Award. Invited Papers & Special Presentations Refereed Full Papers May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 9 Invited Papers & Special Presentations 10 Refereed Full-Papers How the Logic of Research Misunderstands the Logic of Design Martin Brösamle (University of Freiburg, Germany), Magda Mavridou (University College London, UK), Christoph Hölscher (University of Freiburg, Germany) This paper was presented at EDRA41 in Washington, D.C. Abstract Evidence-based design aims to optimize design solutions based on empirical evidence, scientific research, and other available information. Candidate solutions are explored and evaluated according to criteria and principles derived from various fields of research and scientific investigation. We present the optimization of a conference centre with respect to wayfinding complexity: Based on empirical evidence (wayfinding experiments), formal analysis (Space Syntax), and architectural expertise, the existing building is systematically modified. The variations will later be built in a virtual version of the conference centre such that the effectiveness of the new solutions can be tested empirically. The authors analyze their own research process with respect to the dependencies between the three ostensibly independent components: analysis of the status-quo, development of design interventions, and finally the empirical evaluation of the resulting design variants. Having a closer look at the re-design process itself and how it draws on the previous scientific results reveals that the preceding analyses strongly influence the exploration of new design solutions. While this is in line with the idea of evidence-based design, nevertheless it indicates an inter-dependency between research methods and design. In the light of the restricted-ness of available research methods this demonstrates a narrowing factor in the production of design solutions. More striking is the finding that the availability of evaluation methods projects back on the design generation; naively, the evaluation follows the design generation and should therefore not influence it. The interwoven-ness of the three components in the evidence-based design process have strong methodological implications: The methods of analysis as well as evaluation May 2011 – Make No Little Plans techniques have a strong impact on resulting design solutions. It is therefore necessary to carefully coordinate research methods and design intention. 1 Introduction Wayfinding and navigation issues have been discussed in different disciplinary fields such as Architecture, Environmental Design as well as Behavioral and Cognitive Science. (Evans & McCoy 1998; Passini 1996) Weisman (1981) is one of the first to formally address environmental factors influencing the navigability of built environments. Our own research aims at the systematic investigation of architectural properties that shape human wayfinding cognition in architecture: Hölscher, Meilinger, Brösamle and Knauff (2006) asked participants to find six locations in a complex, multi-level conference centre, located in Günne am Möhnesee, Germany. (Fig 1) Based on wayfinding FIGURE 1: The Conference Centre in Günne, Lake Möhne, Germany. 11 Refereed Full-Papers behaviour, debriefing interviews, and informal architectural analysis Hölscher et al. (2006) identify a number of architectural properties they consider responsible for the navigation difficulties. Brösamle, Vrachliotis and Hölscher (2007) provide a formal analysis of the architecture of the conference centre based on Space Syntax methods (Bafna 2003). They relate characteristic configurational properties to each of the previously identified usability issues. The present paper discusses a number of options for re-designing the existing conference centre, with an emphasis on usability optimization. Following an evidence-based design scheme, development of design variations will consider empirical results and architectural analysis. Candidate solutions will then be evaluated in order to put the intended improvements under empirical test. From an idealistic scientific point of view, we are looking for a universal test criterion, which distinguishes between good and bad design solutions – similar to a litmus test. Furthermore, we not only intend to recognize good design solutions, but we also want to understand how architectural design succeeds or fails to produce them: Which design principles are capable of producing good designs? Knowing which approach leads to good (or bad) design potentially reveals crucial ingredients of good architecture. As it turns out, the ideal of a universal evaluation criterion for all candidate designs contradicts the intrinsic properties of design: A litmus-test type of evaluation is based on a simple test based on the same (few) variables. By contrast, design problems typically are characterized by their manifold conceptions resulting in different and large sets of variables. (Goel & Pirolli 1992) Different design solutions follow from different conceptions of the matter, which in turn influences the criteria of evaluation. But even in laboratory science, where well-defined criteria appear to be possible, established concepts, procedures, and instruments implicitly influence and constrain scientific investigation. Ludwik Fleck (1980, orig. 1935)1 identifies implicit constraints in the laboratory-centred development of the pathological entity syphilis. His argument draws on social mechanisms in groups of researchers: Scientific procedures, such as laboratory tests in immunology, co-evolve with pre- dominant thought styles (‘Denkstil’) in a though collective (‘Denkkollektiv’). The present paper makes two points: First, design variations of the Günne conference centre and the underlying design rationale will be presented. Second, the context of their production and evaluation will be considered as a factor influencing the design outcome as well as the overall scientific process. The production and investigation of design variations is constrained by considered analyses and empirical data as well as available evaluation methods; just as the conception of syphilis was implicitly constrained by procedures, instruments, and collective conceptions. We will show a ‘backward’ influence from evaluation-related methodological arguments on the actual productive design decisions. 2 Methods First, a brief review of the architectural analyses of the existing conference centre and wayfinding-related empirical evidence will be given. Second, the corresponding systematic design interventions developed by the three authors are presented. A set of systematic and theoretically motivated variations of the existing conference centre was to be developed. These design variants should then be evaluated in order to reveal design principles capable of producing well-navigable design solutions. In order to show the implications of scientific methods on the design outcome, we make our own research activity to an object of investigation itself. The present study re-constructs the course of arguments between the three authors while developing the design variants and the evaluation study. Sessions were structured as expert interviews – one Architect taking the role of an interviewed expert while two Cognitive Scientists acted as interviewers. While the Architect was responsible for actually producing design modifications, critical questions from the interviewers ensured the explication of underlying design rationale. At a later stage, the scheme was shifted from the strict interviewer-informer-type of dialogue towards a collaborative discussion. All sessions where video recorded such that verbal utterances could be transcribed as well as gestures and drawing marks be reconstructed. The data would allows for 1 Thomas Kuhn would later mention the works of Ludwig Fleck as an important influence on his own ‘Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. He would give the concept thought style a much stronger twist and call it a ‘paradigm’. 2 Double quotes “ ” indicate direct citation whereas single quotes ‘ ’ indicate special words, informal expressions or the like. 12 Refereed Full-Papers further, more formal analyses (Suwa, Purcell & Gero 1998; Brösamle & Hölscher 2008) which is however not necessary for the point to be made here. Discourse is reconstructed along the interview transcript, where direct citations represent crucial turns in the argumentation between Architecture (A) and Science (S or S1/S2).2 3 Development of Design Variants Review of Status Quo Analsyes: There are two main studies dealing with the conference centre and its usability issues in the present form. As already mentioned, Hölscher et al. (2006) address wayfinding difficulties directly by asking participants to find targets in the building and to explain their impressions of the building in debriefing interviews. Brösamle et al. (2007) provide a formal account of the architectural structure by quantifying configurational aspects and making visibility relations explicit. The key components of these two studies is user behaviour (and cognition) on the one hand and spatial structure on the other. Most usability issues are comprehensible under the concepts provided by these studies, such as the lack of visibility of navigation options or staircases, dead ends in circulation relevant areas and the like. Less obvious is the phenomenon that the building seems to fail to communicate a clear main staircase. Related evidence comes from the debriefing interviews of the 2006 study, where users complained about the absence of a clear main staircase. In the 2007 study this finding is reflected in the results from Visibility Graph Analyses (Turner et al. 2001) which analyse each floor separately. (Fig 2) In the lower floors the foyer stairs (left in the figure) is more integrated 3 than the stairs close to the living quarters (right in the figure). By contrast, in the first and second floor the pattern switches such that the living quarter stairs is the more integrated one. Brösamle et al. (2007) conclude that the role of the staircase is different in different floors, namely, for the upper floors the living quarter stairs is most important while the foyer stairs is most important in the two lower floors. This makes plausible that users have difficulties in deciding for one main staircase. 4 Exploration of design solutions Layout-centred aspects: The design interventions discussed in the very begin- 3 ning of the sessions all follow most directly from the previous analyses, namely to improve the visibility in the entrance area and make the adjoining staircase directly visible from the entrance hall. Other early solutions are based on the non-congruence of the different floors. They either intent to make the ground floor similar to the basement such that the mental integration between floors can be improved (Soeda, Kushiyama, and Ohno 1997) or try to reduce the basement to a minimum of complexity. (cf. Brösamle & Hölscher 2007) FIGURE 2: Integration Values of two Staircases. The Values are based on separate analyses for each floor. While in the lower floor the staircase in the Foyer is more integrated whereas in the upper floors the pattern switches such that the Stairs in the Living Quarters is more integrated. ‘Integration’ is a Space Syntax measure reflecting the centrality of a space in relation to the overall system (building, city). (cf. Bafna, 2003) May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 13 Refereed Full-Papers Independent of how complex or simple these layout oriented interventions are, they can be characterised as closely related to the spatial structure of the building. The underlying design rationale is based on layout, configuration and visibility. An other instance of such layout-driven interventions widens corridors, moves staircases towards more visible locations, straightens zig-zag-turns and so on. The underlying reasoning is always about making crucial parts easily visible from key points, and to provide overview in important areas. (Fig 4) A much more “invasive” solution, which directly addresses the main staircase issue, puts an atrium in the foyer. (Fig 5) The staircase would become easily recognizable as the central staircase. At the same time, the upper floors are well connected with the ground floor entrance area. An alternative to the atrium makes the staircases easily recognizable by straightening the corridor in the first and second floor. Similarly, the corridor could be reorganized into an L-shape instead of the zigzag-turns. The recognition of each stairs would be facilitated by increasing overall visibility in the corridor layout. While the latter three solutions are the more elaborate instances in the layout-based category, there is an other intervention which is, in principle, the most direct FIGURE 3: The design variant ‚congruent floors’ makes the floorplan layout match between different levels. FIGURE 4: This design variant is primarily based on layout-based, ‘syntactical’ interventions. E.g. corridors are widened and staircase locations are changed, such that they improve visual access. 14 Refereed Full-Papers cure of the identified integration pattern in the separate floor analysis (Fig 2). The difference in the integration pattern between the two upper floors and the two lower floors was seen as resulting from an “in-balance” in the building. To re-balance the upper floors, a connection between the lecture room part and the living quarters in the first floor was suggested (Fig 3): S: “So one of the reasons why we naively thought of making this connection upstairs on the first floor was to give it more balance.” It is not surprising, that this solution was suggested by the Scientists party (S), which also made the related analysis. Functional aspects: S: “You were not so fond of the idea of making a connection upstairs?” A: “No. I think with the existing layout, it wouldn’t help that much. It would help, but not that it would make a big difference. It would make more sense and much more difference if the functions were shifted, especially if the offices were upstairs and the lecture rooms downstairs, so there’s no need of connection because this [the offices] would work totally independently, function-wise.” As we can see, the Architecture party (A) suggested to re-arrange functional areas instead of making connections between “two spaces [that] have different function“. The underlying design rationale is no longer primarily layout driven but emphasizes function as a second aspect: A: “It’s a relation of the function and the layout of the building. It should not be looked at only as a layout, but because it has a function as well, the function should be taken into account rather than – the function can help the mapping of the layout.” The previous analyses were based on Space Syntax methods and Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) and thus triggered a spatial and configuration-centred approach to the problem. The problem was identified syntactically and the attempt to solve it was also syntactical. What is expressed in the above citation is an approach which re-conceptualizes the problem as optimizing the correspondence between spatial and functional characteristics. With respect to usability, the previous idea of “how […] [to] assign specific functions to layout” has a cognitive component to it: A: “[People ] are not all equal as users […] it’s even good to have spaces which are not equal and are not grasped by everyone the same way, so you want to have different understandings of the building by different users.” The concept of “visitability” nicely condenses the troika of functional, spatial and user group aspects. The function-related solution of the main-staircase-issue is clearly distinguished from the layout-related solutions: it needs no changes of layout at all. FIGURE 5: The design variant introduces an atrium into the intrance area. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 5 Evaluate Design Solutions Following from the overall challenge – to produce 15 Refereed Full-Papers navigation-friendly designs – a reasonable criterion of evaluation would be whether or not people are able to grasp how the circulation works for their purposes. This criterion is universal in the sense that it can be applied to every existing building design by asking the users. However this is not a practicable solution for planning, which takes place before there are users who could be asked. Ideally, solutions could be tested in beforehand. For the floor plan equalizing solution both parties agreed that it was a much better solution than the original – under a pure layout point of view. Also, there was little doubt that the improvement would easily be demonstrated by controlled wayfinding experiments in virtual reality. S: “If you think of […] the hotspots that we have tried to describe in our previous paper [Hölscher et al. (2006)], none of them have anything to do with semantics. They were all very much about the geometry of surveyed places, and staircases and connectivity and stuff. […] I mean, all that would be interventions that should reflect well in a way finding experiment […]” A: “I think it would be important to differentiate the tasks […] based on the layout and based on function. […] or you can simply say that we’re testing only the layout and we don’t care about the function […] You do solutions which improve the layout.” S: “But we cannot really test this. I mean, okay, we can test it without giving any semantic tasks to the people.” At the same time, layout interventions would have to be tested with tasks that do not refer to functions in the building. This is especially true for the labels of target locations, as was expressed in the former interview passage. Functional and semantic aspects are degraded as disturbing factors, which would have to be controlled for (rather than to be investigated). For the testing of pure layout variations, the necessity to “control for function” by using “artificial arbitrary landmarks for marking destination points” or even to “strip off” the “functionality of the building” is raised. By contrast, an attempt to develop an experiment to test solutions with respect to functional criteria was only sketched but never developed in detail. 16 A: “[…] you would assign your functions according to the level of visitability you wanted to have.” S: “Which means we cannot easily test this in VR [virtual reality].” A: “You can test the layout, but if there are no functions, then you don’t –” S: “So we don’t test the actual building, how it is working in place, but we are only testing parts of it?” A:“Yes.” While the syntactic solutions were considered as easily testable, by contrast, the functional aspects appear to be hard to test under laboratory conditions. This marks the aspectual bifurcation not only in the rationale of experimental testing but also in the design rationale. In other words, layout-based design interventions reveal their strengths under different testing conditions than function-oriented design interventions. Here, the interdependency of evaluation methods and design production – which contradicts the analytic idea of a universal ‘litmus test evaluation’ – becomes most obvious. To elaborate on this a little further, it is at odds with the very fundamental idea of analytic science: To find simple elementary explanations, processes or mechanisms to account for complex phenomena. This thinking-style (‘Denkstil’, Fleck 1980) has a hard time in analyzing the essence of design, which is holistic by nature. Architecture emphasizes the inseparability of the functional aspects from the theme of navigability: A: “navigation and way-finding is not simply about layout or simply about function, but it’s about both these things.” This last argument points to the difficulties which may arise when investigating a phenomenon as complex as Architecture whilst founding this investigation on a theory as reductionist as the symbol processing model of Cognitive Science. Goel (1995) expresses a similar concern regarding the application of classical processing models in design problem solving research. The incompatibilities between research paradigms finally propagate back to the design process under investigation: Methodological arguments on empirical testability eventually influence the final decision in favour of layout-based design variations, but against functionally motivated variations. The logic of the laboratory has re-directed design activity and scientific in- Refereed Full-Papers vestigation: ‘What constitutes a good design solution?’ was – at least partly – re-formulated as ‘Which aspects of good design can be investigated under controlled conditions?’. 6 Discussion and Outlook The self-investigation presented here shows that the introduction of scientific methods into the design process may result in un-anticipated constraints or biases. Environmental design research as well as evidencebased design has to consider the formative influence that analytic techniques, scientific concepts, and evaluation methods may have on the overall process. The conflict between analytic science and productive, “holistic” design points to the question how design solutions should be put under investigation. Especially, it is an open question whether laboratories of empirical sciences are the right tool to inform practical design. The impulse to reduce a whole design solution solely to layout illustrates the inherent difficulties in the methodology. For example, in controlled navigation studies, it is common practice to use arbitrary landmarks (Janzen 2006), which was introduced in the above discussion to “strip off” the semantics of a building. To conclude, available tools, research methodology, problem conception, thought style (Fleck), and choice of evaluation criteria have a strong impact on the course of scientific and design processes and thus influence the overall outcome. Acknowledgements This research was funded by the SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition of the German Research Council (DFG). May 2011 – Make No Little Plans References Bafna, Sonit. 2003. “Space syntax: A brief introduction to its logic and analytical techniques.” Environment and Behavior 35(1), 17-29. Brösamle, Martin, Christoph Hölscher, and Georg Vrachliotis. 2007. “Multi-Level complexity in terms of Space Syntax.” In Proceedings, 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, Istanbul: Istanbul Technical University. Brösamle, Martin and Christoph Hölscher. 2008. “The Architects’ Understanding of Human Navigation.” In Movement and Orientation in Built Environments: Evaluating Design Rationale and User Cognition, Report Series of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition, edited by Saif Haq, Christoph Hölscher, and Sue Torgrude. Bremen/Freiburg, Germany: University of Bremen / University of Freiburg. Brösamle, Martin, and Christoph Hölscher. 2007. “Architects seeing through the eyes of building users.” In Spatial cognition in architectural design, edited by T. Barkowsky, Z. Bilda, C. Hölscher, and G. Vrachliotis, Melbourne, Australia. http://www.sfbtr8.spatial-cognition.de/SCAD/. Evans, G.W., and J.M. McCoy. 1998. When buildings don’t work: The role of architecture in human health. Journal of Environmental Psychology 18, 85-94. Fleck, Ludwik. 1980. Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Frankfurt, Suhrkamp. Orig. Benno & Schwabe, 1935. Goel, V and P. Pirolli. 1992. The structure of design problem space. Cognitive Science 16, 395-429. Goel Vinod. 1995. Sketches of thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hölscher, Christoph, Tobials Meilinger, Georg Vrachliotis, Martin Brösamle, and Markus Knauff. 2006. Up the Down Staircase: Wayfinding Strategies and Multi-Level Buildings. Journal of Environmental Psychology 26(4), 284-299. Janzen, G. 2006. Memory for object location and route direction in virtual large-scale space. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 59, 493-508. Passini, R, 1996. Wayfinding design: Logic, application and some thoughts on universality. Design Studies 17, 319-331. Turner, A., M. Doxa, D. O’Sullivan, A. Penn. 2001. From Isovists to Visibility Graphs: A Methodology for the Analysis of Architectural Space. Environment & Planning B: Planning and Design 28, 103-121. Soeda, M., N. Kushiyama, and R. Ohno. 1997. “Wayfinding in cases with vertical Motion.” In Proceedings of MERA 97: Intern. Conference on Environment-Behavior Studies, 559564. Suwa, M., T. Purcell, and J. Gero J. 1998. Macroscopic analysis of design processes based on a scheme for coding designer’s cognitive actions. Design Studies 19(4), October 1998. Weisman, J. 1981. Evaluating architectureal legibility. Environment and Behavior 13 (2), 189-204. 17 Refereed Full-Papers Public Perception of Walkability: Assessing Perception Dependency on Scene Attributes and Respondent Characteristics Claudia Bernasconi (University of Detroit Mercy), Alan Hoback (University of Detroit Mercy) Abstract This study investigated public perception of a walking environment in Detroit, Michigan, utilizing visual evaluation techniques in order to establish correlations between perceptions of the general public and characteristics of the street environment. To accomplish this goal, we asked the public to rate pictures portraying existing urban scenes through a five-category descriptor of walkability (aesthetic quality, orientation, comfort, safety, and security). We employed landscape evaluation techniques shifting the target from the natural landscape to the urban landscape. Results indicated which attributes of the walking environment affected walkability perception. Vegetation, enclosure, rhythm, texture diversity, and sidewalk quality were positively correlated with walkability perception, while amount of sky was negatively correlated with the walkability index (WI). This study suggests the existence of a dichotomy between urban perception modes and natural landscape ones, where the first gravitate around enclosure perception and the latter around perception of openness. While assessing which respondents’ characteristics significantly influenced walkability perception, we detected familiarity and education levels as significant factors. Our findings also indicate that both site familiarity and walking ease affect ranking of the five walkability characteristics, with familiar people less concerned with safety and people with lower walking ease more concerned with comfort. Results do not reflect the complete range of influences of attributes on preferences, and limit our understanding of which particular attribute contributes the most to the WI of each scene. Such limitations are to be expected given the diverse multilayered character of the urban environment. 18 Introduction Increased dependency on vehicular transportation has given rise to a wide range of issues in the domain of social interaction and human health, affecting whole communities in the great majority of American towns and suburban areas. Cities do not always provide inhabitants with adequate pedestrian facilities or adequate pedestrian links to local attractions and businesses. The acknowledgement of a general low quality level of the walking environment has led to increased research in this field. The linkages between physical environment and walking habits have been investigated from a variety of perspectives for several decades (e.g., Cullen, 1969, Lynch, 1960, Kaplan, 1985; Furin, J. 1971). The abundant research in the planning, design, behavioral, and health fields confirms the crucial role of pedestrian transportation research in contemporary automobiledependent societies. Extensive research has been conducted striving toward the definition of levels of service (LOS) of pedestrian facilities (e.g., Gallin, N. 2001; Landis, et al., 2001), with a primary focus on safety assessment. Less research has been directed towards the understanding of the walking environment as a comprehensive space constructed by a variety of interrelated factors, which go beyond safety, security, and continuity of the paved sidewalk (e.g., Reid, 2008; Sarkar, 1993; Spooner, 2007). Most recent research has emphasized a connection between health factors and planning considerations through the employment of interdisciplinary approaches (e.g., Chanam and Moudon, 2004; Saelens, et al., 2003). This study investigated public perception of a walking environment in Detroit, Michigan, utilizing visual evaluation techniques in order to establish correlations between perceptions of the general public and characteristics of the street environment. Our goal in this study was to understand the perceived walkability of pedestrian transportation along a main urban corridor, with particular attention to walkability perception dependency on visible elements of the urban scene. We sought to separate and measure the various components that determine the cumulative experience and understand which elements had a greater influence on perception. To accomplish this goal, we asked the public to rate pictures portraying existing urban scenes through a five-category descriptor of walkability. We employed landscape evaluation techniques shifting the target from the natural landscape to the urban landscape. As indicated by Palmer (2003), the broadening of the field Refereed Full-Papers of landscape studies is desirable for the advancement of landscape perception research. The overarching goal of this research project was to develop and test new approaches to walkability assessment based on landscape evaluation techniques. More specifically, goals of this investigation were to: 1) understand public perception of walkability for urban scenes along a main transportation corridor, 2) assess scene attributes (environmental design attributes and picture attributes) that have significant relationship with public perception of walkability, 3) assess significant relationships between respondents’ characteristics and perception of walkability, and 4) offer suggestions for future planning of walking environments. Background Our study referred to the concept of walkability, intended as the ability of the built environment to promote and support walking (Jacobs, 1995; Spooner, 2007). Walkability has been investigated through a variety of Figure 1. Initial Study of the Area May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 19 Refereed Full-Papers approaches. Several scholars studied walking environments through a multidisciplinary perspective linking health, behavior, and physical environment (e.g., King et al., 2002; Frank and Engelke, 2001). A Levels of Service approach (LOS) has often been utilized in transportation research (e.g., Sarkar, 1995b). As seen in Ferreira and Sanchez (1998), this method includes on-site evaluations and is aimed to capture ranking and user perception of safety, security, comfort, continuity, and visual and psychological attractiveness of walking environments. Other studies referred to a broader range of walkability descriptors, including safety, security, convenience and comfort, continuity, system coherence, and attractiveness (Sarkar 1993). We were interested in defining and testing a new walkability assessment methodology that could be administered to a large population sample off-site, and would combine the transportation research approach (e.g., LOS) with a visual aesthetic understanding of the overall urban environment. Design theory suggests that all considerations related to the design of any built structure are highly dependent on the location and the context, as well as the specific shape of the structure itself (Appleyard et al., 1964; Holgate, 1992; Simonds and Starke, 2006). In addition, numerous authors have indicated the need for evaluating design in connection with people’s experience and perception of the overall urban environment (e.g., Lynch, 1960; Cullen, 1961; Kaplan, 1985; Bosselman, 1998; Kido, 2005). Our study follows the perception-based approaches, which emphasize the human dimension of values connected to the natural and urban landscape (Dan- iel, 2001). Extensive research has been conducted to improve the understanding of the aesthetic qualities of landscapes (Litton, 1968; McKenzie and McKenzie, 1980; Schuttleworth, 1980; Palmer, 1983; Smardon et al., 1986; Coeterier, 1996; Priestley and Evans, 1996; Schmid, 2001; Arriaza et al., 2004; Wong, 2005). Most assessment tools and techniques have examined preferences for natural landscapes more often than urban landscapes and man-made structures. Numerous studies support the idea that specific characteristics of an urban environment can significantly impact perception of walking environments and affect behavior (Hieronymus, et. al, 2009; Naderi, 2003; Zacharias, 2001, Lavery et al., 1996). Scholars advocate a better integration of quantitative and qualitative elements in the assessment of the walking environment (Reid, 2008) and indicate that subjective perceptions of the walking experience should be included in urban design studies (Brown et al., 2007). While scholars have investigated relationships between environmental attributes of the urban environment and behavior (e.g., Naderi, 2003; Wolf, 2004), to the knowledge of the authors there is no comprehensive study on walkability that attempted to correlate urban environment characteristics to walkability perception from an environmental aesthetic perspective with the use of landscape evaluation techniques. New landscape evaluation tools and techniques have been developed and tested during the last 20 years (e.g., Hull and Revell, 1989; Buhyoff et al., 1994;Wherrett, 2000; Perez, 2002; Arriaza et al., 2004; Wong and Domroes, 2005; Rogge et al., 2007). There is a vast and fragmented pool of options when approaching environ- Table 1. Attributes and Picture Categorization 20 Refereed Full-Papers Table 2. Figure 2. Survey Panel May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 21 Refereed Full-Papers mental aesthetics. Landscape evaluation techniques can be divided into two main approaches: one based upon an objectivist or physical paradigm, the other based upon a subjectivist or psychological paradigm (Lothian, 1999; Daniel, 2001). The first group relies on the opinions and judgments of experts, considering quality as an inherent characteristic of the object viewed and evaluating the landscape through abstract design parameters (Daniel, 2001). The second group of studies relies on perception-based assessments or ratings from the general public gathered through written and photographic surveys. This group includes the psychophysical, the cognitive or psychological approach, and the experiential or phenomenological approach. The method employed in this study for the assessment of the urban landscape quality is referred to as psychophysical. This method achieves a compromise between expert-based and perception-based methods, combining public perception surveys and statistical analysis of the data gathered in order to identify visual components determining the public perception (Schafer et al., 1969; Daniel, 2001; Arriaza et al., 2004). Surveys are utilized to gather public preferences for scenes portrayed in photographs. In our study, we combined the identification of walkability descriptors (which we called walkability characteristics), as suggested by transportation research Table 3a. Respondent Characteristics 22 approaches (e.g., Ferreira and Sanchez, 1998), and the landscape evaluation approach, in which subjective preferences for scenes are connected to specific visible elements of the selected scenes (e.g., Arriaza, et.al, 2004). The use of photographs to elicit scene evaluations has been successfully accomplished and tested by numerous studies, which include the comparison of results of photo-based and on-site ratings (Schafer and Brush, 1977; Schuttleworth, 1980; Law and Zube, 1983; Stewart et al., 1984; Hull and Stewart, 1992; Stamps, 1990; Bernaldez et al., 1998). Study Area Our study focused on the walking environment along a primary urban corridor, Woodward Avenue, also called M1, in Detroit, Michigan. The corridor connects the heart of downtown Detroit to major city districts, such as Midtown and New Center, and to a series of suburban centers sprawling north from the city. The Woodward corridor is characterized by a variety of urban landscapes with different degrees of urban or suburban vitality, ranging from high-rise developments and commercial and business districts to ample vacant or abandoned lots and small single-family residential units. A proposed light rail system along Woodward Avenue is close to implementation. The implications for the revitalization of all decaying urban and suburban Refereed Full-Papers areas, in the light of this new infrastructural design, are great and spur investigations on use, perception, and environmental characteristics of the corridor. Furthermore, recent research has indicated that use of light rail is more likely to happen in areas that are felt as more walkable (Werner et al., 2010). In our investigation, we concentrated on the New Center area, a major city district in proximity to the existing Amtrak rail station, where a new intermodal station will be built to connect the existing rail system and new light rail transit. Methodology The methodological framework consisted of the: 1) study and mapping of the walking environment, 2) picture acquisition, 3) categorization of pictures for environmental design and picture attributes, 4) definition of walkability characteristics, 5) preference solicitation, 6) statistical analysis, and 7) results and implications. In order to refer to the psychophysical method, we mapped typologies of walking environments in the area, based on overall spatial structure (scale, vertical relationships, openness), the materiality and textures (types of building materials, maintenance levels) and entourage (people, vegetation, vehicles). Because the psychophysical method requires that the vantage points (i.e., picture-taking locations and viewsheds) be representative of conditions found in the area (Schroeder and Daniel, 1981; Hull et al., 1987; Hull and Revell, 1989) we derived the site selection for picture sampling from the study of area and the larger urban context. We did not consider utilizing a grid cell or a route sampling method, as the use of randomly determined distances has been found to often result into meaningless pictures (Rogge et al., 2007), while flexibility in view selection has been suggested to better represent how the observer experiences and views the landscape (Buhyoff et al., 1986). We used some flexibility in choosing the exact spot to take the picture to avoid obstructing elements, such as trucks, light poles, and other elements in the foreground, as suggested in Rogge et al. (2007). We captured the pictures in a landscape format consistently with previous studies (Hull and Stewart, 1992; Wherrett, 2000; Rogge et al., 2007). While little is known of the influence of picture format on perceptions, authors suggest that the landscape view better represents the human visual process, given that the binocular human visual field can be approximated as a horizontal oval shape (Webb, 1964; Sheppard, 1989; Franz, 2005). All pictures were taken at eye level with consistent orientation and without any vertical tilting of the camera. The photographic survey was conducted over two days in June with very similar light conditions. A schematic representation of the initial study is shown in Figure 1. We selected nine scenes to portray the range of walking environment typologies in the study area. We utilized both visible physical attributes of scenes and formal features (such as cognitive-related attributes), as suggested by expert and perception-based assessments (Daniel, 2001). The elements present in each image were identified as environmental design attributes (i.e., design characteristics of the walking environment) and picture attributes (i.e., general aesthetic environmental components of the scenes mainly dependent on the time and location of picture taking) (Table 1). Environmental design attributes included: spatial enclosure (buildings on the two sides of the street, building on one side of the street, no buildings along the street); horizontal plane characteristics (hard surface or mixed hard surface and grass); rhythm (repetition of vertical elements on vertical planes in the foreground); Table 4. Walkability Index (average score) Table 5. Best and worst scenes May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 23 Refereed Full-Papers color; texture diversity; sidewalk quality; sidewalk materiality; street furniture; vegetation (amount and quality); and proximity of crossroads/intersections (based on visibility in the scene). Picture attributes included: amount of people; amount of sky; color of sky; street orientation (street on right or left of the scene); amount of vehicles; and amount of shade (casted shade). The variables chosen were based on the study of the area and on a review of studies of natural landscapes (McKenzie and McKenzie, 1980; Hammitt et al., 1994; Arriaza et al., 2004; Rogge et al., 2007), and urban landscapes (Appleyard, 1981; Anderson and Schroeder, 1983; Horton and Reynolds, 1971; Wong and Domroes, 2005; Spooner, 2007). The visual components were evaluated using categorical codes as shown in Table 1. We used categories to capture major distinctions for each attribute. For example, we noted no vegetation or minimal amount (value = 0), areas containing some grass or few trees (value = 1), or areas with grass and trees/shrubs or extensive grass (value = 2), as suggested by Arriaza et al. (2004). We used horizontal plan type to measure the amount of impermeable and permeable surface, as suggested by Anderson and Schroeder (1983). We chose to include amount of vegetation as indicated by several scholars (e.g., Rogge et al., 2007; Hertzog et al., 2000; Coeterier, 1996), but we combined amount and quality, as overgrown vegetation on a pedestrian pathway might counteract positive effects of vegetation confirmed by several scholars (e.g., Wolf, 2004). We chose to include the amount and color of sky, as both determine a very diverse appearance of the scenes, as suggested by several studies (e.g., Wong and Domroes, 2005; Hammitt et al., 1994; Anderson and Schroeder, 1983). This attribute is highly dependent on ephemeral factors such as atmospheric conditions and on the relationship of the viewshed with the direction of the sunrays. The shadows attribute is strongly connected to the urban character of the scenes, and takes into account the percentage of dark areas in the picture. Landis et al., 2001, lists shade as one of the elements shaping pedestrians’ experience of street environments. The level of vehicular congestion (i.e., number of cars) was also included. Appleyard (1981) suggests higher traffic levels contribute to fewer on-street activities. The number of buildings was also included and was measured through the overall texture variability in the scene (i.e., buildings in the different grounds of the image were treated as fields of texture). Several studies have linked buildings and vehicles with differences in levels of preference for scenes (e.g., Anderson and 24 Table 6. Correlation between attributes and Walkability Index Schroeder, 1983). Amount of people in the scene was included as an attribute, as suggested by Zaccharias (1997b). Van den Berg et al., 1998 and Rogge et al, 2007 indicate that maintenance is a significant factor in perception; therefore sidewalk quality was included. We also included two attributes that do not refer to specific physical elements of the scene, but rather the relationships that occur among more elements: enclosure and rhythm. Several studies indicate that iterative-dynamic perception, depth perception, and serial vision are key components of perception of urban environments (e.g., Smardon et al., 1986; Cullen, 1961). The attribute rhythm captures the emphasis on depth in the image that occurs with the repetition of vertical elements, such as posts, shop window partitions, etc. Rhythm, as well as texture, is related to the level of detail in architecture, as its perception requires visible architectural elements dividing and characterizing a surface. Several scholars indicate the importance of detail in the perception of street environments (e.g., Loidl, et al., 2003; Hedman, 1984; Curran, 1983; Dee, 2001). Finally, enclosure has also been identified as an important component of urban environments (e.g., Cullen, 1961; Schultz, 1980; Jacobs, 2005; Moughtin, 2003) and more recently investigated in connection to walkability perception (Spooner, 2007). The study of the urban context and literature review on levels of service for pedestrian transportation (e.g., Landis et al, 2001; Ferreira and Sanchez, 1998; Sarkar, Refereed Full-Papers Table 7. Correlation among walkability characteristics 1993; Sarkar, 1995b; Furin, 1971) was utilized to define walkability predictors, i.e., walkability characteristics. We opted for a five-category descriptor for walkability including the following characteristics: comfort, orientation, aesthetics, safety, and security and provided the public with a concise definition of each characteristic (Table 2). We utilized a semantic approach with five sets of adjectives: comfortable – uncomfortable; orientating – disorienting; attractive – unattractive; safe – unsafe; secure – unsecure. We asked the public to indicate which adjective would better describe their perception of each presented scene by specifying where their perception lied in a five-point scale (as suggested by Hattori and Naka, 2010). A 11x17” panel with color scenes was utilized (Figure 2), together with a scoring sheet and a written questionnaire. The written questionnaire was used to gather respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics and included questions on site familiarity, walking habits, and walking ease, as well as on ranking of walkability characteristics. Since studies have found perception to be connected to socio-demographic factors (Lothian, 1999; Dramstad et al., 2006; Rogge et al., 2007; Elke et al., 2007), we were interested in assessing if walkability perceptions differed by group. Studies have also indicated that site familiarity may affect preference scores (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Dramstad et al., 2006); therefore we included questions on residency and frequency of visits to the area. We also administered the survey in both urban and suburban areas to capture differences among local community and commuters or visitors. Several studies have found that landscape perception varies with age (e.g., Yamashita, 2002). In particular, Ferreira and Sanches (1998) investigate ranking of quality indexes for pedestrian levels of service (i.e., visual attractiveness, comfort, continuity, safety, and security) and found significant changes among age groups. For example, in their study safety was predominantly the priority for respondents under 16, while comfort was the priority for groups from 30 to 60 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans years old. Interestingly, attractiveness was found to be the top priority for respondents over 60. The elderly are reported to be less concerned with safety and more with aesthetics. We were interested in testing dependency of ranking of walkability characteristics on respondents’ age, site familiarity, and walking habits and ease. A preliminary survey was administered during the month of June. The analysis of preliminary results led to the simplification of the written questionnaire and the modification of the visual survey. For examples, some images were changed to ensure the representation of all features of the walking environment, and the description of characteristics was simplified to aid respondents in their interpretation of survey directions. The final survey was administered during the months of August and September. Surveys were administered in areas along the Woodward corridor in three locations: the New Center area, the downtown area, and Birmingham, a suburban center north of the study area. Overall, 299 visual surveys and written questionnaires were administered, of which 282 visual surveys where successfully completed and 262 written questionnaires. Question 14 asked respondents to rank the five walkability characteristics on a five-point scale, but about 20 percent of respondents used their own method to reply to question 14, assigning the same value to more than one characteristic. For example, some respondents decided to give fives to up to five characteristics. Rather than discarding those questionnaires when analyzing importance, we took the respondents’ answers as given. A brief description of the population sample is included in Table 3a and Table 3b. Results Respondents’ ratings were used to calculate an average walkability index (WI) per scene, comprehensive of the five characteristics ratings (Table 4). When comparing the best rated and the worst rated scene (scenes 7 and 8), there is some agreement in ratings, but we also can detect some variability in answers (Table 5). In 25 Refereed Full-Papers order to understand which attributes affected walkability perception, we referred to WI for testing correlation between scene attributes and public perception. Correlation analysis was first utilized to test significant correlation among explanatory variables (i.e., environmental design and picture attributes). When there is a strong relationship between explanatory variables (multicollinearity), the variances of the parameter estimates increase (Ramanathan, 1992) and may result in lack of statistical significance of individual explanatory variables when a sample size is small. When the coefficients between two variables are higher than .75, then the variables are noted to have strong correlation. This is a common threshold to evaluate the amount of correlation between variables, as noted by Lind et al. (2008). In addition, when the p value is .1, we accept that the correlation is statistically significant. Three variables were dropped due to significant correlation: street furniture (correlated with people), sidewalk materiality (correlated with sidewalk quality), and vehicles (correlated with enclosure). The correlation test also revealed which variables are correlated with WI (Table 6). The explanatory variables that are positive and statistically significant (p=0.10) for the environmental design attributes are vegetation, enclosure, rhythm, texture diversity, and sidewalk quality. Among picture attributes, one variable, amount of sky, was statistically significant and had a negative relationship with the walkability index. Horizontal plane type and proximity of intersecting streets negatively affected the walkability index, but were not statistically significant. Similarly, color and sidewalk quality positively affected the walkability index, though not in a statistically significant manner. Among picture attributes, amount of shade had a negative effect on the walkability index, while color of sky and people positively influenced the walkability index (p>0.1). These findings confirm what was observed in best and worst scenes, as scene 7 appears open and bare, with no detail and with low-quality sidewalk, while scene 8 displays a higher degree of enclosure, people, vegetation, and shop window partitions (i.e., rhythm), and good quality sidewalk. Implications of these findings and comparison with findings from other studies will be discussed in more detail in the discussion/conclusion section of this paper. As part of the analysis, we were interested in understanding correlation between each walkability characteristic (comfort, orientation, aesthetic, safety, and security) and scene attributes. This was not possible, as we encountered a significant single-mindedness in rat- 26 ings of the five characteristics. Overall, all of the walkability descriptors were highly correlated to each other. We conducted a correlation test among characteristics and found significant correlation (Table 7). A probability test shows that there was no difference in the rating of aesthetics versus safety (p<0.01). This suggested that respondents had one mental image of a scene and based all ratings on that image. Furthermore, we found Table 8a. Familiarity & WI Table 8b. Familiarity & safety Table 8c. Familiarity & safety ranking Refereed Full-Papers Table 9. Walking ease & safety ranking reduced variability in answers as the number of rated scenes increased. Correlations were performed between our measure of single-mindedness and general information about the respondent. We wanted to know if there were any groups that we could exclude from the analysis. We looked at age, education, residency, number of walking trips, and familiarity with the area. We could not detect significant differences in single-mindedness for any group. Therefore, it was concluded that ratings of comfort versus security only were different measures of the single image that a respondent had about a scene. The implications of single-mindedness for our study and in general for transportation research will be discussed in the discussion section of this paper. One of our research objectives was to assess significant relationships between respondents’ characteristics and perception of walkability. We were interested in understanding effects of age, education, and site familiarity, walking trips, and walking ease on the walkability index. We did not detect significant effects of age, walking trips, and walkability ease on walkability perception. When testing effects of familiarity of the area on walkability perception, we found that people familiar with the area rated the scenes with a higher average score (WI), as shown in Table 8a. A probability test resulted in p < 0.01, therefore the difference was significant. In addition, we were able to measure effect of familiarity with perception of safety. As seen in Table 8b, people familiar with the area view the area as safer (p = 0.06). When testing education effects on WI, we found that more educated people tended to rate scenes lower. We also detected a number of intersecting trends. County people (vs. people from the urban area) were more educated, less familiar with the area, and rated scenes lower, while familiar people were less educated and rated scenes more highly. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans We were also interested in understanding ranking of walkability characteristics and influences of respondents’ characteristics on ranking. Overall most respondents said that safety was their primary concern in rating walkability. However, many people familiar with the area felt safety was less important for walkability compared to other issues (p=0.1) (Table 8c). We also looked at influences of walking ease on ranking of walkability characteristics. We found that people with trouble walking rated comfort as more important than safety, as shown in Table 9. Orientation also had greater importance for this group. At the same time, walkability ease did not appear to generate differences in overall rating of the scenes. Discussion/Conclusions The evaluation techniques used in this study allowed us to understand the overall perception of walkability (WI) for urban scenes that represented the wider urban context of the Woodward Avenue corridor. We were able to assess which scene attributes (environmental design attributes and picture attributes) had significant relationship with public perceptions of walkability. The discussion of findings allows us to offer suggestions for future planning of walking environments. Vegetation, enclosure, rhythm, texture diversity, and sidewalk quality were positively correlated with walkability perception, while amount of sky was negatively correlated with WI. The positive impact on walkability of the first attribute, vegetation, confirms preference for a greater amount of vegetation or for a greater naturalness of scenes, which is consistent with other studies (Rogge et al., 2007;Wolf, 2004; Herzog et al., 2000; Coeterier, 1996; Kaplan and Kaplan, 1983; Thelen, 1996; Purcell and Lamb, 1984) and also confirms the importance of natural elements in the perception of transportation systems and urban environments. In terms of enclosure, it must be noted that in our case, scenes with low levels of enclosure also resulted in lower levels of sidewalk quality and rhythm (due to the absence of buildings in the foreground). Nevertheless, this finding aligns with what found by Spooner, 2007. Interestingly, while several studies have employed openness as a predictor for landscape preferences (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Coeterier, 1996; Herzog et al., 2000) and found it positively correlated with landscape appearance, enclosure, not openness, appears to be the key predictor for studying the urban walking environment. In fact, the negative impact of amount of visible sky on perceived walkability suggests the existence of a 27 Refereed Full-Papers dichotomy between urban perception modes and natural landscape ones, where the first gravitates around enclosure perception and the latter around openness. This result spurs reflections on interpretations of the urban space as an interior one, rather than an exterior. Studies by Smardon et al., 1986; Cullen, 1961, and Schultz, 1980 provide interpretations of urban places in this direction. The importance of enclosure confirms findings of other scholars (e.g., Jacobs, 1995; Mounghtin, 2003) as well as much earlier studies by Roman and Renaissance theorists and architects (Spooner, 2007). The texture diversity and the rhythm attributes impacted positively on walkability perception. We can interpret these attributes as qualitative details of the urban environment connected to scale perception (Hedman, 1984). Other scholars (e.g., Curran, 1983, Loidl, 2003, Dee, 2003,) also reported the importance of architectural detail in their studies and highlighted the connection between surface characteristics (nature of enclosing elements) and experience of the environment. Finally, the high correlation of sidewalk quality with walkability perceptions appears consistent with traditional transportation research studies, which typically include sidewalk maintenance and continuity as key variables. While assessing which respondents’ characteristics significantly influenced walkability perception, we detected familiarity and education levels as significant factors. These findings align with results from other studies, which did not specifically treat walkability but dealt with environment, perception, and behavior (e.g., Lothian, 1999; Dramstad et al., 2006; Rogge et al., 2007). In particular Elke et al., 2007 reported that preferences greatly vary among groups with different interests due to the attachment of different levels of importance to the same landscape features. Furthermore, Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989 and Dramstad et al., 2006 have indicated that site familiarity may affect preferences for environments. In our case, we found that familiar people rated scenes more highly. This finding, in light of the fact that familiar people also were less concerned with safety, seems to point at important psychological components of perception. A crucial component of our study was the understanding of how people responded to our survey. The detected single-mindedness spurs us to question studies on walkability that attempt to separate components of the walking experience, in particular traditional transportation research (e.g., LOS approaches). The great complexity of interrelated factors calls for further research in order to test the appropriateness of utiliz- 28 ing distinct characteristics (e.g., perception of safety, or security, level of comfort, attractiveness of the street environment) as a measure of the overall holistic experience. The unwillingness of people to rank characteristics, as 20 percent of respondents choose to assign the same value to more than one characteristic, seems to confirm the difficulty in separating components of the walking experience. In Ferreira and Sanchez (1998), ranking of visual and psychological attraction, comfort, continuity, safety, and security varied with age. Our findings indicate that both site familiarity and walking ease affect ranking of walkability characteristics, with familiar people less concerned with safety and people with lower walking ease more concerned with comfort. The better understanding of ranking of different characteristics is a first step towards understanding possible approaches to walkability perception. This study is connected to both perceptual and transportation/planning research. The results from this analysis can help identify future design considerations for comparable urban environments and advance research in this field. There are, at the same time, several limitations of this study. Though our model enabled us to measure the most significant variables for perception and connections with respondents’ characteristics, the brevity of the visual survey and the high number of variables limit the extent and accuracy of results. Further research and potentially innovative survey administration techniques are needed in order to overcome study limitations. It must be noted that when studying an existing environmental setting, correlation among variables can often emerge and limit the interpretability of results, as noted by Hull et al. (1987). In our study several correlated variables were dropped in order to avoid multicollinearity. Results do not reflect the complete range of influences of attributes on preferences, and limit our understanding of which particular attribute contributes the most to the WI of each scene. Such limitations are to be expected given the diverse multilayered character of the urban environment. In addition, it is important to note that seasonal changes can affect appreciation of scenes (Palmer and Sena, 1993). Additional research is needed to capture preferences for scenes during the various seasons. Acknowledgements This study was made possible through an internal university grant. 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In addition to describing the parent action research project, the authors present key conceptual frameworks that were products of the first cycle of inquiry, document their efforts to advance community participation, and outline their strategy for transforming the project from action research in which the researchers are dominant to a participatory model in which community members have equal standing in implementing design-relevant research activities. Introduction The intentionality with which environmental designers approach their work is inherently creative since it brings new ways of thinking about how environments function and bring about satisfaction for their users. In his book, The Hidden Connections, Capra (2002) amplifies the importance of novelty to the innovation process inherent in ecological systems. As human beings enter such systems for the purposes of intentional design of environments (or for the purposes of restoration, rebuilding, or repurposing) their novelty and creative processes form critical actions in relationship to the adaptation of environments to the current needs of people and populations, and to the anticipation of needs relative to future quality of life and sustainability. Given climate change, intentional design of environments will become increasingly important as human beings seek to preserve or restore nature (Babbitt, 2005; McKibben, 2007), and adapt to the realities of new 32 climate patterns (McKibben, 2010). Capra underscores how eco-literacy and eco-design influence intentionality in environmental design. Multiple ways of action are relevant here: first, the designer must anticipate sustainability, defined here as both the careful application of the human footprint on the environment by considering the consequences and impact of design as well as the preservation of resources for future generations. Second, the designer must contemplate how human diversity itself influences the competence of environments to meet a range of human needs. False dichotomies recede within good design, offering multiple forms of mobility, reducing the distinction between able and disabled, and equipping people with ways of reading their environments so they can make informed choices about fulfilling their needs. Third, the designer must consider the centrality of environmental quality as the wellspring of human activity. Environmental degradation reduces healthy activity. Erosion of a natural and civic aesthetic reduces cognitive variation, which can reduce motivation, engagement, and enjoyment of users. Thus, fourth, design is culture. It interconnects society’s fundamental belief system about how people function well with how people within contexts come to fulfill their needs. For whom is design for? Who does design favor? What people does design bring into the centrality of community life, and what people does it leave out or otherwise omit? Design ethos and ethics are important here—ethos as belief system, and ethic as doing good are fundamental to achieve a higher plane of community for all. Here the contemporary movement towards universal design constitutes an ethic in itself. That universal design makes communities function for all is realized, particularly in its efforts to enable people to control their environment (Gregory & Newell, 2002). In addition, universal design is instrumental—the control of environment and the ensuing participation it fosters can enhance a person’s satisfaction and so influences a person’s sense of quality of life (Carr et al., 2001). For the Norman Aging Needs Assessment Project (NANAP), a key assumption is that a person’s sense of quality of environment influences his or her perceived quality of life. The First Cycle of Environmental Design Action Research The authors, who are linking environmental design to positive aging, focus on the first principal cycle of Refereed Full-Papers action research (defined within this paper as the search for knowledge or active learning from the engagement of a particular phenomenon or object through systematic means) because it is within this first year that they have sought to lay the foundation of practice useful in both team development and community involvement for positive aging. Two dimensions characterize the authors’ action research—what they have learned about what constitutes good design (theory), and what they have learned about their own process for advancing design to support positive aging (action). It is the intent of NANAP to link theory and action in a manner consistent with the best traditions of action research. For the authors, positive aging does not involve an idealized form of health and functioning. It does not mean maintaining youth or gaining powers people once had at hand when they were younger. The concept of positive aging is both functional and instrumental since it involves a process of becoming older in an environment that fosters people’s capacities to achieve those things they value, and in which they find worth. Diversity in valuing reminds us that people can vary in what is important to them within a given cultural context. While people may share mutual aspirations for independence and good health, they may nonetheless express these values differently. For one person, this may mean sustaining his or her work in the arts, while for another, it may involve parenting grandchildren. Even though people face ill health as they age, good design can compensate for decline. Good environmental design anticipates such support for roles, functioning, competence, health or ill health, and ultimately satisfaction. The Challenge Of Action Research And Its Participatory Variant As action research evolves into a participatory form, it can break down the traditional barriers that separate researcher and subject. However, it can also raise ethical considerations pertaining to the control of research direction and ownership of knowledge (Minkler, 2004; Whitehead, 1993). Academic researches may yield to the expertise of community members, which means that a norm of equality is sought among those who would be normally excluded from meaningful roles in the research and program development (Wergin, 2000; Zambrana, 1996). The elevation of those who were once thought of as only subjects to the status of involved participants is a principal quality of participatory action research (Carolo & Travers, 2005, Harper May 2011 – Make No Little Plans & Carver, 1999, Travers, Leaver, & McClelland, 2002), and requires sharing power and knowledge across groups that normally may stand apart (Ochocka et al., 2002). Partnerships of diverse members coming from different locations within a community imbues participatory forms of action research with considerable distinctiveness (Butterfoss et al., 1993, 1996) bringing members of marginalized groups into central roles in knowledge production (Hall, 1992) and strengthening validity of research as a result (Christens & Perkins, 2008). Therefore, collaboration across diverse people is an essential ingredient of participatory forms of action research (Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). Diversifying the qualities of those who participate in environmental design research can expand perspectivetaking and strengthen understanding of the dynamics of social issues (Israel et al., 2001) through engagement of multiple stakeholders in complementary activity (Moxley, 2004; Nyden et al., 1997). The exercise of control over research by those who have been historically omitted from key research roles is an essential outcome of participatory research (Schnarch, 2004). The formation of partnerships, the orchestration of diversity brought into a project by virtue of the introduction of different perspectives, and the empowerment of the perspectives of those individuals or groups who were once left out of inquiry ascend in their importance as central practices within participatory action research (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2003, Minkler, 2005). Norman Aging Needs Assessment Project (NANAP) And Its Initial Participatory Qualities Brought together by a mutual interest in intentional design to support people’s well-being, functioning, and aging, the core research team—the members of which represent the disciplines of architecture, interior design, social work, and political science—has spent a full year in mutual commerce finding a central focus for complementary research activity. Environmental design as a construct offers a mutual focus on responsive environments, ones that can support diversity through flexible qualities. The first cycle of inquiry has unfolded in several phases, including the development of a team configuration necessitating the building of trust, mutual understanding of the disciplines the authors have brought to the project, and creating norms supportive of collaboration (Cargo & Mercer, 2008; Hardy & Philips, 1998). Taking approximately six months of dialogue and visits 33 Refereed Full-Papers in which the authors engaged in open-ended conversation concerning concepts of aging, positive aging, and design, strong interpersonal bonds emerged, ones indicative of sound interdisciplinary process. For the next three months, the authors laid out the actual research enterprise, educating themselves about methods of inquiry, research ideas each of their disciplines found useful, and action research relative to environmental design. Alternative methods took a prominent place in the work of the team, involving the use of photography, photovoice, and quality methods as documentary and illuminatory strategies useful for understanding intentional and unintentional design from the perspective of people who often face design inequities that limit their range of functioning and satisfaction. The authors have accelerated their efforts to expand the participatory scope of NANAP across the expanse of the research process (research purpose, design, methods, data collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination, utilization, and quality management). Participation in this context meant for the authors that through the involvement of people who have firsthand experience with environment and aging, new insights could enrich the relevance of the project and set the stage for utilization. NANAP’s research should advance environmental policy that fosters positive aging within a small city or town environment, a logical end of sound action research. Good action research can lead to actionable knowledge to make an impact for the better on how an object functions within the context in which it is situated. The enactment of NANAP within Norman, a town located in south central Oklahoma, is a relevant context for linking environmental design and positive aging. Like much of Oklahoma, Norman is a desirable retirement location given its climate, economic infrastructure, health services, cultural activities, and community ambience. Over the next twenty years, the city of Norman expects a substantial increase in its population of older citizens far exceeding the general increase in population for the city as a whole. Like the nation, Norman expects significant increases in populations of the young old, old, and old-old subgroups and is not prepared for this substantive change in the character of its population. Inviting older citizens into the project as participants is a salient strategy for shifting the project from an interdisciplinary action research context to a participatory form. This means NANAP must create diverse roles for participation, not only to address the preferences of 34 participants, but also to ensure that participation cuts across all important phases of the parent research project. While the project is only now experimenting with role innovation, promising practices already are emerging involving the use of continuing education for seniors as a way of obtaining their input into the principal knowledge development activities of NANAP, involving participants directly in documentary data collection activities they control (such as photovoice) so they can tell their own stories about good and poor environmental qualities, and involving elders directly in the process of making sense of the data the project captures. While the project has much progress to make in achieving its participatory ends, these ends are very much part of the ethos and identity of NANAP as a whole. Early Products The Value-Added Sequence of Environmental Design Within their own action research practice, the authors have dialogued considerably about the value-added process of environmental design. For the purposes of NANAP, they conceive of the following sequence inspired by the San Francisco Department of Public Health HDMT checklist. Quality of Environment Infrastructure Development Promotion of Social Cohesion Functioning to Fulfill Needs Satisfaction Here environment and infrastructure form a holding space for the fulfillment of human needs. It is the quality of environment that makes possible sound infrastructure development, a form of development in which sustainability takes on important meaning and reality. Social cohesion is a product of people who are able to influence decisions shaping environment and quality of life. Important here is broad-based citizen involvement in social decision-making in what political scientists Refereed Full-Papers call co-production of policy (Bovaird, 2007; Brudney & England, 1983). It is here citizens can influence the design of policy, action, service, and environments strengthening their stake in implementation and sustainability (Needham, 2009). To further enhance social cohesion, public infrastructure is vital, involving public, nonprofit, and for-profit local enterprises that support the fulfillment of human needs. Quality of environment, infrastructure development, and social cohesion offer opportunities for people to meet their needs, particularly those they invest with some priority, and function in ways they find meaningful. Aims of Environmental Design From this value-added sequence of environmental design, the authors have developed eight domains in which environmental design is undertaken for the pur- poses of creating sustainable and competence-enhancing environments for people of diverse backgrounds. These eight domains involve: (1) Environmental stewardship with the objective of fostering a shallow footprint and sustainable human activity; (2) Low impact of diverse modes of mobility; (3) Ease of way finding; (4) Involvement in decision-making; (5) Systems for social cohesion and social support; (6) Quality of permanent housing options; (7) Quality of economic and productive life; (8) Aesthetics of daily life. Conclusion: The Participatory Process What follows is a roadmap guiding participatory aims. Broad-based participation within action research projects can include involvement of participants in governance and advisement roles, specification of research purpose, objectives, and questions, design activities, Stage of Participation Engagement Core Elements Mutual Respect Understanding aging and positive aging and the kind of knowledge participants seek through NANAP Trust Consistent involvement in partnership and community Formalization Action Sustainability Formalizing roles within a coordinating structure within the project Consulting with one another before taking action; consensual action Socializing newcomers into the practices of the participation and collaboration Adhering to agreed upon norms of interaction and agreed upon road map Adhering to the action plan until there is change based on consensual decisions regarding design priorities Expanding mutually beneficial outcomes Relationship Formation Getting to know Consistent positive one and accept one interaction among another as individuals members within the project structure Community members and university personnel working together collaboratively Succession planning and socialization of leaders and members into critical roles Commitment to Action Agreeing on purpose, aims, and vision Mutual assessment and evaluation of action Continuous strategic planning for sustaining collaboration May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Formulating a joint work plan 35 Refereed Full-Papers implementation, analysis and interpretation, and dissemination and utilization (Cargo & Mercer, 2008). 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Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases, 13, Supplement A, Abstract #408. Wergin, J. Elements of effective community engagement. In S. L. Percy, N. L. Zimpher, & M. J. Brukardt (eds), Creating a new kind of university: Institutionalizing communityuniversity engagement. (pp.23-42). Bolton, MA: Anker. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Whitehead, M. (1993). The ownership of research. In J. Davies & M. Kelly (eds.). Healthy cities: Research and practice. (pp. 83-89). New York City: Routledge. Zambrana, R. (1996). The role of Latino/Hispanic communities in health services research: Strategies for meaningful partnership. Journal of Medical Systems, 20, 325-336. Zmudzinska-Nowak, M. (2003). “Searching for Legible City Form: Kevin Lynch’s Theory in Contemporary Perspective.” Journal of Urban Technology, 10(3): 19-39. 37 Refereed Full-Papers Grandma’s World: Mapping Dancers in Beijing Caroline Chen (University of California, Berkeley) Abstract This study employs cognitive mapping and surveys to learn about the world of aging women in Beijing who participate in daily dancing exercises. It was carried out on a small sample of retired residents in the Honglianbeili neighborhood of Beijing (N = 14) to pursue two goals: (1) to learn the time and activity structure of a typical day, and (2) to identify meaningful landmarks and daily destinations in their neighborhood that are meaningful to the respondents. This research was responding to interview data gathered in 2007, when dancers reported encountering dangerous spaces while traveling to their dancing places. In an effort to understand where these challenging spaces were located and to gain a better sense of the overall territorial range of older women in Beijing, this research was proposed. This paper will focus primarily on the triangulation of data from three instruments: (1) daily routine surveys identified hour-by-hour activities and locations for one waking day; (2) dancer-drawn cognitive maps showed everyday spaces in the neighborhood; and (3) a general survey posed follow-up questions to those asked in 2007 surveys.1 This paper will focus on the data gathered during the spring and summer of 2010 at Honglianbeili plaza. The results showed that food markets, neighborhood activity centers, and urban plazas, as well as roads, bridges, and intersections, were represented in nearly all the cognitive maps. Respondents reported that they spend over two hours a day engaged in directed physical activities such as taichi and dancing. Residents also credited dancing as a source of making new friends, relaxing, feeling physically stronger, and experiencing joy. Respondents reported, however, a sense of powerlessness in changing the constraints of their dancing space and expressed a desire for design improvements in their existing dance space. Introduction “The city should provide more space for the people who like to do exercise, because the population of aging people is increasing. Life quality and health are precious.” – 53-year-old dancer in Beijing Changes in the City and Urban Life The urban landscape of Beijing in recent history has dramatically changed since China’s shift from a planned to a market economy in the 1980s. Mao Zedong’s ideal vision of the city as an industrialist dream – “a forest of smokestacks” – gave way to Le Corbusier’s Modernist vision of “high buildings, set far apart from one another, [to] … free the ground for broad verdant areas” (Le Corbusier, 1973, p. 65) as Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, instituted sweeping social and economic reforms. Architects such as Wu Liangyong who wished to preserve the character of old neighborhoods in Beijing experimented with projects such as Ju’er hutong, attempting to preserve traditional low-rise siheyuan courtyard structures in the face of these changes (Wu, 1999). Other familiar spatial forms such as the Soviet-styled workunits— the danwei—also encountered change, although some studies show that the cellular urban form in Beijing still persists (Lu, 2003). In this backdrop of social and spatial transformation, aging women in Beijing continue daily patterns of life, shopping for vegetables, preparing meals, visiting the doctor, and dancing. Engagement with physical activity is associated with successful aging and longevity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996), and many elderly in Beijing choose dance as their preferred form of exercise. Although there is no clear way to determine exactly how many residents dance in Beijing, the China Daily newspaper provided an estimate in 2004 of the number of Beijing residents that dance just one type of dance—the yangge—alone: 60,000.2 Most of the dancers are women and group sizes range from thirty to over one hundred. Musical accompaniment may come in the form of an MP3 or cassette player attached to an amplifier on a small dolly, or in the form of a live band of musicians, playing drums, cymbals, and flute. In parks and in places that Leanne G. Rivlin calls “found spaces” (2007: 38), dancing happens on a regular schedule in the city: usually in the morning or in the A longitudinal comparison between data from 2007 and 2010 between dance groups located at the same sites will be the subject of a different paper. 2 The yangge is a traditional agricultural dance from the northern provinces in China. Farmers in the countryside celebrated the harvest dancing yangge, but yangge is now danced in the city for physical fitness. 1 38 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 1: Musicians playing yangge music under the Jingouhe freeway bridge in Beijing (Source: Caroline Chen) evening. Spaces such as underground parking garages, spaces under freeway overpasses, sidewalks, and parking lots are routinely appropriated by nearby residents for a few hours each day. These spaces are temporarily pried apart from their original purpose, “loosened” for a few hours to function as impromptu neighborhood stages (Franck & Stevens, 2007). Dancing in Beijing became very popular during the 1990s (Graezer, 2004), an indirect response to the outcome of the One-Child-Per-Couple policy instituted in China in 1979. The policy set out to reduce pressure on national resources by slowing China’s population growth (Smil, 1993). But today, an unintended consequence of this successful family-planning initiative is emerging: aging Chinese couples now have only one adult child to depend upon for assistance and support in their old age. With many adult children busy with their own families, many aging Beijing residents spontaneously started organizing dancing groups as a way to help themselves stay happy and healthy, so they would not burden their children. Honglianbeili plaza is the dance place of one such self-organized dancing group. Locating Honglianbeili Community Honglianbeili community is a small residential community located west of Lotus River in the southern Xuanwu district of Beijing. The south side of Beijing has historically been a less developed, less affluent part of the city (Elliott, 2001). Much of the development in Beijing has been focused on the northern and western parts of the city, where the embassies and business districts are located. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 2: 2010 map of dance places in Beijing. Honglianbeili is circled in the southwest side of the city. (Map: Caroline Chen) Figure 3: Arial view of the Honglianbeili plaza, located between the Honglianbeili community on the west, and Lotus River on the east. The Yuanjian Mingyuan community is located across the river to the east. (Source: Google Earth Pro) While some areas of the “South City”—such as the Qianmen Theater and Silk District—have been razed and rebuilt, the Honglianbeili neighborhood has remained relatively intact. The map in Figure 2 shows the locations of all the dance places studied during the spring and summer of 2010. This paper will focus on one, Honglianbeili, the site situated between the third and fourth ring road that is circled on the map. Context and Physical Aspects of Honglianbeili Plaza Urban Context Honglianbeili plaza is located to the east of the Honglianbeili community, a series of five-story walk- 39 Refereed Full-Papers up apartment units, arranged in rows. Rows of mature trees provide a deciduous canopy in the spaces between buildings. Forming the western boundary of the plaza is the Lotus River and a north-south running access road called Lianhua River Westside Road. This access road intersects the Maliandao South Road just to the south of the Honglianbeili plaza. In Figure 3 above, the study site is circled. To the south of the site is the Honglian culture plaza, another large hardscape space that is also a popular evening dancing place. Though only a few feet away, the Honglian culture plaza is the site of a very different kind of dancing: nightly disco-dancing for adolescents and young adults.3 This larger plaza, though not the focus of this paper, shows up as a landmark in many cognitive maps. Honglianbeili Plaza Approximately 60 by 80 feet, Honglianbeili plaza is paved with concrete bricks. A large wooden pergola with benches is built on the side of the plaza adjacent to the restaurant. The plaza itself is open to the sky, but protected from major traffic noise from the nearby Maliandao South Road because the plaza is set back from this main thoroughfare. Two large planters with evergreen trees are also located in the plaza. The trees do not provide shade, but demarcate the northern and southern boundaries of the space. Low shrubs planted along the back of the pergola and lawn planted inside the tree planters soften the impact of the concrete paving and brick wall that are the two major defining features of the space. In Figure 4 above, the planter and tree on the northern boundary of the space is visible. The researcher stood inside the southernmost tree planter to take this photograph. An abundance of small markets and stores are embedded in this old neighborhood, and the sidewalks are crowded with many aging residents, walking or biking without hurry, toting colorful nylon shopping bags filled with greens. The squeals and laughter of children playing in the street add to the small-scale, intimate feeling surrounding Honglianbeili plaza. According to residents, this neighborhood has retained much of its original character, unlike other districts in Beijing that have experienced a great deal of demolition. 3 Figure 4: A view of the Honglianbeili riverside plaza after an afternoon shower: view to the northwest. (Source: Caroline Chen) As night falls, the space fills with older women carrying nylon bags, but this time the bags are filled with dancing props instead of vegetables. They bring folded fans, handkerchiefs, rubber balls connected to elastic cords for dancing, but they also bring newspaper clippings and herbal health remedies to share with fellow dancers. When the flood lamps that shine on the restaurant billboard overlooking the plaza are turned on, the reflected overhead lighting shines coldly on the women who dance in rows, arms-length apart. When the billboard lamps are off, the plaza is only illuminated by small walkway lamps to the north of the site. Under these lighting conditions, it is impossible to see the features of each dancer’s face, so one must remember what each person is wearing to tell the dancing bodies apart. Still, silhouettes are visible in the semi-darkness, and with the music so lively and gay, dancers are able to somehow avoid colliding with one another in the deepening darkness. Dancer Profiles The leader of the group is a sixty-nine year old woman who expressed her interest in participating in the research to make their dancing plight known: the spaces in the city for the elderly to dance are diminishing. The total number of members of the dancing community at Honglianbeili is estimated to be three hundred, although In Figure 3, just south of the Honglianbeili plaza, a small white “X” is visible, marking the upper level of the Honglian Culture Plaza. A darker “X” indicates the lower level of the Honglian Culture Plaza that lies to the west. 40 Refereed Full-Papers at any one time, there are only one hundred women dancing. The profiles of the dancers who gather at Honglianbeili are very similar to those of other groups I have studied in Beijing.4 Most of the participants were women and the members’ ages ranged from the late fifties to their early eighties. The members of this generational cohort were teenagers during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and are often referred to as the Lost Generation5 or the Sent-Down Youth (MacFarquhar & Fairbank 1991: 216). Because of the social upheaval of that time, many were unable to complete their education, affecting their later career prospects. On a typical night, dancers gather at the pergola to wait for their friends. Eventually, they organize themselves into rows, facing the restaurant wall. The dance leader has organized a song list for the evening and selects a song on her MP3 player to play through a portable amplifier that she has brought with her from home. The amplifier is attached to a light, foldable rolling dolly – the kind that I have observed some older women use for carrying vegetables. Dancing begins promptly at 7:15pm and lasts until 9:30pm, seven days a week: each dance session lasts for one hour, with a fifteen-minute break between the two sessions. During intermission, dancers rest on the benches, fanning themselves. Bags, coats, and pet dogs are left on the benches under the pergola. This is a safe place to leave their belongings because, one dancer explained to me, the space remains in full view throughout the entire dance session. Bystanders who stop to watch the group sometimes sit under the pergola, but more often cluster around the perimeter of the dancing group. Goals and methodology As my study focuses on dancing by older people, only older dancers in the group were encouraged to participate.6 The study seeks to attain two goals: (1) to learn the time and activity structure of a typical day for an older person in Beijing who leads an active lifestyle, and (2) to identify landmarks and daily destinations that 4 are meaningful to the respondents. Instruments used to discover the contours of a day in the life of a dancer included: (1) daily routine surveys to identify hour-byhour activities and locations for one waking day; (2) dancer-drawn cognitive maps or yìngxiàngtú, translates into “impression map”) to show everyday spaces in the neighborhood; and (3) a general survey to ask follow-up questions to those asked in 2007 surveys. The methodology was devised so three different types of data may be triangulated to construct an image of a typical day in the life of an active older person living in Beijing. The purpose of the cognitive maps was to gain insight into the individual-centered world of the respondent (R. Sommer & B. B. Sommer, 2002): what are the landmarks and the places that one values, and what are the paths worth noting. Use of cognitive mapping was inspired by the work of Kevin Lynch and many others who used drawing as a method for design inquiry. In Image of the City (1960), Lynch provided his respondents with very precise instructions for drawing a cognitive map: a. Draw a quick sketch map of the area in question, showing the most interesting and most important features, and giving a stranger enough knowledge to move about without too much difficulty. b. Make a similar sketch of the route and events along one or two imaginary trips, trips chosen to expose the length and breadth of the area. c. Make a written list of the parts of the city felt to be most distinctive, the examiner explaining the meaning of “parts” and “distinctive.” d. Put down brief written answers to a few questions of the type: “Where is ___ located?” (Lynch, 1960, p. 155) A Fulbright grant enabled me to come to China in 2004 and I have been studying dancers in Beijing ever since. 5 “Lost” sometimes refers to loss of life opportunities that this generation experienced; many were not able to continue their education in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. “Sent down” refers to the official program by the government that “sent” the youth “down to the countryside” to learn Communist values from farmers. 6 The retirement age for women in China is typically 50 years of age; state officials may work until 55 years of age. The retirement age for men in China is 60 (Xinhua, 2011). May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 41 Refereed Full-Papers While Lynch focused on how respondents viewed the city, his emphasis lay in ways of seeing, on the faculty of perception itself. Implications from his work suggested ways that designers and planners may create more legible spaces that enhance orientation. This study seeks not to find generalizable rules for how humans comprehend a city, but instead to find out what elements of their surroundings were important components to their daily lives. In this way, the cognitive mapping for my study draws from Randy Hester’s Sacred Structure mapping, where residents of a small town named Manteo in North Carolina were asked to name places in town that were particularly important to them as insiders (Hester, 1985).7 This method emphasized the perspective of the insider and is different from Lynch’s emphasis on drawing a map for “a stranger” (see above). The method used for this study was purposefully made open-ended because of some unknowns. Respondents were asked to: (1) draw a freehand map of their everyday environment and (2) draw and label on the maps places that they frequent in the course of a regular day. These instructions were given for two reasons: (1) to see whether Chinese residents would represent their world differently from residents from the U.S., and (2) to identify what the important everyday spaces are. The daily routine survey and general survey were collected to provide and time and narrative structure to the cognitive maps. The first survey consisted of two pages of basic demographic information and a table. Respondents are asked to fill out the table, hour by hour, listing the activities they were engaged in, where they were, how they arrived at that location, and how long they were in transit (and the mode of travel). The general survey consists of both multiple choice and openended questions. They contain questions that were used previously in 2007. 7 8 Method Overview of the Research Fourteen dancers agreed to draw cognitive maps and to fill out a daily routine survey, while many more agreed to fill out general surveys. However, as mentioned above, the purpose of this paper is to examine the cognitive maps, so only respondents who have completed all three instruments will be included in this study. Of the participants, the youngest dancer was 51 and the oldest was 83 years of age. Procedure The daily routine and general surveys were administered first. Participants were given two weeks to take the materials home, complete them, and return them to the researchers for a small honorarium.8 The cognitive map drawing took place after surveys were completed, over a four-hour period on one day at the urban plaza. Participants made appointments to meet with the research team, and respondents waited their turn to draw a map. The map drawing took place outdoors, while sitting on the bench under the pergola on the side of the plaza nearest the restaurant. The Chinese translation of “cognitive map” we used was yìngxiàngtú, which roughly translates to “impression map.” I provided 18 x 24 inch white drawing paper and a drawing surface, along with pencils, markers, and pens. Participants were given instructions to: (1) draw the dancing place and the river as a point of reference, and (2) draw any of the other places that are meaningful for them in their own neighborhood. I had to explain the difference between the cognitive maps and objective maps several times as some of the respondents felt afraid they would “make a mistake.” To help some dancers orient, the dance leader drew the cardinal directions on the four edges of the paper for two participants. This extra prompt seemed to help respondents begin to draw, even if they did not orient their drawing correctly to the cardinal directions. We A recurrent theme that ran through the Hester study was a desire by the town of Manteo to preserve local needs and perspectives, defending against potential contamination from outsider desires or expectations: “The residents wanted these places protected. One newspaper editor expressed his concern that the identification of these places in the survey meant that the designers were considering changing the places to attract tourists. He carefully listed those places that must not be profaned for tourists, stating that they were “perfect jewels” the way they were.” (Hester, 1985, p. 14) This sentiment to keep things as they are was not in evidence in the Beijing dancer study. On the contrary, the dancers looked forward to modernization changes in their neighborhood that would help bolster China’s emerging global presence. They just hoped that they would be able to continue their daily dancing as they did before, in the new landscape. I recorded a DVD of one of their dancing sessions, and dancers who participated in drawing cognitive maps were given a copy of this DVD. 42 Refereed Full-Papers also prompted some dancers to draw by asking them: “where is your home?” But aside from asking them to draw the dance space, river, directions, and for some, their home for reference, we did not prompt the dancers to include any other information on their drawings. I recorded some comments by respondents in my field notebook because some made interesting com- ments while drawing, but the information was not included in the drawing. For some of these comments that refer to a specific location on the map, I included the comments in italics. When respondents made more general comments or global explanations while drawing, I recorded these comments as interview text and did not add these comments to the map. ID Places appearing on Daily Routine Surveys Places appearing on Cognitive Maps 500 Home work Honglianbeili activity center Honglianbeili dance place 510 Work Home supermarket morning market drugstore Honglian Culture Plaza food market bridge (3) overpass road 513 shopping at food market home 514 home hospital life insurance company dance place walkway road gardens (2) residential tower (home) morning market 1 (comment: “outdoor – inexpensive”) morning market 2 (comment: “indoor – expensive”) supermarket primary school home food market Honglian Culture Plaza 518 bus stop (comment: [this is where she practices taichi]) food shopping home dance place bus stop #80 (comment: she exercises on the sidewalk near the bus stop) Honglian Culture Plaza food market bridge road (comment: “crooked”) bridge morning market (comment: “cheap”) food market morning market home middle-school Figure 5: Each row contains responses provided by the same respondent. Destinations that appear on the Daily Routine survey appear in the left column. Destinations that appear on the Cognitive Map appear on the right column. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 43 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 6: Drawing from the 69 year old leader of the Honglianbeili dance group. Results Time/Activity Structure from Daily Routine surveys Nearly all respondents reported arising at 6am and going to bed at 10pm, although one respondent reported arising at 5am. Half of the dancers take naps after lunch in the afternoon for one hour; one respondent who still works takes her afternoon nap in her office. All respondents spend two hours in the evening dancing at Honglianbeili plaza. One respondent noted that she spends 20 minutes biking to work, and another 20 minutes biking back home, but she did not include this activity as exercise when calculating her total daily exercise time for one day. All of the retired dancers do housework in the morning and afternoon, and all of the dancers either walk, bike, or more rarely, take the bus to arrive at their destinations. None of the respondents drive. Comparison of destinations appearing on Daily Routine surveys and Cognitive Maps by a selection of respondents Figure 5 shows how cognitive maps can gather much more data about the context of the neighborhood than an hourly inventory of destinations traveled by a respondent for one day. Markets, roads, stores, and schools appear with great frequency in the cognitive maps. Respondents report several reasons for dancing: for friendship, to find community, to feel happy, to find 44 relief from stress, to “strengthen the body,” and above all, “not to burden their children” by falling ill. Discussion Daily Routine Surveys versus Cognitive Maps A comparison of the Daily Routine surveys show that many of the respondents have similar time/activity structures throughout the day. A comparison between the places that were visited in one day, compared to the places named on the cognitive map showed that respondents are constrained by time to visit very few known places in the course of one waking day. The research implication is that if one seeks to understand the scope of a subject’s world, cognitive maps can yield this kind of global information. However, for research on vulnerable populations like the elderly that may be at risk of falls and fractures, tracking individuals’ daily paths in the form of activity diaries and GPS tracks may be useful to learn exactly where the difficult obstacles are in the daily landscape (Shumway-Cook et al., 1997). Cognitive Maps: Pride and Problems The cognitive map below was drawn by the dance leader. She spoke with pride about her neighborhood. She explained that Honglianbeili has a very good primary school and all the dancers’ children attended this school, so it is a great source of pride for them. Refereed Full-Papers Although she does not volunteer at the school or have anything directly to do with the school any longer, she prominently drew this place on her map and explained to me that everybody feels happy just knowing the school is still there and still winning national attention for its excellence. On her drawing, she also noted which markets had better produce prices, and what obstacles presented dancers with difficulties. She notes that the dancing place is dark at night and the river has a bad odor. She wishes the government would help: “At night, there are no lights. We hope the government can solve this problem” (see Figure 6, above). Bad Lighting She was not alone. In fact, nearly half of the participants provided suggestions for how their neighborhood could be improved for dancing. Half of the comments focused again on the need for reliable nighttime lighting. Figure 7 below shows the large billboard advertisement for the neighboring restaurant that has been providing Honglianbeili plaza with evening lighting for several years. While the billboard lamps were a reliable source of light in the past, it has not always been illuminated at night in recent years. One respondent explained why: “It has been much hotter this summer and the restaurant that we dance in front of is using up lots of electricity because it has to keep the air conditioner on the entire day. As a result of Figure 7: Honglianbeili plaza at twilight, a quarter hour before dancing begins. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans this, the restaurant did not want to leave [the outdoor] lights [that illuminate their small dancing plaza] at night. We need more lights for our dancing.” [3:11] As an unintended consequence of energy conservation, the elderly are dancing in the dark. The billboard is no longer a reliable source of light for the older people. Confusing Places Other respondents described dangerous intersections on the way to the dance place. One dancer focused her drawing on a particularly confusing and inconvenient area near her home: “There is a bus station with lots of parking—this area is a mess. Many people are there and the traffic is terrible. I think there should be a road that cuts through this area so people don’t have to go all the way around the parking area.” [6:1] In Figure 8 below, this respondent drew a circle around the area she found “confusing”—the area around the West Railway Station—and then told us that area near the SecondHand Goods Market was confusing as well. The participant who drew this map recommended a through street in this congested area so aging residents like her can avoid circumnavigating the parking lot before arriving at the bus station [6:2]. Figure 8: Living near one of Beijing’s main transit hubs, a 60 year old dancer laments the confusing road conditions. 45 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 9: Constructive criticism for city officials from a 61 year old dancer. “The River is Dead” Other respondents were concerned about the nearby Lotus River. One-third of the participants remarked that the river was in need of immediate remediation, complaining of a bad odor: One respondent acknowledged previous efforts by city planners to improve the river’s water quality. The efforts failed, however. In Figure 9 in the upper right corner, one respondent wrote encouraging words to the planners on her map: “Continue restoring the river, little by little.” [7:1]. Sunlight and Seasonal Timing This same respondent who was concerned about the river also named another common concern in many general surveys: how to avoid the sun. In Figure 9 above, she named the “Dancing Place in the Morning” at the top of her drawing. She explained that this was a particularly well-designed for dancing because “the buildings cast a long shadow in the mornings” [7:1], blocking the sunlight from the concrete area in front of the building.9 According to her daily routine survey, this sixty-one year old woman begins her day dancing in front of this tall building with the long shadow, and then she leaves for work.10 After work and before dinner, she plays hacky-sack for one hour with her friends. After dinner, she dances two more hours at the Honglianbeili plaza with the other one hundred older women. Every day of the week, she exercises 2.5 hours, not including the forty minutes she spends each day commuting to work and back. Another respondent mentioned that the position of the sun during different seasons was a criterion for where one could or could not dance. She provided an example: in the wintertime mornings when temperatures are low, dancers search for places that are warmed by the sun. From the general survey, she identified Honglian culture plaza as such a space. This is the plaza that is directly to the south of Honglianbeili plaza. In Figure 10 above, this large plaza is simply labeled “plaza.” Note that the map she drew is rotated so that the map’s “north” is actually pointing west. This respondent added that the warming rays of the sun serve two func- 9 Very generally, many Chinese women are afraid of becoming tan from the sun. Many wear large, floppy hats or carry umbrellas to avoid the sun’s browning rays. 10 While the retirement age for women in China is 55 or 60 (for those who are officials), permission to work beyond retirement age is possible on a case-by-case basis. This respondent is 61 years old and still commutes by bicycle to her work each day. 46 Refereed Full-Papers businesses such as restaurants are generally a good match. Office buildings and schools do not pair well with dancing places, as workers and school children inside may not be able to concentrate well when the older people begin dancing. Lacking large extended families and adequate retirement pensions to depend on for old age, the aging dancers at Honglianbeili have crafted their own health intervention for those in the same generational cohort to help one another. Given their demonstrated desire and motivation to dance, it appears that the task is now up to physical planners, urban designers, and landscape architects to respond: to set aside space and design places so this aging cohort may safely and comfortably dance their way to health and long life. Figure 10: A 54 year old dancer’s drawing of her residential community. tions: (1) to keep dancers comfortable, but also (2) to melt the snow on the ground so dancers may have a clear place to dance. Conclusion Implications for Design and Planning From this analysis, designers and planners working in China are in a good position to help design a danceable city. For safe evening dancing, night lighting for dancing spaces and electrical plugs for amplifiers would help reduce the risk of dancers colliding with one another, falling down, or otherwise sustaining injuries from dancing in the dark. Aging residents are at pains to find flat urban plazas that are warm in the winter and protected from sun in the summer. Spaces designed for morning dancing do not require lighting, but would ideally receive morning sunlight. Spaces designed for evening dancing would naturally not require this kind of solar access, but should be located in a space that would dampen sound so the dancing music will not disturb residential neighbors. Pairing dancing places next to large commercial Limitations There were two major sources of bias in this study: (1) privileged representation of the opinions of bettereducated dancers, and (2) bias introduced by intermediaries who helped illiterate dancers fill out surveys. Even though the surveys were written in Chinese, many of the dancers possessed only an elementary or middleschool education and could not read the forms.11 As a result, my survey data favors the participation of dancers who have the ability to read and write. There were instances, however, of illiterate dancers who desired to participate in the research and who were enterprising enough to secure the help of friends or family members to help them complete the survey. This, in turn, raised questions of whether the helping agent who assisted the respondent explained the question adequately, or recorded the responses of the respondent accurately. The original mapping study aimed to collect drawings from a much greater number of dancers from several different dancing groups. What was ultimately possible within the limits of time and funding was far more modest (N=14). While many dance groups were willing to draw cognitive maps and fill out the daily routine and general surveys, few were willing to participate in a different part of this study involving GPS.12 After five weeks of searching in vain for volunteers, the dance School in China was suspended for three years from 1966-1969 so officials could adapt educational materials to reflect contemporary political ideology and so youth could be sent to the countryside to “learn from the peasants.” Four million high school and university students were affected by these social policies and most were unable to resume their studies after returning to their homes in the late 1970s. This affected their later life prospects and accounted for the high illiteracy rate amongst the dancing retirees (MacFarquhar & Fairbank 1991: 215). 12 The data from the GPS portion of the fieldwork is not yet analyzed and not discussed in this paper. 11 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 47 Refereed Full-Papers group at Honglianbeili agreed to take part for a nominal fee.13 As the initial study was planned and budgeted for six weeks in Beijing, it was not possible for me to continue searching for other groups to participate. I was, however, able to remain in Beijing for four additional months to achieve non-mapping related fieldwork goals, including gathering follow-up surveys (N=200) from members of dancing groups first surveyed in 2004 and 2007.14 Acknowledgements I wish to thank Galen Cranz, Michael Southworth, Malo André Hutson and the committee for the Roslyn Lindheim Award from the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley for providing me the means to return to Beijing over the spring and summer of 2010 so I may conduct follow-up studies on dancing groups that I met three years ago. I am also grateful to Yuhuan (Janna) Huang, Xiuhui Zhong, Li Yan, and Han (Susan) Yafei for providing me valuable assistance setting up interviews, accompanying me to site visits and entering data, and to the anonymous reviewers at the Environmental Research Design Association for offering me very useful and specific advice on how to restructure this paper. A special thanks to Hyeon-Ju Rho and Alex Wang in Beijing, who opened their home to me for five months so I could complete the fieldwork. REFERENCES Berik, Günseli, Xiao-yuan Dong, & Summerfield, Gale. (2007). China’s Transition and Feminist Economics. Feminist Economics, 13 (3/4), 1-33. Chen, Lanyan & Standing, Hilary. (2007). Gender equity in transitional China’s healthcare policy reforms. Feminist Economics, 13 (3/4), 189-212. Elliott, Mark C. (2001). The Manchu Way; the Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Francis, Mark. (1988). Changing values for public spaces. Landscape Architecture, 78, 54–59. Franck, Karen A., & Stevens, Quentin. (2007). Tying Down Loose Space. In K. A. Franck & Q. Stevens (Eds.), Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life (pp. 1-51). London: Routledge. 13 14 Xinhua. (2011, February 27). Chinese ministry to extensively review women’s retirement age. GOV.cn: Chinese Government’s Official Web Portal. Retrieved March 15, 2011, from http://www.gov.cn/english/2011-02/27/ content_1812306.htm Graezer, Florence. (2004). Breathing New Life into Beijing Culture: New “Traditional” Public Spaces and the Chaoyang Neighborhood Yangge Associations. In S. Feuchtwang (Ed.), (pp. 61-78). London: UCL. Hester, Randolph T. J. (1985). Subconscious Landscapes of the Heart. Places, 2(3), 10–22. Jiang, Lin. (1995). Changing Kinship Structure and its Implications for Old-Age Support in Urban and Rural China. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography. 49 (1), 127. Le Corbusier. (1973). The Athens Charter [by] Le Corbusier. New York: Grossman. Lindheim, Roslyn. (1974). Environments for the Elderly: Future-Oriented Design for Living? Journal of Architectural Education (1947-1974), 27 (2/3), 7-56. Lindheim, Roslyn. (1985). New Design Parameters for Health Places. Places, 2 (4). Lindheim, Roslyn & Syme, S. Leonard. (1983). Environments, people, and health. Annual review of public health, 4 (1), 335-359. Liu, Jieyu. (2007). Gender dynamics and redundancy in urban China. Feminist Economics, 13 (3/4), 125-158. Lynch, Kevin. (1998). Good city form. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Lynch, Kevin. (1960). The Image of the City. The MIT Press. MacFarquhar, Roderick, & Fairbank, John K. (1991). The Cambridge History of China: Volume 15, The People’s Republic, Part 2, Revolutions Within the Chinese Revolution, 1966-1982. The Cambridge History of China (Vol. 15). Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. Rivlin, Leanne G. (2007). Found Spaces: Freedom of Choice in Public Life. In K. A. Franck & Q. Stevens (Eds.), Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life (pp. 38-53). London: Routledge. Shumway-Cook, Anne, Baldwin, Margaret, Polissar, Nayak L., & Gruber, William. (1997). Predicting the Probability for Falls in Community-Dwelling Older Adults. Physical Therapy, 77(8), 812-819. Sommer, Robert, & Sommer, Barbara B. (2002). A Practical Guide to Behavioral Research: Tools and Techniques (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Smil, Vaclav. (1993). China’s Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe. Syme, S. Leonard. (1984). Social support and risk reduction. Möbius: A Journal for Continuing Education Professionals in Health Sciences, 4 (3), 44-54. They needed funding to pay for dancing uniforms and I was willing to pay them for participating in the research. The locations of these dancing groups are shown in Figure 2, but the comparison of data from general surveys from the three visits to Beijing between 2004 and 2010 will not be examined in this paper. 48 Refereed Full-Papers Tang, Kai (2004). Urban Planning System in China: Basic Facts and Reform Progress. Paper presented at the International Conference on China’s Planning System Reform. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from http://www.adb.org/Documents/ Events/2004/PRC_Planning_System_Reform/tang4.pdf Tomba, Luigi. “Creating an urban middle class: social engineering in Beijing.” The China Journal (2004): 1–26. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1996). Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, Georgia: US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, CDC, National 15 Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Wu, Liangyong (1999). Rehabilitating the Old City of Beijing a Project in the Ju’er Hutong Neighbourhood. Vancouver: UBC Press. Lu, Xiang. (2003). Beijing: Yuan City - The structure of urban space under the system of Danwei (thesis). Peking University, Beijing. APPENDIX15 The 2010 The Danceable City Daily Routine Survey and the 2010 The Danceable City General Survey are available upon request. Please contact: [email protected] or if after 2012, [email protected] May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 49 Refereed Full-Papers The Morphological Evolution of the ‘Bazaar Streets’: A Configurational Analysis of the Urban Layout of Dhaka City Farhana Ferdous (The University of Sydney, Australia) Abstract The city of Dhaka developed throughout different phases of a period spanning four hundred years. The traditional spatial structure and hierarchy of its spaces have become part of a cultural heritage that includes historically famous and organically developed bazaar streets and commercial interfaces. Urban development of Dhaka city is well known for its spontaneous spatial structure and indigenous morphology. A ‘space syntax’ technique is used to understand the structure, function, hidden logic, morphological growth, and evolution of urban systems. This paper focuses on both the spatial dynamics of urban structure and on the spatial nature of the bazaar streets (commercial networks) and aims to explicate the notion of configurational analysis of urban growth. By determining the syntactic pattern and evolution of bazaar streets, this analysis can be usefully applied to the design of future urban growth. Introduction and Objectives Dhaka, the capital and provincial city of Bangladesh and one of the oldest cities in South Asia, (Figure 1) has grown in size, scale, and extent throughout its historical and morphological evolution. Over time, the urban function of Dhaka has changed according to political and commercial considerations (Ahsan, 1991; Islam, 1996). Although this ancient city gained official recognition four hundred years ago as the capital of the Mughal eastern province of Bengal, its origins extend even further back. Under the Mughal administration, and up until 1765 when the British took over colonized India, Dhaka was the centre of the region’s political, cultural, and social life (Mamun, 1993). Within that context, the market centre or bazaar street has remained the city dwellers’ most important activity hub and still maintains its functionality as a site of commercial enterprise. This paper provides an historical and morphological overview of the different phases of the development of Dhaka city. As a method of analysis, ‘space syntax’ theory is applied to determine whether these changes have been arbitrary, or whether there has been a hidden logic behind the pattern of growth over time. The objectives of this paper are as follows: a. To reveal the structure and function of the urban system of Dhaka city in the context of historical development b. To identify the hidden logic and spatial configuration of the ‘Bazaar Streets’ in relation to changing patterns of urban growth and function Figure 1 Map of South Asia showing the location of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Adapted from (Texas Austin, 2004) 50 Refereed Full-Papers The analysis leads to the conclusion that other than historical development, there is some structural and configurational regularity in relation to the changing pattern of urban growth. Through this morphological analysis, the development pattern of the city’s urban system and the local and global importance of the bazaar streets may be identified. The Theory of Space Syntax: A Configurational Analysis Space syntax is a set of descriptive techniques for representing, quantifying, and modeling spatial configuration in buildings and settlements. Space syntax theory describes and measures quantitatively the relational properties of urban space (Hillier, 1996; Hillier & Hanson, 1984). In this context, the theory of urban space is described in terms of abstract properties of a topological nature rather than in terms of geometric regularities; and space is conceived of as a relational pattern, which can be explored and understood without being directly visible in its entirety (Bafna, 2003; Penn, 2003). Above all, space syntax builds a conceptual model to investigate social patterning in spatial content and spatial patterning in the social content (Hillier, Penn, Hanson, Grajewski, & Xu, 1993). A network of pedestrian paths can be described as a hierarchy; that is, the more centrally located path segments; the more likely they are to host high numbers of people. Thus, the socio-spatial patterning of the perceived local areas seems most likely to be revealed by the spatial analysis of space syntax. It assists the analysis of patterns of connection, differentiation, and centrality to characterize and explore the relationships of urban systems. This paper will now address the concepts of most important configurational measurements, i.e., local integration, global integration, and integration core, in order to provide a clear picture of spatial measure. Local and global integration: Among a number of spatial measures, the most important is ‘integration’, which is the relative depth or hollowness of any spatial system seen from any particular point within it. The integration of a space is a function of the mean number of lines and changes of direction that need to be taken to travel from that space to all other spaces in the system (Bafna, 2003). Integration of any line can be computed in terms of access from all other lines (radius = n, called global integration or Rn) or those lines that are accessible up to a given number of lines away (for example radius = 3, called local integration or R3). Global inte- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans gration values are calculated based on all depths within a global structure of a system, while local integration indicates a more local structure (Baran, Rodriguez, & Khattak, 2008). Integration core: An axial map is a network of the fewest and longest sets of intersecting lines derived by drawing the least and longest axial lines of uninterrupted permeability (Baran, et al., 2008; Jiang & Liu, 2010; Kim & Penn, 2004). The axial map as a distribution of integration represents the set of the most integrated axial lines that are collectively known as an ‘integration core’. This is one of the most important measures treated as a representation of syntactic centrality. The core of a system consists of 10 percent of the most highly integrated lines applied uniformly in the interests of comparability of the total number of spaces, which take the strongest values (Hillier & Hanson, 1984). The nature of the integration core, its shape, size, coverage, and so on, depends on the shape, connectedness, and geometry of the urban system and on its mode of growth. In most cities or urban areas, integration core maps follow the main commercial or shopping areas as a morphologically deep structure, whereas the least integration follows residential functions or comparatively shallow structures within the overall urban system. The Morphology of a Bazaar Street Morphologically, two types of space exist in old Dhaka, the street and the court. These are connected in a continuous network of open and semi-open, and public and semi-public spaces. Streets, when they meet, often turn into chawks or nodes. Another important element is a ‘Bazaar Street’, which signifies the commercial interface or market centre of the city. Typically, in the indigenous form of a city, the grid structure is muted to a complex path system. This was the core concept of generating Islamic Bazaar Streets, as these heterogeneous types of spaces generated human activity at the pedestrian level. Rapoport depicted the transformation of simple homogeneous streets into complex indigenous bazaar streets (Figure 2). These types of bazaar streets follow the neighborhood or residential area. They are morphologically indigenous and sometimes of mixed use in character. Mahalla is another spatial archetype that characterizes the older part of Dhaka city. Usually, mixed commercial-residential neighborhoods generated the mahalla, which were distinct entities, with a homoge- 51 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 2 Transformation of Roman street into Islamic bazaar. Adapted from (Rapoport, 1977, p. 219) Figure 3 Mahalla morphology in historical Dhaka. Adapted from (I. Khan, 1982) neous population related through similar occupation, religion, and caste (Siddique, 1991). Thus, mahalla were simultaneously social, commercial, and spatial units that helped to generate both morphological and cultural homogeneity. In old Dhaka, a mahalla constituted a cluster of houses, usually arranged linearly along the Bazaar Streets (Figure 3). Like typical organic cities, the earliest communities of old Dhaka were created by mahalla located either along the bazaar streets or encircled around courtyards. Khan (1982) argued that this demonstrated a single pattern that gave rise to two different forms: linear bazaars and circular mahalla, and suggested that the linear or circular mahallah acquired their branches concomitant with the later subdivision of land. 52 Figure 4 Bazaar axis of Muslim city. Adapted from (Rapoport, 1977) Khan (1982) further maintained that ecologically there is no separation between the location of the bazaars and the residential mahallah. Morphologically, the access street with commercial value was the centre of the mahalla and was not used to mark boundaries. This differentiates the physical, regional, and spatial structure of Muslim cities from the indigenous, spatial pattern of old Dhaka. In a typical Muslim city, the bazaar streets are the main sites of major urban activities (Figure 4). Seen in early Islamic civilizations between India and Morocco, this would be part of the most important civic centre of the town, formed and dominated by the major congregation mosque, bazaar, palace, and/or fort, and supported by the Muslim cultural (social and religious) order. Gradually Muslims dominated Dhaka, Refereed Full-Papers who rather than being businesspersons or artisans were either under royal patronage and/or were landowners. The local morphology and spatial distribution of urban spaces in indigenous old Dhaka are characterized by a non-linear overlapping and combination of socio-spatial structures of different social units and communities. Historical Evolution of the Urban Layout of Dhaka City The historical evolution illustrates how the existing urban morphology transformed into the present context and how the functional aspects implied by the layout have changed accordingly. The historical and morphological development in eight different stages is highlighted by using syntactic maps from 1608 to 2007. The bold lines signify the highest integration (R=n) values that mainly pass through the commercial areas, and different bands of color denote different ranges of syntactic measures. The numerical and explanatory interpretations of these syntactic values are discussed in the following section. The syntactic analysis of Figure 6 shows that in PreMughal Dhaka (map of 1608 AD), the global integration core sits along the oldest market centre, and different Figure 5 Demarcations between Pre-Mughal and Mughal Dhaka. Adapted from (DAD, 2009) Figure 6 Global integration map of Dhaka city in 1608 and 1764. Basic axial map adapted from (Nilufar, 1997), syntactic analysis (Ferdous, 2010). May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 53 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 7 Global integration map of Dhaka city in 1859 and 1916. (Axial map drawn from the base map of 1764 that was reconstructed on the basic information of 1859 and 1916). bazaar streets show equal importance in the integration analysis. Moreover, the analysis shows the elongated integration core within the market centre leading in a northerly direction towards Mughal Dhaka. In the syntactic analysis of Mughal Dhaka (map of 1764 AD), this core again resides on the market centre of the Pre-Mughal city and extends towards the northwestern periphery of the city (Figures 5 and 6). The morphological pattern seems to correspond to the commercial and administrative cores to a greater extent. The local integration values suggest that most of the bazaar streets are locally focused. In 1859, the global integration core sat along the two bazaar streets (Figure 7). It took the form of a T connecting the two commercial hubs of the city. During this phase, the city’s Pre-Mughal Hindu Core comprised densely inhabited areas that extended towards the Muslim Mughal Core, i.e., the Chawk, and projected outwards to the colonial city. This may be referred to as the period of unification (Nilufar, 1997). Other than the Mughal core, most of the areas, particularly the extended western part of Chawk Bazaar and the northern part of the British addition, were loosely integrated. In the axial map of 1859 Dhaka, it clearly shows that the integration core largely coincided with the commercial 54 interface of the city, suggesting that the bazaar streets of Dhaka constituted the city dwellers’ most important commercial hub. In the map of 1916, the most integrated line connected with the Chawk Bazaar and extended towards the north, forming a linear integration core parallel to the river. From the syntactic analysis of 1916, it can be clearly seen that since the Mughal period, the bazaar streets along the Buriganga River have retained their importance, both locally and globally. As the city extended towards the north, the integration core also extended in a northern direction and concentrated on the geographical centre of the city. From Figure 9, it is noticeable that in every stage of syntactic analysis, the integration cores (thick red lines) follow the bazaar streets or commercial interfaces of the city. Revealing the historical review of urban development shows that the evolution and changes of urban morphology clearly cluster in the central area rather than the periphery. From the syntactic analysis of different phases of the 19th century (Figure 9), it can be clearly identified that since the Mughal period the integration core included the bazaar streets that follow the geographic centre of the city. As Dhaka city extended in a northerly direction, the integration core followed the most connected and integrated commercial interface Refereed Full-Papers Figure 8 Photographs of Bazaar Streets at old and new Dhaka. (Ferdous, 2009) Figure 9 Global integration map of Dhaka city in different phases from 1960 to 2001. Basic axial map adapted from (N. Khan, 2008; Nilufar, 1997), syntactic analysis (Ferdous, 2010). May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 55 Refereed Full-Papers of the city. The integration values (Table 1) suggested that both local and global function of the city expressed steady growth to the inhabitant. Analysis of the Spatial Configuration of Dhaka City Pattern of Axial Segments The axial structure of Dhaka to some extent looks like a ‘deformed grid’ in which all the major lines extend by conserving lower degree line relations, allowing ninety-degree line relations to the longer lines. Like some Western and Arab cities, the local sub-areas in Dhaka are mostly fitted into the larger scale grid, using a ninety-degree relation to join the internal streets of the city’s local areas. Sometimes, this ninety-degree relation transformed into an obtuse or open angle as the internal streets move towards the heart of the local areas and continue out in another direction (Hillier, 1996). Hillier provided a theoretical overview of local spatial structure and suggested that when a local area with a relatively small number of axial segments is considered, the lines which are wholly internal are likely to be shorter than the lines which connect the interior to the exterior (Hillier, 1996). This proposition seems apparent in the morphology of Dhaka. Old Dhaka is indicative of a morphology in which the lines that intersect at open angles tend to be shorter and less differentiated in length from those of the more localized streets. Conversely, new Dhaka morphology illustrates a pervasive disposition for longer lines to be incident to others at open angles, while the more localized shorter lines tend to be adjacent or close to right angles. Further, it appears that in old Dhaka, lines that are internal to an area rarely cross a perceived boundary and become part of another local area. This is in opposition to new Dhaka, where at least some lines which are part of the local areas continue into neighboring areas. In Hillier’s terms, old Dhaka resembles a ‘linearly discrete’ character like some Arab cities, but new Dhaka resembles the organic morphological pattern of some west European cities, e.g., London. Hillier further suggests that the morphological differentiation that distinguishes old from new Dhaka represents “an example of parametric differences expressing cultural variation in a fundamental settlement process” within the perimeter of a single city (Hillier, 1996, pp. 354-355). Although both old and new Dhaka followed a similar, natural process of formation, the underlying spatial differences are evident at the local as well as at the global level. Global integration (Rn) Figure 10 illustrates the distribution of global integration (Rn) across Dhaka city in 2007. According to the map, the most integrated lines are located at the geographic centre of the city rather than at the periphery. More specifically, the longest axial line that mainly passes through the commercial hub of the city is the most integrated. The higher Rn values are concentrated within the more contemporary part of Dhaka. Physically, the most integrated lines, i.e., red in color, connect the eastern and western parts of Dhaka city, indicating Table 1 Global and local measures of Dhaka at different times (1608-2007) 56 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 10 Global integration (Rn) map of Dhaka, 2007. (Ferdous, 2010) Figure 11 Local integration (R3) map of Dhaka, 2007. (Ferdous, 2010) an extension of the core towards the north. The most segregated lines are concentrated mainly on the periphery of the city (Figure 10). The southeastern and northwestern edges are totally isolated from the centre or integration hub of the city. In general, the global integration values (Table 1) appear to be confined by the major roads that tend to spread over a wide range but do not necessarily traverse from the central to the peripheral areas. The mean global integration value of the total urban system (in 2007) was 0.539, with a minimum and a maximum range of 0.210 and 0.838 respectively, suggesting a comparatively medium to high level of accessibility to the urban system. integration map (Figure 11), a different distribution pattern is found, in which the local integrators tend to be dispersed over the whole plan layout or city rather than concentrated upon a specific location. A comparative analysis of the local and global integration maps shows that most of the roads that are globally important may not necessarily have been integrated locally, and vice versa. Among all axial lines, very few roads are integrated both locally and globally. The highest and lowest R3 values of the total urban system (Figure 11) are 4.399 and 0.333, respectively. The mean R3 value is 1.6055, implying that the configuration of Dhaka is characterized by a comparatively lower level of accessibility with reference to local neighbors. Local integration (R3) In contrast to global integration (Rn), local integration (R3) indicates the ‘relative accessibility’ of specific lines up to three turns away with reference to their immediate neighbors. By observing the local May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Intelligibility ‘Intelligibility’ is one of the principal measures related to the configuration of the spatial structure that plays an important role in determining the legibility of 57 Refereed Full-Papers any city. In syntactic terms, intelligibility is the theoretical interrelationship of the local and global spatial configuration (Tuncer, 2007). The value of intelligibility is that it can reveal how the constituted local and global parts are embedded within the urban system as a whole. According to Kim, other than reflecting the local and global relationships of the spatial configuration, intelligibility plays an important role in shaping the ways in which people perceive and use space (Kim, 1999; Kim & Penn, 2004). An intelligible system exhibits a smooth relationship between the local and global measures and the scale of movement (Hillier, 1996). Analyses of the scattergrams of the urban layout of Dhaka city (Figure 12) shows that the spatial configuration of Dhaka as a whole is of moderate intelligibility. The gentle slope of the regression line further confirms the perceived continuity between the local and global configurations of Dhaka. The tangent of the slope or value of R2 for the scattergram is (Rn R3 = 0.1673). According to space syntax theory, in any unintelligible system, individuals face difficulty when inferring the overall structure and trying to orient themselves to their immediate contexts. This can be explained by the relatively low consistency of morphological structures where the urban system comprises relatively segregated or excessively locally oriented areas which fail to relate to the whole. Therefore, this analysis suggested that the spatial configuration of Dhaka is relatively discontinuous and partially fragmented. Spatial nature of the integration core The integration core of a city is mainly formed along the highest integrated axial lines and conventionally comprises 5 to 20 percent of the most integrated streets, depending on the size of the axial map. By examining the core features, the distribution of relative accessibility and the size, the shape, and location of highly integrated streets can be identified, which can provide an understanding of the configuration of the layout of any city. The 5 to 20 percent most integrated streets of the urban system are highlighted by thick lines in Figures 13, 14, and 15 and show how the syntactic core is clustered. In the case of Dhaka, the highest integration is clustered mostly around an arc of the perimeter of the geographic centre. The curvilinear arc shape integration core (5 percent highest integrated line) follows a pattern of linear commercial interface (Figure 13). The form of this spinal shape core shifts into a hollow, deformed wheel shape with major outlines when considering the 15 percent most integrated lines (Figure 14). The integration core acts as a skeleton, shaping the spatial structure of Dhaka. When the core analysis is concerned with the 20 percent most integrated lines of the whole system, the deformed core loses its hollowness and concentrates densely in the centre and begins to extend to the north (Figure 15). Therefore, the curvilinear arc shape of the integration core forms a continuous concentrated core at the geographical centre of Dhaka. Figure 12 Relationship between global and local integration of Dhaka city. Scattergram by (Ferdous, 2010) 58 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 13 The dark lines show the 5% most integrated streets. (Ferdous, 2010) This type of global integration divides the Dhaka city into four major morphological ‘regions’ or sectors towards its north, south, east, and west. The core is mainly formed around the central area and the globally important commercial road networks with comparatively larger axial segments. Newly developed localities in Dhaka are more connected to their surroundings, and the older counterparts are rather isolated. Therefore, in comparison to the apparently densely knit spatial network of older areas, the contemporary settlements are more permeable to their surroundings. Discussion and Conclusion The spatial structure of a growing city: Dhaka has grown in size and scale over the last four hundred years. However, the urban morphology of old and new Dhaka are quite different. In old Dhaka, streets that are internal to an area rarely cross a perceived boundary and tend to be shorter and less differentiated in length from some of the more localized streets. In new Dhaka, at least some of the axial lines that are part of the local areas continue into neighboring areas, illustrating a per- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 14 The dark lines show the 15% most integrated streets. (Ferdous, 2010) vasive disposition for longer streets. The more localized shorter axial lines or streets tend to be incidental to or close to right angles. The shifting pattern of the syntactic heart of the city: The curvilinear arc shape of the integration core forms a continuous concentrated core at the geographical centre of Dhaka that passes mainly through the commercial interface. The shifting position of the global integration core or ‘syntactic heart’ of Dhaka city clearly clusters in the central area that follows market centres and different bazaar streets. As Dhaka city extends toward the north, the integration core follows the most connected and integrated commercial interface of the city. Therefore, the core is mainly formed by a globally important and connected commercial network with a comparatively larger axial segment. The spatial nature of integrated road networks: The longest axial line possesses higher global integration (Rn) values and is concentrated within the area of the later part of Dhaka. The most integrated line connects the eastern and western part of Dhaka city and gives direction to extend the core towards the north. The 59 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 15 The dark lines are the 20% most integrated streets. (Ferdous, 2010) highly local integrators (R3) tend to be dispersed all over the city rather than concentrating on a specific location. The most segregated lines are mainly distributed on the periphery of the city. The average connectivity of local systems in the central part is also higher than for the peripheral counterparts. The maximum connected roads exhibit the highest level of integration and are sited within the geometric centre of Dhaka and therefore helped to form the global integration core. These axial segments are more continuous and long, rather than fragmented. The spatial relationship between local and global streets: The spatial configuration of Dhaka as a whole is of low intelligibility. The lower slopes of the regression lines further confirm low continuity between the local and global configuration of Dhaka. The spatial configuration of Dhaka, which is relatively discontinuous and partially fragmented, forms a good, linear, tight scattergram and crosses the main regression line at a comparatively steeper angle. Syntactic analysis allows for a focus on the urban grid, building complexes, and overall urban structure in order to identify the spatial dimensions of social, 60 morphological, and configurational conditions. In the case of Dhaka city, syntactic analysis helps to identify the pattern of axial structure, the evolution of its spatial system, and the morphological growth of its urban system. This kind of spatial pattern where old and newly developed axial segments are juxtaposed side by side is very unique in character. Like most of the old cities, the evolution of Dhaka is not planned. However, there is a hidden logic in the configuration of urban layout. The hidden logic of urban spatial structure that follows mostly the bazaar streets or commercial centers has been revealed through the syntactic analysis. For the case of Dhaka city, from the very early period, the highest integration lines follow the bazaar streets, and these commercial belts are still the most integrated lines for contemporary Dhaka. By determining the pattern of growth and the location of Dhaka’s bazaar streets, this analysis explore the structure, function, and logic of the spatial configuration of urban function for the growing metropolitan area of Dhaka. The successful intervention and use of space syntax as a design and decision-making tool is widely accepted in different Western cities. This study shows that there could be benefits of using space syntax for future design of cities. It is acknowledged that the results of the analysis may vary over time with diverse and complex situations and with an interaction of socio-economic, environmental, cultural, and other factors. In spite of the limitations, this analysis can be usefully applied to the designing of commercial belts, urban infrastructure, and urban zones or sprawl, to determining the future urban growth of a city, and to evaluating alternative urban planning or design proposals with respect to urban life. Acknowledgements This paper is one of the outputs of ongoing PhD research at the University of Sydney, Australia. The author is grateful for the greatest support and critique provided by Dr. Jennifer M. Gamble, honorary associate at the University of Sydney, Australia. References Ahsan, R.M. (1991). Changing pattern of the commercial area of Dhaka city. S. Ahmed (Ed.), Dhaka past present and future. Dhaka: The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, pp. 396- 414. Bafna, S. (2003). Space syntax: A brief introduction to its logic and analytical techniques. Environment and Behavior, 35 (1), 17-29. Baran, P.K., Rodriguez, D.A., & Khattak, A.J. (2008). Space syntax and walking in a new urbanist and suburban neighbourhoods. Journal of Urban Design, 13 (1), 5-28. Refereed Full-Papers DAD. (2009). City map Dhaka. Retrieved: 25th September, 2010, from: http://www.dhakaamardhaka.com/ english/400YrCelebration/map.php. Hillier, B. (1996). Space is the machine: A configurational theory of architecture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hillier, B., & Hanson, J. (1984). The social logic of space. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hillier, B., Penn, A., Hanson, J., Grajewski, T., & Xu, J. (1993). Natural movement: Or, configuration and attraction in urban pedestrian movement. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 20 (1), 29-66. Islam, N. (1996). Dhaka from city to megacity. Dhaka: Urban Studies Programme, Department of Geography, Dhaka University. Jiang, B., & Liu, X. (2010). Automatic generation of the axial lines of urban environments to capture what we perceive. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 24 (4), 545-558. Khan, I. (1982). Alternative approach to the redevelopment of old dacca. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Khan, N. (2008). Study of morphological transformation in planned residential areas of Dhaka city. Unpublished MArch, Department of Architecture, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Kim, Y.O. (1999). Spatial configuration, spatial cognition and spatial behavior: The role of architectural intelligibility in shaping spatial experience. Unpublished PhD, University College London, University of London. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Kim, Y.O., & Penn, A. (2004). Linking the spatial syntax of cognitive maps to the spatial syntax of the environment. Environment and Behavior, 36 (4), 483-504. Mamun, M. (1993). Dhaka smriti bismritir nagari (Dhaka: A city of memories). Dhaka: Bangla Academy. Nilufar, F. (1997). The spatial and social structuring of local area in Dhaka city: A morphological study of the urban grid with reference to neighbourhood character within naturally grown areas. Unpublished PhD, Unit for Advanced Architectural Studies, The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London. Penn, A. (2003). Space syntax and spatial cognition: Or why the axial line? Environment and Behavior, 35 (1), 30-65. Rapoport, A. (1977). Human aspects of urban form-towards a man environment approach to urban form and design. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Siddique, K., et.al. (1991). Social formation in Dhaka city-a study in third world urban society. Dhaka: Dhaka University Press. Texas Austin, U. (2004). Southern Asia. Retrieved: 25th February, 2011, from: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia. html. Tuncer, E. (2007). Perception and intelligibility in the context of spatial syntax and spatial cognition: Reading an unfamiliar place out of cognitive maps. Paper presented at 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, Istanbul, Turkey: Faculty of Architecture: İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi. from:http://www.spacesyntaxistanbul.itu.edu.tr/ papers%5Cshortpapers%5C127%20-%20Tuncer.pdf. 61 Refereed Full-Papers Lessons From The Road: Meaning and Community Identity Examined Through the Lens of the Roadside Attraction By Loraine Fowlow (University of Calgary, Canada), Christy Hillman-Healey (University of Calgary, Canada) Sites for Sore Eyes The North American roadside attraction is commonly viewed as an amusing vernacular marker of place, of notice to the roadway traveler, the passerby, the novelty-seeking tourist, but not of any greater significance than this. Terminology such as ‘fun’ and ‘wacky’ are commonly used to describe these structures that take the form of objects such as the world’s largest duck, ball of twine, frying pan, peroghy, banana, and so on. Generations of roadside attractions have become common features of the North American landscape, glorified in outlets of popular culture as varied as film (such as the movie “Michael,” 1996), books, and magazines; the phenomenon has even been used as the name for a film production company (www.roadsideattractions.com). The distinction of being ‘the world’s largest’ is a common characteristic for the roadside attraction, naturally leading to the assumption that these strange structures were erected solely for the pleasure and entertainment of the visitor. Often, but not always erected by the side of a road or highway, the roadside attraction does, indeed, attract. But is this all there is to their significance? This research is premised on the assumption that there is more at play with the roadside attraction than mere entertainment; that at the root of the phenomenon of these oddities lie communities seeking meaningful representation through these apparently simple structures. The advancements in automobile travel generated an opportunity for a new form of engagement with an audience in motion. Physical manifestations of roadside culture that developed in the 1920s and 1930s included gas stations, motels, and restaurants, many of which turned to fantasy as inspiration for their design. Intended as mechanisms for visual marketing to an audience speeding by in their cars, oddities such as large ducks, hamburgers and hot dogs, elephants, and milk bottles 62 sprung up across the U.S. roadway system. Andrews presents this development of fantasy construction as being uniquely American, given the country’s history of immigration fueled by dreams of freedom (Andrews, 1984). A national propensity for expressing freedom in the form of the biggest, best, newest, and fastest found its way onto the roadsides of America in the form of ‘wacky’ structures now referred to as roadside architecture. Normatively viewed by the outside world as a visual, three-dimensional one-liner, the roadside attraction, upon closer examination, reveals much more than a desire to entertain the passerby. Its very existence speaks to more than the function of tourist attraction. The intentions behind roadside attractions are diverse, ranging from the establishment of a regional landmark, the cultivation of a vernacular identity, commemorating a historical icon, and other forms of boosterism. The purpose of these roadside oddities spans a variety of intentions, with the most common being a physical representation of a community’s identity. In some instances, the attraction has taken the form of a resident waterfowl, wildlife, historical figure, or representational of a local industry. Fraser Ross of Semaphor Design Company reflected on the purpose of these roadside attractions as “historical landmarks in both a literal and figurative way…[t]hey literally mark a location, but they also mark a time and place.” (Canada Post, 2010) Roadside attractions are often referred to as hokey; however the majority of travelers find them captivating, and as Ross describes, “[o]n family vacations, we all stop; we stare; and we rarely leave without a picture.” (Canada Post, 2010) Within the process and result of choosing these attractions lie potential lessons for urban communities seeking to manifest local meaning and significance within the built environment. This research asks why communities choose to represent themselves through a roadside attraction, and how the physical manifestation of their particular roadside attraction identifies them as distinct from their neighbors. Architectural scholars have largely ignored the roadside attraction, although roadside architecture and its cultural import have received some attention (Andrews, 1984; Jakle, 2002; Liebs, 1995; Margolies, 2010; Stager and Carver, 2006). Scholarly depictions of roadside attractions are scant to non-existent, with publications on the subject largely in the form of popular literature intended for the lay audience (Butko, 2007; Dregni, 2001, 2006). Descriptive and historical in nature, scholarly Refereed Full-Papers accounts of roadside architecture depict the phenomenon from the conceptual framework of the ‘outsider’, the visitor and tourist, or the historian, almost entirely neglecting the viewpoints and intentions of the communities that produced the structures. While Andrews focuses on the programmatic nature of inhabitable roadside attractions (Andrews, 1984), his brief descriptions of each structure do not delve further than their historical development. Any connection with the community that spawned the structures is absent throughout the literature, possibly due to the commercial nature of the structures under consideration. With most writings on the subject, the questions of how and why the structures exist are presumed to be subsumed within the realm of popular roadside commercial culture. Notably, the work of the Society for Commercial Archeology and its membership focuses exclusively on this aspect of the phenomenon, and is the “oldest national organization that encourages the study of the unique historic significance of twentieth-century commercial landscape and culture” (Stager and Carver, xiii). Herein lies a useful distinction between most structures that fall into the category of roadside architecture, and those referred to as roadside attractions. Structures erected for commercial purposes (gas stations, motels, diners, and restaurants) utilize the unusual and bizarre for marketing purposes, seeking to gain the attention of the motorist passing by. Although equally desirous of attention, the communitygenerated roadside attraction couples this with the additional intention of representation of identity. At this point, a distinction between the Canadian roadside developments and their U.S. counterparts requires articulation. While the American development of roadside architecture and attractions are well documented, analogous documentation of the spread of the phenomenon to Canada exists primarily in the form of scattered websites devoted to showcasing roadside attractions for the purposes of tourism (Big Things; Large Canadian Roadside Attractions), and numerous personal blogs documenting family travels (Alberta’s “Big Things” Roadside Attractions), with some mention on Federal and Provincial government websites (Library and Archives Canada; Travel Alberta). Some provincial governments are providing tourism incentives to visit the rural communities that have created roadside attractions, such as Travel Alberta’s Roadside Attraction Passport program (2010), but there is no scholarly, or even popular, published accounts of these structures. Initially documented with delight by aficionados and May 2011 – Make No Little Plans the curious primarily in the form of photographic and tourism publications (Margolies, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2010; Patton, 2010; Butko, 2007; Dregni, 2001, 2006), these structures for many years escaped the attention of the architectural establishment, which is not surprising, given the absence of professional architectural input. Because of the absence of professional design in the development of roadside structures, one might argue that roadside architecture and attractions are a form of vernacular design, and it is in this realm that one finds some discussion of the subject (Davis, 1997; Fair, 1997; Liebs, 1995). However, the most noteworthy contribution to the field, which originated directly from the center of the architectural profession, was the seminal 1977 work in of Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, which posited the everyday landscape and road culture as a new urban form. One year later, Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco furthered this shift of interest from the everyday to the spectacular with his essay Travels in Hyper Reality, documenting and analyzing wax museums, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, the Palace of Living Arts and Disneyland as part of his romp through the wonderland of America. Through his analysis, as seen through the lens of semiotics, Eco put forward the built vernacular and spectacular as repositories of significance, and, therefore, as worthy of study (Eco, 1973). Since Venturi and Eco, over the course of the last twenty years or so, scholarly interest in roadside architecture has surfaced, with motor-age landscape scholarship and historic preservation work appearing as a topic of consideration in academic publications (Vieyra ,1979; Jennings, 1991; Adams and McMurry, 1997). Similar scholarly interest in roadside attractions has yet to surface, however. A recent study of roadside attractions on the Canadian prairies was undertaken by the authors with the goal of examining the history and meaning of roadside attractions through visits to communities and interviews with town residents, municipal officials, and tourism and economic development authorities. This paper represents the beginning of the analysis of what is the first phase of a study that will eventually encompass the examination of roadside attractions across Canada, and will culminate in a comparative study of similar attractions in the U.S. This study encompassed visits to 48 communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, across 3,800 miles (6100 km), and included key informant interviews 63 Refereed Full-Papers with representatives of 22 communities. The database created for this study includes over 200 communities across these three provinces with some form of roadside attraction; these communities will be surveyed through the form of questionnaires that will cover the same questions utilized in the interviews. The interviews have been examined for the purpose of this paper with the goal of lessons learned for urban communities in mind, the results of which are organized here in the form of a selection of three community “stories” that have the most significant and commonly shared lessons. This is what we learned. Banana Belt Situated in the southwestern corner of Manitoba, 340 km from Winnipeg, Melita is a community of just over 1,000 that enjoys particularly warm weather for this part of the country. Known for many years by the TV weathercasters in nearby Brandon as the “banana belt,” the residents of Melita have chosen this moniker as representative of their community in the form of a “bright yellow, Walt Disney-like banana wearing a brown belt with a buckle that reads “Welcome to the Banana Belt.” 7 As with so many small agriculturally based communities, Melita has experienced a decline in population and prospects in recent years. Their younger populations leaving for brighter opportunities in larger centers, these communities are seeking not just tourists, but visitors and residents. Following the pattern set by other communities, Melita decided that it needed a roadside attraction. After years of searching for ways to inject new life into the community, in 2007 a tourism committee in Melita determined to build an attraction that would, well, attract. They chose to draw on Melita’s externally recognized reputation as the banana belt, and audaciously decided that a giant banana would be their representation of community identity. Known as “grasslands bird capital of Manitoba” due to the abundance of birding opportunities for enthusiasts who travel from as far away as the U.S., many in the town felt that a bird would be a more appropriate representation. However, the tourism committee determined that Melita needed something unique, given the dozens of bird statues and attractions already in existence across the Prairies. The decision to choose a banana drew an immediate and strong response, with residents loudly opposing the choice of a banana to represent their community. A vote in the local paper reported opposition of 69 percent, 64 Figure 1: The Banana in Melita, Manitoba compared with support of 39 percent. A national article in the National Post headlined the controversy as, “Banana Splitsville,” unable to resist the obvious wordplay.8 Despite the opposition, as well as internal dissention, the tourism committee persevered, and produced a design that included a blue jay sitting on the arm of the banana, in deference to those who preferred the bird capital identifier for the community. Funding for the attraction was raised through donations and fundraising efforts (no government funding was used at all), and the banana was unveiled on August 7th, 2010 during a weekend event that produced 536 banana splits for attendees and many photo ops with the new celebrity. Visited two weeks after opening, the banana was already attracting passersby who couldn’t resist having their picture taken at the foot of a 30-foot-tall banana. More visitors have been noticed in town stores by residents, and, according to tourism officials, naysayers are gradually turning their opinion towards a more positive view of their banana. The media exposure has been intense for a small community, which is following the initial splash of coverage for the unveiling with a new “Name the Banana” contest that is being covered well beyond the community. The town has now branded Refereed Full-Papers itself as a “town with a-peel.” Time will tell, of course, if the banana in Melita will fulfill local expectations for increased visitation and economic benefit, as well as continue to improve in approval. The controversy and uniqueness of their attraction has afforded the community with an advantageous opportunity, however, for building towards fulfillment of their goals. Lessons Learned I Proponents of the banana expected a certain degree of opposition, given their very unusual choice of symbol, but one unexpected outcome for the town was the bringing together of the community through fundraising efforts, as well as through the debate that produced broad-based discussion of appropriate representation for the town. It would appear that everyone had an opinion of the banana. The debate has been viewed as positive for the town, “because people are talking about what to build, not where to go.” 9 Resident participation in meaningful discussions about community identity was not an expected outcome of this process, which was essentially closed in nature. Despite overriding the preferences of the majority of the population, the end result of the process has the potential to benefit the community in the short and long term. The longer-term effects of both process and result are unknown, but there lies the potential in this experience for the town to continue awareness and decisionmaking regarding both its fate and its physical form. It will take long-term resident commitment, or, buy-in, however, to ensure the longevity of the banana as an effective and useful tool for the community through continued inclusion in marketing, branding and events. It will also take this long-term commitment on the part of the community to ensure that the banana is maintained physically, and therefore, maintains its appeal to visitors and outsiders. Although born in an environment of controversy and dissent, sustainability of the banana as a working and living town symbol will require broader support than the relatively small group that brought it into being. The strength of will and personality that produced a giant banana as a symbol for a rural Manitoba town despite significant opposition is indicative of the results that can be achieved through singular vision and determination. For good or ill, the result of this process has initiated a response that can be embraced through continued effort of promotion and development, or neglected, and therefore become a missed opportunity. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Of course, even a banana on the prairie may eventually fail to surprise or interest, but the town of Melita has the ability at this time to influence its future through a symbol that was little loved at the outset. Perhaps town leaders can look to Paris and its once despised, now famed tower, for inspiration. What the Heck is a Bunnock? Situated just off Highway 31, and three miles east of the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan, the pride of the town of Macklin is in full view and easy to spot at any speed from the highway. Rising vertically in the air and visually unencumbered by anything else remotely manmade is a 32-foot, fiberglass bunnock. The average person will reasonably ask: What is a bunnock? What, indeed. The word bunnock is Russian for ‘bone’. In this case, bunnock refers to the anklebone of a horse. Early settlers in the Macklin area brought with them from Russia the game of bunnock, apparently developed in the 1800s by Russian soldiers stationed in Siberia with nothing to do but attempt playing horseshoes on the frozen tundra. Failing to penetrate the frozen ground, and therefore, failing to play the game, the innovative soldiers utilized something that would stand on the ice and was in abundance: horse anklebones. And thus, the game of bunnock was born, and found its way on to the Canadian prairie in the early 20th century.10 The game remained popular in this region of Saskatchewan, and has spread across the globe to Australia, Africa, Chile, Mexico, the UK, the U.S. and Japan. As many as three hundred teams descend each year on the town of Macklin in August to participate in the World Bunnock Championship, effectively tripling the size of the town of 1,400. This singular event provides economic benefit to the area estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million.11 Begun 18 years ago by the Manager of the Macklin Credit Union and a Credit Union committee, the global tournament of this highly unusual game has singularly put the town of Macklin on the global map. Media coverage has been high and international, as the novelty of the game has appealed to the curious. Looking for a means of promoting both the game and the town, the committee determined that a roadside attraction that doubled as a tourist booth would be designed and built. The natural choice, of course, was a bunnock. Vertically oriented, the shape lent itself well to creating a marker visible from miles away, as well as providing space for a 65 Refereed Full-Papers the weekend keep the visitors entertained. The number of teams allowed to register is limited to 320, presumably to keep the crowds at a reasonable level. Figure 2: The Bunnock in Macklin, Saskatchewan tourism booth inside. Constructed of a steel frame and shaped by chicken wire covered with white fiberglass, the bunnock is lit from within at night, glowing bright orange, almost lighthouse-like. The shape of the bunnock is highly unusual, and entirely unrecognizable, if not vaguely reminiscent of … something. Newspaper columnist Dave Barry has described it this way: “Your family is sure to enjoy viewing the giant plastic Macklin bone, which looks vaguely like an enormous naked woman with no arms or legs or head.”12 That is exactly what it looks like, which only appears to add to its appeal and mystery. It is estimated that visitors to the tourist booth number approximately 2,500 per year, based upon the numbers who sign the guest book inside, with many if not all taking their photos with the peculiarly shaped bunnock. It is unknown, of course, how many stop for a bunnock photo when the tourist booth is closed, which includes the winter months. According to Kim Gartner, Macklin Town Administrator, the bunnock even serves as background for wedding photos, providing, perhaps, an interesting contrast to the wedding dress. 13 In addition to the numbers tracked at the tourist booth are those coming to Macklin for the tournament; these number 3,500-4,000 each year over the course of the August long weekend. Most stay overnight in the town’s campground, and events such as beer gardens, dances, concerts, and other entertainment throughout 66 Lessons Learned II By all appearances, 18 years after its inception the tournament and its namesake roadside attraction are highly successful, as measured by annual visitation to the town, economic infusion into the community, media coverage, and international reputation. There appears to be full community support for hosting the bunnock as representative of the community’s past cultural heritage, as well as its current international stature as home to the World Bunnock Championship. Through the tournament the community’s heritage is celebrated and renewed annually and into continuing generations; this is contemporary, living history. Through the roadside attraction, this identity of heritage is manifest and broadcast to every vehicle that passes along this major highway, and well beyond the geographic confines of the town. Perhaps herein lies the secret of Macklin’s success: the authentic coupling of the built attraction with a living, breathing event that nurtures community spirit, while simultaneously connecting the town to the larger world. This community’s relationship with its attraction is not on ‘cruise control;’ it is active and continuous over a span of almost 20 years. Unlike many towns visited in this study that are no longer entranced by—or even interested in—their unusual structure, Macklin continues to be known as the town with the Bunnock. As the mayor of the town told the Globe and Mail in 2006, “Bunnock has really put Macklin on the map. We’re the envy of a lot of small towns. They’re looking for an event that will bring people in. Well, well, we have it—we have bunnock.” 14 They also have the three dimensional, 32-foot high bunnock, a structure that is a real “traffic stopper.” 15 As popular as the game might be, it is the structure that garners the most media and tourist attention, accessible as it is to the far larger population who do not even know what it is. Through continued connection with the event that brings Macklin to life each year, and the town’s commitment to maintain the structure physically and symbolically as essential to the community, there is no reason why the bunnock in Macklin will not continue to feed local, national, and even international interest and attention. And in so doing, continue to feed Macklin as a living, surviving community. Refereed Full-Papers Spock Goes Home Contrary to what popular culture enthusiasts might think, Vulcan is not actually a planet out there somewhere in the planetsphere; it is, in reality, a small town in rural southern Alberta. Named in 1915 by the town’s Canadian Pacific Railway surveyor for the Roman god of Fire, Vulcan was laid out with streets also named for other assorted gods and goddesses. A predominantly agricultural community numbering approximately 2,000 in population, Vulcan’s history has been intricately linked with its agricultural base, and the town was known regionally for its nine grain elevators, a staple of the Canadian prairie landscape. Today, only one of the original nine remains, a silent testament to the changing face of agriculture over the years. Despite the loss of the elevators, however, the town maintains strong pride and attachment to this local history. With its arrival in the 1960s, and exponential growth in popularity in the 1970s and beyond, the TV show Star Trek has organically given Vulcan another identity: home of the intrepid Mr. Spock. What began as a trickle of visitors looking to have their pictures taken with town signage mushroomed in the late 1980s as local business leaders seeking to diversity their failing economy turned to this ‘gold mine’ in their backyard for potential benefit.16 Beginning with the formation in 1989 of the Vulcan Association of Science and Trek (V.A.S.T.), the town began to engage in promotional events and activities linking it directly with Star Trek. In 1991, a radio station in the nearby city of Lethbridge and the Calgary Herald newspaper held a contest, “Voyage to Vulcan,” and in 1993 the first Star Trek Convention, VulCon 1 (also now known as Spock Days/ Galaxyfest), was held, and included the authors of Star Trek books as guests. The momentum continued with this annual event, culminating in the 1995 unveiling of the Vulcan Starship replica of the famous Star Trek ship as an entry marker to the town, and the opening of the newly created Tourism booth at the Trek Station. Seeking to continue building the potential of this new brand for Vulcan, the town hired Dayna Dickens from Ontario to serve as Director of Tourism. Vulcan Tourism quickly developed a new attraction for the Trek Station, the Vulcan Space Adventure, which garnered international media attention, as anything Star Trekrelated tends to do. By 2001, the visitor statistics had been growing steadily, reaching approximately 14,000 per year by the end of 2007. An attempt in 2007 to hold the premiere of the new Star Trek movie in Vulcan, despite not having a theatre in town, ultimately failed, but did succeed in attracting the attention of the man himself: Mr. Spock, also known as actor Leonard Nimoy. Reaching out to the town to lend his support for their bid to host the premiere ultimately led to the largest event in Vulcan’s history: the coming home of Mr. Spock in April 2010. Held in conjunction with the Calgary Comic Expo, and attended by the international print and television media, Figure 3 (left): “Enterprise” float, Welcome Home Spock event, Vulcan, Alberta, April 2010 Figure 4 (right): TrekStation, Welcome Home Spock event, Vulcan, Alberta, April 2010 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 67 Refereed Full-Papers including the Sci-Fi Channel, the event was covered by almost 100,000 Internet sites; and drew crowds of an estimated 6,000 from across the province and attendees at the Comic Expo. There are over 30 YouTube postings alone for the event. Mr. Nimoy was congenial, gracious and genuinely interested in the town as he toured the Trek Station, and later unveiled a statue of Spock. It was a big day for little Vulcan. After reaching this branding dream scenario and pinnacle of international exposure, however, the future of the relationship between Vulcan and Star Trek lies in uncertain waters. Within months of the Spock event, Dickens left her position in Vulcan to take on consulting work, following differences with the Town Council over strategic planning for Vulcan Tourism. Despite soaring visitor numbers of over 20,000, and the level of coverage and exposure, the town is uncertain as to how to proceed next.17 “It’s time to see what direction Town Council wants to take the [tourism] department,” says Vulcan Mayor Tom Grant. “Another question Town Council and the tourism committee needs to answer is whether the department should accelerate, break or put on the cruise control.”18 Lessons Learned III The reasons for this uncertainty regarding direction for Vulcan Tourism are unknown, but it is inconceivable why a town that has won the tourism jackpot, so to speak, and would be the envy of small towns across the country, would hesitate to continue to capitalize on this gift of branding and exposure. The very notion of putting this momentum on ‘cruise control’ would be unfathomable to anyone in the tourism and economic development industries. Perhaps the answer to this oddity may lie in the source of Vulcan’s fame, which came unbidden and unexpectedly from the larger world beyond the fields of southern Alberta. Although initially welcoming the potential for the economic boon that might follow an association with Star Trek, the town was not actually prepared for the level of fame and tourism growth that resulted, and their very public rebranding as the hometown of Spock. 19 Still attached to their historical association with the nine grain elevators, the local response to this new identity has been mixed. This is nowhere more evident than in the cover of the town’s brochure, which bizarrely overlays an image of the Starship Enterprise over an historic photo of the grain elevators. 68 The town has a difficult choice to make, and it is doing so without the guidance of experienced tourism or economic development professionals. Whether Vulcan chooses to capitalize on the opportunities it now has to continue and grow the new brand, or vacillate sufficiently until the momentum and interest fade, only time will tell. If Mr. Spock were asked this question, however, it is possible that he would choose the logical path, and advise the town to boldly go where Vulcan has not gone before. The dilemma faced by Vulcan’s Town Council is illustrative of the disconnect that can occur when initiatives are externally driven and imposed upon a community and do not authentically arise from within. The town has been caught off guard by what is, by anyone’s standards, phenomenal success in achieving a tourism and development brand that can last far into the future, and provide the basis for a solid and sustainable economic boon for the community. The fact that the initiative to use the brand to diversify and grow the economy originated in the town does not negate the additional fact that the townspeople themselves do not identify with this brand. This points to the need for a community to achieve buy-in and active participation with an initiative, particularly when it originates externally. Without a sense of community ownership, long-term continuity and sustainability of an initiative will always be in question. If You Build It The examples cited in this paper are but three of many, and have been chosen for their ability to represent the most significant commonalities found amongst the larger field of roadside attractions in this study. Each in its own way manifests noteworthy lessons to be learned about how these communities function, and, in turn, offer potential lessons for their urban counterparts seeking similar goals of meaningful self-identification through built form. One of these lessons deals with the need for community participation, buy-in and support in the visualization and design processes. Without the development of a sense of community ownership in these processes, a successful outcome may be jeopardized in the longer term, despite the appearance of initial success, as it is through this sense of ownership that the physical outcome (whatever it may be) will be maintained and supported, both physically and economically. The unfortunate scenario of longer term neglect was observed Refereed Full-Papers countless times during this study, as numerous roadside attractions had fallen into disrepair after the initial vision and energy of a small group of enthusiasts had decayed over time. Although not a guarantee in and of itself of longer term sustainability, initial and continuous community support and buy-in, as seen in Macklin, does contribute positively to the ‘living’ aspect of the outcome, and therefore, presumably, to its survival. Another commonality found across most of the attractions studied, but not explicitly articulated, is the significance of the distinction between the external and internal point of view of the community in question. Many communities studied understandably view the world from the inside out, but do not supplement their normative viewpoint with that of the outside looking in. A small but significant example are the communities which do not see the need to couple their roadside attraction with tourist information, either through joint physical presence, as in Macklin, or through informative signage. When asked where visitors to the attraction could obtain souvenirs or tourist brochures and information, the response was often that these could be found in x store in town, although the visitor had no means of learning this. The point here is that failure to understand how it is being viewed by the outside world or the visitor can likewise lead to failure of intention. Macklin fully understands this, Melita is on the cusp of it, but Vulcan verges on missing it altogether. Without this understanding, communities can fail to connect the dots—the economic dots, in particular. When the goal is economic gain, as it is with virtually all of the attractions studied, this failure can doom the endeavor entirely, or, at best, put it into ‘cruise control’, resulting in a failure to benefit from the effort of constructing the attraction in the first place. It would appear from these examples, as well as all of the others in this study, that it can be primarily external validation and attention to the roadside attraction that is of value to the community, both economic and otherwise. That much would be obvious, even without a study of any sort. The question that is begged, though, is: if you build it and they do not come (or like it), does it matter? The corollary to that question could be: if you build it and they do come (as in Vulcan), what then? These questions are faced by communities large and small who undertake civic projects, whether they be small roadside attractions or large-scale urban design. The answer to both questions likely depends upon where on the spectrum of the commonalities noted May 2011 – Make No Little Plans above the community in question lies. Although the rural community’s project may be jeopardized by the failure to understand the external point of view, the urban community’s work can be just as threatened should the reverse be true, and the internal point of view be neglected. Likewise, obtaining community support and buy-in at the outset of any project can only be beneficial in the longer term, and assist with short-term success. These lessons are not new, historically speaking. The results of this study only point towards, and possibly confirm, age-old lessons learned but perhaps forgotten in recent years, as technical considerations and infrastructure development have gained prominence in urban decision-making. At a time when architects, urban designers and planners are challenged to respond both to technological as well as civic needs, it is perhaps wise to recall that most basic of human needs: community. Endnotes 1 McCulloch, 2010 2 Kirby, 2010 3 Kasikova, 2005 4 Canada Post, 2010 5ibid 6 Wawa News 7 Melita Town website 8 National Post 9ibid 10 Town of Mackin website 11 Interview with Kim Gartner, Macklin Town Administrator; August 16th, 2010 12Barry 13 Interview with Kim Gartner, Macklin Town Administrator; August 16th, 2010 14Cook 15 Interview with Kim Gartner, Macklin Town Administrator; August 16th, 2010 16 Interview with Dayna Dickens, Coordinator for Vulcan Tourism; July 29, 2010 17 Tipper, July 2010 18 Tipper, August 2010 19 Interview with Dayna Dickens, Coordinator for Vulcan Tourism; July 29, 2010 69 Refereed Full-Papers Bibliography Roadside Attractions: American [examples] Andrews, J.J. C. 1984. The Well Built Elephant and Other Roadside Attractions. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Barry, Dave. 2006. “Sites for Sore Eyes,” Jewish World Review, July 24 <http://www.jewishworldreview.com/dave/ barry072406.php3?printer_friendly> (14 September 2010) Butko, B. 2007. Roadside Attractions: Cool Cafes, Souvenir Stands, Route 66 Relics, & Other Road Trip Fun. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. Dregni, E. 2001. Minnesota Marvels: Roadside Attractions in the Land of Lakes. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Dregni, E. 2006. Midwest Marvels: Roadside Attractions Across Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Kirby, Doug. Interview. 2002. “Website of the Week: Roadside America.” Pop Cult Magazine. <http://www.popcultmag. com/passingfancies/websiteoftheweek/roadside/roadside1. html> (14 September 2010) Lange, Steve. 2004. “Roadside Attractions” American Profile, August 22 <http://www.americanprofile.com/article/4259. html> (24 September 2010) Margolies, J. 2010. Fun Along the Road American Tourist Attractions. Koln, Germany: Taschen. Margolies, John. 1981. “The Joys of Roadside America” Historic Preservation 33(3): 44-47. McCulloch, Adam. 2010. “America’s Strangest Roadside Attractions” Travel + Leisure Magazine, August <http:// www.travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-strangestroadside-attractions/1> (14 September 2010) Sutherland, Cynthia. 1982/1983. “America’s Roadside Attractions: From Commerce to Camp” The Clarion, Winter: 42-45. Roadside Attractions: Canada [examples] (uncredited) 2008. “Banana Splitsville.” National Post, February 18 <http://www.nationalpost.com/life/Great+Canadian+Adv enture+ways+fill+your+calendar+this+fall/> (10 September 2010) Alberta’s “Big Things” Roadside Attractions, blog. (August 25, 2010) http://albertaroadsideattractions.blogspot.com/ (5 September 2010) Big Things: The Monuments of Canada. <http://www.bigthings. ca/> (14 July 2010) Cook, Tim. 2006. “Rolling the Bones in Macklin,” Globe and Mail, July 5 (updated 17 March 2009) <http://www. theglobeandmail.com/life/article177621.ece> (2 September 2010) “History of North America.” Library and Archives Canada. <http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/caninfo/ep097.htm> (25 July 2010) Karpan, Robin. 2006. Larger than life: Saskatchewan’s big roadside monuments. Saskatoon: Parkland Publishing. 70 Tipper, Stephen. 2010. “Visitor Numbers to Vulcan Increases,” Vulcan Advocate, July (Article ID#2677070) <http://www.vulcanadvocate.com/ArticleDisplay. aspx?archive=true&e=2677070> (10 September 2010) Tipper, Stephen. 2010. “Dickens Resigns from Vulcan Tourism” Vulcan Advocate, August (Article ID#2677103) <http://www.vulcanadvocate.com/ArticleDisplay. aspx?archive=true&e=2677103> (10 September 2010) Town of Macklin website. <http://www.macklin.ca/bunnock.htm> (10 August 2010) Town of Melita website. <http://www.melitamb.ca/index. php?pageid=465)> (14 September 2010) “Unique Attractions.” Travel Alberta website. <http://www2. travelalberta.com/en-ab/ThingsToSee/UniqueAttractions/ Pages/default.aspx?Location=Alberta+Central&MetaHashKe y=E723A4A45ED0754ECA8E4C7BC21FB747&mrkt=Albe rta> (25 June 2010) Local/Community [origin | identity] Amato, J. A. 2002. Rethinking Home: A Case for Writing Local History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benet, Francisco. 1963. Sociology Uncertain: The Ideology of the Rural-Urban Continuum. Comparative Studies in Society and History, October 6 (1): 1-23. Heath, K. 2006/2007. “Assessing Regional Identity Amidst Change: The Role of Vernacular Studies” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 13 (2): 76-94. Jacobs, J. 1993. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: The Modern Library. Kunstler, J. H. 1996. Home From Nowhere. New York, London: Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster. Kunstler, J. H. 1993. The Geography of Nowhere. New York, London: Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster. Zukin, S. 1995. The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Roadside Architecture [commercial] Baeder, J. 1980. Diners. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Baeder, J. 1982. Gas, Food, and Lodging: A Postcard Odyssey Through the Great American Roadside. New York: Abbeville Press. Davis, T. 1997. “The Miracle Mile Revisited: Recycling, Renovation, and Simulation Along the Commercial Strip” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture (7): 93-114. Kasikova, Jana. 2005. “2H iconography of the American gas station.” MArch diss., State University of New York at Buffalo. Liebs, Chester, and Marc Trieb. 1980. “The Assessment of American Roadside Architecture” The Forum: Bulletin of the Committee on Preservation 2 (1): 1-2. Liebs, C. H. 1995. Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Longstreth, Richard W. 2000. The Buildings of Main Street: A Guide to American Commercial Architecture. Revised ed. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press. Refereed Full-Papers Jakle, J., Sculle, K. 2002. The Gas Station in America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Jennings, Jan. (ed). 1990. Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture. Ames: Iowa State University for the Society for Commercial Archaeology. Margolies, J. 2010. The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway Architecture in America. New York: Penguin Books. Margolies, J. 1996. Pump and Circumstance: Glory Days of the Gas Station. New York: Bulfinch Press. Margolies, J. 1995. Home Away From Home: Motels in America. New York: Bulfinch Press. Margolies, J. 1993. Signs of Our Times. New York: Abbeville Press. Sculle, Keith A. 1982. “Boosterism and Architecture: The Origins of Foeller, Schober, and Stephenson’s Gasoline Station Designs” Pioneer America 14 (1): 1-14. Venturi, R., Scott Brown. 2004. Architecture as Signs and Systems: for a Mannerist Time. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D., Izenour, S. 1977. Learning From Las Vegas. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press. Vieyra, D.1979. Fill’er UP: An Architectural History of America’s Gas Stations. New York: Collier Macmillan. Outcomes [guidebook] Florida, R. 2008. Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. Toronto: Random House Canada. Judd, D., and Fainstein, S., (eds). 1999. The Tourist City. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kolb, B. 2006. “Tourism and Marketing for Cities and Towns.” New York, Paris, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Stager, C. and Carver, M. (eds). 2006. Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Ward, S. 1998. Selling Places: the Marketing and Promotion of Towns and Cities, 1850-2000. New York: Routledge. Pop Culture [popularity] Canada Post Corporation. 2010. “Canada Post Launches Roadside Attractions Collection - Wawa Goose Included.” Wawa News, July 5. <http://www.wawa-news.com/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6536&Itemid=11 3> (14 September 2010) Canada Post Corporation. 2009. “Roadside Attractions” <http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/collecting/ stamps/2009/2009_jul_roadside_attraction.jsf.> (14 September 2010) Kirby, D., Smith, K., Wilkins, M. 1996-2010. RoadsideAmerica. com. <http://www.roadsideamerica.com/> (14 September 2010). May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Lambert, Steve. 2010. “Travel: Some folks plan vacations around roadside attractions” TheRecord.com, May 28. Metroland Media Group Ltd. <http://news.therecord.com/ article/719065> (September 14, 2010) Patton, P., Peatross, C., Heimann, J. ed., Margolies, J. photog. 2010. John Margolies: Roadside America. Koln, Germany: Taschen. Society for Commercial Archeology. <http://www.sca-roadside. org/> (10 August 2010) Solonyka, Ed. 1998-2010. Large Canadian Roadside Attractions. <http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/> (24 September 2010) History [evolution] Canadian Oral History Association. <http://www.canoha.ca/ reference> (28 July 2010) “Cultural Resources of the Recent Past,” CRM Thematic issue 16 (1993). Buckley, Patricia. 1995. “Jumbo Oranges & Giant Lemons” SCA Journal, Spring-Summer 13 (2): PAGE NUMBERS. Francis, Daniel. 2006. A road for Canada: the illustrated story of the Trans-Canada Highway. North Vancouver, B.C.: Stanton Atkins + Dosil. Haney, Gladys J.. 1942. “Paul Bunyan Twenty-Five Years after” The Journal of American Folklore 55(217): 155-168. Hollis, Tim. 1999. Dixie before Disney: 100 Years of Roadside Fun. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Longstreth, Richard. 1991. “The Significance of the Recent past” APT Bulletin 23(2): 12-24. Monaghan, David W. 2002. Canada’s “new main street”: the Trans-Canada Highway as idea and reality, 1912-1956. Ottawa: Canada Science and Technology Museum. Patrick, Kevin J. 1995. “The American Roadside Giant: Myth, Meaning and Cultural Identity” SCA Journal, SpringSummer 13 (2): PAGE NUMBERS. Sculle, Keith A. 1990. “Oral History: A Key to Writing the History of American Roadside Architecture” Journal of American Culture 13(3): 79-88. Branding | Theme [application] Eco, U. 1983. “Travels in Hyper Reality,” in Travels in Hyper Reality. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace & Company. Farrelly, E. 2008. Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press. Gottdiener, M. 1997. The Theming of America: Dreams, Visions, and Commercial Spaces. Boulder: Westview Press. Hannigan, J. 1998. Fantasy City. London and New York: Routledge. Sorkin, M., (ed). 1994. Variations on a Theme Park. New York: Hill and Wang. 71 Refereed Full-Papers Children’s Conception of Natural Environments and Associated Play Activities in Santiago, Chile Daniela Casanello Frisius (The University of Melbourne, Australia), Raymond James Green (The University of Melbourne, Australia) Abstract This study investigated preferences of children in Santiago, Chile, for natural environments and associated natural elements, as well as their desire to use these environments and elements in their play activities. A total of 185 children from four schools in middle-lower income areas of Santiago were surveyed. The children participating in the study were eight and nine year olds in the third grade. Two of the four schools are located in the urban core of Santiago (N=110) and two are located on the urban fringe of the city (N=75). The later two groups have a greater possibility of having interaction with nearby natural settings within the context of their everyday lives than do the two urban core groups. Each child was given paper and color pencils and asked to draw a natural environment in which they would prefer to play in (drawing 1) and represent themselves playing in a natural environment (drawing 2). Results indicate that children from all schools identified similar elements, such as the sun, trees, and lawns. However, there were some noticeable differences between the urban core versus the urban fringe groups. Children living in the urban core drew proportionally more cultural features, such as houses and streets, within the depicted scenes than did the urban fringe children. Introduction One of the unfortunate consequences of the growth of cities worldwide has been that less open space is available for the inclusion of ‘natural environments’ within cities and the benefits such environments can offer urban dwellers (Kellert, 2005). This is a problem that particularly affects the lives of inner-city children, leaving them with fewer opportunities to have contact with elements of the natural world and limiting their opportunities to play in ‘natural’ environments. 72 Over the last two decades, urban children in many cities around the world have been afforded less opportunity to have contact with natural environments within the urban environment as cities continue to grow (Kellert, 2005), resulting in what Louv (2008) has referred to as ‘nature deficit disorder’. This has been described as a lack of contact for children with natural environments, which is a consequence of fragmented urban open space networks, parental apprehension about letting their children play outdoors, and the fact that in many families both parents work and children are spending more time at school—and when they are out of school, they tend to spend more of their free time on the computer or watching television (Louv, 2008). Yet play within the context of more natural environments has been shown to be beneficial to the physical and psychological development of children. Numerous studies have suggested such benefits in terms of the mental, physical, and emotional development of children through greater stimulation of their imagination, enhanced creativity, better social skills, self-esteem, and increased learning (Fjørtoft, 2004; Fjørtoft & Sageie, 2000; 1997). Cohen (1994) suggests that benefits that children can obtain by playing in natural environments are derived essentially from the fact that such activity encourages greater ability for exploration of the environment. Exposure to natural settings in urban settings, and the activities that these settings afford, can help to increase children’s overall awareness of their environment, to develop a greater ability to think creatively, and to be more independent. It can also provide them with more diverse sensory experiences and encourage greater peer interaction (Valentine, 2004). Having opportunities to play within the context of more naturalized environments in urban settings can also help to stimulate children’s curiosity and increase their reaction times (Kellert, 2005). The advantage of providing play environments that incorporate natural environmental elements instead of the more typical formal built playgrounds, is that they are not static. Natural environments change over time, both progressively and cyclically, in the short and longer term, and thus are inherently more complex than built play settings. For example, due to changing seasons, changes over the day, and the complexity of natural phenomenon, children are afforded what the Kaplans (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) refer to as ‘soft-fascination’. Refereed Full-Papers Natural Environment The concept of a ‘natural environment’ is somewhat hard to precisely define (Wohlwill, 1983). The definition and meaning of ‘natural environment’ has also changed over time (Tuan, 1978). In addition, the notion of a natural environment will be associated with different meanings for different persons, depending on a host of factors, such as their environmental history and the way they encounter nature in the city (Laurie, 1979). People may also have an inherent, evolutionally conditioned affinity for natural environments over built settings, or what has been termed as ‘biophilia’ by Kellert (2005). The concept of ‘nature in the city’ or ‘urban nature’ is something most often afforded by urban parks and other types of urban open spaces, such as conserved land along rivers (Laurie, 1979; Low, Gleeson, Green, & Radovic, 2005). Over the last several decades, urban populations have increasingly sought out such places within cities so they can have more opportunities to experience natural environments, often simply as a place to seek refuge from the stresses of urban life (Wohlwill, 1983). For the purpose of the research presented here, natural environments are being defined using Kaplan and Kaplan’s (1989) definition, which they employed in their book The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective and Rachel Kaplan’s The Role of Nature in the Urban Context (Kaplan, 1983). This definition of natural environments includes green areas that can be found in cities, such as parks, backyards, riversides, schoolyards, etc. Such environments have the potential to be instrumental in urban children’s everyday experiences of nature, which is the focus of the research presented here. Nature and the Play Environment Most outdoor, ‘natural’ environments experienced today by urban children are found in the form of designed landscapes. The majority of playgrounds today lack diversity; they are usually composed of manufactured play equipment, some grass and maybe trees, but the natural elements are often not attractive enough to engage children mentally and physically (Cosco, 2007). Yet the complexity that natural environments can offer children can help promote a greater variety of play activities than do built, manufactured play equipment. Play in natural environments also can help to improve children’s motor skills, including their balance and coordination, as well as providing them with a more men- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans tally and emotionally stimulating environment (Fjørtoft, 2004; Fjørtoft & Sageie, 2000). Natural environments in the context of urban settings can offer a range of play opportunities, including opportunities for exploration and adventure, which can enhance children’s play behavior, creative potential, and the chances that they will have greater social interaction with other children (Burdette & Whitaker, 2005; Cosco, 2007; Freeman, 1995; Kirkby, 1989). It has also been suggested that creative and imaginative play are promoted by greater amounts of green open spaces that include vegetation, such as trees, where children are afforded more open, flexible free play opportunities (Faber Taylor, Wiley, Kuo, & Sullivan, 1998). Research Aim The aim of the research presented here was to better understand preferences for natural play environments of urban children living in Santiago, Chile. Differences in preferences between children in the inner city and children on the urban fringe were explored, as were gender differences. Method Participants A total of 185 eight and nine year old children (third grade) participated in the study. They were students from four schools in three different municipalities (Puente Alto, Conchalí, and Peñalolén) in Santiago, Chile. These schools were selected according to their distance to natural environments and the socio-economic status of their catchment area, with two of the schools in highly urban areas and two in urban fringe areas. Household income of their families was middle-low (average income ranged from US$475 to US$850 per month). A near equal number of males (51 percent) and females (49 percent) were included in the sample. The specific age range of the children was selected because past research has suggested that values for nature typically occur between six and twelve years old. At this age, children seem to start to understand and get more interested in the idea of nature and the natural world. Also at this age they start to expand their play environment, motivated by curiosity and a desire for more creative play activities (Kellert, 2005; Moore & Young, 1978). Procedure Children from the selected schools were asked to fill 73 Refereed Full-Papers out a small survey and do two different drawings. The survey asked them about the total time they spent, and places where they usually played, outside. They were also asked their gender, how they get to school (bus, car, walking, bicycle, other), how long the trip from their home to the school is, and if they had a plaza or park near their homes (if they did, they were asked to write its name). They were also asked to create two drawings. The first drawing was to be of a natural environment where they liked to play or would, if they could, play. In the second drawing they were asked to draw themselves playing in a natural environment. The drawing task took between one and one and half hours to perform. Each child was given a pack of colored pencils and two sheets of drawing paper. Once the drawings were collected from the four schools, they were content analyzed. This entailed tallying the frequency of elements/activities depicted and the percentage of area that each element in the drawings took up on the paper. It was assumed that preferences for types of natural environments and natural elements, and the activities the children would like to do in those environments, would be reflected in the frequency of elements mentioned and the structure (percentage of area the elements took up) of their drawing. With respect to this spatial analysis, the size of elements was measured and these measurements were then translated to relative frequencies (percentages) to reflect how much the individual elements filled the drawings. This resulted in the assignment of a percentage of the area of the sheet for every element, with the whole drawing area being representative of 100 percent. For the second drawing, each child was questioned about the play activity they had drawn. This was done to clarify their intent with respect to the activity they were depicting in their drawings, since some of them were difficult to interpret purely by visual inspection (e.g., observing nature, playing with a ball). The various activities represented in the drawings were coded so that each of the codes were mutually exclusive and comprehensive. Results Survey As mentioned, the children were asked to respond to the different questions with respect to their outdoor play activities, where they performed these activities, and how long they would engage in these activities. 74 The children reported that they played outdoors for an average of 4.3 days each week and 2.0 hours per day (see Table 1). The places most frequently drawn as play areas were parks/plazas and streets, both depicted at a frequency of 24 percent (see Table 2). However, there were some differences found between children living in the inner city and in the urban fringe. Children living in the urban core drew themselves playing in the streets more frequently than the children in the urban fringe, who included parks and plazas most frequently. Table 1 illustrates these differences. It also illustrates the importance of backyards for the urban fringe children. In addition, some children in the urban core schools mentioned the inside of their houses, even when they were specifically asked about outside play environments. Other children simply wrote playing “outside the house,” without clarifying if this referred to the street, yard, or other outdoor setting. Drawing 1: What elements did children prefer in a natural environment? The aim of the first drawing was to find out what children considered to be natural environments and their preferences for different places and elements in these environments (see Table 3). The category ‘countryside’ was the most frequently drawn as a favorite place across all groups. ‘Countryside’ was considered to be unstructured environments that could not be defined as farms or parks. More structured ‘parks’ and ‘plazas’ and built playgrounds were mentioned next most frequently Refereed Full-Papers by all children. However, again there were differences between groups. The urban fringe children drew playgrounds and ‘forests’ more frequently than did the urban core children, and the elements included in these environments covered a higher percentage of the area of drawings than did other elements. ‘Houses’ identified as natural environments were also drawn frequently by inner-city children. Gender differences are illustrated in Table 3, which shows that boys included forest and beach scenes more frequently than did girls, who depicted houses more frequently. With respect to the importance of each element in the drawings, as measured by frequency of depiction of the different elements in the drawings (see Table 4), the results indicate that, in general, the sun (90 percent), trees (84 percent), and lawns (74 percent) were most frequently depicted (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). ‘People’ were the fourth most represented element with 52 percent, followed by the sky (51 percent), clouds (44 percent), and mountains (42 percent). The percentage of the drawing that each element filled was analyzed to help shed light on how the children valued each element (see Table 5). The element with the highest percentage of coverage, as would be expected, was the sky (31.5 percent), followed by trees (15.5 percent) and lawns (12.0 percent). Some important differences were detected with respect to the proximity of the schools to natural settings. Children from schools located in the inner city drew a higher amount of urban elements than did the children from schools in the urban fringe. Figure 1 Drawings illustrate the importance of the sun, grass and trees May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 75 Refereed Full-Papers Table 4 Frequency of elements included in drawing 1 Table 5 Percentage of area of drawings by depicted element in drawing 1 by residential status* Table 6 Frequency of elements in drawings by depicted element in drawing 1 by residential status* Schools located in the Urban Core vs. Urban Fringe The first three elements mentioned by the children in both the urban core and fringe schools were the same (see Table 6). However, people were included more frequently by children living in the urban core, ranked in fourth place, while children living in the urban fringe illustrated people as the fifth most frequently depicted element, just after the sky. Another important difference was that children living in the urban core included ‘water’, ‘animals’, and ‘houses’ more frequently than did the urban fringe group (see Figure 2). Children living in the fringe areas included ‘playgrounds’ in their drawings more frequently (see Figure 3). The percentage of spatial area that each element took up in the drawings also exhibited some differences (see Table 5). Children in the urban fringe drew mountains, the largest of depicted elements, and they were the third most frequently depicted elements, just before trees. However, houses took up more of the drawings made by children in the inner-city schools. 76 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 2 Drawings of children from urban core schools Figure 3 Drawings of children from urban fringe schools May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 77 Refereed Full-Papers Table 7 Frequency of elements depicted in drawing 1 differentiated by gender* Gender Differences There were also some differences between females and males across the entire sample (see Table 7). The main differences were found to be related to females illustrating flowers and insects (mostly butterflies) at a higher rate than males, while males depicted kites and balls more frequently. More than half the girls (57 percent) depicted flowers as compared to the boys (22 percent). Drawing 2: Favorite Activities in Natural Environments The second drawing was aimed at understanding the kinds of activities that children liked to perform in different natural environments. The most frequently described activities (see Table 8) included playing with a ball (13 percent), flying a kite (12 percent), jumping rope, and playing soccer (10 percent), followed by playing on swings (5 percent). Some of the children were asked to clarify the activities depicted in their drawings, because it was not always clear to the researcher, for example, when they tried to illustrate ‘observing nature’. 78 Table 8 Activities listed by children in drawing 2* Children Living in the Urban Core vs. Urban Fringe The activity with the greatest difference in frequency of mention between the urban core and urban fringe groups was playing soccer (see Table 8). Children in the urban fringe expressed a stronger interest in soccer (15 percent) than did the urban core children. The children living in the urban core also identified activities related to urban places, for example jumping rope, bike riding, eating ice cream, and skating than did the urban fringe children. On the other hand, children living in the urban fringe mentioned activities related with natural environments, such as observing nature, jogging, and playing games (hide and seek between trees and touch tag games). Refereed Full-Papers Gender Differences Girls and boys also exhibited differences in terms of preferred activities (see Table 8), with girls preferring to jump rope (20 percent) more often the boys, who preferred to play soccer more often (19 percent). Flying a kite was also an activity preferred more by boys. Discussion This study attempted to identify preferences of children for different elements/activities associated with natural environments, to identify similarities and differences between children living relatively farther or closer to natural environments and any possible gender differences. Results suggest that the time that the children spend outside (number of days per week and hours per day) does not differ much between children living in the inner city and those in the urban fringe. However, there were important differences in the types of places where they liked to play between the inner city and urban fringe groups. Children living in the urban core mentioned playing in the streets more than did the urban fringe children, which could be explained by the urban core children having less access to plazas and parks and less proximity to nearby natural environments compared to children in the urban fringe areas. Another important finding was that the urban fringe children identified their backyards as an important place to play more often than did the urban core children, which may be explained by the fact they are more likely to have backyards at home. Playing inside their homes was also depicted by some of the children from the urban core schools, for example playing with their computers at home. Projective drawings have been studied and used as a research method for a long time, and they have proven to be a good method of communication to approach and work with children (Malchiodi, 1998) because they allow them to share their feelings, ideas, and observations with respect to how they play (Malchiodi, 1998; Pinciotti & Weinstein, 1988). In the research presented here, the children’s drawings included a range of different landscapes representative of natural environments. Countryside scenes were a favorite setting for all children. In addition, playgrounds and parks were also depicted as natural environments, which is consistent with our definition of natural environment (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). The incorporation of rain forests in the drawings was a May 2011 – Make No Little Plans surprise, since in Santiago the forest is a sclerophyllous type (a low, semiarid type of forest). Children may have seen the rain forest in the south of Chile during vacations or on television. Boys included forests more than girls; which may be explained by the fact boys might take more risks in playing and therefore venture into forested areas more frequently than do the girls. The natural elements identified most often by all the children were the sun, trees, lawns, and mountains. This finding is similar to that found by Loukaitou-Sideris (2003), where the natural elements that children liked most in certain public spaces (a school yard, a community center, and park), were grass, trees, and flowers. The most frequently drawn element drawn by children in our study was the sun. This can be explicated by the fact that it is sunny in Santiago most of the time. In Moore’s (1986b) study within a schoolyard in Berkeley, California, the sun was also one of most important elements frequently drawn by children. In our research, the sun was most frequently drawn behind the mountains, another characteristic that may be unique to our sample of children because mountains were another element also frequently depicted in the children’s drawings, which is understandable as the Andes Mountains, which surround and tower above Santiago, are one of the most visible aspects of the city’s geography. This study also provides evidence for the importance of vegetation in the landscape, especially trees. Schroeder’s (1982) research exploring preferences for features of urban parks and forests found that vegetation, such as trees and grass, were mentioned most often by the adults who were the respondents in that study, followed by water elements, which mirrors the results of the study that was presented here. The results of this study also found that children living in the inner city included more urban elements (e.g., houses, street elements, and people) in their drawings of what they considered to be natural environments. This might be explained by the fact these children often lack natural environments that afford play opportunities and have less vegetated open spaces than do the urban fringe children. Children living in urban fringe areas have more opportunities to access nearby nature, such as the mountains and farms, making interaction with natural environments much easier for them, in addition to more vegetated plazas and open space areas being closer to their homes. People were also included with a relatively high frequency in the drawings, with most including themselves alone or playing with friends, the 79 Refereed Full-Papers latter suggesting the importance to them of having their peers within the play environment. Differences between the urban core and fringe groups were also found with respect to water features. Children in the inner city included water elements at a higher frequency than did the urban fringe group, which would be also expected in the suburban schools since all children are attracted to water features. It was found that the most favorite activities for both groups was informally playing ball and flying kites. Moore (1986a) also found that informal ball playing was one of the most frequently identified activities in children’s play. The data was collected in August/September, a time of the year when most children fly kites in Chile, because it is a popular cultural activity. As a consequence, this result might be influenced by seasonality. Activities that the children preferred to do within natural environments also suggested differences between genders. Girls liked to jump rope, and boys preferred to play soccer. Soccer is one of the most popular sports in Chile, especially with males. Loukaitou-Sideris (2003) contends that the activities that most encourage children to interact with outdoor settings are related to various types of sports and to playground activities, which was also found in this study in that 26 percent of respondents identified soccer, swimming, jogging, and other sporting activities, with soccer being the most popular. Playground activities (11 percent) were also referred to many times, with swings the most well-liked type of playground equipment. In Moore’s (1986a) research, swings were also mentioned frequently as a preferred meeting place within playgrounds. It is important to emphasize, however, that our results suggest that natural elements, e.g., trees, were found to have a higher preference than traditional play equipments for the children. Overall, these findings help to illustrate children preferences for different elements/activities associated with natural environments. Some findings corroborate previous research, while others provide important additional information about children’s responses to natural environments, their use as play settings, and differences between children depending on the proximity to nearby nature and their gender in Santiago, Chile. 80 Implications and Future Research The study reported here is the first part of a larger research project, using a variety of different research methods, which aims to explore children’s preferences for natural environments, natural elements, and the types of activities they like to perform within natural environments. The results of this first part of the research will be used to inform future research by helping to identify stimuli elements that can be used in administering other data collection methods aimed at gaining a much more in-depth understanding of the way children conceptualize nature, natural environments, and the types of recreational activities they like to undertake within, or using, these environments and features in the context of urban environments. Most parks in Santiago are equipped with traditional manufactured play equipment, mowed grass lawns, and sometimes pruned shrubs. But these environments— playgrounds, parks, or plazas—often lack elements of nature, including colors, smells, and other natural environmental stimuli associated with them. These findings highlight the importance of creating more natural open spaces for urban children to play, incorporating natural elements such as trees, grass, flowers, water features, and animals that were identified in this study as those features most preferred with respect to their ideal play environments. The ideal play environments for these children should be able to support individual activities, such as informal ball playing and kite flying, as well as various group activities, such as soccer and other outdoor games (hide and seek and tag games), in addition to providing places for passive recreation and simply allowing children to gain connection with nature in the city. Perhaps traditional play equipment, such as swings, could be included in these environments, but not to the exclusion of more natural environmental features. This research explored children’s conceptions of nature to inform the design of urban open spaces, playgrounds, and health care facilities. Understanding children’s opinions in this way is crucial in helping to be involved in the design of their own play environment. The information gathered from the study presented here can supply important information and assist as in developing guidelines for environmental designers and urban planners with regard to considering children’s understanding of natural environments and their preferences for playing within these environments. Refereed Full-Papers References Burdette, H., & Whitaker, R. (2005). Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation, and Affect. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 159(1), 46-50. Cohen, S. (1994). Children and the Environment: Aesthetic Learning. Childhood Education, 70(3), 302-305. Cosco, N. (2007). Developing Evidence-Based Design: Environmental Interventions for Healthy Development of Young Children in the Outdoors. In C. W. Thompson & P. Travlou (Eds.), Open Space: People Space (pp. 125- 135). New York: Taylor and Francis. Faber Taylor, A., Wiley, A., Kuo, F., & Sullivan, W. (1998). Growing Up in the Inner City: Green Spaces as Places to Grow. Environment and Behavior, 30(1), 3-27. Fjørtoft, I. (2004). Landscape as Playscape: The Effects of Natural Environments on Children’s Play and Motor Development. Children, Youth and Environments 14(2), 21-44. Fjørtoft, I., & Sageie, J. (2000). The Natural Environment as a Playground for Children Landscape Description and Analyses of a Natural Playscape. Landscape and Urban Planning 48(1-2), 83-97. Freeman, C. (1995). Planning and Play: Creating Greener Environments. Children’s Environments, 12(3), 165- 176. Kaplan, R. (1983). The Role of Nature in the Urban Context. In I. Altman & J. Wohlwill (Eds.), Behavior and the Natural Environment (Vol. 6). New York: Plenum Press. Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kellert, S. (2005). Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection. Washington: Island Press. Kirkby, M. (1989). Nature as Refuge in Children’s Environments. Children’s Environment Quarterly, 6(1), 7-12. Laurie, I. (1979). Nature in Cities: The Natural Environment in the Design and Development of Urban Green Space. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2003). Children’s Common Grounds: A Study of Intergroup Relations Among Children in Public Setting. Journal of American Planning Association, 69(2), 130-143. Louv, R. (2008). Last Child in the Woods. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hills. Low, N., Gleeson, B., Green, R., & Radovic, D. (2005). The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Malchiodi, C. (1998). Understanding Children’s Drawings. New York: The Guildford Press. Moore, R. (1986a). Childhood’s Domain: Play and Place in Child Development. London: Croom Helm. Moore, R. (1986b). The Power of Nature Orientations of Girls and Boys Toward Biotic and Abiotic Play Settings on a Reconstructed Schoolyard. Children’s Environments Quarterly, 3(3), 52- 69. Moore, R. (1997). The Need of Nature: a Childhood Right. Social Justice, 24(3), 203-220. Moore, R., & Young, D. (1978). Childhood Outdoors: Toward a Social Ecology of the Landscape. In I. Altman & J. Wohwill (Eds.), Children and the Environment. New York: Plenum Press. Pinciotti, P., & Weinstein, C. (1988). Environmental Experiences and Children’s Drawings. Children’s Environments and Quarterly 2(3), 21-28. Schroeder, H. (1982). Preferred Features of Urban Parks and Forests. Journal of Arboriculture, 8(12), 317-322. Tuan, Y. (1978). Children and the Natural Environment. In I. Altman & J. Wohwill (Eds.), Children and the Environment (Vol. 3). New York: Plenum Press. Valentine, G. (2004). Public Space and the Culture of Childhood. Aldershot: Ashgate. Wohlwill, J. (1983). The Concept of Nature: A Psychologist’s View. In I. Altman & J. Wohlwill (Eds.), Behavior and the Natural Environment (Vol. 3). New York: Plenum Press. 81 Refereed Full-Papers Enhanced Photo-Elicitation for Accessing Alzheimer’s Perceptions Colin Gadoury (Roger Williams University), Christopher Capozzi (Roger Williams University), Zachary Taylor (Roger Williams University) Abstract: As partial requirement of an Environment Behavior class, we attempted to use photo-elicitation interviews to assess an Alzheimer’s facility from residents and staffs’ point of view by allowing inhabitants to select criteria in evaluating places depicted in photographs. Photo-elicitation proved invaluable with staff and visitors, but we were unable to establish meaningful dialogue with Alzheimer’s elders using photographs and asking simple questions such as “what do you do in this room?”, “in what way is this a good space for the activities that take place here?”, or “how would you improve this space?” Having failed at photo-elicitation with Alzheimer’s patients, we invented “enhanced photo-elicitation,” inspired by John Zeisel’s research that describes the importance of visual cues as environmental prosthesis to memory. (Zeisel, et al, “Environmental Correlates to Behavioral Health Outcomes in Alzheimer’s Special Care Units,” The Gerontologist, October 1, 2003 43: 697-711.) We asked Alzheimer’s elders to match pictures of about 30 everyday objects such as eyeglasses, light bulbs, briefcases, etc. with photographs of spaces of the facility. Alzheimer’s patients succeeded in carrying out this matching as a game activity, spontaneously explaining the reasons for their selections and sometimes responding to requests for explanation. We named these interviews “Montessori Interviews” because the facility was using similar Montessori activities as therapeutic activities. In this paper, we explain the criteria for selecting photographs and images of objects for these matching interviews, the process of identifying and recruiting volunteers for interviews, the influence of the space used for interviews, and methods used to carry interviews, record, and analyze responses. An example of findings demonstrating the effective- 82 ness of this method to elicit useful information included an elder placing a light bulb on a photograph of a corridor while pointing to numerous reflections from metallic surfaces and glass frames of paintings and characterizing reflections as light bulbs. Describing reflections as primary sources of light brought attention to the high glare in this space, which according to the literature, is detrimental and suggested using non-reflective glass on paintings and applying non-reflective paints over shiny surfaces. Dr. Zeisel, who is not associated with this research but owns the facility where we conducted interviews, proposed renovating half the corridor to test the hypothesis that the Alzheimer’s elders experience glare elimination as an improvement. Introduction: Theory and Research Goals The research project presented here developed as a component of a Social Aspects of Architecture class at Roger Williams University School of Architecture that explores the relationship between people and the environment. Students were asked to use ethnographic fieldwork to access users’ perceptions of buildings by combining what anthropologists call the etic (outsider) and emic (insider) points of view. Combining the etic and emic perspectives is accomplished through photoelicitation, an ethnographic interview technique that asks inhabitants to use their own criteria in identifying what features or qualities to discuss in photographs. For a recent extensive review of photo-elicitation, refer to Van Aken et al (2010). This method frequently surprises the interviewers, as users identify features in photographs that the architecture student who took the photographs was not aware were present (Pavlides, 1991). The research taught in this class is what has been called discovery-based science in recent scientific publications. It deemphasizes seeking cause-effect relationships, because modern theoreticians of science, such as Singer, Ackoff, and Emery have identified limitations of the cause-effect paradigm. They proposed, as an alterative, that “the universe is best revealed by viewing it in terms of producer-product,” which requires a recognition of the importance of a complex environment to provide context for an event to take place. (Lucas, 2000). Discovery scientific methodology emphasizes initiating research by data mining large volumes of experimental data with the goal of finding patterns of correlations, leading to hypothesis formation (Shneiderman, 2001). This contrasts with traditional scientific practice, where Refereed Full-Papers hypotheses are formed before close examination of experimental data. A well-published example of such discovery-based science project in biochemistry is the genome project (Bower & Bolouri, 2004). In light of this approach, the goal for this research is not an attempt at finding answers to design issues, but finding questions that would not have been otherwise asked and addressed during the design process. The research project for this course fulfilled the Roger Williams University’s service learning requirement by making the collected information, reviews of the architectural and the social science literature of a building type, and results from the semester-long field research study available to administrators responsible for a building and to architects who design these buildings. Students are also given the option to continue research projects at the same site as in previous years and expand upon the information and research gathered from preceding semesters. In this particular case, an Alzheimer’s facility had been studied through the use of the photographic elicitation method during the previous two semesters. However, in the earlier studies, photo-elicitation interviews had been limited to visitors and staff because Alzheimer’s patients were deemed unable to participate in this kind of interview. In this paper, we will discuss methods to access the Alzheimer’s patients’ experience of the building by developing enhanced photo-elicitation methods, which utilized visual cues rather than verbal questions to initiate discussion of spaces depicted in photographs. We will also report one of the resulting discovery findings that reflections are experienced as primary sources of light, the architects’ response on the usefulness of the finding, and the formulation of a hypothesis resulting from this finding. Photo-Elicitation While photo-elicitation performed in previous semesters provided valuable insights for how staff and visitors experience the facility, the methods for conducting interviews utilizing indirect questioning were unsuccessful in generating responses from Alzheimer’s residents. However, we were very interested in gathering information from the primary users of the building and determined to try interviews with Alzheimer’s elders at the facility. Initially, we attempted to replicate photo-elicitation interviews similar to those that had been attempted in the past. So we set out to design a photo-elicitation May 2011 – Make No Little Plans instrument. This required site visits to examine the building in conjunction with reviewing the building plans to gain an architectural understanding of the spatial arrangements and relationships within the facility. Through informal observation of activities during walkthroughs, we determined how to photograph the facility for the interviews. Photographic documentation included photographing all of the spaces and aspects within the spaces. Photographs were taken of the bedrooms, the dining room, living room, corridor, and exterior spaces. Reviewing the social science literature and informal interviews with caregivers also heightened our awareness about what to photograph that included attention to details, scrutinizing even the patterns on the selected couches and walls. The literature research included references that Alzheimer’s patients often have trouble distinguishing the reality of objects (such as flowers) from the patterns on furniture. The research explained that oftentimes, patients with dementia will attempt to pick objects, particularly flowers, from carpets and furniture. Caregivers within the facility informed us of such difficulties when we conducted initial visits to the site. Additionally, the caregivers emphasized the importance of light and the harmful effects of shadows within space, especially for people with Alzheimer’s. Residents with dementia often perceive shadows on the floor as holes and are cautious when walking by or through them (Alzheimer’s Association, 2004). Limitations of Photo-Elicitation Even with knowledge of the experience from previous semesters, we first attempted photo-elicitation interviews with Alzheimer’s elders. These attempts at interviewing residents failed in two important ways. During pre-testing interviews, it become clear that the first photographs we attempted to use did not articulate the spaces within the facility with enough clarity for the residents to recognize the depicted spaces. We had received guidance from our instructor to attempt to photograph spaces while attempting to anticipate familiar vantage points for the people we needed to interview. For children or people in wheelchairs, we needed to photograph at the appropriate heights; in general, it meant including sufficient context to make the photograph recognizable. Through trial and error, we were able to take photographs of the facility clearly containing landmarks recognizable by the residents, such as a television set or a fireplace that made it possible for them to recognize the spaces from the photographs. 83 Refereed Full-Papers The second difficulty stemmed from our lack of sufficient understanding of the ability of people with dementia to communicate. Not realizing the reasons why attempts to ask simple questions in relation to spaces in the photographs were unsuccessful in previous years, we attempted to replicate these efforts. During pretesting, several residents quit the interview or became too preoccupied with other matters, such as asking the reason for our questioning. Interviews generally were terminated early at the first sign that residents may become agitated or were inconclusive. We determined that understanding as much about the Alzheimer’s condition as possible was the best course in developing a means to communicate with the residents. Attempting to develop a non-verbal interview instrument As we were becoming more knowledgeable about how residents interacted within the facility through observation, by interviewing staff, and by reviewing the Alzheimer’s literature, we came to the conclusion that we needed to rethink the interview process. Our thinking of redesigning the interview process was inspired by Dr. John Zeisel’s research that in a variety of ways emphasizes the importance of visual cues as environmental prosthesis to memory. (Moldow, 2006). The importance of visual information became apparent in a several ways. Dr. Zeisel’s facilities, including the one that provided the site for our study, had numerous photographs hang on the corridor walls, with picture Figure 1. Corridor condition emphasizing visual cues. 84 density (Figure 1) resembling that of an art gallery. We also read about the success that Dr. Zeisel had taking patients to such art museums as the Museum Of Modern Art in New York City (Kennedy, 2005). We were also impressed by interviews with Cindy Conant-Arp, the director of Hope Alzheimer’s Center in Cranston, who described how Alzheimer’s patients who had been totally unable to verbally communicate did so through painting. One of several examples she cited was about successful visual communication with a very advanced Alzheimer’s patient who used to be a skilled painter. In her thoroughly non-verbal condition, it was hard to know if she had any grasp on reality. When asked to paint a self-portrait, she painted the back of her head with stippling suggesting empty space, visually indicating that she was aware her mind was slipping away. Finally the memory boxes by the patients’ doors are visual reminders of identity valued by the residents and their caregivers. Taking this information together about the importance of visual information, we tried to find ways to eliminate verbal questioning and attempted to design a visual “interview” instrument taking into consideration the reality that the residents were having difficulty responding to direct questions in connection to the photographs. The new method replaces direct questioning with a collection of distinguishable photographs of typical everyday objects on individual index cards. We were hoping that these objects would serve as familiar items to residents, helping to trigger or cue relationships between spaces and their experiences. The selection process for the objects on the index cards was based upon discussions within our group and with the staff at the facility. We tried to identify objects that may trigger memories and ultimately help express the way a space is perceived. There was a significant amount of conversation with the resident director at Hearthstone, who made suggestions about the selection of these objects. We were hoping that patterns would emerge as Alzheimer’s patients placed the photographs of objects on photographs of spaces so that we could then decipher what the patterns may mean in terms of the Alzheimer’s experience. When we presented the redesigned visual interview instrument to our instructor, he questioned the viability of being able to meaningfully interpret patterns of object placement on photographs of the spaces. He suggested that we should reconsider even trying this. He was concerned that the cards of objects would be Refereed Full-Papers placed on spaces for different reasons, making interpretation impossible. In the end, he acquiesced in the spirit of letting us find out by ourselves. He was intrigued with how the process of matching photographs of objects with photographs of spaces resembled the kind of Montessori activities used for early childhood education. Furthermore, unbeknown to us at the time we redesigned the interview instrument, the avant-garde Hearthstone facility that was the site of our research had already implemented various “matching games” adopted from Montessori as therapeutic activities for the Alzheimer’s residents. (DeAngelis, 2009) Our instructor nicknamed our interview instrument involving matching photographs the “Montessori Interview,” though he also made it clear he was not expecting results. Developing Enhanced Photo-Elicitation There were printed full-color photographs of the seven primary spaces on 8.5” by 11” sheets of paper, which were laid out next to one another on the table in front of the interviewee. The 30 or so “everyday” objects were printed in color on 3.5” x 5” index cards. The index cards were presented individually to the interviewee, who was then asked to place them on the space they would associate with this object. We recruited residents for the interviews suggested as “likely” candidates by the facility sponsor and director at Hearthstone, Mallory Jenkins, based on their attention span and mood for that particular day. Given the extensive time Ms. Jenkins and her staff spend with the residents, they knew who would/may enjoy participation and who may throw tantrums. Each interview required a time commitment and, most importantly, a focus commitment of around 20 minutes. After the pre-selection process, an introduction was delivered, during which we stated we were architecture students at Roger Williams University interested to learn from them about their experiences of the building. They were asked if they had time and wanted to participate in an activity where they would be asked to match photographs of objects with photographs of spaces. There was an intention to avoid using terms such as research, project, or interview, which have negative associations. Previous semesters found that omitting these terms facilitated recruitment for participation. If potential interviewees agreed to participate, interviews were conducted in the dining room of Hearthstone, a centrally located space where it was easy to conduct the interviews on a table with the many May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 2. Dining room interview location components of the instrument. The interview location, like the primary spaces photographed described earlier, remained the same throughout the time spent at the facility. The location of the interview was very important because the space chosen would affect the interviews in a positive or negative way. The dining room (Figure 2) proved to be an appropriate spot to conduct the research because of its social environment. The space is a meeting place for visitors as well as meals and activities for the majority of the day, and it is rare that this space is ever a place of silence. The dining room was considered a key “activity node” within the spatial environment (Calkins, 1998). This allowed the interviews to be conducted in an environment that was stimulating, while at the same time not segregating the individual from the rest of residents. That being said, however, there were many activities and distractions for the residents taking the interview. One patient was distracted by the sounds of the highway, which was an earshot away from one of the bay windows, an adverse affect of the facility being located in easily accessible locations for visitors from the surrounding area. Another influence on the interviews was the time of day in which the study was conducted. Some residents grew impatient as the interview took away from their activity time. Given Roger Williams’ geographic location away from Hearthstone, the trips taken to conduct interviews were often made in the early evening. During this time, many of the residents were impatient for dinner, and this may have also affected the end results. 85 Refereed Full-Papers We can only speculate about conducting research in the morning. The more social residents had a short attention span and usually sparked conversations with other residents during the interview. This did not adversely affect the results, but added time to the total length of the interview. It was often found that these conversations made the time there very enjoyable because the items would spark some very interesting dialogues. In fact, substantive comments were contributed by onlookers who joined in uninvited, as we will examine below. Evolution of the Montessori Interview When we entered data in an analysis matrix, it became clear that every object had been matched by at least some interviewees with each of the spaces. This resulted in multiple objects being matched with each space with no pattern that could provide insights on the Alzheimer’s experience of the spaces. While the matched objects failed to provide any information directly, some inhabitants of the facility would spontaneously respond with a reason for placing or not placing a card on a specific space (Figure 3). Some of these explanations revealed extraordinarily strange and unexpected perceptions. Our instructor had alerted us to the idea that findings in discovery science are not necessarily the most common responses or the norm, but rather outlier phenomena such as those detected about subatomic particles by the HADRON electron accelera- Figure 3. Early recording form showcasing need to record comments. 86 tor, which was given as another example of discovery science. The instructor had labeled such unusual responses as “black swan” findings to make sure students who tend to discount unusual responses pay attention. The term “black swan” was used as defined by Taleb (2007), which was significant unexpected events that have importance in discovery science because it is not only about “what most people like” or finding norms. The term helps emphasize the unusual, which often leads to finding unmet human needs. One caution that was given was that “black swan” findings often require architectural interpretation in order to understand their design implications. The importance of the matching activity or objects and spaces therefore shifted from attempting to interpret the matching of photographs to recording the explanatory comments. The goal of engaging residents in the matching activity of the interview was to ultimately have the residents begin a conversation, which was heavily driven by their thoughts and beliefs in order to enable a sustained conversation that may lead to insights about their experiences with the spaces in the facility. If this conversation was not initiated spontaneously, as they were choosing an object card to place on a photograph of a space, then it would be asked why they placed the particular card where they did. Analysis Process The analysis process involved creating matrices for the collected data. During the brief introduction to the process, we asked for some general information about the social characteristics of each person. Such information included age, gender, years at the facility, and the position within the facility. These gave us a broad sense of the participant, which we could later use to compare if these characteristics had any correlation with the responses. Next, after each card was placed on a photograph, a team member recorded the data along with any comments on a data form. From there, we created a matrix of all responses. We color-coded the card response to represent the space identified (Figure 4). Each group of like responses was then grouped. Comments, along with social characteristics, were then compared between the different interviews. Any information that proved surprising was then recorded, described, and even re-evaluated in the context of the building. In the initial ‘tests’, residents were not encouraged to comment on their placement of the objects. Their natural reactions and comments were recorded Refereed Full-Papers Figure 4. Analysis matrix recording the index card placement on one of the seven photographs of primary space within the environment. with any other particular gesture or reaction. Originally, we thought that there may be useful information by what most people chose. Soon it became clear that there was no real pattern, as different individuals had selected all objects for all spaces. After analyzing the data, it was realized that many of the objects were placed in rooms that were not expected and the current condition of the instrument showed no reasoning for such an interesting placement. In subsequent interviews, asking residents to comment on their decision became an integral part of the interview. It is much easier to retrieve information from residents with dementia when they are commenting on a recent decision rather than answering a direct question, which ultimately would lead to confusion and frustration. This process enabled a dialogue that made it possible for the residents to reveal their experiences as they provided their reasoning behind their decisions. In the end, some surprising and unintended actions included handing back cards that did not belong or setting aside cards for a space that was not represented by any of these images. The results were recorded on a simple chart and notes were taken as to why they made their selections. Findings In this section, we elected to present a key finding as an example of the how the explanation of placing a card on a space can lead to insights about the perceptions of an Alzheimer’s elder. This finding was supported with May 2011 – Make No Little Plans additional field research findings from both a Montessori photo-elicitation with a woman with Alzheimer’s as well as photo-elicitation with an elder man at a senior center, as well as additional references from the social science literature. When architects with experience of designing buildings for elders and for Alzheimer’s patients were presented this information, they characterized it as useful and suggested ways to address the issue during design. Finally, a social scientist with deep knowledge and experience of how architecture affects Alzheimer’s symptoms quickly came up with a research protocol to test the hypothesis suggested by this discovery finding. In particular, one critical finding discovered through this process emerged from an Alzheimer’s resident’s response when placing the image of a light bulb on the image of the corridor (Fig. 5). When asked why, he pointed to the light fixtures, but surprisingly he also pointed to the numerous reflections on the picture frames created by the metallic and glossy surfaces of the railing, which he perceived as primary sources of light. He began to count not only the actual primary light sources but also the reflections, believing the reflections were indeed light sources (Figure 6). The information was an astonishing discovery to us, bringing attention to an Alzheimer’s elder’s experience of high glare within the built environment. Other residents similarly placed the light bulb card on the image due to the high reflectivity of the space. Additional Alzheimer’s patients’ responses of reflec- 87 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 5. Re-creation of the index card (with light bulb image) placed atop the 8.5” x 11” photograph of the corridor space. Figure 6. Highlighting “reflections” pointed out by resident in interview within which the “light bulb card” was placed on the image. tions causing confusion included comments from two female patients who joined in uninvited during a photoelicitation interview and made comments about the actual space where the research was taking place. While pointing to the reflections on the floor, one said that “it is not always safe in there,” while the other added that “someone needs to clean up the water,” confusing the light reflecting off the floor for water. In the same space, another woman during a different interview looked at the photograph of the reflection on a TV screen and referred to it as a mirror. Finally, during a photo-elicitation interview at a newly constructed senior center, several elders, when asked if there was anything in the room that needed fixing, complained about the reflections on the floor shown in a photograph of a room with west-facing windows (Figure 7). The photograph was taken late in the day when the low angle of the sun was shimmering on the shiny finish of the hardwood floor. These findings are backed by published social science research on elder populations. Corridor glare has been recognized as often becoming a problem with regards to housing environments for elders. Any facility can be hazardous with uncontrolled light and reflective surfaces (Hiatt, 1987). As part of developing this research, we sought architects with experience in designing Alzheimer’s facilities. These findings were reported to several architects experienced with designing for both Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s elders. They were interested and appreciative about the information we presented. While in general experienced architects knew that glare needs to be avoided in buildings for older populations, some of the architects to whom we presented this information took special note of the reflections off the floor—an idea they had not considered as an issue prior to our presentation. They asked their staff to join our presentation and discussed the relative advantages of a variety of ways of addressing floor reflection, from non-shiny finishes to special blinds, and took notes on the presentation. Finally, we reported to the owner of the facility the finding about reflections being perceived as primary source of light by Alzheimer’s patients, suggesting that glare maybe a problem in that space. Dr. Zeisel, the owner of the facility and a nationally recognized leader in Alzheimer’s research, immediately proposed a follow-up experiment that could test the suggested hypothesis that resulted from the discovery science investigation that we carried out at his facility. He proposed that if glass was replaced on the pictures with a nonreflective glass and the metallic surfaces were painted with a non-reflective paint along half of the facility’s lengthy corridor, we may be able to evaluate the impact on behavior. In this way, he formulated a hypothesis based on our discovery research. 88 Refereed Full-Papers Reflections In the beginning of the project, we were confronted with the issue of understanding and investigating the reality of architecture through examining the user’s experience. Environment behavior research for Alzheimer’s patients is extremely well developed, and the sophisticated residential facility where we were allowed to conduct research was also a site for federally funded research. The hope was that this work would be useful beyond the confines of the classroom, but our realistic expectations were that this would remain a student exercise conducted for our benefit. It was therefore beyond our expectations that the process we developed for interviewing as well as outcomes were of interest to the research community. It was especially gratifying that Figure 7. Photographs emphasizing reflections on floor in a room with west-facing windows. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans it was also deemed as useful to architects experienced with the particular building type. In our social science readings, we found numerous references that architects are not “tuned in” or even interested to the needs of the buildings’ inhabitants. However, through discussions with professional architects, we discovered an extraordinary repository of detailed insights, information, and interest about the user’s experience. As a student exercise, we learned that for inhabitants in such a sensitive condition, minor distractions or imperfections in the architecture could cause serious disruption in the lives of the residents. Beyond the immediate lessons about the specific users, as architecture students, this process heightened our awareness of how every design move affects lives for better or worst, and this will be the lasting lesson. Acknowledgements We would like to give special thanks to Lefteris Pavlides, Ph.D., AIA professor in Roger Williams University’s School of Architecture, for his guidance and help. Much of the work presented here was inspired through social science research techniques explored and examined within Dr. Pavlides’ class and text. We would also like to thank our sponsor, Mallory Jenkins of Hearthstone Alzheimer’s Care in Brockton, Mass., and to Dr. John Zeisel for allowing research to be conducted within the care facility. Additionally, much of this work would not be possible without the support of the faculty of Roger Williams University, particularly Dean Stephen White, who has demonstrated great interest and support in the knowledge being compiled and shared through this research. Our presentations at EDRA 41 in Washington, D.C., and at EDRA 42 in Chicago, Ill., would not have been possible otherwise.. We also thank Professor Robert Bechtel of the University of Arizona, who attended our preliminary presentation of this research at EDRA 41 and encouraged us to publish it. Special thanks to John Robinson, RA, and Marc A. Maxwell, AIA, two architects with significant experience designing buildings for Alzheimer’s elders who took the time to review the results of our research and in the process vastly expanded our understanding of the users’ needs based on their vast experience and command of the literature. 89 Refereed Full-Papers Bibliography Bower, James M, and Bolouri, Hamid. (2004). Computational modeling of genetic and biochemical networks. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Calkins, M. (1998). Design for dementia. Washington, DC: National Health. Collier, J. Jr. (1957). Photography in Anthropology: A Report on Two Experiments. American Anthropologist, New Series, 59 (5), 843–859. DeAngelis, Tori. (2009). Removing fear, promoting joy. This psychologist is applying Montessori and other methods to help people with Alzheimer’s disease lead richer lives, Vol 40, No. 11 Print version: page 44 <http://www.apa.org/ monitor/2009/12/alzheimers.aspx_>. Hiatt, Lorraine G. (1987). Designing for the vision and hearing impairments of the elderly. In V. Regnier and J. Pynoos (Ed.), Housing the aged: design directives and policy considerations (pp. 343). New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Kennedy, Randy. (2005). The Pablo Picasso Alzheimer’s Therapy. New York: New York Times. 90 Lucas, Michael. (2000). Understanding Business Environments. New York: Routledge. Moldow, Leslie G. (2006). AIA News from Design for Aging, Workshop: Neuroscience of facilities for the aging and people with Alzheimer’s. Pavlides, E. (1991). The Missing Dimension in Environmental Research. Environmental Design Research Association Conference Proceedings 22, Mexico. Shneiderman, Ben. (2001). Inventing Discovery Tools: Combining Information Visualization with Data Mining. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 2225/2001, 58 Taleb, N. N. (2007). Black Swan and Domain of Statistics. The American Statistician, August 2007, Vol. 61, No. 3 Van Aken, P., Frisvoll, S., Stewart, S. (2010). Visualizing Community: Using Participant-driven Photo-elicitation for Research and Application. Local Environment, 15: 4, 373 – 388. Ziesel, J., Silverstein, N., Hyde, J., Levkoff, S., Powell Lawton, M., Holmes, W. (2003). Environmental correlates to behavioral health outcomes in Alzheimer’s special care units. The Gerontologist, Vol 43, No. 5, 697-711. Refereed Full-Papers The Perception of Place in Planning for Urban Change: A Small World Paradigm Mary Ganis (The University of Queensland, Australia), John Minnery (The University of Queensland, Australia), Derlie Mateo-Babiano (The University of Queensland, Australia) Abstract Urban change is often difficult and disappointing because people’s expectations sometimes fail to be realised. This research seeks to understand what people’s expectations are for good urban places in a changing urban context and why their expectations are sometimes not satisfied. The research examines the process of perception and the content and structure of people’s expectations. The stakeholders’ expectations are framed within the influence of their knowledge structure and individual agency. Concept maps are derived from a semantic differential task and analysed using nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS). The results show that each group’s conceptual structure of an urban place differs; however, an aggregate concept map illustrates a compelling cluster of urban design variables that describes urban density and movement pathways categorised here as the dynamic of Cluster and Connectivity. This dynamic resounds with ‘small world’ network theory, proposed as an inherent in the process of perception and its conceptual structure of place. The implication is that a small world network metaphor may offer a paradigm for planning urban change using principles that resonate with people’s perception of place. Introduction Urban change is sometimes fraught with difficulties. Some of these difficulties occur because people’s expectations are not satisfied. We need to understand people’s expectations for urban places from their point of view. We need to elicit an underlying conceptual structure of their perception of places in an urban change context if we aim to satisfy people’s expectations for good urban places. To this end, this paper discusses the process of perception as self-organising small world networks and aspects of stakeholder knowledge structures and individual agency that influ- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans ences their expectations. Finally, an empirical study elicits stakeholder concept maps that plot the network of urban design qualities of each stakeholder group, as well as what all participants expect from a good urban place. It is argued that small world network theory offers a metaphor with which to structure a planning paradigm that facilitates adaptable, resilient, and coherent places within stakeholders’ expectations of good urban places. Perception of Place Planning for urban change that aims to satisfy stakeholders’ expectations requires an understanding of the conceptual structure of their expectations. We need to build a planning process that acknowledges these expectations in an urban change context. By understanding this, we may better be able to plan urban change in ways that allow stakeholders to adapt. It is proposed here, that an Adaptive Perceptual Cycle describes how people perceive their world and adapt to change (Neisser, 1976; Portugali, 1996; Bak, 1997; Haken and Portugali, 2003). The Adaptive Perceptual Cycle (Figure 1) illustrates how our perception self-organises as we explore the world. We experience a place guided by existing expectations (or schemata). As we explore the world, information is absorbed from the context (physical, social, cultural, etc.) that tests a schema. Contextual information may either confirm our schema or conflict with it. If our schema is no longer a “good fit” with the context, a crisis of relevance occurs and a choice must be made to either adapt or not. This is the point of criticality (Portugali, 1996) whereby the schema either resists Figure 1. Adaptive Perceptual Cycle (based on Neisser, 1976; Portugali, 1996; Bak, 1997; and, Haken and Portugali, 2003). 91 Refereed Full-Papers change (systemic rigidity) or adjusts and adapts to the new context (systemic shift). But how does this change imperative occur? Resistance to change persists until the stability of a whole system is threatened—that is to say, small local instabilities engulf a whole system and threaten global instability (criticality), creating a change imperative (self organisation). Synergetics (from the Greek word meaning “working together”) contributes to the idea of self- organisation. Consider the complex network of factors that make up an urban context (these might be political, economic, social, etc.). These factors present order parameters (such as regulations, policies, traditions, etc.) which structure personal and social knowledge. Order parameters compete to capture control of a knowledge structure. As Haken (1996) puts it, the order parameters that ‘capture’ and ‘enslave’ their competitors win. A more benign explanation of synergetics is through an analogy. Imagine being a member of an orchestra. In the orchestra there are the strings, percussion, horns, woodwinds, etc. But this orchestra has no conductor and no sheet music. So, for the orchestra to make music, it will have to improvise. The members of this orchestra are professional musicians and therefore understand how to make music using order parameters such as harmony, rhythm, and so on. As each member begins to play, they listen carefully to their neighbour and try to recognise what order parameter they are using. Each member and section of the orchestra can either compete by playing loudly or insisting on their individual rhythms creating—as you can imagine—a discordant noise, or they can listen and find a way of working together (a synergetic relationship). Our musicians adjust to each other by acknowledging shared musical ideas so that each part of the orchestra adapts and enables the emergence of music. This musical analogy attempts to demonstrate how self-organisation may emerge by a process of working together in a way that is mutually acceptable. In an urban context, synergetics suggests that urban change is open to many powerful order parameters, such as the competing interests of developers, politicians, economists, environmentalists, design professionals, community members, and so on. The role of each of these stakeholder groups is to present their agenda during the sometimes difficult negotiations in a planning process. And the aim of an urban planning negotiation is to ‘capture’ and ‘enslave’ the concept of what makes a good place. 92 In an urban context, change is influenced by urban order parameters derived from culture to politics or pressures from population to climate change. Synergetics implies that competing urban order parameters destabilise existing urban paradigms until a critical point is reached that impels a shift to a new urban paradigm. This research seeks stakeholder groups’ network of order parameters or urban design variables that constitutes their perception of a good urban place. Network Structure A network of urban design order parameters represents stakeholders’ conceptual structures of a place. It is proposed that this is a dynamic concept that shifts to adjust and adapt to our experiences in the real world. Our schema of a place represents a network of urban parameters that is tested in the real world—testing our expectations. But what is the underlying network of urban parameters that structure stakeholders’ expectations for urban places? First, a network is a relationship of vertices (nodes or points) and edges (links or connectors). Traditionally, network topology identifies the stability of a regular network and the instability of a random network. Within the last decade, network topology has introduced a middle way between regular and random networks termed ‘small world’ networks (Figure 2), derived from the popular sociological notion known as ‘six degrees of separation’ (Milgram, 1967; Watts and Strogatz, 1998). These ‘degrees’ are the number of ‘short-cuts’ across social groups that expedite our social affiliations— purportedly an average of six affiliates between any two people on the planet. The relevance of small world networks to this discussion is that these networks represent a dynamic network of nodes and links that self organise and adapt in a way that is characteristically ordered as well as random—their order lends stability and coherence, and their randomness affords rapid adaptation. Now, consider the construct of a schema. Envisage the schema as a mind map that is sketched to organise our thoughts; this mind map may look like a web of ideas with lines drawn to connect and cluster ‘good-fit’ ideas and to disconnect ‘bad-fit’ ideas. We may circle clusters of good-fit ideas and draw short-cuts across the page of our mind map to connect with other clusters of good-fit ideas. If we pursue the metaphor of network structure, schemata are a network of ideas that connect with equal relevance and weight, somewhat like a regular grid Refereed Full-Papers pattern. This means that no particular idea ‘enslaves’ the others, but all ideas are in equilibrium or stasis. The schema is balanced at a point just before criticality cascades. If no order parameter captures and enslaves the schema, there is no change imperative. The schema is systemically rigid. The advantage of such a network is that it is coherent. The disadvantage is that it is slow to adapt to change. Conversely, a random network of ideas is constantly enslaving one another. An order parameter may emerge momentarily, only to be supplanted by another in the next moment. In this case, we would be in a constant state of instability and crisis with randomly emerging change imperatives from one moment to the next. The advantage of this random network is that it is quick to adapt to change, but the disadvantage is that it is incoherent. Although both of these scenarios offer a distressing mental picture, there are advantages to both network types: a regular network of ideas offers coherence and stability, and a random network of ideas offers flexibility and rapidity. A small world network combines the coherence and stability of a regular network and the flexibility and creativity of a random one, enabling it to adapt quickly to change within a stable structure. The structure of a small world network is a dynamic one. Local connections form dense local clusters. To expedite efficient connectivity, short-cuts connect local clusters, creating a global link. The stability of the local cluster of ideas is enriched and diversified by the global connection to another local cluster of ideas. If we apply this small world network metaphor to the Adaptive Perceptual Cycle, this represents how schemata are enriched and changed by new ideas. Just like the network of our mind map in which we might draw a line connecting a cluster of ideas to another cluster of ideas, a new schema emerges that gives us a new perspective until the real world experience no longer fits that schema and we begin again with the battle of order parameters. Real world experiences that test schemata may come from many sources. In this research, the change imperative is limited to the urban context and participants limited to particular groups of stakeholders who were asked to respond from the point of view of their professional or community role. It may be that the role of the stakeholders frames their perception of place—after all, whose place is it? Knowledge Structure and Individual Agency Structure and agency are aspects of a fertile sociological debate that has spawned many subtle theories (Hays, 1994) and many applications from the economic to the cultural posited by social theorists from Marx’s historical materialism to Durkheim’s functionalism to Bourdieu‘s notion of ‘habitus’—the human capacity for structured improvisation (2011). This discussion will limit the use of the terms structure and agency to the notion of a ‘knowledge structure’—or the schema that directs our interpretation of the world and ‘individual agency’, or free will. But first, a brief explanation of a relationship between knowledge structure and individual agency as used in this discussion may illuminate the role of our stakeholders. Our knowledge structure develops through our experiences of traditions, education, regulations and those constructs and expectations to which we generally adhere so that we lead a relatively ordered life. Individual agency is our power or free will that allows us to realize our expectations or the output of our knowledge structure so that we may lead a relatively interesting life. For the purposes of this discussion, envisage individual agency as a continuum of power between determinism and free will and knowledge structure as a continuum Figure 2. Network topology (Watts and Strogatz, 1998; Watts, 2004) May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 93 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 3. Knowledge Structure/Individual Agency Grid of knowledge between regulation and creativity. At one extreme, our knowledge structure may be authoritarian; rigid only affording repetitive actions and ideas. At the other extreme, our knowledge structure may be laissez faire so that boundless, free will holds sway. In each case, our level of individual agency enables or disables our capacity to implement our knowledge. A knowledge structure that neither enables a level of free will nor one that is boundless does not offer stability and adaptation, order and free will. That is to say, we function well neither as automata nor as eccentrics. Idealistically, the power of individual agency is fuelled by experience and knowledge, but it is more likely that one’s power and freedom varies depending on the context: for example, our authority in the home may be very different than in the workplace. This means that the role that we play in a particular context calibrates a level of individual agency that enables our knowledge structure to flourish. Consider this calibration as an orthogonal relationship between the factors of knowledge structure and individual agency (Figure 3). If knowledge structure is built through education and experience and individual agency represents our power to apply that knowledge in the real world, it may be that our reclusive philosopher, despite being the repository of an ordered knowledge structure, has very little agency in the real world. Similarly, our village idiot may have very little agency in the real world, but also lacks an ordered knowledge structure. Conversely, our philosopher king has not only the 94 benefit of an ordered knowledge structure but also free agency which may or may not (depending on the appropriateness of the knowledge structure to the context) benefit the real world. Our idiot king has the worrisome calibration of total free agency but very little ordered knowledge structure, the results of which may be at best a creative autocracy and at worst a tyrannical debacle. Ideally, one would prefer to be located at least in the middle of this orthogonal grid (or in the right half of it), in which our knowledge structure has some stability and our free will has some agency—in other words, the stability of order and the randomness of creativity. The calibration of this orthogonal relationship is likely to shift according to the stage upon which we strut. Consider a professional as someone who has a relatively ordered knowledge structure based on education and regulation and whose agency is legally accountable. As such, their knowledge structure and agency circumscribes their choices. If this is so, then for the sake of professional safety or comfort, their choices may become conservative and repetitive. And yet, professional responsibility requires their knowledge structure to adapt to a real world context. This implies that changes in a real world context demand a recalibration of their knowledge structure and power of agency. If a design professional sees that an irregular adaptation of their traditional knowledge structure is a good idea (for example, a mid-city community farm), they may defer their power of agency to that irregular urban change. Alternatively, if a design professional considers an adaptation of their knowledge structure to be a bad idea (for example, a Nazi death camp), they may rigidly retain their traditional knowledge structure that rebuffs this erratic urban change. In this way, a professional’s power of agency facilitates the level of adaptation. Whether design professional or lay, people perceive places as a structure of their experience and expectations: schemata, which provide a stable knowledge structure, direct how we interpret the world and our actions in it. However, if one’s knowledge structure and individual agency is a co-dependent relationship, as this discussion suggests, this means that the structure of the schema that guides the perception of place is subject to our level of agency that enables our free will or limits it, depending on the role that one inhabits. Concept Mapping Task It is proposed here that the perception of place is likely to depend on the role and conceptual structure of Refereed Full-Papers the stakeholder. The intent of the concept mapping task (Trochim, 2010; 2008) is to reveal the differences and similarities between stakeholder groups in the urban change context of South East Queensland, Australia. Non-parametric Multidimensional scaling (MDS) supported by Cluster Analyses is used to plot the concept maps to reveal the clusters and connectors of the network of urban design variables. This network of urban design variables represents the stakeholders’ conceptual structure of good urban places. It is expected that some stakeholder groups may have very similar conceptual structures of what makes a good urban place because of their design, development or community experience and urban design practice in South East Queensland. A Kendal Tau correlation elicits those groups whose conceptual structures are similar and those that differ. It is proposed that the interpretation of the plots may benefit from recent insights into network theory. Currently, small world networks have been described (mathematically) for neural networks, electricity networks, social networks and many other case studies (Watts and Strogatz, 1998; Barabasi and Albert, 1999), but as yet research into dynamic psychological networks is limited (Schnettler, 2009). MDS plots may be a small step towards illustrating schemata as metaphorical small world networks. What MDS analysis does is run several iterations of correlations until a ‘bestfit’ emerges and plots the variables using Euclidean distance. The MDS plots are intended to illustrate the content and the network structure of the stakeholders’ schemata as their expectation for good urban places. Non-parametric techniques are used because some groups consist of <10 participants: Architects (10); councillors (i.e., local government elected representatives) (8); developers (7); landscape architects (7); planners (24); transport engineers/planners (11); and others (9)—in total, 76 participants. The participant groups are a stratified random selection of design, development, community professionals and a lay group, selected because they represent the key negotiators in masterplanning processes in South East Queensland from the initial concept through to the statutory adoption and the development negotiation stages. The participants are requested to retain their design, development or community role for all of their responses so that they are framed within their particular knowledge structure and individual agency. The urban context is described so that their responses are circumscribed by a real world context with which they are familiar—South East Queensland. “The predicted growth in South East Queensland over the next 20 – 25 years will trigger changes for existing urban centres. These changes will have an impact upon the urban design qualities of urban centres. Please mark with an X, the ranking number that best fits your idea of good urban design qualities for South East Queensland.” The bipolar categories of urban qualities that the participants rank (from 1-7) are: Method A semantic differential task presents bipolar categories of urban design qualities that are ranked by the participants. These categories are derived from a content analysis of the urban design literature (Gosling and Maitland, 1976; Rowe and Koetter, 1978; Lynch, 1984; Trancik,1986; Attoe and Logan, 1989; Broadbent, 1990; Nasar, 1990; Calthorpe, 1993; Bentley, 1999; Calthorpe and Fulton, 2001; Layard, Davoudi and Batty, 2001; Alexander, 2002; Cowan, 2002; Duany and Plater-Zyberk 2003; Carmona et al, 2003; Lang, 2005; CABE, 2008; PPS, 2008). Words and phrases are categorised into major topics; minor topics and residual topics in accordance with their conceptual similarity (Tesche, 1991). Final descriptors of categories for the semantic differential task are elicited from the written verbatim data. Var. 3 Clear Way-finding - Mysterious Exploration May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Var. 1 Compact, Distinct Centres - Dispersed Sub-centres Var. 2 Local Character Building Style - Unusual, Landmark Architecture Var. 4 Technical Efficiency - Sensory Experience Var. 5 Small-scale Local Infrastructure Large-scale Regional Infrastructure Var. 6 Adventurous Places - Safe Places Var. 7 Urban-Rural Fusion - Ecological Conservation Var. 8 Evolving Places - Completed Places Var. 9 Movement Network Connectivity Movement Network Separation Table 1. Coding and Bipolar Categories for Semantic Differential Task 95 Refereed Full-Papers Results The results of the MDS analyses configure plots consisting of clusters of variables (shown as groups of dots) and dimensions (shown as a line or curve of dots). The results are two-dimensional for clear interpretation (Figure 4). The stress value of an MDS Analysis is an evaluation of the results’ goodness-of-fit: a stress value of <0.15 is a ‘good fit’, and one that is >0.25 is a ‘bad fit’. Lower stress values indicate greater reliability and higher stress values indicate that the results may be too complex to interpret. In this analysis, the stress values for each group ranges between >0.01 and <0.16 indicating a “good fit” not only because the MDS plots are two-dimensional (a better fit is attained with more di- mensions), but also because the variables are relatively complex concepts open to broad interpretation. The results show that each group’s plot is different (Figure 4). However, there is one compelling relationship of variables confirmed in the All Groups plot (76 participants): Variable 1 (compact, distinct urban centres); Variable 3 (clear way finding); and Variable 9 (movement network connectivity). A Kendal Tau correlation analysis (Table 2) reveals the influence of the participants’ power of agency and knowledge structure in a planning process. The correlation coefficient indicates those groups that have a similar conceptual structure and those that do not. Briefly, a co-efficient that is nearest 1 indicates the groups that are most closely related (a perfect correlation being 1) Figure 4. Multidimensional Scaling Plots 96 Refereed Full-Papers Table 2. Kendal Tau Correlations pairwise deleted in their conceptual structure of good urban places, and those furthest are less related. The results show that the only group that has some correlation with the councillors (C) is the group of landscape architects (LA), with a coefficient of 0.5. Although this correlation may be somewhat borderline, it represents a counter-intuitive result; it was expected that the landscape architects would have a stronger correlation with the other design professional groups. The reasoning for this unexpected correlation is merely conjecture, nevertheless it may be that councillors (C) and landscape architects (LA) focus on the restorative effects of landscaping and open space in an urban environment, whereas the other design professionals focus on the built form, or socio-cultural-economic aspects, or place identity and so on. The groups with a coefficient indicating a similar conceptual structure are the architects (A) and the planners (P), with a coefficient of 0.94. The groups that are least correlated with the Councillors (C) are architects (A) with a coefficient of 0.25; developers (D) with a coefficient of 0.29; and planners (P) with a coefficient of 0.31. This significant difference indicates a possible source of conceptual misalignment between the important professional stakeholder groups of architects, planners and developers and the community stakeholder group of elected representatives, the councillors. The almost perfect correlation between the architects (A) and the planners (P) indicates that those groups— possibly through their education and experience—have developed a similar knowledge structure of their perception of good urban design qualities, which appears to concur with neo-traditional notions of New Urbanism. The councillors (C) appear to be less exposed to these ideas and tend to retain vestigial modernist May 2011 – Make No Little Plans concepts popular in a previous era, such as “movement network separation” and dispersed sub-centres’. The councillors’ (C) knowledge structure tends to be at the polar opposite of most other design and development professionals and the lay group of others (O). Yet the councillors (C) are the group with the greatest power of agency in their role as adopters and implementers of urban planning changes. It may be that in time, the councillors’ (C) schema may join the other professional affiliates, but as the Adaptive Perceptual Cycle suggests, the other stakeholders may have moved on. Although the design and other professionals may have relatively less power of agency in a planning context, their knowledge structure of urban design quality is presumably based on coherent and ordered principles. However, these results do not reveal if the principles of their knowledge structure are retained in a negotiation context, which is a test of their individual agency. They may express a particular point of view in the context of this anonymous research, but in a real world planning scenario, which is often politically charged, they may (or may not) adapt their principles. Discussion This research was triggered by the pressures of urban growth and change in South East Queensland, Australia, a region dominated by the City of Brisbane and the developing areas of the popular tourist areas of the Sunshine Coast to the north, the Gold Coast to the south, and new communities to the west of the city. South East Queensland is one of the fastest growing regions in Australia and has had a consistent migration of people from other Australian states over many years. Currently, the accommodation of this population drives a long-term urban development and planning process 97 Refereed Full-Papers that considers statutory masterplans as the appropriate vehicle to direct future urban development. Planning processes typically consist of several community consultation meetings, a statutory process of review, public notification and amendment of plans, and finally, adoption by the local government authority. But community satisfaction after this long process is sometimes disappointing. This begs the question: why does dissatisfaction occur? Why is there an apparent misalignment between stakeholders’ perception of good urban places even after rigorous consultation? This research sought an inherently dynamic paradigm for urban planning in a dynamic context as found in South East Queensland. First, we need to understand the perception of place which may offer guidance in a context of urban change, and second, we need to understand the differences and similarities between the stakeholder groups. In this research, the ‘content’ of a good urban place consisted of the urban design qualities that have been popularly proposed in the urban design literature over the past few decades, mainly emanating from the neotraditional notions of North American New Urbanism and the well established British planning and urban design traditions, as well as the remains of International Modernism. All these notions have been adopted by Australian design and planning affiliates. This research does not promote one urban design school of thought over another. Indeed, the intent of the empirical study is to be neutral on what qualities constitute good urban places. Rather, this research seeks those urban design principles that have been absorbed by stakeholder groups and that they perceive make good quality urban places. The ‘structure’ of that content is the interrelated network of urban design qualities and represents the stakeholder groups’ schemata of good urban places. The stakeholder groups in this discussion are typically the most important actors in urban change processes in South East Queensland. Additional professionals such as hydrologists, ecologists, economists, sociologists, among others, often contribute their specialist input; however, this research focused on the typical stakeholder groups who participate in urban planning in this study region. This discussion also tapped into groups’ capacity to influence, circumscribed by their knowledge structure and individual agency. To glimpse into this aspect, the stakeholders were requested to respond from the point of view of their professional role so that their perception of a good urban place may 98 be framed by their knowledge structure and individual agency. The Adaptive Perceptual Cycle was proposed to explain how our perception of place adapts to a changed context (Neisser, 1976; Portugali, 1996; Bak, 1997; Haken and Portugali, 2003). Briefly, we explore the world guided by schemata—this is how we make sense of the real world. Our schema is tested in real life, and if things do not make sense we either adapt our schema or not—this critical point represents a change imperative which impels a systemic shift of our schema or, if resisted, systemic rigidity may lead to failure of the schema in a real context. The aim of the concept mapping task was to reveal the differences and similarities between stakeholders’ schemata of good urban places. The results appeared to elicit a small world dynamic in which local clusters of good-fit variables link globally and distance from bad-fit variables. This interpretation is possible because Euclidean distance is the premise for the concept map plots as well as for small world networks—good-fit variables cluster and bad-fit variables distance. The results of the concept mapping task illustrated that the schema of a good urban place of each stakeholder group was different (Figure 4). The difference between the groups was confirmed by the Kendall Tau correlation that showed the councillors’ conceptual structure to be generally, the polar opposite of most other groups except for the landscape architects. Nevertheless, the compelling result of the All Groups concept map offered an insight into a schema that resounds with Figure 5. All Groups cluster analysis; MDS plot; and, small world diagram Refereed Full-Papers all the participants and so may be useful as identifying their shared expectations for good urban centres. The content of the most compelling cluster of the All Groups’ plot is (Figure 5): Var.1 (compact, distinct centres); Var. 3 (clear way-finding); and Var. 9 (movement network connectivity, here categorised as Cluster and Connectivity). As an urban design concept, this relationship of variables describes a good urban place as one that has density and connectivity. The urban design variable of “compact, distinct centres” promotes urban density and strong local connections not only of the built form, infrastructure and transportation network, but also of community and professional affiliations through the ‘distinctiveness’ of socio-cultural identity and the nuances of place identity. In this study, the category “compact, distinct centres” is opposed by “dispersed sub-centres” so that the participants have a measure of comparison for their response, Translated into the imagery of a real place, one represents a traditional construct of urban life in which there is a defined centre of town that is accessed, recognised, shared and used by a whole community. This may be at varying scales from a local neighbourhood to a village, town, city or distinctive parts of a megalopolis. Conversely, “dispersed sub-centres” represented sub-urban places that are typically less dense and more remote, with smaller activity centres that are accessible to only a limited community. These places tend to have a greater focus on open space, seclusion, and exclusion rather than urban density, population and congregation. The urban qualities of “clear way-finding” and “movement network connectivity” were interrelated, as they both connote a transportation system that is easy and efficient rather than convoluted and obscure. “Clear way-finding” was opposed by “mysterious exploration,” the former implying a street network that is easy to remember and relatively predictable, whereas the latter suggesting a street network that is unpredictable and relatively adventurous or challenging. In this study, the participants preferred an exploratory experience that was efficient and easy rather than convoluted and obscure. The exploratory experience of “clear way-finding” was associated with “movement network connectivity,” which implies a network type that expedites the connections between places near and far. “Movement network connectivity” was opposed by “movement network separation.” The former implies a transportation system that is integrated from pedestrian, bicycle, private May 2011 – Make No Little Plans vehicles and mass transport within a street network that is connected throughout. Alternatively, network separation implies a transportation system that isolates these varying pathways so that they do not interconnect but are exclusive movement systems—pedestrians only, bicycles only, trucks only, and so on—with safety and possibly order as the main driver. The cluster of variables defined as locale included: Var. 5 (small-scale local infrastructure), Var. 8 (evolving places). Var. 2 (local character building style) and Var. 4 (sensory experience) was locally connected with each other, but the distance between this cluster and the core cluster—Cluster and Connectivity—indicated a global connection between them. This cluster of variables was defined as locale because these qualities describe the urban setting or background not only in concrete terms such as infrastructure and building style, but also in the abstract terms of urban evolution and sensation. The interrelationship of these urban design variables appeared to confirm the conceptual structure—Cluster and Connectivity—represented by a traditional urban centre. This cluster favoured smaller scale local infrastructure and a distinctive architectural style, a construct typically associated with traditional urban places. An important aspect of the locale cluster was that of “evolving places”—this indicated the participants’ recognition of the dynamic process of urban change over that of the static product focus of “completed places.” In the context of this discussion, time and change are inherent in small world networks and may indicate a fundamental alignment between small world networks and the participants’ schemata of good urban places. The final cluster of urban qualities is defined as stewardship, and it is the one with the longest global connection with the core cluster of Cluster and Connectivity. It consisted of Var. 6 (safe places) and Var. 7 (ecological conservation). It was defined here as stewardship because these urban design variables are associated with a sense of responsibility for the safety of people and the environment. If this is so, it implies that the stewardship cluster represented the participants’ role as part of their schema and indicated the influence of their knowledge structure and agency in this particular context. The relatively closer global connection with locale implied that within the participants’ schemata of the notion of locale was associated a sense of responsibility for that locale. In sum, this research sought an inherently dynamic framework for planning urban change. A small world network paradigm was proposed because it is a dy- 99 Refereed Full-Papers namic model that accommodates time and change. Small world characteristics were evident in the All Groups’ concept map which illustrated the hub Cluster and Connectivity—a small world dynamic—and an overall network structure of dense local clusters and global connections. This implies that the stakeholders’ schemata of good urban places align with a small world network paradigm and may offer an insight into a schema that resounds with all the participants as a guide for planning in an urban change context. Conclusion The expectations of different stakeholder groups may significantly influence the satisfaction with the outcome of a planning process. Acknowledging each stakeholder group’s perception of good urban places offers guidance in a context of urban change. The research sought to understand people’s perception of good urban places through the content and structure of their schemata The Adaptive Perceptual Cycle proposed that people’s expectations are subject to a dynamic process of testing new ideas and crises of relevance that impel adaptation. People’s knowledge structure and power of agency facilitates the adaptation of these expectations or schemata. Stakeholder groups’ expectations for good urban places were investigated in a concept mapping task and analysed using MDS analysis and cluster analysis. The results of the MDS analyses revealed that the conceptual structure of good urban places for each stakeholder group differed. However, the All Groups’ plot revealed a compelling conceptual structure of three clusters defined as cluster and connectivity, locale, and stewardship. The All Groups’ concept map appeared to align with a small world network dynamic—cluster and connectivity. It was proposed that a small world network paradigm offers a metaphor for planning urban change that resonates inherently with the stakeholders’ schemata of urban places and represents their expectations in planning urban centres. Acknowledgements Dr. Phil Smith and Dr. Mike Gillen, University of Queensland. 100 References Alexander, C. 2002. The nature of order: an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universe. 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Trochim, W. 2010. . http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/ Trochim, W. 2008. Introduction to concept mapping for planning and evaluation. http://www.conceptsystems.com.com/papers/ intro_article.php May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Watts, D. J. , 2002., A simple Model of Global Cascades on Random Networks,. In M. Newman, A-L Barabasi and D. J. Watts, 2006. The Structure and Dynamics of Networks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Watts, D. 2004. “The ‘New’ Science of Networks”. Annual Review Sociology 340:243-270. Watts, D. and Strogatz, S. 1998. “Collective dynamics of ‘small world’ networks”. Nature. 393:4, 440-442. 101 Refereed Full-Papers Effects Of Garden Design On Quality Of Life Seiko Goto (Rutgers University) ABSTRACT Clare Cooper Marcus discussed the therapeutic effects of gardens in various settings including nursing home gardens and Alzheimer’s treatment gardens (Marcus, 1999). While a particular garden may answer the needs of one group, she speculated that gardens can be as varied as the patient groups they are meant to serve. She urged the investigation of this idea and asked the question, “Do variations in garden characteristics produce variation in health outcomes?” (Ibid, p.587) To take a small step towards answering this question, I have conducted three small pilot studies to evaluate preferences for viewing different gardens and their effects on users between 2007-2009. This is a summary report of these three studies. In the first study, I used questionnaires to evaluate the garden types in terms of their likeability and participants’ interest in returning. In the second study, I surveyed visual garden design preference among different age groups using questionnaires, and in the third study, I assessed mood state using POMS/Profile of Mood States and cardiac output. Cardiac output was assessed using a portable electrocardiograph monitor before and during exposure to the green spaces. Results indicated that the Japanese garden was rated as the most preferred style. Heart rate in the Japanese garden was significantly lower than in the other environments, and sympathetic function was significantly lower as well. I conclude that exposure to green spaces can affect both the mood and cardiac physiology of elderly individuals, depending on their special arrangement. EFFECTS OF GARDEN DESIGN ON QUALITY OF LIFE Many studies have demonstrated that involvement with nature has a positive effect on health and on what is now commonly referred to quality of life (QOL). Horticulture therapy was developed in the rehabilitative care of hospitalized war veterans because the therapeutic benefits of gardening have been valued in the U.S. The main purpose of such a program is to encourage patients to get involved in hands-on gardening activities. However, the benefits of gardens come not only from 102 gardening but also from viewing gardens and walking thorough them. Viewing is the simplest and easiest but the most traditional way to experience a garden. For example, in a widely cited study, Ulrich, Simons, Losito, et al. (1991) demonstrated through a review of medical charts that patients in a hospital with a window view of nature recover sooner, take less pain medication, and have a more positive outlook on their health. In contrast, patients without a window view had less favorable outcomes in these domains. Given the apparent importance of the view of nature, the number of facilities for the elderly, such as adult day centers, retirement communities, and long-term care facilities, that have gardens for the purpose of improving their residents’ health and QOL is increasing (Thomas, 1994; Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center, 2008). In order to evaluate the suitability of garden designs, I conducted three pilot studies: 1. Design Analysis of Community Gardensi 2. Survey of Garden Design Preference Among Different Age Groupsii 3. Assessing Stress Level & Aesthetic Preference for Different Garden Designsiii The goal of these pilot studies was to evaluate preferences for viewing different gardens, and their effects. Following are the summary of the three pilot studies. Study 1: Design Analysis of Community Gardens, Medford Leas Gardens The first pilot study was designed to evaluate aesthetic preference for gardens in the Courtyard Apartments of Medford Leas during the summer and winter of 2007.iv The Courtyard Apartments have 33 small courtyard gardens designed by professional design firms/organizations. (Figure 1) Each courtyard garden is exactly same dimension and shape and is surrounded by 5 to 6 single or double occupancy apartments. Research participants (N = 62) in the summer and (N=30) in the winter were drawn from the population of persons living in the Courtyard Apartments, who were all highly functional in terms of basic and instrumental activities of daily living. Most of the residents were from New Jersey. At the time when study data were collected, the Courtyard Apartments had 150 residents. The mean age of residents was 84; nearly 100 percent were Caucasian, 65 percent were women, 52 percent were single, and 48 percent were married. Refereed Full-Papers Procedures I first explained the objectives and methods of the project at a housing committee meeting. With approval from the committee, a poster inviting participation in the study was hung on a bulletin board in the entrance hall of the community building. Invitations to complete the questionnaire were also put in individual residents’ mailboxes. The poster remained in the entrance hall for two weeks until the due date for returning the questionnaire to the central office. Because using all 32 gardens for the survey would have been confusing and strenuous for the residents, the number of gardens was reduced to seven by grouping the 32 gardens into seven types. Descriptions of the seven types of gardens follow. 1. American(court 28). This garden is mainly composed of birch trees and a lawn. Because of its “open” concept, it reflects an American garden style: a garden with a spacious lawn and shade trees. (Figure 2) 2. Resting (court 27). This is the only garden that contains furniture. A wooden bench and table are provided in the center facing a wooden screen. (Figure 3) 3. Symmetric (court 24). The most geometric and symmetric garden. The geometry of the garden is emphasized by the pruned hedge. (Figure 4) 4. Japanese (court 7). The Japanese-style garden has a stone lantern, a pond and plants, including those of a Japanese variety. The layout of the garden is asymmetrical. (Figure 5) 5. Jungle (court 20). This garden is full of overgrown hydrangeas and trees. There is no pathway into the garden, and views are blocked by the dense vegetation. (Figure 6) 6. Herb (court 15). The herb garden was designed by a specialist in healing gardens for the elderly. Each plant was carefully selected from herb groups commonly used in America, and was chosen based on the premise that people feel comfortable when they see familiar plants. The herbs are arranged according to a geometric plan. Stepping stones are arranged so that visitors can cross the garden as they touch, smell, and pick the herbs. (Figure 7) 7. Perspective (court 26). Rows of symmetrically arranged trees lead the eye into the garden and beyond, all the way to an entrance leading to a parking lot. This garden has the strongest emphasis on directing the perspective view toward the outside. (Figure 8) May 2011 – Make No Little Plans A written explanation of the study’s procedures was provided to each resident. Study participants were asked to choose the one garden type they liked most and the one they liked least. They were encouraged to visit each of the seven gardens before making their decision. The participants were also encouraged to comment on the gardens that they chose. Since the appearance of the vegetation changes in winter, two surveys with the same questionnaire were conducted, one in September and another in January. Results • Summer. There were 62 participants, 60 of whom were Caucasian and one who was Asian; 50 were female. Table 1 is a summary of the number of participants who chose a given garden as most favored or least favored. In the summer survey, the Japanese garden (court 7) was the most favored garden and no one voted for it as the least favored garden. The herb garden (court 15) was the least favored. • Winter. There were 30 participants for the winter research, 29 of whom were Caucasian, and one who was Asian; 26 participants were female, and 21 participants visited the gardens to make their decisions. For both the winter and summer surveys, the most favored garden was the Japanese garden (court 7), the second most favored was the symmetric garden, and the least favored was the herb garden. However, the herb garden was chosen even more prominently as the least favored garden in the winter study. The survey shows that the level of preference for a garden varied depending upon its design. The Japanese garden (court 7) was perceived as preferable to the herb garden (court 15). Positive comments about the Japanese garden are edited for brevity and summarized below: • “Stones are excellent.” • “Pine tree is wonderful.” • “Very nice varied trees.” • “Nice bright shrubs.” • “Great variety of plantings, a pond, rocks, some trees, and provided a pleasing, restful appearance.” • “Nice open view across.” • “Overall feeling is beautiful for contemplation.” 103 Refereed Full-Papers • “Overall design is good.” • “Oriental motif is very nice.” Participants favored the Japanese garden (court 7) because of its view(s) created by plants of different height and texture, as well as other garden elements such as stones and the pond. Critical comments about the Japanese garden (court 7) mainly focused on its maintenance condition: • “Holly is too tall.” • “Needs a little filling in at one end.” • “Slightly overgrown. Would do well with pruning and eliminating one overgrown holly.” • “Please remove the shrub. It is overgrown and not consistent with the character of the garden which is otherwise excellent.” • “Pond needs maintenance.” By contrast, there were no positive comments on the herb garden (court 15). Reasons for dislike of the herb garden included the following: • “No trees or shrubs to block the light from open door.” • “Needs more height variation.” • “Needs more variety of texture and direction for the eye.” • “Too many grasses, not a pleasing sight.” • “Too busy. No overall design.” • “Too heavy at one end and thin at the other.” • “I dislike clutter.” • “Needs trees—maybe a bench—older people need places to sit and rest.” • “Far too weedy, has an overgrown look.” • “Fill bare spaces.” • “Generally messy—not neat.” • “Would be more appealing if it had some trees.” • “More height; put in more mature trees. It is open, flat and too bright.” Although the designer of the herb garden (court 15) used various herbs, study participants commented that the garden needs more variety. Since the garden gives an open prairie feeling, it does not provide any one viewpoint. Although the garden was in full bloom in 104 the summer survey, nobody appreciated its fragrance or tactile quality. Instead, the textures and subtle colors of the herbs caused participants to see it as “messy” and full of “weedy grass.” The most interesting discovery of this study is that the Japanese-style garden was the most favored garden even though its style and plantings are not very familiar to most Americans. By contrast, the herb garden (court 15) was ranked as the least favored garden although the plants it contains are quite familiar to Americans. Study 2: Survey of Garden Design Preference Among Different Age Groups The second pilot study was designed to find out whether the Japanese garden (court 7) is preferred visually or experientially, and whether it is preferred just by an older group or by younger groups as well. Since the responders of the first study were residents of the Courtyard Apartments, their decision might have also been influenced by familiarity with and spatial experience of the gardens. Using the same images of the seven gardens used for the questionnaire analysis in Medford Leas, preference for garden types was surveyed among different age groups in this study (Figure 9). The subjects of this survey were from three different age groups: Residents of Parker Home (60+), Rutgers students (18-30) and Highland Park Public School children (5-12). Procedures • Parker Home: Parker Home is a nursing home located in Piscataway, New Jersey, that includes 60 apartments with approximately 60 residents. For this study, PI first shared the objective and method of the research with the residents, in collaboration with Parker Home staff. Then PI posted posters with photographs of the seven gardens in the entrance hall. Simultaneously, questionnaires with consent forms were put in the individual residents’ mailboxes, which requested that residents fill out and return them to the administration office within two weeks. The poster remained in the entrance hall for two weeks until the due date stated on the form. • Rutgers Students: Experiments were advertised on designated department recruitment boards requesting voluntary participation. The consent form and questionnaire were distributed by designated professors of each department and returned to them. Refereed Full-Papers • Highland Park Public Schools: Bartle Elementary School in Highland Park, New Jersey, is a school for children (aged 7-12) known for its cultural diversity. Bartle School has a courtyard surrounded by classrooms and the cafeteria. Because the courtyard was underused, the school was considering a new design as a part of its art program. With the consent of the school board, PI sent a letter explaining the project along with a consent form to all parents. Then PI collaborated with art teachers who showed a poster only to children whose parents did not object to their participation in the project. Children were asked to pick one image they wanted for their courtyard . Results Elementary school children from 2nd grade to 5th grade (N=377), university students from the Department of Landscape Architecture (N=23), Department of Art History (N=29), Department of Neuroscience (N=16), and retirement home residents (N=24) participated in the survey. Although the PI added a picture of a flower garden, predicting that elementary school children might prefer a garden with bright colors, results showed that the Japanese garden (court 7) was voted the most favored garden for the Bartle School courtyard space. The art teacher who conducted the survey reported that the school children knew that their courtyard should be a quiet space, and it should be viewed from the surrounding classrooms and the cafeteria in all seasons, except when they have summer vacation. While the elementary school children chose a Japanese garden (court 7) for “a quiet place,” the university students’ groups and the residents of Parker Home chose a garden without any specific objective in mind. Although the sample size is too small to arrive at any conclusion, there was a trend of female and Art History students preferring the flower garden. Furthermore, students in Landscape Architecture preferred formal gardens (flower garden, geometric garden, and perspective garden) rather than the Japanese garden (court 7). The Japanese garden was ranked second as the most favored garden. However, the herb garden (court 15) was still ranked as the least favored garden, and nobody chose the Japanese garden (court 7) as the least favored garden. By contrast, the Japanese garden (court 7) was ranked first as the most favored garden in the Parker Home, where there was one vote for the Japanese garden as least favored garden among 469 votes. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans It is worth noting that the responder commented on the questionnaire that “I don’t like Jap,” which suggests that her preference was based on cultural bias. The results showed that the Japanese garden (court 7) is preferred not only when experienced spatially but also when viewed in a photograph. Furthermore, the Japanese garden (court 7) was preferred not only by an older group or by elementary school children. Study 3: Assessing Stress Level and Aesthetic Preference for Different Garden Designs To clarify the results of the first survey at Medford Leas, the PI conducted a study to determine if there were any statistically significant differences between the responses to gardens that participants liked most and least. This study measured mood and heart rate while participants observed gardens from outside and used a mood state inventory (POMS: Profile of Mood States Brief Form, McNair & Lorr, 1964; DiLorenzo et al., 1999) to track behavioral responses and heart rate monitors to measure physiological responses of the same individuals to the three landscaped spaces: the Japanese garden (court 7), which they liked the most; the herb garden (court 15), which they liked the least; and an open space with a tree as a control space. (Figure 10) The control space was a landscaped space but not a garden space. Procedures 22 subjects were recruited from Medford Leas residents for this study. Demographic information, including age, sex, ethnic background, presence or absence of pacemaker, and use of heart medication was obtained by interviewing subjects at the site on their first day of the experiment before viewing the three landscaped spaces. While all were in reasonably good health, one was on medication, two had pacemakers and were on medication, and one had a pacemaker with no medication. Since three of the 22 participants could not visit all three spaces, their results were discarded and the data from the remaining 19 participants summarized as the basis of this report. To measure mood changes during the experiments, the participants were administered the POMS before and after observation of the three spaces. The POMS is a adjective rating scale composed of 30 items with a 0-4 score. The 30 items are broken down into 6 mood states: Tension, Depression, Anger, Vigor, Fatigue, and Confusion. In addition to the POMS Brief Form, participants’ 105 Refereed Full-Papers heart rates were recorded to assess variability before and during the observation using a portable electrocardiograph monitor (Activtracer AC-301A, GMS, Japan). Participants were asked to observe each of the three landscaped spaces on three different days at about the same time of day, not less than two hours after a meal in order to avoid having influence of the meal on cardiac data. The order of the observation of the three spaces was randomized. A station was set up for completing the questionnaire and attaching the monitor. The process of the experimental design was as follows: 1) The participant arrives at the designated green space at the designated time; 2) The participant is asked to sit facing a wooden wall with their back to the garden or control space; 3) if it is the first day of the experiment, the participant is asked questions that supply the demographic data; 4) The research assistant connects the participant to the portable electrocardiograph monitor and turns on the monitor; 5) The participant completes the pre POMS; 6) The participant looks at the wooden wall for 3 minutes; 7) The participant turns the swivel chair around and observes the green space for 15 minutes; 8) The participant turns the swivel chair to face the wooden wall again and the participant completes the post POMS; 9) The research assistant removes the monitor; 10) The monitor is turned off. Results • POMS. Since 30 items of POMS with score of 0-4 are further grouped into the six domains, the range of each domain is 0-24 (lower values represent better mood). A value of “Before-After” greater than zero means the score increased (mood improved) after viewing the garden, and a negative value of “Before-After” means that the score decreased. The mean scores on POMS, both before and after the viewing experience, are summarized in Table 8. Table 9 is the change (Before- After) of the value and the result of standard AOVA performed using individual changes. Analysis of these data by ANOVA reveals a significant difference in the score for “Depression” (p = 0.01) and a strong, but not significant, trend for “Anger” (p=0.06). The moods of “Tension,” “Vigor,” “Fatigue,” and “Confusion” were improved after viewing at all three landscaped 106 spaces but no significant differences were found. Note, however, that subjects viewing the green space with a single tree had the smallest decrease in scores in these categories. We also note that the scores for each site appear to differ in the variability of the responses from subject to subject. In this regard, subjects observing the single tree showed the largest variability and while those observing the Japanese garden (court 7) showed the smallest. • Heart Rate. Average heart rates of subjects over successive one-minute periods were gathered for approximately 13 minutes. For each subject, an initial three-minute period of gazing at a blank screen was followed by a 10-minute period during which the subject was shown one of the landscape spaces. Heart rate data for each minute of observation were averaged. Table 10 shows the results of all subjects averaged at each time point. The average heart rate of participants when viewing the Japanese garden (court 7) is significantly lower than the average heart rate when viewing the control. Moreover, a significant difference was obtained at 2 minutes, 3 minutes and 10 minutes after the starting point of viewing. Several points emerge from this these data. The first is that differences in heart rates can be detected in participants when they view different environments . The average bpm (all subjects/all time points) while viewing the Japanese garden space (72.3 ± .52 bpm) was substantially lower than while viewing the herb garden space (75.6 ± .54 bpm) or simple green space (75.4 ± .82 bpm), which produced similar effects. Second, a comparison of the initial three minutes of the various conditions suggests that environmental factors beyond the garden viewing itself differ among the three landscape spaces. These differences were not statistically significant, but it bears noting that on average subjects waiting to view the herb garden (court 15) had a higher heartbeat rate than did those waiting to view the Japanese garden (court 7). Our study was short-term in nature; each green space exposure was 10 minutes or less in duration. Despite this, clear responses could be found in both types of outcome measures. Summary These studies are preliminary and have limitations. Because most of the responders at Medford Leas were female, one could argue that our results are only representative in terms of gender. However, since the gender Refereed Full-Papers distribution in retirement homes in this country generally favors women by a margin of three-to-one (American Association of Homes for the Aging, 1991), our gender distribution may in fact be representative. Having a woman’s perspective in this area is therefore germane. The study was also limited by our focus on one set of gardens only; thus results are based on only one of each garden type and may have been influenced by particular features not evident in the description of the type of garden. The outcomes should not be generalized to Japanese/herb gardens. Furthermore, the sample size was relatively small, and the distributions were skewed. Despite these limitations, the results showed sufficiently strong trends to allow us to assert the following: 1) the Japanese garden (court 7) is preferred among multiple different garden types, not only by the elderly but also by younger people; 2) the herb garden (court 15) is not favored by the elderly or by younger people; 3) viewing a Japanese garden (court 7) can reduce stress. The results of these three small studies suggest that the Japanese garden (court 7), not the herb garden (court 15), is one of the most favorable garden types, and it can improve the emotions and cognition of viewers. This was an unexpected finding, since the herb garden was specifically designed by an expert to be aesthetically pleasing to residents at this facility. I note that only one of the subjects in the first and third studies was of Asian ethnic origin, making it likely that our findings are more universal in their impact and not heavily dependent on prior exposure to, or learned preference for, this particular style. Indeed, it was interesting to note that the Japanese garden (court 7) was the most favored garden even though its style and plantings are not very familiar to most Americans. By contrast, the herb garden (court 15) was ranked as the least favored garden, in spite of the fact that the plants it contains are quite familiar to Americans. The herb garden (court 15) was well planned to engage all five senses, but this dynamic feature did not entice research participants to rate it as highly pleasing. Although the Japanese garden may be a foreign style for most Americans, it can be ideal for certain kinds of spaces. Some Japanese gardens have been designed to occupy a small outside space just for viewing. To make such a small space look bigger, designers of the Japanese garden developed techniques to create multiple viewing points. Such a garden might be able to draw observers’ attention longer from one viewing point than other style gardens. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Ulrich, Simons, Losito, et al. (1991) showed that having a view of nature helps hospitalized patients to recover sooner. While this is an interesting finding, I can conclude that the level of effect of a view of nature differs based on the level of enjoyment of a garden by its observers depends upon its overall design. Indeed, more research must be conducted on elders’ aesthetic preferences for garden designs. Such studies could give us clues as to the mechanisms by which gardens have their often-claimed healing properties. The continuing demonstration that gardens can have a desirable effect on the mood of an elderly individual suggests that gardens may have a valuable place in any number of institutional settings. While pharmacological approaches to behaviour management are of proven efficacy, they carry safety risks that include side effects such interaction with other needed medications. Gardens and other natural settings offer a non-pharmacological strategy that is safe and increasingly proving to be effective. However, what aspect of a garden makes its space therapeutic? Is it layout, plant selection, stone placement, or some combination of features? Much further investigation is needed to answer this question. i #E08-026 09-185Mc iii 08-545M iv Medford Leas is a continuing care retirement community managed by a non-profit Quaker-related corporation. The Courtyard Apartments have 33 small courtyard gardens designed by professional design firms/ organizations. ii 107 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 1: Medford Leas 7 selected garden locations Figure 2: court 28 American Garden Figure 3: court 27 Resting Garden Figure 4: court 24 Symmetric Garden Figure 5: court 7 Japanese Garden Figure 6: court 20 Jungle Garden 108 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 7: court 15 Herb Garden Table 1: Summer Most Favored and Least Favored Gardens Figure 8: court 26 Perspective Garden Table 2: Winter. Most Favored and Least Favored Gardens) Table 3. Demographic data Table 4. Highland Park Public School Most and Least Favored Garden May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 109 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 9: Questionnaire sheet 110 Refereed Full-Papers Table 5. Rutgers University Most and Least Favored Garden Table 7. Demographic data Table 6. Parker Home Most and Least Favored Garden Table 8. Changes in POMS score: mean ± standard deviation May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 111 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 11. Three selected locations Table 9. Before-After Summary p<0.05 Figure12. Control Space Table 10. Heart Rate Summary result N=19 112 Refereed Full-Papers REFERENCES American Association of Homes for the Aging (1991). Continuous Care Retirement Communities, An Industry in Action Vol. II. Washington DC: Ernst and Young. Connoly, T., Arkes, K. R., & Hammon, K. R., eds. (2000). Judgment and decision making: An interdisciplinary reader. Second edition. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England. Delorme, E. P. (1996). Garden Pavilions and the 18th Century Garden Court. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors Club Ltd. Earl, J. Ed. (2000). Infinite Spaces: The Art and Wisdom of the Japanese Garden. Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing. Heath, Y. (2004). Evaluating the effect of therapeutic gardens. American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias 19: 239. Heerwagen, J. H., & Orians, G. H. (1993). Humans, habitats, and aesthetics. In S. R. Kellert & E. O. Wilson (eds.), pp. 138-172. The Biophilia Hypothesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Lundin, R. W. (1985). Theories and Systems of Psychology. III Edition. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company. Marcus, C. C. (1999). Healing Gardens: Therapeutic Benefits and Design Recommendations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Marcus, C. C. (2002). Great greenery. Some basic advice on creating a healing garden. Health Facil Manage, 15, 20-23. Michaels, C., & Carello, C. (1981). Direct Perception. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Nassauer, J. I. (1995a). Messy ecosystems, orderly frames. Landscape Journal, 14:161-169. Nassauer, J. I. (1995b). Culture and changing landscape structure. Landscape Ecology 10: 229-237. Orians, G. (2001). An evolutionary perspective on aesthetics. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts 2: 25-29. Perneger, T. (1998). What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments. British Medical Journal 316: 1236-1238. Thomas, W. (1991). The Eden Alternative: Nature, Hope, and Nursing Homes. Sherburne, NY: Eden Alternative Foundation. Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center (2008). Therapeutic Landscapes Database. Accessed February 24, 2008 at: http:// www.healinglandscapes.org/index.html. Ulrich, R. S., Simons, R. F., Losito, B. D., Fiorito, E., et al. (1991). Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology 11: 201-230. 113 Refereed Full-Papers Integration of Ecology, Sociology and Aesthetics in Urban Design: Fantasy or Reality? A Study through the Lens of Landscape Architecture Amir Hossein Hajrasouliha (University of Michigan) Introduction: The contemporary profession of urban design dates all the way back to the mid-20th century. Since then, this young discipline has tried to define its position among other disciplines such as architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture. The practical indistinctness of urban design’s borders has led other practitioners and professions to be active in this realm, which in truth facilitates the constant reform and expansion of the theory of urban design. One discipline that has greatly impacted the field of urban design is landscape architecture. Landscape architecture is a multi-disciplinary field that incorporates the urban context and ecological aspects into the design process. Landscape architecture has greatly influenced urban design principles and helped to transform it into a broader ideology that combines both social and ecological aims. This paper explores these contributions in the course of contemporary landscape practices and writings, particularly through the evaluation of two active landscape architects and theorists, Randolph Hester and James Corner. Despite being completely different in their theory and practice, both have tried to integrate social and ecological aspects of the urban context into the artistic logic of design with dissimilar shares of idealism and pragmatism. After a brief introduction of both landscape architects and their theories, the valuable lessons for urban design from the practice of these landscape architects in the framework of ecology, sociology, and aesthetics will be reviewed. James Corner and Randolph Hester both demonstrate how treating urban design as a multidisciplinary field with a focus on 1 social and ecological goals will drastically improve the profession in an innovative way. Randolph Hester Randolph Hester was a professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley from 1980 until his retirement in June 2010. His research mainly focused on the role of citizens in community design and ecological planning. Within his work and writings, Hester has tried to bridge the gap between different disciplines. He suggests that urban design should consider social, ecological, and aesthetical issues simultaneously in order to achieve a livable environment. ” For the last fifty years … poor city design divides us from others in our communities, undermines our sense of community and place, destroys natural habitats that once gave us immeasurable joy … and fails to inspire our spirits.”1 In his book Design for Ecological Democracy, Hester proposed 15 design principles that have emerged from sociology and ecological contexts. He promotes the idea that “we need to reform our cities so that we act as communities” by using five principles that he termed Figure 1: Sacredness is the initiating force of city form that supports ecological democracy, Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006: 420 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 1. 114 Refereed Full-Papers “Enabling Form: We got to know our neighbors.” He creates the notion that “we need to reform our cities to be ecologically resilient” in five principles that he called “Resilient Form: life, liberty, and the pursuit of sustainable happiness.” Hester also promotes the concept that “we need to reform our cities to impel us by joy” in five principles titled “Impelling Form: “Make a city to touch the people’s hearts”.2 The vague interaction of these principles and the uncertainty in implementing this methodology is what makes these concepts hard to grasp. Hester portrays his theory as “messy—more like a mass of mating salamanders than a regression analysis.”3 But his main contribution is the source of these principles, which is from the inner circles composing sociology, ecology, and art. Each principle is a discrete amphibian subject, “but the value of this theory lies in the entirety of intertwined, squirming mass of fifteen principles.”4 Figure 2 shows the intertwined character of these principles based on the context of their emergence. Among these 15 principles, ‘sacredness’ has the most prominent position. Hester defines the sacred landscape Figure 2: 15 principles in 3 contexts as “places that are consecrated by highly revered convictions, values, and virtues.”5 In Hester’s ideology, “sacredness serves the practical purposes of preservation and creates gestalts that express the soul of a place and inspire the details of city form.”6 In this and other principles, a combination of imagination and rationality conquers the traditional values embedded within urban design. During Hester’s retirement ceremony, his son described his father by saying: “He taught me to interact with the miracle and majesty and power of the natural world. He taught me about outrageous creative hope. Outrageous in taking risks and creative in proposing solutions…he’s been brave enough to hope for a better world.”7 Randy Hester is a visionary, a poet and a social activist in the drab of a designer. Dreamers like Hester not only help to expand the boundaries of the discipline, but to also inspire others for more meaningful acts, in both their personal and professional lives. James Corner James Corner is a prominent landscape architect who is currently the Principal of Field Operations and the Department Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout his career as a professor and professional landscape architect, Corner has tried to redefine modern urbanism through the lens of landscape architecture. He is one of the key figures in the discourse of landscape urbanism. He is famous for working with graphic artists, photographers, and other similar artists from various fields. Corner has also collaborated with some of the world’s leading architects, planners, engineers, ecologists, and artists from various multidisciplinary fields.8 Some of his projects are based on a multi-disciplinary process that integrates and regenerates urban design principles. He describes his own design process as “working synoptic maps, alongside the intimate recordings of local circumstance, comparing cinematic and choreographic techniques to spatial notion, entering the algebraic, digital space of the computer while messing around with paint, clay, and Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006). Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006, 419. 4 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 419. 5 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006),117. 6 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 135. 7 “In an article on Randy Hester’s retirement tribute (The Daily Berkeley Planet, June, 2010), his colleagues and friends honored him for a life time teaching” 8 Fehrenbacher, Jill. “Architect James Corner On NYC’s High Line Park”, (Inhabitat, 2010), http://inhabitat.com, (accessed August 2010) 2 3 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 115 Refereed Full-Papers ink, and engaging real estate developers and engineers alongside the highly specialized imaginers and poets of contemporary culture.”9 Corner’s attitude showcases a fundamental aspect of landscape urbanism in which process, both in analysis and design, are favorable to a basic static formal process. Evolution in landscape urbanism is preferred to mere creation: “Landscape urbanism’s methodology is multidisciplinary by definition. Expanding from the legacy of landscape design to consider the complexity of contemporary urban dynamics, it integrates knowledge and techniques from such disciplines as environmental engineering, urban strategy, landscape ecology, the development industry and architecture.”10 Corner defined four themes of landscape urbanism as: (1)Process over time: “The promise of Landscape urbanism is the development of a space-time ecology that treats all forces and agents working in the urban field and considers them as a continuous network of inter-relationships,” Corner asserts.11 The process of urbanization is characterized more by contemporary techniques that represent the fluidity, spontaneous feedback, and non-linearity of urbanization than a fixed, rigid, and definite process. (2)Staging of surfaces: Landscape urbanism accepts and embraces the current situation of horizontally sprawling American suburbs as the new urban reality in an attempt to understand the reasons behind this development. Landscape urbanism replaces the existing ‘program’ of a site with a site’s ‘potential’ in order to define a territory use. “The thrust of this work is less toward formal resolution and more toward public process of design and future appropriation,” Corner writes. “Concerned with a working surface over time, this is a kind of urbanism that anticipates change, open-endedness, and negotiation.”12 9 Figure 3: 4 themes of landscape urbanism in 3 contexts of sociology, ecology and aesthetics (3)Working method: Landscape urbanism suggests a reconsideration of traditional, conceptual, representational and operative techniques that function across a range of scales and implicate a host of players. (4)The imaginary: “The collective imagination, informed and stimulated by the experiences of the material world, must continue to be the primary motivation of any creative endeavor,” Corner writes.13 The Sociological Context of Urban Design The formal establishment of the urban design program at Harvard University was conceived a year before the appearance of Jane Jacobs’s controversial book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.14 Since then, the up-and-coming urban design field has been the target of numerous complaints from different social movements. At the time, urban design projects as physi- Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus” in The Landscape Urbanism Reader, edited by Charles Waldheim, 21-33.( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 31. 10 Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 13. 11 Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus” in The Landscape Urbanism Reader, edited by Charles Waldheim, 21-33.( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 30. 12 Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus” in The Landscape Urbanism Reader, edited by Charles Waldheim, 21-33.( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 31. 13 Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus” in The Landscape Urbanism Reader, edited by Charles Waldheim, 21-33.( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 32. 14 Sorkin, Michael, The End(s) of Urban Design, in Urban Design, ed. Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009). 116 Refereed Full-Papers cal entities were considered to be for the most part antisocial. In response to the complexity of social issues prevalent in urban developments, urban design began to focus more on social goals that were in accordance to its principles. “Community-Based Design,” “Everyday Urbanism,” and “New Urbanism” are the products of this sudden shift. But still the constant clashing between urban development and social goals are continuing in contemporary urbanism to this day. Like urban designers, landscape architects are facing the same challenges in their urban scale projects. Hester and Corner are both effective figures that throughout their practice and ideology have elevated the expectations of urban design projects to broadly address social concerns. While Hester has been one of the leading community design experts and an advocate of the citizen’s role in urban design, Corner has been active in a completely different way. Although Corner believes in the social consultant and the bottom-up design process, his projects are mainly large-scale projects with a limited possibility of sufficient public participation in the design process. But his projects have not ignored social considerations. His approach to society as a complex and unpredictable system makes his projects both flexible and feasible. The contrast between Hester and Corner could be better followed in their respective works. One project that illustrates this distinction is the revitalization of the central waterfront of Manteo, North Carolina. Hester referred to this project in the chapter on sacredness of his book, Design for Ecological Democracy. Manteo faced a 22 percent unemployment rate, with few prospects for improvement. The designers tried to uncover the important aspects of the communities’ life. Hester calls this process “Uncovering Sacredness,” which came about in a series of interviews and behavior mapping. The result was a map that disclosed places that were important to the social fabric of Manteo. Identification of these places makes it hard for developers to change them in their proposals. The residents wanted these places protected because they have a “higher value than dollars.”15 Those places are so essential to the lives of residents that the community collectively identifies with the places.16 Preserving the “sacred structure” of Manteo cost the town half a Figure 4: Sacred structure of Manteo, Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006:121 million dollars each year in the 1980s, but this sacrifice eventually inspired a significant economic recovery that made Manteo a model for other cities.17 Based on Hester’s basic ideology, urban design in the context of sociology should act as a revealer, preserver and promoter of social values. Design in this realm is not passive; instead there exists a high obsession about the social impact of the physical configuration of spaces. Corner also believes that with the failure of the Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006). Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 120. 17 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 123. 15 16 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 117 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 5: a “Water City” for 1.5 million people, http://www.archdaily. com/66650/james-corner-field-operations-to-design-qianhai/ planning and design approach that ignored local characteristics and values, the landscape is now seen as the means to resist the homogenization of the environment while also heightening local attributes and a collective sense of place.18 Hester’s projects predominantly occur at the neighborhood scale. Corner, on the other hand, has tried his ideology in mega-cities like New York, Toronto, and Shenzhen. A large criticism of Hester’s approach is that it might not work in mega-scale developments like those in China. The Chinese don’t have time to “uncover the sacred structure” of their cities. They desire and need tall and dense buildings, and they need them fast. In a recent prestigious Chinese urban design competition to design a new major city called Qianhai near Shenzhen, James Corner Field Operations was fortunate enough to win the competition. Managing communities and neighborhoods for a city with 1.5 million residences that has to be built in a very short period is a tough challenge. Corner’s project is a top-down approach because of the scale and character of this project made it to some extent impossible to count on the citizen’s role in the design process (one of the main proponents of Hester’s design process). Field Operations’ innovative proposal used landscape features as the main source to shape the city form. “Five ‘Water Fingers’ divided the massive 18 site into manageable sub-districts. The fingers extended from the existing rivers and channels and function as both innovative hydrological infrastructures and new public parkland. Within each of the sub-districts, the fabric is designed in the conventional scale of a typical Shenzhen block and inter-connected with the urban neighborhoods.”19 In this case, incorporation of landscape architecture, urban design, and social/cultural concerns promotes a city with social and ecological sensitivity. The Ecological Context of Urban Design Urban design largely deals with the quality of the built environment that is vital for preserving the natural environment. In some cases, the natural environment is like a natural park, waterfront, or mountain skirt, where the built environment becomes intertwined with the cities. Mainly, landscape architects are in charge of development in these fields. Their ecological insight has brought verdancy to urban spaces and the subsequent design principles as well. Landscape architects such as Randy Hester and James Corner are prominent figures in this discipline. Both address urban and natural contexts simultaneously in their projects, but in different scales and situations. As mentioned before, Hester’s projects are usually Corner, James. Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 13. 19 Cilento, Karen. “ James Corner Field Operations to design Qianhai”, (arch daily, 2010), http://www.archdaily.com/, (accessed August 2010) 118 Refereed Full-Papers approached from a community scale and Corner’s projects are mainly done from the city scale. They also have their own specialties. Hester integrates natural amenities with the neighborhood context, while Corner transforms abandoned industrial spaces to green, post-industrial urban spaces. However, both brought a new vision to urban design, specifically where the urban fabric meets the natural environment. One of Hester’s projects lies in Casper, California. After a real estate crisis struck the town, citizens banded together in an attempt to respond. Their first action was to purchase ecologically fragile lands to save their natural environment. They then identified a natural structure for Casper based on the landscape features. Basically the design framework was whittled down to three conceivable actions: “(1) create a backbone along the creek, (2) make the center the heart of the community, and (3) save views by clustering new villages like old ones.”20 Creating this simple framework gave developers enough flexibility to make the projects feasible. The interaction between community and developers based on the consensus on the framework was constructive and gentle. Finally, the developers and the community achieved their main objectives while preserving the ecological context of the region without any financial sacrifice. This approach was derived by tracing a natural structure on the ecological context of the built environment. “Natural process creates the overall structure that accommodates change while maintaining fundamental city form, and the built landscape and architecture provide malleable detailed settings.”21 The key principle in this approach is ‘adaptability’, which means the capacity of an ecosystem to adapt in changing conditions at a minimum cost.22 This principle is actually one of the common threads between Hester and Corner’s ideology. Both propose the flexibility of design for the sake of adaptability. Flexibility and adaptability of space is not just for the ecological benefits, but they also help to define the program of space in the process of adaptation. In that sense, Hester suggests that “the most sensible solution for urban open space is to create less defined and more flexible settings that are suitable for any recreational or social purpose that comes along.”23 Figure 6: Sacred Structre, flexibility about land use decisions, Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 267. Figure 7: Fresh Kills Lifescape, Corner, James. “Lifescape - Fresh Kills parkland [Staten Island, New York].” Topos: the international review of landscape architecture and urban design, no. 51 (2005). Large city landscapes are usually more flexible and adaptable than small open spaces. In that sense, Corner has acted as a spatial genius in turning large abandoned urban spaces into resilient, usable public spaces. These 20 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 266. Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 256. 22 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 255. 23 Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 259. 21 May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 119 Refereed Full-Papers large areas are usually industrial sites that have become lost spaces in cities. Deteriorated train tracks, waste disposal land, and abandoned waterfronts are some of the preferable locations for Corner’s work. They are large enough to be flexible and small enough to be designed. One of his famous projects in this case is Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island in New York. Formerly the largest landfill in New York City, the site is almost three times larger than Central Park and would eventually become a touristic and cultural destination for the city. Corner’s strategy for the development of this huge park resembles Hester’s design for the small town. He does not define the whole program of the park. A natural structure has been decided and the rest should be shaped in the long term process. Minimum intervention in the land form, maximum flexibility in the program, and the creation of open vistas has increased the adaptability of the land. It has been expected that after the evolution of the land into a grand park, it would soon become ecologically rich and diverse. In this project, the inflexible rigidness of some traditional urban design principles has no place in the process. The Aesthetic Context of Urban Design Artistic principles are the main core of the urban design discipline. From the first writings of Camillo Sitte and the American City Beautiful Movement, which were the first initiators of this discipline, aesthetic quality of city’s public spaces has been the focal topic in urban design. But since the 1960s, one significant criticism of urban design is that higher priority is given to aesthetics over ethics and other social and ecological issues. For example, the design of public spaces in a neighborhood can be more important than the gentrification impact within that area, or the design of a beautiful suburb can be more significant than the ecological shocks in the region. Design over social and ecological management is one of the conflict points between the aesthetic context and the sociological and ecological context of urban design. Through their own practices, Hester and Corner have helped to ease these conflicts, although they have different approaches toward the aesthetic context of their work. For Hester, art is not just a fine physical form but the “sacredness” of that form or object which integrates 24 25 the art with sociology, psychology, and culture. On the other hand, Corner has utilized the contemporary technology and engineering of landscape architecture as a catalyst to conciliate between art and ecology. What Hester and Corner have done is spread the concept of art into the broader territories of sociology and ecology. In their work, aesthetics of space comes from the social values, the natural landscape or the high tech artificial landscape, which is in harmony with the ecology of the place. In Hester’s view, the appreciation of physical form is mainly dependant on the social acceptance of that form. In that sense, social engagement in the design process takes on the character of aesthetics as well as esthetically. When people become the sole creators of a place, that place will have a totally different meaning for them. Who will appreciate the artifact more than the artist? In other words, what Hester has suggested is that rather than a solo act of an artist to create a masterpiece, turn the people into artists. Artists have enough knowledge from their place and are active to change it and enjoy it. In that sense, Hester, in the last chapter of his book, designs for ecological democracy, proposing five design principles that are mainly social and ecological facts, but will eventually “touch the people’s heart”: • Design for what people do all day • Design rooted in naturalness • Design based on local wisdom • Design with reciprocal stewardship • Design embedded with the rhythms of life24 On the other hand, Corner creates artistic spaces not based on public participation but with the involvement of many sophisticated artists, imaginers, engineers, and technicians. In his well-known project, the High Line in New York City, Corner’s firm collaborated with more than ten corporations to design a park on an abandoned elevated train track. The result is truly a work of art, an industrial transportation facility reclaimed into a postindustrial instrument of recreation, leisure and greenness.25 The High Line is a distinct example of a natural and artificial mixture. The combination of organic and building materials needs an engineer’s expertise as Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006). American Society of Landscape Architects. “2010 ASLA Professional Awards”, (ASLA,2010), http://www.asla.org/2010 awards, (accessed August 2010). 120 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 8: High Line, an ambitious urban reclamation project, American Society of Landscape Architects. “2010 ASLA Professional Awards”, http://www.asla.org/2010 awards/173.html. Figure 9: the invention of a new paving and planting system, American Society of Landscape Architects. “2010 ASLA Professional Awards”, http://www.asla.org/2010 awards/173.html. much as an artist’s imagination. One peculiarity of the High Line is that its uniqueness is a main attraction to the park, and engineering technology plays a huge role in this sense of uniqueness. Accordingly, the main distinction between Hester and Corner is in their perception of what is aesthetically beautiful. They both define art based on their ideology and apply it to the urban environments in different ways. One is more socially oriented and the other is more technically oriented. However, their main input to the urban design discipline was the notion of utilizing a multiplicity of tools and theories in a collaborative May 2011 – Make No Little Plans approach through the lens of art and imagination. Based on their practice and writings, urban design literature as a whole has been expanded, and urban design principles have been revitalized. Conclusion Is it possible to find physical solutions for the social and ecological problems of cities? The first step to answer this broad question is to define the nature of “problems.” Scholars take different approaches. While some put more emphasis on the current urban challenges, others try to establish a vision for urban life. A 121 Refereed Full-Papers general distinction between these two trends is somehow similar to the old conflict between idealism and pragmatism. This paper briefly explored the theory and principles of two landscape architects, Randolph Hester and James Corner, both of whom have tried to approach the same goal with different proportions of idealism and pragmatism. Obviously these two men cannot represent the whole contemporary urban design practice. But they are different enough to show the importance of scale in the urban design methodology, while at the same time, they are similar enough to prove the possibility of integration between ecology, sociology, and aesthetics in urban design. While James Corner put the “working method” in the center of his theoretical framework, Randy Hester emphasizes the “sacredness” of the sites. The difference is the same as that between a planner and a poet; vision vs. dream; meaning vs. senses. A vibrant discipline needs both aspects. These two approaches demonstrate that urban design is not a discrete discipline. It is essentially a multidisciplinary practice that defines itself with the collaboration of theorists and technocrats. It needs them to inclusively define current problems and to find practical solutions. Therefore, it is impossible to define a series of rigid principles applicable to different locations and situations. In that sense, exploring other disciplines, their practices and their theories, will help to accomplish the flexibility and broadness that urban design needs. Landscape architects Randy Hester and James Corner have different approaches toward urban design, but each of them has brought something new that extends the borders of the field. 122 References Architectural Association (Great Britain). Landscape Urbanism: a manual for the machinic landscape. London: Architectural Association, 2003. Corner, James. Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Corner, James. “Lifescape - Fresh Kills parkland [Staten Island, New York].” Topos: the international review of landscape architecture and urban design, no. 51 (2005). Corner, James. “Shelby Farms Park: one park, one million trees, twelve landscapes [Memphis, Tennessee].” Topos: the international review of landscape architecture and urban design, no. 66 (2009). Corner, James, and Alex S. MacLean. Taking measures across the American landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Farr, Douglas. Sustainable urbanism: urban design with nature. A Wiley book on sustainable design. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2008. Hester, Randolph T. Design for Ecological Democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Hester, Randolph T. Neighborhood Space. Stroudsburg, Pa.: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross , 1975. Hester, Randolph T. Planning Neighborhood Space With People. 2nd ed. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1984. Kolb, Jaffer. “The High Line parkland project paves the way for a new kind of urbanism in the U.S..” Architectural review 226, no. 1351 (September 2009). Krieger, Alex, and William S. Saunders. Urban Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Mostavi, Mohsen., Gareth. Doherty, and Harvard University. Ecological urbanism. Baden, Switzerland: Lars Muller, 2010. Waldheim, Charles. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Refereed Full-Papers Positive Environments: Emotional Relief Through Evidence-Based Design of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Elizabeth Heroux (Savannah College of Art and Design) Abstract The purpose of this paper is to aid in the design of a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that addresses the physical, psychological, and emotional needs of parents, while implementing patient-focused care and promoting staff efficiency. The thesis will provide a prototypical design, accompanied by guidelines, which together will serve as tools to streamline the design process of a specific healthcare environment. Through the compare and contrast of existing facilities, including a site visit to one local NICU, the thesis argues that although numerous NICU designs claim to address the needs of parents, none have successfully addressed all needs of the parents. This argument will also be addressed by survey findings gathered from parents who have experienced a NICU in conjunction with an analysis of literature relating to parents within a NICU and environment psychology. Specific programmatic requirements for parents, infant-patients, and staff will also be addressed in the thesis. The survey findings, interviews, literature review, precedent studies, and site visit will serve as research-based evidence for the prototypical design and guideline content. Introduction Thesis Statement To demonstrate how research-based design evidence can generate a psychologically supportive environment by promoting emotional relief for a parent in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). In the past, designers have approached the NICU environment with the infant-patients’ needs, as well as staff needs, as the priority. This project will approach the third user group within the NICU environment by addressing the needs, emotional as well as physical, of the parent and/or visitor. Since the visitor within a NICU is most commonly a parent or direct relative to the infant-patient, there are many psychological, physi- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans ological, and emotional triggers within the environment, such as sudden equipment alarms and flashing lights, which need to be addressed due to their current negative association to the infants’ condition. Through the combination of visceral, behavioral, and reflective design, the proposed NICU will eliminate the negative associations of the physical environment. Because of stress reduction, the negative associations within the space will then be replaced with positive associations. Maintaining comfortable levels of parents’ emotions by addressing the fundamental psychological processes (arousal, overload, affect, adaptation, and personal control) through design will allow the negative associations to be replaced with positive associations throughout the environment, promoting emotional relief and a reduction in stress. History - Neonatology & NICUs Despite its development in the late nineteenth century, neonatology gained the most significance in the healthcare world during the late 1950s and 1960s (Hellmann, 2006). Sparked by the invention of the incubator in 1880, neonatal health care has consistently improved, resulting in a decrease of prenatal mortality rates (PMR). Another major contributor to the decrease in prenatal mortality rates was the development of the first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the United States in 1965 at the Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut (Neonatology on the Web, 2009). NICUs are specialized units, typically within a hospital, “designed and equipped to support premature babies” (Hellmann, 2006), as well as full-term newborns with other conditions. NICUs are classified by Level (I, II, or III). Level I NICUs are equipped to treat less serious cases, while Levels II and III are designed to support the more serious cases. Since most hospitals are only equipped with a Level I NICU, transport is provided either for the infant directly or for the pregnant mother prior to birth (typically in known high-risk cases) to a hospital with a Level II or III. In many cases, preterm birth is an unplanned event, which, depending on the condition of the newborn, can be classified as an emergency. Due to the unwelcome surprise-factor emotionally associated with a newborn being admitted to a NICU, “life in the NICU is often one of intense and conflicting emotions” (Hellmann, 2006). Often thought of as an emotional rollercoaster, life in the NICU for a parent is filled with stress, fear of 123 Refereed Full-Papers the unknown, worry for the life of the baby, and even guilt. Sometimes parents are even reluctant to bond with their newborn in the NICU with fear of the bond breaking through tragedy (Hellmann, 2006). While admitted to a NICU, the infant is constantly being monitored and cared for by the hospital staff and doctors. Treatment of a patient in a NICU involves various forms of technology and machines, depending on the condition of the infant. The proposed research-based design project of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) will address the psychological, physiological, and environmental needs of the parent and/or visitor. NICUs have historically been designed around family-centered care, patientfocused design, and to increase staff efficiency. The proposed design will combine the previously listed considerations while focusing on the needs of the parent and/or visitor. Hence, instead of founding the design solution upon a patient-focused perspective, the final design solution will be intended to address and fully meet the psychological, physiological, and emotional experience within the space for the parent(s). By gaining an understanding of the psychological and medical considerations pertaining to a NICU, the research-based design may be able to provide the parent focus population with the environmental support required to address their psychological and physiological needs. Prototypical & Guidelines Taking the place of the client in the thesis, a prototypical design, along with an accompanying set of written guidelines, will provide solutions for the goals and objectives for the thesis project. Spatial solutions will be provided for the three separate levels of NICUs (levels I, II, and III) limiting restrictions for future clients (organizations, etc.) who would implement the prototypical. These spatial variations will allow any level of NICU to be designed and configured according to the prototypical guidelines to not only achieve the overall goals, but also to allow applicants to apply the designs within an existing space (with regards to restrictions and constraints provided by the existing space). The prototypical guidelines will also provide a set of materiality guidelines to aid designers in material selection for specification in accordance with national, federal, state, and (for the purpose of the thesis) Atlanta-specific guidelines. The guidelines will also provide instruction on the locations of spaces, which spaces are required or applicable to each level (I, II, or III) 124 of NICU, recommended location of amenities, recommended space planning for each space, recommended locations of windows, lighting requirements and restrictions, and material requirements and restrictions. Goals and Objectives The thesis will have four major design goals that will support the goals in regards to the user (parent) and the overall prototypical and guideline goals. The first design goal will be to provide an environment that focuses on patient-focused care, while supporting the physical and psychological needs of the parents, and encouraging family-centered care, which will maximize parental participation in the care of the infant-patient. This will be achieved by including, and designing, spaces within the NICU, or in close proximity, to provide support for the needs of the parent (eating, sleeping, etc.). One example of a space type which will provide for the parental need of privacy with their infant is the use of single occupancy rooms for infant care levels requiring more than a short-term (one week or less) stay in the NICU. The second design goal will be to provide space planning that enables maximum staff efficiency and supports future advancements in technology and accessibility. By providing prototypical designs and guidelines for a range of sizes for each space, (example: minimal space requirements, median, and maximum recommended space size), the potential future client would be able to implement the appropriate size space to allow for the necessary space adjacencies. Additionally, by providing criteria and guidelines for design concept application and the specification of materials to be applied within the space, the future client will be able to successfully customize the layout, design, and feel of their space. This level of flexibility will allow any organization or corporation to adopt the prototypical and guidelines if their mission, goals, and objectives accept the overall goal and purpose of the thesis. The material specification guidelines and criteria will include specific requirements per space, including: acoustical requirements, material compositions, finishes, clean-ability codes, indoor-air quality considerations, and sustainability considerations and requirements. Program Interior Spaces Each interior space in the prototypical NICU will be designed with regard to column spacing requirements and regulations from the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI), National Fire and Protection Agency regulations Refereed Full-Papers (NFPA), International Building Codes (IBC), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Spaces not listed below, but included in the prototypical design, will utilize program prototypical square footage. Single-Family Patient Rooms Since it is the most important room within the NICU, the single family patient room serves as the hub of all activity. The patient room is designed for maximum parental privacy in a level III NICU due to the elevated level of critical care for the infant-patients. Each patient room will be designed to accommodate a single patient or multiples and their parents, and will be planned according to three user-zones to allow for the needs of each group (infant-patient, parents, and staff) to be met. By creating a hierarchal adjacency with the infant as the majority and an even proximity between the staff and parents, the collaborative staff-parent communication level will be met. Parental psychological needs will be met by providing a private and safe area within the patient room for parents to have privacy with their infant, allowing for a more natural bonding of parent and child while in the NICU. Additionally, providing seating and access to daylight within the space provides emotional relaxation opportunities. Allowing the parents to have a designated area within the room keeps parents out of the way of staff duties while observing and receiving constant updates of their baby’s condition. Also, a sofa with built-in storage provides a sleeping space for parents in the same room as their infant, allowing for parents to remain in close proximity to their baby at all times. Dual-Family and Multiple-Family Patient Rooms Following suit of the single-family patient room, the dual and multiple family patient rooms provide all of the same privacy considerations for parents and their infant. However, due to the shared nature of the rooms, the privacy is on varying levels. This change in privacy through shared space is due to the different severity levels of patient conditions justified by the level of NICU. In contrast to the single-family patient room, sleeping spaces will be provided in rooms within close proximity to the patient rooms, allowing parents to get rest within the NICU while not invading the privacy of other families in the shared patient rooms. Isolation Patient Rooms In addition to the standard patient rooms, each level of the NICU will have numerous isolation patient May 2011 – Make No Little Plans rooms to provide for the care of special patient conditions. Each isolation room is capable of dropping from normal to zero pressure in order to contain health conditions within the space. The isolation patient rooms are planned to be identical to the single-family patient rooms, but their location within the NICU is adjacent to the support stations to allow for optimum observation by staff. A sofa will be provided within the rooms for parents; however, sleeping within the room will be dependent on staff authorization due to the condition of the patient. Transient Care Rooms Transient Care rooms will be provided in both the level I and II NICUs due to the dual and multiple family patient rooms. The transient care rooms will be utilized by parents and their infant during the last several nights (dependent on hospital policy) their infant is admitted to the NICU. Parents will provide all care for the infant within this space with staff supervision. Each transient care room will provide a space for the infant bed, life support connections, sleeping space for two parents, seating for two parents, a full bathroom, television, electrical outlets, workspace, and lockable storage. Parent Sleep Rooms Each level of the NICU will provide a minimum of two parent sleep rooms. Similar to a staff on-call room, these rooms will be solely utilized for personal sleep spaces while within the NICU. Each sleep room will provide a twin size bed, small table, and single chair. Parent sleep room locations will be dependent on NICU layout, yet proximity to patient rooms and/or bathrooms is preferred. Parent sleep rooms will not utilize windows. Staff Charting Areas In order to provide a space for staff to work and chart while observing the patients, staff charting areas will be located on the exterior of every two patient rooms. Locating the charting areas outside of patient rooms also allows for parent privacy within the rooms. Each charting area will be equipped with computer equipment for patient charting and vital monitoring, as well as storage, task seating, and angled windows viewing into the patient rooms for complete observation. Each charting station will be paired with the charting area directly across the corridor to allow one staff member to fully observe up to 4 rooms individually. 125 Refereed Full-Papers Support Stations Numerous support stations will be located within each level of the NICU. Each support station will be centrally located within the corridors and will have multiple points of entry/exit for ease of circulation for staff. The stations will provide work space for a minimum of four staff members each, hold administrative and nursing equipment, and provide “perch” points for doctors and specialists. Each station will be easily approachable for parents and provide a clean line of sight across the corridor spaces. In addition, central monitoring systems will be in place for secondary observation of patient vitals. NICU Reception and Waiting Area Each level of the NICU will have its own reception and waiting area separate from the main facility. The reception and waiting area will be located off of the main lobby of the building level (proposed as level four) behind the NICU main entry door, which will be kept in the closed position, allowing for division and privacy. Located directly across from the main entrance of each NICU will be the restricted entry to the actual NICU. Located in direct line of sight upon entering the NICU main entry will be the reception window, which serves as not only visitor check-in but also security for the unit entrance. After seeing the receptionist, each visitor will be seated in the NICU waiting area that will be located to the side of the reception and main entry area, allowing for privacy of visitors and sound control. The waiting area will contain a variety of soft seating in conversation and community layouts, along with various forms of entertainment including television and reading components. Lounge for Parents In addition to parent spaces within patient rooms and the NICU waiting area, each level of the NICU will provide a parent (and/or family) lounge. Each lounge will vary in size and scale of amenities, with the minimum requirements including: a kitchen space with microwave, sink, and mini refrigerator, soft seating, dining area with chairs, and a television. The level III NICU will include a full kitchen, eating area, soft seating area with television, reading area, workstation, laundry room, and full bathroom. The lounge provides a space for parents to relax, escape, or socialize outside of the patient rooms. 126 Full Bathrooms Full bathrooms equipped with shower stalls will be provided for parents in every level of the NICU. These bathrooms will be located off of the main corridor and adjacent to patient rooms. Each bathroom will be unisex, and provide a toilet, shower stall with privacy curtain or glass enclosure, vanity with counter space, and robe hooks. Additional bathroom and/or shower spaces will also be located through the parent lounge, parent gowning area, and NICU waiting area (where applicable). Resource Center A resource center will be available for parents and families to use while within the NICU. In a level I NICU, the resource center will be located within the parent lounge, while in the level II and III NICUs, it will be adjacent and separate from the lounge. Each resource center will provide specific library resources for parents in various formats, including: books, journals, magazines, periodicals, and digital formats. A combination of soft seating and workspaces will be provided both with and without privacy barriers. Windows are preferred in the space where applicable. Sibling Play Area Each NICU will provide a sibling play area for existing children of parents (and/or families) of infantpatients admitted to the NICU. The play area will be separate from the existing facility and will only be available for use by NICU families. Due to the strict visitation restrictions regarding children under the age of twelve in a NICU, the sibling play area will be accessed through the NICU waiting area, preventing children from entering the NICU main corridor without a staff escort. Restrooms will also be adjacent to the play area and will be accessed through the waiting area biding staff remittance. The play area will provide various levels of entertainment and resources for various child age groups, including: television, computer (with restricted Internet access), soft toys, seating areas, reading, and limited art activities. A combination of soft seating and workstations will be provided at various scales. Meditation Room A minimum of one meditation space will be located in each level of the NICU. In a level I NICU, the meditation space will be accessed through the parent lounge, and for the level II and III NICUs, meditation spaces Refereed Full-Papers will be located separate and adjacent to the parent lounge. Each meditation space will consist of minimal furnishings and will provide a view to outside (where possible). Maximum acoustical considerations will be applied to assure maximum privacy. Lactation Room Each level of the NICU will provide a minimum of two lactation support rooms for parental use. The lactation room will provide privacy for parents when breastfeeding and/or pumping breast milk for their infant(s). The space will be large enough to accommodate an incubator, a minimum of one parent (the mother), and one staff member. The room components will include: a hands-free hand washing station, storage, a minimum of one comfortable chair for the mother, a secondary seat, a staff stool, and privacy curtain. A window will be provided with a view into the corridor to allow the space to be multifunctional. Privacy and Security Requirements The delicate nature sometimes associated with childbirth and pregnancies requires all NICUs and maternity units to be located above ground level within a facility. The level of high security at entry points provides both space planning and design restrictions, while promoting complete physical and psychological security for all users with in the space. Because of these heightened restrictions, the NICU is typically off limits to all who are not directly related to the specialized unit, including hospital staff and maintenance (see Figure 5-1). Parents of infant-patients are provided special identification numbers corresponding to their infant within the NICU, which must be used even when simply calling for status updates on their infant’s condition. Additionally, many hospitals admit “special” civil case infants who have been exposed to custody disputes. These special cases of added threat require many hospitals, like Wellstar Cobb in Austell, Georgia, to attach special security sensors or disks to the infant by way of their identification band, which would lock down the NICU in the chance the baby were to be removed from the unit. Therefore, the NICU within the confines of this thesis will be located on the fourth (4th) floor of the prototypical hospital facility. Within the unit, all patient rooms will be located a specific distance from all stairwells and indirect entrances and/or exits for the protection of the infant-patients and parents. Video surveillance will be installed and utilized at all entry and May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 5-1: Privacy & Security Diagram. Prototypical NICU. exit points of the NICU (including emergency exits) and will be monitored within the unit. Additionally, all staff members and maintenance personnel with authorization to enter the NICU will be granted access cards for remittance into the unit. Additional security regulations and precautions may be added, or existing regulations removed, at the discretion of the institution utilizing the information provided in this thesis. NICU Location The placement of the NICU within a new or existing facility will be dependent on various considerations. Due to the privacy and security regulations previously stated, the NICU will be located a minimum of two levels above street level or the main entrance level of the facility. Additionally, the NICU will never have a direct entrance and/or exit from the outside into the unit. Once located on a building level, the NICU will be a closed unit (as previously stated) and will not serve as through access to other units on any level. Adja- 127 Refereed Full-Papers cent units sharing a building level with the NICU will include maternity, labor/delivery, post-partum, and recovery. Requested, but not required adjacencies for parental benefit include: chapel, cafeteria, fitness center, resource center, and green spaces (see Figure 5-2). Design Development Parental Experience A parent experience originates from a few different pathways. If a parent is admitted to the hospital as a patient themselves, they would access the NICU from the unit, or department, where they are a patient, such as maternity or post-partum. However, if the parent(s) are not currently patients within the hospital, their journey begins when they leave their home to visit the NICU. Once on the facility site, the parents will interact with other visitors, patients, and staff from various departments separate from the NICU. Depending on the level of NICU where their infant is admitted, the parent(s) will spend various amounts of time in the main facility utilizing amenities including the cafeteria, chapel, and fitness center (where applicable). The parents then travel in the elevator to the floor where the NICU is located, which for the purpose of this thesis is the fourth floor. The fourth floor is still considered the main facility, as it is open to and shared by other patients, visitors, and staff accessing the maternity, postpartum, delivery/labor, and the nursery. However, once Figure 5-2: NICU Location. Prototypical NICU. 128 the parents enter the NICU, they are in a restricted area which is not accessible from any other department. The restricted access regulations of the NICU go beyond security and privacy to form a community within the unit. After checking in at the reception desk, the parent(s) will wait in the waiting area until they are granted access to the unit. Before the receptionist buzzes them in, the parents must utilize the scrub and gowning area, where they will verify they are gowned and scrubbed clean to limit the contaminants they bring into the NICU. The parents will be required to scrub up again every time they wish to enter the NICU, despite the amount of time spent outside of the unit. If the parents bring children with them on their visit, they will be required to check the child into the sibling play area, where the child must remain while their parents are within the restricted area. A child above the age of twelve (may vary according to facility policies) will only be permitted to enter the NICU with staff and parent supervision. While in the sibling play area, a child may access the restrooms located in the waiting area with permission and supervision from staff. Additionally, the age restrictions on children left in the play area without parental supervision will be determined by the facility. Once they are beyond the restricted access door, the parents will typically go straight to their infant’s room and remain there for the majority of their visit. During staff shift changes (determined by the facility), parents will be required to vacate the patient room for a specific amount of time, during which they may stay in the parent spaces, waiting area, or leave the NICU entirely. While within the NICU, the parents have access to all parent spaces, including the lounge, kitchen, eating areas, restrooms, resource center (where applicable), and sleeping spaces. Parents must scrub up upon leaving the parent spaces before re-entering their infant’s room. Additionally, resources available to parents while in the NICU vary depending on the level of NICU they are in, and may include lactation support, consultation rooms, and a psychologist. Some of these support spaces may be utilized by both the parents and staff, through interaction and individually. When the parent(s) leave the space, despite the reason or circumstances, they will proceed back through the restricted access door, visit the gowning area and locker room if needed, then return to the level four main elevator lobby, then proceed through the building and leave the site. Refereed Full-Papers Figure 6: Parental Experience. Prototypical NICU. Concept Despite the end deliverable of this thesis being a prototypical, a concept needs to be applied in order to maximize the justification of the design solutions. Since the purpose of this thesis is to stress the importance of designing a NICU to adhere to parental needs, both as individual entities as well as in relation to the benefits provided to the infant-patient(s), it is imperative that the concept stress the same points. Due to the fact that when a baby is admitted to the NICU the natural bonding of mother and child is interrupted, the author looked to nature in search of any resemblance to a NICU. A prime example of a NICU (in theory) found in nature is the bird’s nest. Prior to the breeding season, birds gather materials such as twigs, grass, hair, and string, which are then used to build nests for future young. Unlike humans, birds are born from eggs which are laid rather than live birth. Once laid, the mother and father birds alternate sitting on the eggs to incubate them or keep them warm. Upon hatching, the baby birds (plural due to the typical number of eggs laid at a time) have yet to acquire their feathers, open their eyes, or be able to fly. While the birds complete their development in the nest, the mother bird protects the nest as well as hunts for and feeds the babies. Once they have May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 7: Baby Birds in Nest. Getty Images. finished developing and are able to fly, the babies will leave the nest and venture off into the world. While the care for the young is provided by the parent birds, the nest serves as the physical protector of the babies, acting as the barrier from the young and the world. The nest is therefore symbolically translated into the NICU. Taking the concept of the nest a step further, the author examines the caregiver. While the care in the nest is provided by the parents, in the NICU the majority of care is provided by staff with parental graces (or inclusions) in the menial tasks. This causes 129 Refereed Full-Papers an interruption in the natural bonding of mother and child (and/or father and child) which may lead to communication difficulties in the child’s developmental future. The concept supports the increased role of parents in the care for the infant-patients by allowing the parents to act as caregivers and lapse the interruption in natural bonding of mother and child. First, one must look at what conditions are currently preventing parents from remaining in the NICU with their infant(s). In some cases, directly after the birth of an infant, a mother must remain in the maternity ward (which in many hospitals is located separate from the NICU) and therefore cannot physically visit the NICU. Many NICUs have limited visitation hours for parents and visitors, which once the mother is no longer admitted to the hospital herself, can cause conflicts when travelling to and from the hospital at specific times. In addition to the travel conflict facing parents, there are very few NICUs that allow parents to stay overnight. According to Abraham Maslow (1943), each person has a set of physiological needs which must be met in a specific order for a person to remain within an environment for an extended period of time. Many NICUs do not provide basic amenities to parents; for example, the NICU at Wellstar Cobb Hospital in Georgia does not even provide a restroom for parents and/or visitors to use while in the NICU. According to Wellstar Cobb neonatal nurse manager Tiffany Perry, parents must exit the NICU and utilize the public facilities located in the building core, then scrub up again before re-entering the NICU. In addition to failing to provide basic resources for parents and visitors, these restrictions also open the NICU to heightened contamination levels as a result of the number of times parents have to leave the NICU and return. Conclusion By allowing parents to remain in the “nest” of the NICU and care for their babies (even if not physically), the psychological and emotional stresses will be reduced simply by granting parents the ability to remain with their infant(s). Providing parent spaces in each patient room allows parents to have a visual protection over their infant(s), as well as provide physical and emotional support, which contributes to the healthy development of the infant. Additionally, this will allow mothers to provide nutrients through breastfeeding when the infant’s condition permits, eliminating staff formula feeding due to the mother’s proximity to the infant. 130 Emotional solutions will be provided through proximity and function, while being supported by materiality and light. The thesis acts as a preliminary tool for designers to apply within an existing facility plan, test fitting the proposed research-based design guidelines. Further development of the materiality guidelines, proposed fixtures, furniture and equipment (FF&E), and lighting recommendations are proposed by the author before a test fit could be granted possible success. 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Child Development, 55(5), 1887-1894. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624. ep7304603. 131 Refereed Full-Papers A Survey on the Social Activity of the Demented Elderly by RFID in the Special Care Unit Yao-Rong Hwang (National Yunlin University of Science & Technology, Taiwan), Tan-Kui Hsu (Chungyu Institute of Technology, Taiwan) Abstract The demand for social activities for Alzheimer’s disease patients has been considered much more important than that for the frail elderly, because social activities are able to facilitate the cognitive function of demented elders. The Assessment of Quality of Life in Alzheimer’s disease evaluates a patient’s interpersonal relationships and ability to participate in meaningful activities as major items affecting their quality of life. In the past, the relationships between activity and place were processed by the researcher’s observations or by interviews with users. A technology that can replace the proxy method and directly receive information from a patient is desirable. The purpose of this research is to apply RFID in tracing the travel routes of demented elderly individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, in order to understand their social activities in a special care unit. A special care unit accommodating 64 demented residents was represented as a typical local care unit offering caregiving for the demented elderly and providing multiple spaces for occupational therapy and activities. It had four floors, with the day room on the second floor. Seven subjects out of 17 demented elders who were recognized as having daily social activity after a one-month pilot study were selected to participate in this survey with their families’ consent. The content of the survey included any social activity happening in the day room. The results showed that the subjects had verbal social activities, including saying hello, chatting, talking, saying goodbye, saying thanks, and singing. Most of the subjects were capable of saying hello, chatting, and talking. Although the content of the conversations was short, the subjects could express a variety of language. The subjects also had non-verbal social activities, including smiling, embracing, or touching the shoulders of others, listening to others’ conversations, feeding other residents, and holding other residents’ hands. However, most of the subjects were only capable of 132 smiling. Subjects engaged in verbal social activities in the day room, the dining area, leisure area, public area (in front of the elevator and in the corridor) and playing area. When the subjects engaged in non-verbal social activities in the day room, they did so in any place in the room. Dining and leisure areas played the major role for the social activities of the demented elderly. The differences of social activity between the residents were caused by individual characteristics without the influence of variables such as gender, age, education, and residence length, according to the results of this survey. Many demented individuals with severe behavioral problems need to record their behaviors by tracing the travel route of a whole day in order to analyze the occurrences of behaviors. RFID has the potential to assist special care units in such areas as exit control and behavior management. Introduction For a resident, admission to a nursing home involves adapting to other people and other activities, creating new social relationships, and finding resources for support while being disabled by various impairments. Being successful in social engagement can be regarded as a critical component of the quality of life for nursing home residents (Mor, Branco, Fleishman, Hawes, Phillips et al., 1995). Social functioning focuses on engagement and aims to measure the residents’ sense of initiative and involvement. It allows every resident to have a high sense of initiative and involvement and respond adequately to social stimuli in social environments through participating in social activities and interacting with other residents and staff. There is evidence that engagement in meaningful social activities is related to the quality of life for individuals residing in long-term care facilities (Gonzalez-Salvador, Lysetkos, Baker, Hovanec, Roques et al., 2000). For example, participation in activities such as music, exercise, or cooking is associated with less depression and better cognition and mobility (Kiely, Simon, Jones, & Morris, 2000). Previous research has associated low social engagement with increased mortality and cognitive decline (Dobbs, Munn, Zimmerman, Boustani, Williams, Sloane et al., 2005). Depressed residents are likely to have more difficulty in engaging themselves in new environments, as residents who are not socially engaged are more likely to be depressed (Achterberg, Pot, Kerkstra, Muller, & Ribbe, 2003). Thus, the positive aspects of social functioning were included in the Resident Assessment Refereed Full-Papers Instrument that was mandated by the U.S. Congress. The Assessment of Quality of Life in Alzheimer’s disease evaluates a patient’s physical condition, mood, interpersonal relationships, ability to participate in meaningful activities, and financial situation as major items affecting quality of life (Logsdon, Gibbons, McCurry, & Teri, 2000). Agitation, aggression, depression, and social withdrawal have been chosen as critical variables in many studies because they occurred frequently in Alzheimer’s special care units. Cognitive and ADL impairments have been found to be related to low social engagement, as have sensory and communication losses (Frijters, Achterberg, Hirdes, Fries, Morris, & Steel, 2001). The demand for social activities for Alzheimer’s disease patients has been considered much more important than that for the frail elderly because social activities are able to facilitate the cognitive function of demented elders. Traditionally, a special care unit differs from nursing homes in that they promote a more social model of care (e.g., resident autonomy and choice in a home-like environment) (Cohen & Day, 1991). However, their families may expect them to have more activity involvement than residents in nursing homes. Thus, it is useful to understand residents’ involvement in activities. Common spaces with a unique non-institutional character are associated with reduced social withdrawal. In the United States, some states have required multiple social activity spaces to be provided for the demented elderly to have leisure, dining, group games, and entertainment within the special care unit (Herdman, & Behney, 1992). Attributes of both the physical and the social environment are included under the title of “environmental proximal factors.” (Zeisel, Silverstein, Hyde, Levkoff, Lawton, & Holmes, 2003) It is timely to carefully consider how the living environment can more humanely and cost-effectively contribute to managing and reducing these symptoms (Day, Carreon, & Stump, 2000). In past years, the relationships between activity and place were processed by the researcher’s observations or by interviews with users. Studies on the activities of the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease have been performed either using the care provider’s vision, which is completed by a proxy and rates both activities and their effects, or using the resident’s vision, which is completed by the person with dementia and which rates only activities (Lawton, 1995). Nevertheless, there are difficulties involved in questioning demented elders owing to their cognitive and verbal limitations. Thus, a technology that can replace the proxy method and May 2011 – Make No Little Plans directly receive information from a patient is desirable. In recent years, GPS (Global Positioning System) technology has been applied in the tracing of travel routes during surveys of elders’ activities. However, it has been demonstrated that GPS technology is only effective for the recording of outdoor open spaces. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is considered as a useful technique for recording interior objects at a near distance (Hightower, & Borriello, 2001, Mauve, Widmer, & Hrtenstein, 2001). The purpose of this research is to apply RFID in tracing the travel routes of demented elderly individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, in order to understand their social activities in the day room of a special care unit. It is necessary to provide more meaningful activities and more available spaces to benefit demented individuals who reside in a special care unit. It is also expected to look for new technologies to overcome the methodological difficulties in the study of the relationships between the environment and demented individuals. Method The Application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an automatic identification technology, which is composed of a tag, readers, and a terminal computer. The tag is able to sense the radio frequency from the reader at a near distance, and the transceiver of the reader will send the position message of the tag to the terminal computer for recording. For this study, RFID readers were installed on the ceiling of the day room and inspected to find the effective scope of the radio frequency. The space of the day room was divided into ten zones, with each dot representing the position of one reader. Engineers tested the effective scope of each reader and revised its zoning and position (see Figure 1). The terminal computer was located at the nursing station, which was on the same floor as the day room, to receive the message transmissions from the readers. The database of the travel routes included the time, position, and floor area, with x and y represented as a horizontal and a vertical sign to locate the position of movement (Hightower et al., 2001; see Figure 2) and connect each position as a sequence of movement (Mauve et al., 2001; see Figure 3). The researchers then arranged the database to show the continuous movement of the travel route. During the RFID survey process, two researchers who had the pre-training of survey and record followed seven subjects in the day room to record the occurrences of social behavior, 133 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 1: RFID reader distribution in the day room on the second floor Figure 2: Tracing of travel route in terms of floor area, position and time of occurrence 134 Figure 3: Tracing of travel route as a sequence movement Refereed Full-Papers identifying with whom the subjects socialized, as well as the contents of that socialization. Participants A special care unit accommodating 64 demented residents was represented as a typical local care unit offering caregiving for the demented elderly and providing multiple spaces for occupational therapy and activities. It had four floors, with the day room on the second floor. Seven subjects out of 17 demented elders who were recognized as having daily social activity after a one-month pilot study, were selected to participate in this survey with their families’ consent. The content of the survey included any social activity happening in the day room, such as interactions with other residents, caregivers, volunteers, and other residents’ families in the leisure area, dining area, and playing area, as well as other public areas such as the corridor, elevator waiting area, and entrance area of the toilet. During the RFID survey process, the subjects wore a tag card from morning (8 a.m.) to night (8 p.m.), and the caregivers checked them regularly during morning, noon, afternoon, and night to ensure each tag card was kept with the subject. The RFID survey was operated four times weekly for three months. Record and Analysis of RFID information The recorded RFID information included characteristics of the subject, such as gender, age, education, residence length, marriage, ADL, symptoms and severity of dementia, as well as time of activity, type of socialization, people interacted with, the location of interaction, and a photo of the activity. The contents of activities observed and recorded by researchers were compared with the travel route, position, and time of occurrence recorded by RFID to ensure the occurrence May 2011 – Make No Little Plans of social activity. The most frequent social activity was selected for analysis during morning, noon, afternoon, and night. During the three-month survey, the analysis of social activity focused on verbal social activity and non-verbal social activity to understand how the subject had interactions with others, including when, where, with whom, and what kind of activity. Furthermore, a comparison of these variables was processed to find the factors that might have an influence on social activity. Results The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) survey on the social activities of demented elders included the characteristics of the subjects, the timing and movement of their travel routes, and photos of their social activities. Although it was not permitted to take photos of the subjects, researchers overcame this limitation by taking photos of social activities at a distance and screening each subject’s face, thus preserving their privacy. A tracing of each subject’s travel route was performed four times between morning and night. Characteristics of the subject, such as gender, age, education, residence length, and marriage, were supplied by the special care unit. Nursing staffs assessed the ADL of demented individuals by the Barthel index, and the symptoms and severity of dementia were diagnosed by neuropsychiatric doctors according to the MMSE (Mini Mental Status Exam) and CDR (Clinical Dementia Rating). In general, the activity of socialization includes verbal social activity and non-verbal social activity (Chiou, 2006). People engage in language communication during verbal social activity and may have non-verbal social activities, such as body contact, smiling to each other, and listening to others’ talking (Han, 2008). With reference to the results of the survey, the record of the seven subjects were described in the following sections. 135 Refereed Full-Papers Subject A sat at the left area of day room; she said hello to the front resident and chatted with the next resident when she watched TV during 08:14-10:23 in the morning. Subject A said hello to the caregiver and volunteer when she went to the dining table. She said hello to the other residents before sitting down and told other residents that her nephew would come to bring her outside during lunch time from 11:3012:30. Subject A embraced the caregiver and smiled to the other residents as they waited for the elevator to go to the ground floor for occupational therapy at 15:00. After dinner, Subject A shook hands with volunteers who accompanied residents before they left. Subject A went to the right area of the day room during the activity of group games at 18:30. She smiled to the residents who were playing the game, touched the shoulder of the next resident, and spoke to the resident’s family: “Wonderful! Very good!” 136 Refereed Full-Papers Subject B chatted with the next resident when she watched TV at the left area of the day room. She smiled to the residents who walked past her and to the residents who were talking with the caregiver while she waited for the elevator in the morning. Subject B always said hello to people no matter if they were residents or caregivers, including at the entrance of the toilet, before dining or in the corridor. She said, “You are welcome” to the resident who happily accepted the chopsticks she had passed, and she chatted with the next resident during lunch, saying things such as, “You ate faster than me!” Before dinner, Subject B went to the right area of the day room to get chopsticks and bowls for dinner and smiled to the residents and caregiver who stood in front of the elevator. After dinner, Subject B watched TV at the left area of the day room and said hello to the caregivers, volunteers, and residents, and at times she chatted with the next resident, saying things such as, “You made a beautiful hat!” During the group games held at the right area of the day room, she smiled to the residents who were playing the game. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 137 Refereed Full-Papers Subject C said hello to the residents who walked toward her when she sat at the left area of the day room in the morning, and she fed the resident next to her during lunch. She smiled to the caregiver and the volunteer when they assisted her in walking. Subject C always said hello to residents and caregivers as she moved. She smiled to the caregiver and the volunteer when they waited for the elevator to go to the ground floor for occupational therapy at 15:00. After dinner, Subject C happily held other residents’ hands to exercise under the instruction of the caregiver. Subject C went to the right area of the day room during the group games at 18:30, and she smiled to the residents who were playing the game. 138 Refereed Full-Papers Subject D sat at the left area of the day room. He said hello to the next resident when he watched TV during 08:00-9:41 in the morning. Before lunch, Subject D had active social activity with the other residents. He walked to the dining table to listen to residents’ conversations and walked to the nursing station to get chopsticks for himself and other residents. When he returned to the sofa area, he said hello to the caregiver in the corridor. After lunch, Subject D sang songs and smiled to the other residents as they watched TV at the right area of the day room. At 15:00, Subject D said goodbye to the volunteer who was going to leave, as he sat on the sofa in the left area. Subject D went to the right area of the day room and participated in group games at 18:30. He said hello to the caregiver and smiled to the other residents during the game. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 139 Refereed Full-Papers Subject E sat at the right area of the day room. He read the newspaper and talked about the articles with nearby residents and caregivers in the dining area at 10:30. After lunch, Subject E stayed in the dining area continuously and chatted with the caregiver, saying,“Your stature looks like a man!” Before Subject E sat at his chair for dinner, he said hello to the residents who were in the same dining group. After dinner, he walked to the nursing station and said hello to the caregivers, then returned to the dining area to read the newspaper, where he said hello to the next resudent. Subject E liked to read the newspaper, even though most of the residents were participating in group games. Nevertheless, Subject E watched the process and smiled to the caregivers. 140 Refereed Full-Papers Subject F smiled to residents as they waited for the elevator to go up to the fourth floor and participate in group activities at 10:00. She said hello to the next resident and chatted with the caregiver before lunch, and she fed the next resident during lunch. During her movement through the corridor, Subject F smiled and said hello to the caregivers and residents. Subject F smiled to the residents before dinner, as well as to the caregiver during dinner. Subject F did not participate in the group games, even though most of the residents were playing. She sat in the dining area and happily watched the residents and caregivers as they played group games. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 141 Refereed Full-Papers Subject G talked with the volunteers—“Who are you? This is my place! Are you painting? Where are your children?”—when she wandered around sofa area in the morning. Before lunch, Subject G did a lot of walking; she said hello to residents and residents’ families and talked with them: “Where are my children? I am going with you to look for my children”. Subject G said hello to the caregiver who was waiting for the elevator, as well as to residents when she went to the dining area in the afternoon. She also happily played games and held the hand of next resident as well as said hello to the caregiver during the activity of group games. 142 Refereed Full-Papers Discussion The subjects had verbal social activities, including saying hello, chatting, talking, saying goodbye, saying thanks, and singing. Most of the subjects were capable of saying hello, chatting, and talking, but Subject C only said hello. Nevertheless, Subject G was talkative. Although the content of the conversations was short, the subjects could express a variety of language, such as “wonderul! very good!”, “You ate faster than me!”, “You made a beautiful hat!”,“Your stature looked like a man! ”, “Who are you?”, “This is my place.”, “Are you painting?”, “Where are your children?”, etc. In addition, some subjects could articulate a complete sentence when they talked with residents or caregivers, saying things such as, “Nephew would come to bring me outside.” and “Where are my children? I am going with you to look for my children.” Subjects could have verbal interactions with residents, caregivers, the residents’ families, and volunteers. The subjects had non-verbal social activities, including smiling, embracing or touching the shoulder of others, listening to others’ conversations, feeding other residents, and holding other residents’ hands. However, most of the subjects were only capable of smiling. Subjects might have non-verbal interactions with residents, caregivers, the residents’ families, and volunteers; however, most of the subjects only had interactions with residents and caregivers. Most of the subjects had verbal interactions in the leisure area of the day room. They said hello and chatted with each other while watching TV or sitting on the sofa. Basiclly, the subjects chatted with nearby residents, and the furniture arrangement (such as sofas) assisted in talking with each other. In the dining area of the day room, most of the subjects had verbal and non-verbal interactions. They said hello to the caregiver and volunteer before and after dining when the caregiver and volunteer assisted in the arrangement of dining. Some subjects talked with the other residents and listened to residents’ conversations during dining, as each dining table had six residents sitting face to face. Furniture arrangement benefitted the interactions of residents not only by allowing them to chat with nearby residents on the sofa, but also to talk with other residents while dining. Most of the subjects had non-verbal interactions in the playing area of the day room. They smiled to residents and held the shoulder or hands of residents while playing group games. Obviously, group games involved May 2011 – Make No Little Plans body contact, which increased the interactions of residents. However, the subjects didn’t have active verbal interactions when they concentrated on playing. As for the nursing station area, most of the subjects had no social activity there. Even if the subjects went to nursing station to take chopsticks and bowls for dining, they didn’t interact with the caregivers at the nursing station. In the public area of the day room, most of the subjects had active social activities in front of the elevator, including verbal and non-verbal activities. They said hello and smiled to residents, caregivers, and volunteers while waiting for the elevator. Improving the elevator waiting area to make it become a better potential space for social interaction would be a very meaningful issue. In summary, subjects engaged in verbal social activities in the day room, the dining area, leisure area, public areas (in front of the elevator and in the corridor), and the playing area. Subjects engaged in non-verbal social activities in any place in the day room. Dining and leisure areas played the major roles in the social activity of the demented elderly. With reference to the characteristics of subjects affecting social activity, some subjects were talkative and moved frequently at any time, which showed they had active verbal and non-verbal social activities. The subjects who did not participate in group games or spent a lot of time reading newspapers would have a lower frequency of social activities and be limited to interactions with residents and caregivers. The differences of social activity between the residents were caused by the characteristics of the residents without the influence of variables such as gender, age, education, and residence length, according to the results of this survey. However, the analysis was based on the activities of only seven subjects, so further research will be necessary to discuss the influence of these variables. Some subjects had less verbal social activity (only saying hello), but had a variety of non-verbal social activities. However, the severity of the dementia affected the social activity of the subject. The results showed that severely demented subjects were incapable of a variety of non-verbal social activities except for holding others’ hands, but were capable of having active verbal social activities, such as being talkative. Given the limitation of a single subject, more severely demented individuals participating in surveys of social activities will be needed to confirm the above findings. Many demented individuals with severe behavioral problems need to record their behaviors by tracing the 143 Refereed Full-Papers travel route of a whole day in order to analyze the occurrences of behaviors in terms of the time, position, and floor area. Especially with reference to demented individuals who tend to wander or suffer from disorientation, it is important to prevent them from getting lost, falling, or becoming harmed. In fact, RFID will have the potential to assist special care units in such areas as exit control and behavior management. References 1. Achterberg, W., Pot, A. M., Kerkstra, A., Muller, M., and Ribbe, M., 2003, “The Effect of Depression on Social Engagement in Newly Admitted Dutch Nursing Home Residents”, The Gerontologist, pp.213 -218. 2. Chiou, J. P. (2006). The development of contemporary socialization for the elderly, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 72, 15-25. 3. Cohen, U., & Weisman, G.D., 1991, “Holding On to Home-Designing Environments for People with Dementia”, The Johns Hopkins University Press. 4. Day, K., Carreon, D., & Stump, C., 2000, “The Therapeutic Design of Environments for People with Dementia: A Review of the Empirical Research”, The Gerontologist, 40, pp.397-416. 5. Dobbs, D., Munn, J., Zimmerman, S., Boustani, M., Williams, C.S., Sloane, P. D., and Reed, P. S., 2005, “Characteristics Associated With Lower Activity Involvement in Long-Term Care Residents with Dementia”, The Gerontologist, pp.81-86. 6. Frijters, D., Achterberg, W., Hirdes, J. P., Fries, B. E., Morris, J. N. & Steel, K., 2001, “Integrated Health Information System Based on Resident Assessment Instruments [in Dutch] ”, Tijdschrift voor Gerontologie en Geriatrie, 32, pp.8-16. 144 7. Gonzalez-Salvador, T., Lysetkos, C. G., Baker, A., Hovanec, L., Roques, C., Brandt, J., & Steele, C., 2000, “Quality of Life in Dementia Patients in Long Term Care”, International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 15, pp.181-189. 8. Han, F. R. (2008). The technique of socialization for people with mental retardation, Journal of Special Education, 20, 291-313. 9. Herdman, R. C., & Behney, C. J., 1992, “Special Care Units for People with Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias: Consumer Education, Research, Regulatory, and Reimbursement Issues”, University of Massachusetts at Boston Press. 10. Hightower, J., Borriello, G., 2001, “Location systems for ubiquitous computing”, IEEE Computer, 32(8), pp. 57-66. 11. Kiely, D. K., Simon, M. A., Jones, R. N. & Morris, J.N., 2000, “The Protective Effect of Social Engagement on Mortality in Long-Term Care”, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 48, pp.1367-1372. 12. Lawton, M. P. (1995). Environmental approaches to research and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. USA: National Institute of Mental Health, Department of Health and Human Services. 13. Logsdon, R. G., Gibbons, L. E., McCurry, S. M. & Teri, L., 2000, “Quality of Life in Alzheimer’s Disease: Patient and caregiver reports.” In Albert, S. M. & Logsdon, R. G., Assessing quality of life in Alzheimer’s disease (pp. 17-30). New York: Springer Publishing Company. 14. Mauve, M., Widmer, A., and Hartenstein, H., 2001, “A survey on position-based routing in mobile ad hoc networks”, IEEE Network, 15(6), pp. 30-39. 15. Mor, V., Branco, K., Fleishman, J., Hawes, C., Phillips, C., Morris, J. & Fries, B., 1995, “The Structure of Social Engagement among Nursing Home Residents”, Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 50B, pp.1-8. 16. Zeisel, J., Silverstein, N.M., Hyde, J., Levkoff, S., Lawton, M.P., and Holmes, W., 2003, “Environmental Correlates to Behavioral Health Outcomes in Alzheimers Special Care Units”, The Gerontologist, pp.697-711. Refereed Full-Papers Emerging Learning Commons in Japanese Academic Libraries: Behavioral Aspects of Actual Usage and Communication Patterns Fahed A. Khasawneh (Mie University, Japan), Yoriko Shibayama (Mie University, Japan), Akikazu Kato (Mie University, Japan), Shiho Mori (Mie University, Japan), Gen Taniguchi (Nagoya University, Japan) ABSTRACT The learning commons in the central library of Nagoya University is a new innovation. It was introduced as a response to recent information technology developments, emerging learning pedagogy, and the diversification of a new generation of users. This study considers these circumstances, with focus on understanding the actual usage and communication patterns of the spaces in the learning commons. Behavioral mapping was the primary data collection method, using a specially developed legend and an observation sheet to gather information regarding the space usage in terms of route choice and movement spines, activities of users, tools used, as well as seat choice modes of users and their communication patterns, with emphasis on understanding learners’ collaborations. The results showed that the group study area and writing support area had more collaboration between users who were engaged in learning activities. The users showed multitasking in their activity profiles, even single users in the individual study area simultaneously used PCs, books, and papers. Leaving a table for short breaks was a common practice. Collaboration between users was influenced by many of the space design aspects. For example, table layouts that provided appropriate levels of proximity, continuous eye lines, and dynamic configurations were successful. A learning commons should provide a relaxed environment that combines openness, flexibility, and IT resources with learning initiatives. The users should feel that they are welcomed to study, use PCs, read and/or even hang out. Such freedom leads to feelings of comfort and promote innovation. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Introduction Learning commons are being introduced steadily into many Japanese academic libraries. This emerging trend is gaining popularity among the diversity of campus users and is being promoted by facility managers and campus planners as the long awaited innovation to revive the campus library, inspire the community of learners, and lead the way for further changes in the design of learning space elsewhere in campus. Beagle (2008) defines the learning commons as a new model of service delivery in academic libraries that builds on the traditional library service models and integrates information technology with learning initiatives in cooperation with other campus units to create a one-stopshopping concept. Bailey (2005) promotes the learning commons as an effective model of integrated library services. Catering for high-level research needs and knowledge creation is the driving force to create such innovative facilities. Lippincott (2010) points out that the learning commons seem to be popular among the new generation of users, generally referred to as the Net Generation; such facilities cater to the new users’ learning preferences: to work in groups, use technology extensively, and tendency to mix academic and social lives. Understanding the users’ needs helps to create better learning environments that engage students and lead to innovation and creativity. However, studies on such facilities in Japan are still limited. The aspects of actual space use are emphasized in this study. Tools used in environmental behavior studies were used to grasp a better understanding of the learning commons, focusing on the user activity patterns and the prominent features of the new facilities. Such an understanding would provide feedback on the users’ needs, the effects of table configuration and space planning decisions on users’ learning behaviors, and successful elements to create an effective learning commons in campus libraries. Brown (2005) stresses that a learning commons is the product of integrating learning theory principles, information technology innovation, and users’ needs to create a flexible conversational space. Such a process should guarantee that such a facility would correspond to the needs, preferences, and aspirations of the Net Generation, which requires special skills to be successful in their practical lives. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (2000), within its information literacy standards, emphasizes that information literacy requires an individual to have special abilities to recognize when information 145 Refereed Full-Papers Table 1. Facts About Nagoya University Central Library is required, and be proficient in locating, evaluating, and manipulating the data effectively to solve problems and create knowledge. Stuart (2008) urges designers of learning facilities, and particularly those concerned with learning commons development, to collect information on the actual needs of students and other facility users and not to depend solely on needs perceived by the librarians. Research Objectives and Methodology The main objectives of this study are two-fold. First, it tries to shed light on the application of the learning commons concept in the context of Japanese academic libraries, where the prominent physical features are highlighted with reference to the service philosophy adopted and major characteristics of space. The second goal is to tackle the actual patterns of learning commons use with particular focus on users learning behaviors, space occupation, and interactions. As a methodology, behavioral mapping was used to collect data. Nagoya University Learning Commons Case Study About The Commons: The central library learning commons in Nagoya University Higashiyama Campus was selected as a case study, because it was the first learning commons to be introduced in a national university in Japan (Table 1). The main floor was renovated into a learning commons during a two-year plan that focused on creating two main areas: a group study area and a learning area. The group study area, which is located mainly in the southern part of library, was installed in 2008, while the learning area and related support services were opened on December 31, 2009 (Figures 1&2). 146 Figure 1. Main Areas in the Learning Commons Philosophy and Background: The philosophy behind the development of the commons was that the university wanted to implement an integrated environment that merges human resources, information technology, and a variety of printed and digital resources. Such a vision was adopted in 2008 with an aim to meet the diverse student learning objectives and learning styles. The focus was to stimulate the creation of qualified students that are IT proficient, talented, and innovative. The learning commons would provide the following support services through qualified staff and in cooperation with other departments on campus: 1. IT support: troubleshooting problems in relation to PC usage, networking, and printing. 2. Learning support: research tips, clues, and help for students and faculty support services. 3. Writing support: technical tips on academic writing skills. 4. Peer (tutor) support: covering a wide range of Refereed Full-Papers Figure 2. The Central Library Learning Commons, Nagoya University Higashiyama Campus topics, including student academic life or selected university courses. Survey Procedures: A survey was conducted over two consecutive days in January 2009, covering an interval of seven hours. Data analysis focused on the intervals between 15:0018:00, which witnessed the densest use of the learning commons. Behavioral mapping was used in 15-minute sessions with five-minute breaks to collect data regarding where (location of activity), who (male–female), and what (activity and tools used). Each table area was later given a code to ease analysis of data. Four mapping techniques were used to collect data covering the following aspects: 1. Activity type: location, type of activity, and tools used. 2. Duration of action: time spent on each task and seat occupation rate. 3. Movement spines: user route selection and frequency. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 4. Communication: parties involved, frequency, and prominent locations of interaction points. Learning Commons Patterns Of Use: Movement Spines and Seat Occupation Having two zones separated by a service core influenced the choice of routes; the multipurpose learning area and the newspaper corner had more dense movement as more visitors went toward the northern part of the learning commons. Two major longitudinal movement spines were observed; the most congested was in the learning area, and another vertical spine led from the main entrance to the northern part of the learning commons (Figure 3). The users tended to use spaces closer to these spines if available. The line of sight is obscured by the service core, which leads to visual separation between the two main parts of the learning commons, yet within each area different components of space are in view, which easily provides chances for spontaneous meetings of users. The overall seat occupancy ratio within time was 66 147 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 3. Cumulative Users Routes Choice and Movement Spines percent, which indicates consistent use of the learning commons facilities. Many tables in the writing support area, such as Wa, were continuously occupied by users to yield an occupation ratio close to 100 percent; this may be attributed to the proximity of this table to the movement spine and support counter besides the nature of tasks performed here. While other tables, especially in the newspaper corner, such as Nc, Nh, and Ni had a seat occupancy ratio of less than 50 percent; this corner had many visitors that mostly stayed for short periods. User Activities A wide range of activities were noted (Figure 4). The group study areas had a high percentage of communication and learning activities, especially table Gd, which had around 50 percent communication compared to other activities. Table Ph, which provides a seminarlike configuration, and tables Pc and Pd, which provide whiteboards, witnessed presentation rehearsals. Tables found in the multipurpose learning area, such as Mc and Mh, and tables including Wa and Wc in the writ- 148 ing support area were used in collaborative computer work. Two users were frequently noticed sharing the same section of the table, using the PC and debating in a productive manner. It is noteworthy that tables supplied with desktop PCs, such as Pa, Wa, Wb, Mc, Me, and Mh, witnessed excessive computer-assisted work, although many users also used books and laptop PCs. The writing support area tables had generally more PC work activities with lower rates of desk work, while the multipurpose learning area witnessed a combination of computer work, reading, and desk work more frequently; here computer work was more prevalent on tables provided with desktop PCs. Communication and talking were more frequent in the group study areas, due to the table layouts, proximity of users, and continuous uninterrupted eye lines. Studying is a series of activities and breaks, where a few moments are taken to refresh; therefore, provision of snacks and drinks in a café with nearby lounges are recommended to create a more relaxed atmosphere. The use of laptop PCs was highest in individual Refereed Full-Papers study areas, where users would work for long hours on activities including the use of books, papers, and laptop PCs in a concentrated manner to produce reports or similar tasks. The multipurpose learning area (Me-Mj) had less conversation and a higher percentage of learning activities assisted by reading, computer work, and desk work. Users made use of the available work space by spreading their belongings and books all over the desks (Figure 5). In the newspaper corner (Na-Nj), the dominant activity was reading and desk work, with the latter slightly prevalent. Talking was noticed, although it was a less dominant activity compared with the group study area, which witnessed lengthy conversations more frequently. Book usage was noted in all areas with similar percentage, except for the tutor-dependent writing support area, which stresses the success of the facility to create a balance of PC and printed material use. Many visi- Figure 4. Percentage of Activity by Table in the Learning Commons Figure 5. Percentage of Tool Usage According to Area May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 149 Refereed Full-Papers Table 2. Average Communication and Learning Activity Time by Zone tors to the north area went to the newspaper corner to read magazines and newspapers for a while, after which some would leave to go to other learning commons sections, while many would leave the library, which suggests the need for a refresh space. Communication Patterns The library was known to be a quiet place, yet as the learning commons emerged, such spaces became lively places customized for socializing and interaction to facilitate learning. This facility attempted to provide a balance between quiet study areas and other spaces with accepted levels of noise. The highest rate of communication between users was generally observed in the group study area (aisle) including tables Ga, Gb, Gc, Gd, Ge, Gf and Gg, followed by the group study area (window) including tables Pc, Pd, and Ph, the writing support area, including table Wa, and the newspaper corner including tables Nb, Nd, Ne, Nf, Nh, and Nj. This shows that the group study area was successful in attracting groups of users who made use of this environment that facilitates collaboration by providing appropriate table sizes and configurations with continuous lines of sight. In particular, tables Gd and Gf provided a 1:1 ratio of work to communication, which indicates the constructive nature of communication that provides for collaboration. Conversely, the multipurpose learning area, including tables Ma, Mb, Mc, Md, Mf, Mh, Mi, and Mj, was less successful in terms of facilitating collaboration with reasonable intervals of communication, which indicates that this configuration hinders collaboration and attracts mostly users that complete their tasks individually. Relating Learning Activities and Communication Durations Less time was spent talking compared to being engaged in other activities (Table 2). For the group study area (aisle) including tables Gel-Gh, Pa, and Pb, the us- 150 ers of this area had the highest average of communication (17.5 min) and the lowest average learning activity time. Users tend to work and have longer conversations frequently as required during a collaboration process that requires participation of all parties, which results in shorter continuous learning activity times and more time dedicated to communication to ensure smooth performance. This may also be attributed to the nature of the table layouts in this zone, which is sociopetal to enable more eye contact to enhance and encourage communication. The group study area (window), including tables Pc-Ph, had an average communication time of 12.7 min and an average learning activity time of 61.2 min. Compared to the group study area (aisle), this area had less communication and longer learning activity times, which may be attributed to the staging of several presentation rehearsals where users would listen to a presentation and then provide comments, an activity that was considered a learning activity. Therefore, many users had long working times and less communication times, while others had long communication times and less learning activity time (Figure 6). The writing support area including tables (Wa-Wc) had moderate communication times of 11.9 min and the longest average learning activity time, which corresponds to the nature of the area task; users would obtain brief advice and spend more time applying the advice and preparing papers or presentations. This area was preferred by those who wanted to use a PC to finish their concentrated work, which lead to lower seat turnover. The multipurpose learning area, including tables Ma-Mj, had the shortest average communication time of 3.5 min, although the average learning activity time was relatively long at 96.1 min. It seems that individual learning activities contributed to these results; users conducted concentrated individual work that made use of available PCs. Some tables with PCs witnessed high Refereed Full-Papers table turnover, which indicates that such PCs were used for short-term functions such as checking e-mail, rather than being used for group collaborations supported by PCs. The newspaper corner, including tables Na-Nj, had an average communication time of 12.9 min and an average 61.7 min of learning activity time. It seems to resemble the group study area (window), although this area was more static in terms of layout and configuration, and attracted more single users that arrived particularly to read newspapers, providing for somewhat long stay time and few communication incidents. However, some users arrived at this area in groups and were engaged in interactions more frequently. The individual study area, including tables Ia and Ib, had a low average communication time of 4.1 min and a relatively moderate average learning activity time Figure 6. Relationship Between Learning Activities and Communication Duration May 2011 – Make No Little Plans of 59.6 min, which corresponds to the nature of the activity. Many single users stayed for a long time, while others occupied seats for a few minutes, although the seat turnover was generally low. Work Flow Profile Of Selected Users Three examples are discussed with respect to understanding and interpreting the work flow profile of selected users (Figure 7). The first case is for a user in the group study area (window) table (Pe); this table was occupied by two users who sat beside each other. Desk work was predominant with fruitful communication, where collaboration was observed in the form of short intervals of communication followed by desk work periods. Such a configuration is ideal for collaboration by groups of two users; sitting beside each other and in close proximity enables viewing of each other’s work, Figure 7. Activity Profiles of Selected Users 151 Refereed Full-Papers sharing materials and facilitates communication. The user leaves the table once, performs other activities briefly, then engages in concentrated individual desk work again, taking short breaks every once in a while, which confirms the need for a refresh space in the commons. The second case is for a user in the group study area (window) table (Pd), where the user made use of the available whiteboard. The work flow profile is separated into two parts; the first includes preparing slides using books and conducting desk work interrupted by communication, and the second begins with a presentation rehearsal followed by more communication and desk work. Communication was important in this profile, because the users placed themselves closer to the whiteboard selecting to face each other to ease conversation and use the whiteboard. This demonstrates the importance of table layout to provide continuous eye contact and a clear view of the whiteboard to afford for collaboration. The third case is for a user in the writing support area table (Wa), where two students used the table in close proximity. Such close proximity would indicate a tendency for more frequent communication and collaboration. The work flow profile for one of the users can be divided into two parts; the first part was mostly individual work that included longer periods of computer work, desk work, and audiovisual usage while preparing a presentation or a report. The second part was mostly composed of long periods of communication in a repetitive manner with desk work and much computer work, which represents a collaborative type of work related to tutoring and accepting advice to acquire better skills. The layout dedicated for tutoring in the writing support area requires considerably more privacy compared to areas with other functions; this was provided for here by using table partitions that provided each section with more privacy and screened unwanted noise or even eye contact between users who shared the same table. Conclusion The patterns of communication and activities for users varied significantly according to the tasks performed, tools used, and configuration of space layout. The group study area had more communication incidents, and users here showed more freedom in actions, including talking, using phones and hanging out. These findings demonstrate that the new type of library users 152 multitask and have more diversified needs. Areas that were more refreshing and flexible encouraged collaboration, and with the exception of layouts that provide proximity, a reasonable degree of privacy and sociopetal organization. Collaboration consisted mostly of desk and computer work interrupted by fruitful interaction among group members. There is a need for more soft furniture such as lounges and refresh spaces where users may have short breaks between their learning activity sessions; many users continuously left their tables or posed to chat with others. The learning service hours should be extended to cope with the high seat occupancy rate, which is expected to increase in the future. Overcoming the visual separation between the two main zones of the learning commons needs to be addressed; wide screen panels could be fixed near the main entrance of space to present different views of available space, especially from the northern part, and PCs available for use within the facility. Providing a combination of table layouts is necessary to provide for the potential users work flow profiles; the group study area provides a mixture of table layouts that attracts users who seek collaboration. Such users included those who used the space briefly or those who stayed for many hours; the space planners should cater for the needs of both users in a balanced way. Finally, the learning commons has definitely changed the image of the library at Nagoya University from a quiet space into a lively learning space where students feel welcomed, although further development is required to emphasize the informal nature of the space. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bailey, D. (2005). Information Commons Services for learners and researchers: Evolution in Patron Needs, Digital Resources and scholarly Publishing, presented in INFORUM 2005: 11th Conference on Professional Information Resources, Prague, 24th May 2005, http://www.inforum.cz/ pdf/2005/Bailey_Russell.pdf (August 7, 2010) Beagle, D. (2006). The Information Commons Handbook. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc. Beagle, D. (2008). The Learning commons in Historical Context. Annals of Nagoya University Library Studies (7), 25-34, 2008, http://libst.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/pdf/annals_07_03.pdf (August 7, 2010) Bennett, S. (2003). Libraries Designed for Learning. Washington, D.C: Council on Library and Information Resources, http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub122/ pub122web.pdf/ (August 7, 2010) Refereed Full-Papers Brown, M. (2005). Learning Spaces. In Oblinger D. & Oblinger J. (Eds.). Educating the Net Generation, Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101. pdf (August 7, 2010) Lippincott, J. (2010). Information Commons: Meeting Millennials’ Needs. Journal of Library Administration, 50(1),27-37, January 2010. http://www.cni.org/staff/ joanpubs/IC.jlibadmin.lippincott.preprint.pdf (August 7, 2010) May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Somerville, M. & Harlan, S. (2008). From Information Commons to Learning Commons and Learning Spaces: An Evolution Context, in Schader B. (Ed.), Learning Commons Evolution and Collaborative Essentials, Oxford, U.K: Chandos Publishing Ltd. Stuart, C. (2008). ARL Learning Space Pre-Planning Tool Kit. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, http:// www.arl.org/bm~doc/planning-a-learning-space-tool-kit.pdf, (August 7, 2010) The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, Chicago, http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/ divs/acrl/standards/standards.pdf (August 7, 2010) 153 Refereed Full-Papers The Role of Built Heritage on Aesthetic Evaluation of Urban Landscape Maria Cristina Dias Lay (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Mirian Rodrigues (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) Abstract The article addresses the process of visual perception of the built environment, as related to cultural built heritage and its contribution to the visual quality of the urban landscape, in order to ascertain the level of importance attributed to heritage buildings and identify the physical characteristics of existing buildings on sites of heritage value that are more and less attractive to users, the indication of architectural, historical, and affective values, among others, which possibly influenced the perception of its users with respect to environmental and aesthetic quality. It follows the assumption that the aesthetic quality of the urban landscape is related to physical attributes and associations of morphological and typological elements that make up the urban landscape. It is considered that the evaluative response is related to the physical-spatial environment and previous experience of the observer, their views, expectations, and cultural experiences involving the processes of perception and cognition. Aspects related to the important role urban legislation plays when directed to preservation of urban areas and historic centers were also considered. Historic areas of two cities were selected as case studies. Piratini represents cities with preserved historic centers and pioneering urban legislation, and São José do Norte represents cities where cultural heritage was adulterated due to a lack of legislation that guarantees the preservation of built heritages. The research was implemented through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in two stages of investigation. The first aimed at gathering elements to define the study area by applying the technique of mental maps and interviews to users of historic areas, which allowed the identification of the strongest positive and negative images of public buildings and urban spaces. In the second stage, questionnaires were administered in order to evaluate images of urban scenes with dif- 154 ferent levels of homogeneity, chosen based on criteria established to investigate the role built cultural heritage has on the visual quality of urban landscapes, measure the damage to the aesthetics of the city caused by the lack or non-inclusion of issues relating to preservation of cultural heritage in the process of urban planning, and subsidize the elaboration of public policies on the preservation and planning issues. The role of the built heritage on the visual quality of the urban landscape was verified by evaluating the visual appearance of the buildings according to their formal and symbolic attributes. The relevance of bringing together experts in the field of preservation of cultural heritage and users of historical areas emphasized the importance of user engagement with public policy issues of heritage preservation, urban aesthetics, and urban planning, which allow the appropriation of cultural heritage by local communities. Results indicate the relevance of studies focused on the visual quality of the urban landscape as a need to promote actions for qualification of public spaces, and in this context include the recognition that the facades of buildings that make up the urban landscape are collective assets that should be considered for the establishment of guidelines for new interventions and projects. On one hand, results confirm the positive contribution of buildings which constitute the built cultural heritage in the visual quality of the urban landscape; on the other, the adulteration of cultural heritage generates negative evaluations. Accordingly, the need to curb the actions of distortion, mutilation, and even demolition of buildings located in the ancient period of historic centers is evident. Introduction Visual quality and cultural built heritage In the process of planning and ordering of the dynamics of urban growth, the cultural built heritage, considered in its full scope and complexity, begins to impose itself as a major component to be considered in the process of evolution and transformation of cities. Despite the statement of its importance, cultural built heritage in most Brazilian cities is absent from public policies and land management. Regardless of national heritage, at the regional or local level, the Brazilian municipality has the constitutional authority and obligation to protect it. However, in most cities, cultural heritage issues were not accepted, understood, or prioritized. The lack of control and concern about the aesthetic quality and the consequences brought to the Refereed Full-Papers visual appearance of cities characterized the problem in this research. Generally, the regulatory instruments of projects are more directed to define the constructive potential than the aesthetic quality of new buildings, their insertion into the landscape, and compatibility with preexisting buildings. Consequently, the absence of urban legislation for preservation of cultural built heritage, as well as the absence of regulatory mechanisms and control of urban aesthetics, leads to the destruction of local cultural heritage and the growing disqualification of the landscape and visual appearance of historic cities. This study investigates the level of importance attributed to the built cultural heritage by the population and the meanings it conveys, identifies environmental aspects and qualities that are more and less attractive to users when evaluating a set of buildings of a certain area (site value sheet), which establishes the values (architectural, historical, emotional, etc.) present in that area and that may influence the perception of its users with respect to urban aesthetics. Moreover, considering that the environmental image affects the attitudes of individuals in relation to urban space, awareness of the visual appearance can result as an important component to be considered in the search for improvements in the quality of landscape aesthetics. The literature suggests that built heritage is an essential element in the rescue of pleasant things and transmitters of a sense of well-being, these being gradually lost in the process of building modern cities, as well as the relationship between man and environment. In the environmental assessment process, the historical buildings tend to be perceived positively and aesthetic values associated with the formal and symbolic (Lang, 1987). Usually located in the central areas of cities where changes occur more quickly and frequently, the permanence of historic buildings is considered essential to maintaining the sense of continuity of places, while the destruction of heritage buildings and landscape change can affect the perception of individuals. According to Lynch (1997), rapid changes in the urban environment added to technical and functional changes can be emotionally upsetting for people and disrupt their perceptual image. One of the objectives of the study of aesthetics is seeking to identify and understand factors that contribute to the perception of an object or a process as beautiful, or how it can provide a pleasant experience (Lang, 1987). Stamps (1989) explains the significance of studies on the visual quality of the perceived environment based on the fact that the aesthetics of the urban landscape is related to the human need to have pleasant sensations. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Thus, one can infer that pleasant surroundings would be potential generators of pleasant sensations and discovering how to preserve or create these environments perceived positively by the local population should be a constant objective of the urban planning process. Still, studies with an emphasis on cultural heritage buildings (e.g., Azevedo Lemos, Lay, Reis, 1999) indicate that the predominance of historic buildings as a reference in the mental process of structuring an urban area are related to certain attributes such as the outside appearance of the buildings, their historical importance, and use. Evaluation of visual quality of urban landscape The visual quality contributes to the appearance of cities and affects the well being of individuals, whose senses are stimulated through continuity, variety, and existing formal standards, as well as through images compiled from the cognitive process of the individual (Reis, 2002). The evaluative response is directly related to the physical-spatial environment and previous experience of the observer, their views and expectations, and cultural experiences involving the processes of perception and cognition. In the evaluative response, perception and cognition have probabilistic relationships with one another and with the physical characteristics of the built environment, resulting from the interaction between individuals and the environment. This model suggests two broad components of the evaluative response—perception and cognition—and two types of environmental variables—formal and symbolic (Lang, 1987). That is, while the formal attributes consist of physical elements of buildings that comprise the architectural form used to describe it objectively, buildings and urban space have symbolic attributes, the result of the experiences and values acquired in the interaction between the individual and the urban landscape. There are some visual qualities of landscape attributes that transform them into objects of attention inevitably, despite the ability of selective vision. Compatibility refers to the formal relationship of a building and the other buildings in context, for example, in terms of volume, coverage, front, empty and full relationship, types and shapes of openings, color and texture of materials, and the ratio of building with natural elements (Reis, 2002). This is associated with visual coherence, characterized by the repetition of certain architectural elements, attributes, or formal similarities that give identity and strengthen the character of urban areas. The compatibility of formal and contextual new 155 Refereed Full-Papers insertions is also mentioned as an important element in evaluating the urban landscape, since the composition of the buildings suggests an idea of aesthetic order in visual perception. On the other hand, an urban setting where there was concern about the pre-existing buildings, with great contrast and variety of heights and high volumes and diverse visual environment, can generate a confusing, chaotic landscape, where individuals may feel disoriented (Lozano, 1988). According to Nasar (1998), cities can increase their positive image evaluation, enhancing the visual coherence or order through a variety of features that can aid in the perception of order, such as readability, repetition, replication features of facades, uniform texture, little contrast between elements or between buildings and their natural context, and identifiability—characteristic features and focal points. Lang (1988) argues that some architectural variables carry symbolic meanings, considering their relationship with the dimension of affective experience, such as composition (architectural style), spatial configuration (volume ratio), materials, lighting, and the nature of pigmentation (color). Therefore, numbers of buildings or buildings of a particular style show cognitive relations associated with them as symbols of an idea or historical time, acquiring values that affect the aesthetic evaluation, such as historical significance, age, urban references, and positive associations with a period in history. Still, Coeterier (1996) highlights the importance of historic buildings as an existential value for people on three levels: the place identity, personal identity, and group identity, and argues that the historical buildings amplify the sense of community and collective identity. According to Lynch (1975), people usually respond favorably to historic sites for a variety of reasons, and argues that “many historic and symbolic places convey a sense of security and continuity,” adding that “the character of the personal image of time is crucial for individual welfare, as well as it to achieve success in time to coordinate the environmental transformation and for the outer physical surroundings play a role in building and maintaining this image of time” (Lynch, 1975). This article deals with aesthetic issues in the process of visual perception of the built environment related to the built cultural heritage and its contribution to the visual quality of the urban landscape, with the aim of emphasizing the damage to the aesthetics of the city by the lack or non-inclusion of preservation issues of heritage buildings in the process of urban planning, as well as gathering input for the public policies on the preservation and planning. 156 Methodology In this study, the aesthetic response was measured based on the different levels of satisfaction expressed by individuals regarding the formal and symbolic attributes of buildings. The ratings herein are based on the premise that there is an interplay of influences between individuals and visual aspects that make up the urban landscape. The role of cultural heritage buildings in the urban setting was investigated in two cities initially settled in the eighteenth century with different degrees of preservation: With its pioneering urban legislation, Piratini represents cities with preserved historic centers, and São José do Norte represents cities where cultural heritage was adulterated due to a lack of legislation that guarantees the preservation of built heritages. The research was implemented through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in two stages of investigation. The first aimed at gathering elements to define the study area by applying the technique of mental maps and interviews to users of historic areas, which allowed the identification of the strongest positive and negative images of public buildings and urban spaces (Figure 1). In the second stage, 113 questionnaires were administered in order to evaluate images of urban scenes with different levels of homogeneity, chosen based on criteria established to meet the objectives of the investigation. Data obtained through questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively by means of frequencies and nonparametric tests. Three scenes from each city were selected in order to accommodate the necessary prerequisites to meet the following criteria: a) being located within areas of study defined in the first stage, b) having different levels of homogeneity considering ex- Figure 1- Definition of study areas. a) Piratini; b) São José do Norte Refereed Full-Papers ternal formal features, heights, and construction times, resulting in a more homogeneous scene, mixed (more or less homogeneous) scene, and an heterogeneous scene, c) presenting in its composition representative buildings of cultural heritage (buildings of the ancient period), and d) presenting in its composition buildings representative of the modern period, buildings of the contemporary period, and/or those that have been adulterated. For the purposes of research, the different styles and/or mixtures of styles were classified according to the following periods: a) the early period (until 1930), including the buildings in this period with language influenced by Luso-Brazilian colonial style, the eclectic buildings that anticipated modernism, called by Nauomova (2009) as pre-modernist, basically corresponding to the art nouveau and protomodernist; b) the modern period (1930 to 1980), influenced by various architectural currents responsible for the consolidation of the Modernist movement such as Art Deco, the Chicago School, European rationalism, expressionism, and neo-classical revival (Kiefer and Luz, 2000), c) the contemporary period (after 1980), marked by the revision of the modern movement, and d) buildings from any period disfigured by the loss of their original typological characteristics due to profound changes and/or replacement of items and construction materials. Regardless of typological classification, this research was focused on identifying the building in periods of time in order to verify the role that cultural heritage buildings—represented by buildings of the ancient period—carry on the visual quality of the urban landscape. Results Relationship between cultural built heritage and visual quality of the urban landscape In order to investigate the role that built cultural heritage has in an urban setting, especially if it contributes positively to the visual quality of the urban landscape, three selected scenes with different degrees of homogeneity were assessed by respondents in each city. Assessment of urban scenes - Piratini Scene 1 Scene 1 is the most intact in terms of preservation of cultural heritage buildings and also the most ordered (Figure 2). The buildings that make up the scene are mostly from the ancient period. Buildings 1 and 3 are the best-preserved cultural heritage buildings, protected by preservation law. Building 7 maintains most of the external formal characteristics. Building 4 has the characteristic structure of the buildings of Luso-Brazilian architecture and introduces certain eclectic decorative elements. Buildings 5 and 6 had their roofs and frames changed. Building 2 is the only one from the contemporary period that incorporates old elements like arches and French-style frames. The first scene was viewed favorably by 70 percent of the sample of respondents. Their main reasons justifying positively and negatively the visual appearance of the scene are shown in Table 1. The main reason for positive evaluation of the appearance of the scene is “preservation of old buildings,” emphasizing the importance that respondents from Pi- Figure 2 – Scene 1 – Piratini. Table 1 – Justifications related to visual appearance of scene 1 - Piratini May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 157 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 3 – Scene 2 – Piratini. Table 2 - Justifications related to visual appearance of Scene 2 - Piratini ratini give to cultural heritage buildings. A second positive justification is “historical meaning/symbolic value of historic buildings,” indicating meanings and values attributed to built cultural heritage. With the same percentage is the perceived pleasant visual appearance, reflecting the pleasantness and beauty associated directly with the homogeneity of the scene. The main negative reason cited is “lack of harmony in colors,” suggesting how this attribute is valued by piratinenses (as residents of Piratini are called). The issue of visual pollution caused by lack of regulation in the use of advertising media on the perimeter of the historic center is also perceived by users. The conservation status was the third most frequently cited negative reasons and cannot be ignored, as the state of conservation seems to be relevant in aesthetic judgments (Nasar, 1998; Reis and Lay, 2006). Scene 2 The second scene is mixed (consisting of old and new buildings) that represent different styles, blending styles and periods of architecture as the Luso-Brazilian, eclectic, modern, and contemporary (Figure 3). The five buildings of the early period (1, 2, 6, 7, and 10) are protected by municipal law. Building 1 has constructive characteristics of the Luso-Brazilian architecture. Building 2 has the same formal characteristics of traditional building, but its frames were replaced by the French-style windows. Building 3 is a contemporary building, with a retreat of gardens and side setbacks and vegetation that differs from the others. Building 4, from the modern period, has elements straight and trimmed. Building 5 suffered several alterations. Buildings 6 and 158 7 form a single volume and have the structure of the Luso-Brazilian architecture and decorative details of standard neoclassical. Building 8 is from the contemporary period and is the tallest, with a balcony running the front facade that spreads along the promenade. With two floors, Building 9 belongs to the contemporary period, and building 10 has a different typology, with the structure of the Luso-Brazilian architecture as roof tiles, but with arched and French-style openings. This scene was viewed favorably by more than 50 percent of respondents. The main positive and negative reasons given by respondents to evaluate the appearance of the scene are shown in Table 2. “Beautiful appearance” is the main positive justification, followed by “the presence of modern buildings and old,” which suggests integration between the buildings of different periods. In other words, there was compatibility between the new formal inserts and preexisting buildings. The integration of buildings from different periods can be considered a major factor in the aesthetic evaluation of the scene, which, although less homogeneous than the first, was considered positive for more than 50 percent of respondents and with a beautiful appearance. The “outstanding preservation of old buildings” is the third positive justification used, which shows the duality of views on evaluative responses to the appearance of the scene and about what and how, whether positively or negatively, the buildings that compose the scene contributed. “Presence of modern buildings and old” was considered positive by some and negative for many others, as the main negative justification, which is further reinforced by the second most significant response that consider “new and ugly” Refereed Full-Papers Figure 4 – Scene 3 Piratini. Table 3 - Major reasons related to the visual appearance of Scene 3 - Piratini modern buildings. The visual pollution was negatively perceived by users and exemplifies the intensity with which it can affect the visual quality of the urban scene. Scene 3 Scene 3 is heterogeneous, as amended by recent constructions and alterations, and it was considered one of the “ugly sites” in the mental maps because it has three contemporary insertions that altered the structure of this ancient quarter, both with respect to external and formal characteristics and with respect to number of floors (Figure 4). Of the five buildings from the ancient period in the scene, four are protected by municipal law (1, 2, 9, and 10). Buildings 1 and 2 have the structure of the Luso-Brazilian architecture, but standard neoclassical elements were added. Buildings 9 and 10 have typical characteristics of the Luso-Brazilian architecture. Building 7 is from the ancient period. Buildings 3, 5, and 8 belong to the contemporary period. Building 4 is from the modern period and despite having been included in the Inventory of Property, it was uncharacteristic. The same happened with building 6, which had the spans and frames changed/replaced. This scene was viewed favorably by only 23 percent of respondents. It is the less orderly scene and the only scene among the three where “ugly” is indicated as an evaluative response. Justifications focused on the negative (Table 3). The “presence of modern and ancient May 2011 – Make No Little Plans buildings” was the negative justification with the highest frequency, suggesting that in this scene there was no integration between the buildings of the early period (pre-existing) and new inserts. The diversity of styles, different forms of buildings, and modern buildings/new profile contributed to the chaotic scene. When evaluating the contribution of each building to the visual quality of the scene, similar situations occurred where a preference for ancient buildings is favored and buildings of the modern and contemporary periods were negatively evaluated. Analysis of the aesthetic preference of scenes in Piratini The order of preference of scenes 1, 2, and 3 was confirmed by 66.7 percent of respondents, while 8.3 percent preferred the order 1, 3, 2. The more homogeneous scene (Scene 1) was evaluated positively by approximately 70 percent of respondents. The second scene was rated positively by over 50 percent of the sample. The more heterogeneous scene (Scene 3) was evaluated positively by only 23 percent of respondents. Analyzing the results on the visual appearance of the scenes, it can be inferred that the greater the degree of homogeneity, the more visual quality the scene has, and vice versa. The comparison between the frequencies obtained on the aesthetic assessment of each scene shows the trend of positive assessments on Scenes 1 and 2 and the most negative evaluations in the third scene (Figure 5). 159 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 5 – Comparison of evaluative responses about visual appearance– Piratini. Figure 6 – Scene 1 – São José do Norte. Table 4 - Justifications related to the visual appearance of scene 1- São José do Norte Scene 1 Despite its peculiar appearance, Scene 1 in São José do Norte is the one presenting the original structures to the greatest extent (Figure 6). With the exception of building 11, from the contemporary period, the other buildings were all listed by the Institute of Historical and Artistic Patrimony of the State (IPHAE). Building 2 has recently been recycled. Buildings 1, 3, and 8 are old, but were adulterated in greater or lesser degrees. Buildings 5, 6, 7, and 9 had facades upgraded into the “deco” style. Building 10 is one of the few terrace houses from the Luso-Brazilian style that have been preserved, both externally and internally. Building 12 is a corner house of the modern period. Scene 1 was evaluated positively by 70 percent 160 of respondents. The main positive and negative reasons given by respondents to evaluate the appearance of the scene are in Table 4. The main positive justification highlights the preservation of old buildings and the second deals with their symbolic value and historical significance. The third reason concerns the positive contrast perceived by the presence of ancient and modern buildings. Since this scene was rated negatively by only 5.6 percent of respondents, it received little justification. The main negative justification was the “conservation status,” mentioned by 20 percent of respondents, followed by lack of attractiveness of the scene and the changes performed on the facades. Refereed Full-Papers Figure 7 – Scene 2 São José do Norte. Table 5 – Justifications related to visual appearance of scene 2 – São José do Norte. Scene 2 Scene 2 maintains the land structure from the colonial period, with a few buildings remaining from the original built heritage, currently adulterated or in poor states of conservation, with modern and contemporary insertions. This scene was positively evaluated by 55 percent of respondents, while 17.5 percent considered it ugly. The main reasons justifying the positive and negative assessment of the scene are shown in Table 5. It appears that the main positive justifications on the assessment of the scene is the “conservation status” and the “colors of the facades,” which highlights how maintenance of buildings is an attribute valued by nortenses (as residents of São José do Norte are called). The existence of modern and new buildings was the third positive justification, as respondents believed that the buildings contribute to the renewal and upgrading of the urban scene. However, the mix of modern and old buildings was considered one of the main negative justifications, along with conservation. The demolitions and changes in the facades are the third justification presented. The scene presents such a situation due to the partial demolition of a two-story colonial terrace that dominates the center of the scene (building 7) and adulteration of facades in varying degrees. Scene 3 Scene 3 (heterogeneous) of São José do Norte collects representative examples of Luso-Brazilian architecture from the colonial period (Figure 8). The May 2011 – Make No Little Plans single-story row houses were adulterated. The colonial mansion located in the center of the scene (Building 6), which dominates by its volume, height, and other formal and symbolic attributes, is in disrepair. Both Building 7 (modern period) and Building 8 were identified through mental maps as “ugly” places. This scene was positively evaluated by 15 percent of respondents. Compared with the heterogeneous scenes of the other city, it achieved the highest negative rating (37.5 percent). The main reasons justifying the perceived visual appearance of the scene are shown in Table 6). Although most of the justifications are negative with respect to the visual appearance of the scene, “Sobrado dos Imperadores,” or Emperors terrace house (Building 6), despite its poor condition, was highlighted with the following statements: “could be restored and would be beautiful; is poorly preserved; conservation is not good but it gives life to the scene; the unique beautiful building in the scene is not well maintained.” The state of preservation was the main negative justification (42.5 percent), and in this context, mischaracterization such as alteration in the facades, was more accurately perceived than in the previous scene, where five adulterated buildings were considered positive. Analysis of aesthetic preference of the scenes in São José do Norte The order of the scenes 1, 2, 3 was preferred by 42.5 percent of respondents, followed by the order of scenes 2, 1, 3 (32.5 percent). Scene 1 received 47.5 percent 161 Refereed Full-Papers of residents’ preferences. Despite respondents’ preference for Scene 1, the rating was slightly higher than the second scene, which was considered mixed. Comparing the two scenes, the second presents a greater number of adulterations, six in all, five of which were positively assessed. It transpires in the questionnaire responses that, due to the loss of much of the original structure of the city and the state of ruination of the remaining historic buildings, preservation seems to be the key variable that affects preference. As opposed to Piratini, where there is a rigorous and critical look from the residents regarding the inclusion of new buildings and adulterations, in São José do Norte evaluation is not dependent on whether the building is ancient, modern, contemporary, restored to the criteria of good technique, or uncharacterized . For example, two respondents older than 60 expressed a preference for new and modern buildings, rather than the historic ones. Another aspect that respondents make clear is a preference for buildings with more than one floor and row houses, which even when adulterated are considered positive, suggesting some preference for this type of architecture. Findings about the aesthetic assessment of each scene shows the trend of positive assessments on the scene 1 and 2 and negative evaluations concentrated on the scene 3 (Figure 9). In the third scene, although chaotic, adulterations were perceived as negative. Analyzing the responses as “adulteration of terrace house; modified façade; other buildings have been altered; because it is very uncharacteristic, nothing is as it would be” allows to infer that the domain of the Emperors terrace house as its entire Figure 8 – Scene 3 – São José do Norte. Table 6 – Justifications related to visual appearance of scene 3 – São José do Norte Figure 9 – Comparison of evaluative responses about visual appearance – São José do Norte. 162 Refereed Full-Papers formal and symbolic weight, positively influenced the aesthetic response. Some respondents commented that the buildings should be restored to their original characteristics, and almost all respondents pointed the Emperors terrace house as a priority for restoration. Relationship between evaluation of the visual appearance of the scenes and formal attributes The relationship between the assessment of the visual appearance of the scenes and the composition of the buildings was obtained by evaluating the formal attributes “volume,” “roofs,” and “facades” in each scene. In homogeneous scenes (Scene 1), the correlation between the “assessment of the visual appearance of the scene” and “perception of compatibility of facades” (Spearman coef .= 0.244, sig. = 0.00) was confirmed, suggesting that recognition of the presence of order and typological patterns of the facades that constitute Scene 1 play an important role in the positive evaluation of homogeneous scenes (69 percent). In the mixed scenes (Scene 2), statistical support was found for asserting that the “assessment of the visual appearance of the scene” is directly linked to the “perception of compatibility of facades” (Spearman coef .= 0.283, sig. = 0.00), that is, perception of formal compatibility between the facades was a relevant attribute for positive evaluation (51.3 percent) of mixed scenes. The research also identifies a correlation between the “assessment of the visual appearance of the scene” and the “perceptions of compatibility of roofs” (Spearman coef .= 0.235, sig. = 0.01). This relationship suggests that formal compatibility of roofs contributed to the positive assessment of the scene. In heterogeneous scenes (Scene 3) where negative evaluation was higher (32.8 percent negative and 22.2 percent positive), a correlation was found between “assessment of the visual appearance of the scenes” and “perception of compatibility of volume” (Spearman coef. = 0.222, sig. = 0.00), which suggests that the lack of formal compatibility between the volumes of the buildings that compose the scene contributes to negative evaluation of the heterogeneous scenes—the lack of adequate volume reduces the level of satisfaction with the visual appearance. Correlation was also identified between the “assessment of visual appearance” and “perception of compatibility in terms of facades” (Spearman coef. = 0.194, sig. = 0.03), revealing that the evaluation of appearance of the scene is directly linked to compatibility between the facades of buildings. In the case of heterogeneous scenes, the trend of appearance evaluation was negative; that is, lack of formal compatibility decreased the level of satisfaction. In assessing the visual appearance, only the formal attribute “facades” presented statistic significance in the homogeneous, mixed, and heterogeneous scenes, indicating the importance of this attribute in the urban setting. This result allows us to infer that the greater the compatibility between the facades, the higher the level of satisfaction with the visual appearance of the urban landscape. Relationship between evaluation of the visual appearance of the scenes and formal compatibility with pre-existing buildings Analyses were conducted to verify how formal characteristics of pre-existing buildings (formal compatibility) were perceived in relation to new buildings inserted in the pre-existing scenario (Table 7). In all the scenes (homogeneous, mixed, and heterogeneous) in the two cities, respondents did not perceive the existence of formal compatibility with new insertions in the urban setting. In the homogeneous scene in Piratini, where only one building of the contemporary period was inserted (with two floors and height similar to the neighboring house), there is the lowest percent- Table 7 – Perception of formal compatibility May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 163 Refereed Full-Papers Table 8 – Relationship between visual appearance and formal compatibility of new insertions age of formal incompatibility (44.4 percent), but this shows the accuracy as the new inserts were valued by the respondents, especially in a best-preserved ancient structure. Relationships between evaluation of visual appearance, perceived formal, volume, roofs, and façades were further explored (Table 8). Correlations were significant between “assessment of visual appearance” and “perception of formal compatibility” with pre-existing buildings only in Scene 2 (Spearman coef. = 0.271, sig. = 0.00). This trend makes sense because due to its characteristics—not as homogeneous as the first, and not as heterogeneous as the third—Scene 2 received the most intense negative assessments about the insertions of new buildings by piratinenses (75 percent), which confirms perceived incompatibility of the new insertions with respect to pre-existing buildings. The perceived lack of compatibility of volume was detected in six scenes studied. In Scene 1, statistical support was found for asserting that the new insertions are not compatible with the volume of pre-existing buildings, where the lack of compatibility of volume between the buildings indicates the importance of adequate volume in the aesthetic response to visual appearance of urban scenes, especially when the number of buildings tends to be more homogeneous. In Scene 2, correlation is also identified between “formal compatibility of the new insertions” and “compatibility of volume” (Spearman coef. = 0.342, sig. = 0.00). Scene 3 repeats the correlation between “formal compatibility of the new insertions” and “compatibility of volume” (Spearman coef. = 0.407, sig. = 0.00), indicating that the perceived lack of formal compatibility between pre-existing buildings and new insertions was influenced by the lack of compatibility of volume. When correlated with the presence of “compatibility of roofs,” the influence of lack of compatibility of roofs in the perception of formal compatibility of the scenes was also verified. Note that the negative ratings will increase inversely with the degree of preservation of the scenes, so Scene 3 (heterogeneous) was the most 164 negatively evaluated regarding the compatibility of roofs. When evaluated separately, in Scene 1 correlation was identified between “formal compatibility between pre-existing buildings and new insertions” and “compatibility of roof” (Spearman coef. = 0.354, sig. = 0.00), indicating once again that the lack of compatibility of roofs negatively affects perception of formal compatibility of the scenes. In Scene 2, there is the same correlation (Spearman coef. = 0.486, sig. = 0.00), and in Scene 3, this correlation is even stronger (Spearman coef. = 0.496, sig. = 0 , 2000). Besides confirming that there was no concern of integrating roofs of the new insertions in relation to pre-existing buildings, it can be seen that the more heterogeneous is the scene, the lower the perceived compatibility in terms of roof. The compatibility of facades plays a key role in the aesthetic preference of the scenes and on the perception of formal compatibility between the pre-existing buildings and new inserts. The perceived lack of compatibility in the three scenes indicates that most respondents considered that there was no such concern. The homogeneous scenes show correlation between “perception of compatibility of the new insertions” and “perception of compatibility of facades” in the scene (Spearman coef. = 0.331, sig. = 0.00), indicating, according to the frequencies obtained (Table 8) that compatibility was negatively perceived, and that the facades of new buildings that were inserted in the urban landscape did not consider the characteristic features of pre-existing facades, affecting the perception of formal compatibility of the scene. The mixed and heterogeneous scenes also show a significant correlation between “perception of formal compatibility of the new insertions” and “perceived compatibility of facades” (Spearman coef. = 0.540, sig. = 0.00), demonstrating the importance of reconciling the facades of the old and new buildings. In this respect, the results confirm results obtained by Groat (1988) on the suggestion to “incorporate some degree of replication (repetition of certain elements, but with current design) in the design of facades, in Refereed Full-Papers addition to replication of the spatial pattern (contextual appropriateness) and mass (volume).” Conclusion Results indicate the role of built heritage in the aesthetic evaluation of the urban landscape and emphasize the relevance of studies focused on urban aesthetics as a need to promote actions to qualification of public spaces. The importance of a particular order, established by formal consistency, is confirmed. For example, when still present in the urban scene in the form of sets, the old buildings tend to fit into a recognizable pattern, suggesting an idea of order, which justifies the preference of the more homogeneous scenes over the others. On the other hand, the perceived chaotic profile of the heterogeneous scenes highlights the lack of order, justifying the arguments of authors such as Lozano (1988), Weber (1995), Nasar (1998), and Reis (2002), who consider order as a human need and recognize it as an important component that affects evaluation of visual appearance of the environment. The valuation of the buildings of the early period is confirmed by both their particular formal and symbolic attributes when related to the urban context, and especially for their contribution in qualifying visual aesthetics of the urban landscape. Also confirmed is that the symbolic attribute “historical value” can positively affect aesthetic preference, corroborating studies by Coeterier (1996). Results indicate that both the preservation of heritage buildings and the aesthetic quality of new buildings can not be conceived without considering the set of pre-existing buildings. Even belonging to different periods and different styles, the buildings form relationships with each other and can compose harmonic sets and an organic environment, with pleasant visual appearance and positive evaluations. They can also establish ruptures as a mixture of missing pieces, leading to chaotic appearance and negative evaluations. It was possible to identify relevant aspects in relation to matters of cultural built heritage and the importance of including issues of urban aesthetics in the process of city planning. It also underscores the importance of bringing the users of the historic core concerned with public policy issues relating to preservation of cultural heritage, urban aesthetic, and urban planning. On one hand, research results confirm the positive contribution of the buildings of the ancient period to the visual quality of the urban landscape; on the other, the need to curb the actions of distortion, mutilation, and even demolition of buildings of ancient period located in historic cores is evident. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans References Azevedo L. N.; Lemos, J. C.; Reis, A. T.; Lay, M. C. (1999). Morfologia, uso e referenciais urbano no centro de Porto Alegre – ênfase a prédios históricos. In: Encontro Nacional da Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação e Pesquisa em Planejamento Urbano e Regional. Porto Alegre: ANPUR, 1999. 1 CD-ROM. Coeterier, J. (1996). Permanent Values in a Changing World. The Case of Historic Building. In: Proceedings of the 14 th Conference of the International Association for PeopleEnvironment Studies. Stockholm: IAPS, 120-128. Groat, l. N.(1988). Contextual compatibility in architecture: an issue of personal taste? In: NASAR, J. L. (ed.), Environmental Aesthetics, Theory, Research & Applications. Cambridge: University Press, 228-153. Kiefer, F.; Luz, M. (2000). “A Arquitetura de Porto Alegre”. ELARQ, vol. 10, n° 33. Montevidéu: Ed. Dos Puntos SRL, fev. 38-49. Lang, J. (1987). Creating architecture theory: The role of the behavioral sciences in environmental design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Lang, J. (1988). Symbolic aesthetics in architecture: toward a research agenda. In: NASAR J. L. (ed.), Environmental Aesthetics, Theory, Research & Applications. Cambridge: University Press 11-26. Lozano, E. (1988). Visual needs in urban environments and physical planning. In: NASAR J. L. (ed.), Environmental Aesthetics, Theory, Research & Applications. Cambridge: University Press, 395-421. Lynch, K..(1975). ?De qué tiempo es este lugar? Barcelona: Editora Gustavo Gili. Nasar, J. L. (1998). The evaluative image of the city. California: Thousand Oaks. Reis, A. (2000). Repertório, análise e síntese: uma introdução ao projeto arquitetônico. Porto Alegre: Editora da UFRGS. Reis. A.; Lay M. C. (2006). Avaliação da qualidade de projetos: uma abordagem perceptiva e cognitiva. Ambiente Construído, Porto Alegre, vol. 6, n.3, 21-34. Stamps, A. E. III (1989). Are environmental aesthetics worth studying?. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, , 6:4. Weber, R. (1995). On the aesthetics of architecture: a psychological approach to the structure and the order of perceived architectural space. Aldershot, England: Avebury. 165 Refereed Full-Papers Evaluating the Impact of Urban Form on Older Adults’ Social Activity and Public Health Mehran Madani (Washington State University), Christine Oakley (Washington State University) Introduction Due to the rapid growth of an aging society, it is necessary to understand the social capability and level of socio-behavioral immersion of older adults in public places correlated with physical environments, psychological ambiance, and the quality of their public health. The current lack of literature on older adults’ public health related to the social activity and urban form suggests that more research is needed to understand the complex set of factors that impact how different aging population groups react to various urban forms, social activity interventions, and physical activity patterns in regard to their public health. Accordingly, the specific aims of this study are first, to investigate the impact of physical geography on the public health of older adults (by objectives such as 1) assessing the impact of components of the urban form and the built environment that contribute to the social activities of older adults in selected suburban and urban neighborhoods/communities, 2) assessing the impact of components of the social geography that contribute to the public health of older adults in selected suburban and urban neighborhoods/ communities); and second, to evaluate the shift in the current demographic trend of older adults residing in care facilities located in suburban areas (by objectives such as 1) collecting data from individual older adults relevant to their social, physical, and neighborhood context, and 2) reviewing the current literature through an interdisciplinary study including architecture, landscape urbanism, urban planning, sociology, gerontology, and public health). Background and Significance of Study Importance of the Problem 1) Fast-growing populations of older adults as a significant population cluster in contemporary society. Since the transition from an industrial society to today’s information age, there has been significant worldwide progress in enhancing both personal and 166 public health, resulting in increased longevity and a greater life expectancy (Hodge, 2008). Demographers predict that by the mid twenty-first century, people 65 and over will compose about 15 percent of the world’s population, twice what it is currently (Abbott, 2009). This aging cohort has a faster growth in developed countries such as Japan, Italy, Sweden, Canada, and the United States. “The United States aging population, age 65 and over, will be around 72 million in 2030, twice the number of 2000” (Abbott, 2009, p.23). While the aging population will face physical and mental challenges that may restrict activities by limiting mobility, agility, hearing, seeing, and speaking (Birren, 1991), Weiss and Bass (2002) believe that aging in society is a dynamic and adaptive phenomenon best understood as an outcome of ongoing interactions and transactions among a complex set of interdependent public health factors that include physical environments, sociobehavioral characteristics, and emotional well-being. This study offers an opportunity to assess the reciprocal relationships among these factors on independent and semi-independent older adults. 2) Change in the household organization of American families. Cantor (1991) argues that the structure of the American family has become more “vertical” as family size decreases, adult children leave the home, and grandparents become more independent from younger family members (as cited in Knox, 1995). As horizontal relationships that form strong interpersonal ties are weakened, older adults rely more on extra-familial social and health services, thus forming relationships with caregivers rather than depending on their family members. Knox (1995) asserts that these changes in family structure increase the socio-spatial differentiation between older and younger members of the family. Arber and Evandrou (1993) assert that older adults will therefore miss the mutually interdependent family relationships which are important components of the social support network from which older adults derive meaning in their lives. Changes in family structure, therefore, create a seemingly paradoxical situation for independent elders in which independence is an indicator of both well-being and social isolation. Empirical data are needed to unravel this paradox so that reasonable solutions to maximize adult public health can be identified. 3) Social and physical dynamics of urban form. Urban form is a general term that refers to the amalgamation of towns and cities. Urban form is defined Refereed Full-Papers by such terms characteristics as density, concentration, levels of connectivity, centrality, diversity, mixed uses, and proximity (Frank and Engelke, 2009). Thus different manifestations of urban form will vary in the degree to which they reflect these characteristics. Suburbanization as an aspect of urban form describes the growth of areas on the fringes of major cities. Currently more than half of the U.S. population lives in “the suburbs” (Palen 2008). A consequence of continued suburbanization, however, is “urban sprawl” (Frumkin, Frank, and Jackson, 2004). “Sprawl” refers to automobile-dependent communities on the outer reaches of metropolitan areas characterized by homogeneous land uses, less physical activity, the absence of walkable environments, and the risk of pedestrian fatalities (Frumkin, 2004). While much sprawl is driven by development that favors the exchange value of land over its use value (Logan and Molotch 1987), the impact of sprawl reaches beyond the physical environment. According to Knox (1995), the creation and reshaping of the physical fabric of the urban form (morphogenesis) leads to a change in the context of urban social geography. Some scholars have suggested that suburbanization produces new environments, new types of people, and new ways of life; however, there is little research assessing how these new environments will affect the social geography of older adults. Knox (1995) claims that the urban form can turn people outward, providing them with experiences of otherness. The power of the city, for example, to reorient people in this way lies in its diversity, even if it is just for a short while. As older adults are exposed to otherness, their capacity to transact with their environment increases, enabling them to increase their participation and contribution to social and civic life. Yet the relationship between spatial aspects of urban form and the social well-being of older adults has not been adequately explored. 4) Examining spatial impacts of urban form and the built environment on the capacity of older adults to create social capital. An integral element in all urban forms is the built environment. In this project, we propose to study the built environment as a medium of communication for older adults. According to Schneider (2010), physical geography of neighborhoods impacts the people who live there and fundamentally affects their perceptions of the built environment. The built environment is an expression of not only human attempts to fulfill personal and societal needs and wants, but also personal and collective values and aspirations. While May 2011 – Make No Little Plans human values may be more abstract than basic needs, they can be evidenced, for example, through participation in social networks and in levels of civic engagement. Schneider’s (2010) work identifies the social dynamics of a neighborhood’s capacity to create social capital. Developing social capital involves a process of constructing trusting relationships and establishing social networks across neighborhoods in order to experience a sense of community (Schneider, 2010). She stresses, however, that social networks only represent social capital if they help to access needed resources. It is important, therefore, to examine the relationship between built environment affordances* that reflect urban form and their capacity to enable the development of social networks that enhance access to resources that increase the well-being of older adults. 5) Change in the physical geography of older adults. According to Hodge (2008), Americans 65 and older living in urban areas were evenly distributed between the city core and suburban areas as recently as 1977. Current data, however, reveal that the number of older adults living in the suburbs of metropolitan areas now exceeds the number living within the city (Census, 2000), a shift consistent with the geographical redistribution of the general population. Combined with changes in the family structure, one may assume that independent and semi-independent older adults are more likely to be concentrated in low-density residential neighborhoods, which characterize the suburbs and where services no longer provided in a family context are difficult to access by walking (Patterson and Chapman, 2002). 6) Influence of land use policies on the geographic location of older adults. Also contributing to the shift in the physical geography of older adults are contemporary urban design and urban planning policies (Hodge, 2008). The geographic locations of supportive facilities in which older adults live are strictly controlled by public policy, zoning regulations, land development, and infrastructure investment, for example. Such policies and regulations have the capacity to determine older adults’ physical environment, thereby influencing their social geography, social networks, attitudes, and behaviors (Knox, 1995). Since the characteristic features of urban sprawl discourage physical activity, they have the potential to contribute to not only a downturn in the physical health of the elderly, but also their access to social environments in which social capital is created. Thus the surrounding environment plays a major part in shaping patterns of independence and dependence 167 Refereed Full-Papers among older adults (Clarke & Nieuwenhuijsen, 2009). Socially cohesive neighborhoods may facilitate outdoor activities and may be more attuned to the needs of potentially vulnerable residents (Frumkin, Frank, and Jackson, 2004). However, the degree to which a neighborhood’s social geography affects the walking behavior of older adults remains unclear. A growing body of research demonstrates that urban settings, community design, and in general, our built environment affordances—or “what objects or things offer people to do with them…creat[ing] potential activities for users” (Jordan et al., 1998, p. 4)—have enormous potential for addressing people’s behavior and many of our public health concerns. But there is little empirical study on the impact of the built environment on older adults’ socio-behavior and their public health. Improvement in Scientific Knowledge 1) Assessing public health of older adults from a socio-spatial perspective. Dummer (2008) argues that the location and nature of environmental features, lifestyle, functional interaction with the social, built, and natural environments, and the arrangement of health services are crucial in assessing the interrelations inherent in many health-related risk exposures. He also emphasizes that the growth of cities causes significant changes in the built environment and continues to have a profound effect on the health and well-being of its citizens. There is evidence that policy decisions and spatial factors influence the structure of built environments and reinforce the shift to suburban areas which leads to socio-cultural shifts that affect physical, social, and health geographies (Dummer, 2008; Frumkin, Frank, and Jackson, 2004). Dummer (2008) asserts public health and health policy is best informed by understanding the linkages among place, well-being, and disease. In a similar definition, Clarke & Nieuwenhuijsen (2009) believe public health is shaped by complex interactions between individuals and the environments in which they live, work, and play. Clarke & Nieuwenhuijsen (2009) also emphasize that environments embrace urban physical settings (physical environment), attitudes and relationships with others (social environment), and political systems and policies. They point out that the impact of environments (physical and social) on the physical health, mental health, and social well-being of individuals has emerged as a growing body of research in population health and health disparities. Yet the majority of studies in this area do not focus on older adults, even though older adults are 168 particularly susceptible to the characteristics of their local environments. 2) Advantages to interdisciplinary approaches. Our case study approach to assessing the environmental and social contexts of supportive facilities in which independent and semi- independent older adults reside enables a more holistic approach to the assessment of the relationships among space, place, and the public health of older adults. It has the potential to contribute to multiple literatures that share similar goals to increase the functional capacity of older adults, but have approached the problem from a more discipline-specific perspective. Informed by studies from urban planning, urban design, public health, sociology, and gerontology, our proposed research suggests interdisciplinary approaches to understanding complex social phenomena provide a scholarly synergy not possible in more disciplinespecific studies. Past research has shown that there is a relationship among the health and well-being of older adults and their physical and social geographies. What our study offers is an assessment of the interactional and transactional processes that structure built environment affordances that acknowledge the role older adults play in maintaining social, physical and public health. Potential For Change in the Field of Urban Planning, Community Development, and Conceptualization of Older Adults 1) Policy implications. Because urban planning is driven by public policy, land use and zoning regulations, and development interests, the results of our study have the potential to impact decisions about the location of future supportive facilities for independent and semi-independent older adults. If policies enable such facilities to be located in areas that positively influence the creation and maintenance of social networks that provide access to needed resources, the need to rely on more expensive skilled nursing facilities for longterm care may be reduced. If our study provides evidence that older adults’ public health is higher in more urbanized environments and lower in suburban settings, as we hypothesize, then an examination of policies and regulations favoring suburban locations of supportive facilities will be needed. 2) Research approaches. Case studies, such as ours, call for additional research to implement practical solutions to complex social problems. The results of our examination of older adults’ public health in both social and physical geographic contexts encourage the use of two research strategies with applied foci. The first is to Refereed Full-Papers utilize methodologies associated with the field of health geography. According to Dummer (2008), “advances in multi-level modeling, geographic information systems, and spatial analysis further supports research investigating the relative influence of individual and community level health risks within a unified framework” (p. 1179). The second is utilization of Health Impact Assessments, which provide data on the health impacts of proposed policies or programs. Linking these techniques to research studies such as ours helps bridge the gap between theory and practice. Innovation Paradigm Shifts 1) Re-conceptualizing the importance of place for older adults. Some scholars have initiated the notion of a paradigm shift in the contemporary theory of urbanization which encourages people to migrate back to the inner cities instead of fragmenting the population in outer urban areas. Frank and Engelke (2009) argue that modern exclusionary zoning regulations, requiring greater travel distances between where people live, work, and play, may counter the original health intent imbedded within the Zoning Enabling Act, which granted cities the power to regulate the use, type, placement, and density of structures within a given jurisdiction. Density and land use together determine the geographic proximity between activities, whereas street connectivity affects the ease of access between activities (Frumkin, Frank, and Jackson, 2004). These authors suggest that these kinds of settings produce undersocialized individuals with declined social well-being and civic-mindedness. Moudon et al. (1997) found that neighborhoods with greater connectivity and better facilities generated higher pedestrian traffic volumes than those with poorer levels of connectivity and poorer facilities. Furthermore, they also found out that, on average, urban sites have about three times the pedestrian volume of suburban sites (Moudon, et al., 1997). However, it remains uncertain what geographic scale, density, and type of land use should be measured, and what an “ideal” combination of uses would be maintained within differing urban forms (Frank & Engelke, 2009). This study is aligned with this shift and attempts to provide further support for the city as a more appropriate environment for the health of older adults. Innovation and Improvements on the Application of Theoretical Concepts 1) Convergent insights of design, public health, May 2011 – Make No Little Plans and sociology. The interdisciplinary approach to examining the relationship between urban form and social well-being of older adults enables the emergence of convergent insights from three theoretical perspectives. For example, public health theorizes the relationship between the design of the built environment and its positive or negative impact on physical activity and social integration of older adults in terms of populationbased outcomes—healthy communities, health promotion, disease prevention, cost containment. Urban design scholars contribute to the conceptualization of this relationship by contributing insights such as the role of affordances in enabling positive health outcomes of design decisions. Sociologists add their theoretical assumptions about the self as a social construct in relation to the individual and her/his social environment. By integrating the convergent insights of these approaches, our study suggests a more comprehensive understanding of the interactional dynamics between older adults, urban form, and physical/social/health geographies. 2) Potential for expanded theoretical assumptions about urban design, older adults, and public health. It has been well documented that social contacts and self-expressions in the urban context are enhanced by the presence of three variables in communities: the opportunity for passive social contact, proximity to others, and appropriate space to interact (Festinger et al., 1950). The social geography of the urban form is itself likely to generate or reinforce differences in values from one neighborhood to another. Therefore, older adults living in different urban forms conceive different social activities, social identity, and social contribution. These social attributes are influenced by interactional spaces in different urban forms. In this study, we distinguish two kinds of social interactions in older adults’ public life. One is the type of passive interaction in which meanings are not exchanged and over which older adults have little control. The second is a more active or expressive interaction or “social transaction” in which social meanings define the activities and therefore serve as stimuli for older adults’ contribution to the social environment. 3) Innovative application of community design theory. The analysis of built environment affordances utilizes two main features of urban design: “demand quality & invitation quality” (Gehl, 1987). Demand quality of the built environment addresses the functional purpose of affordances and self-motivated actions, which requires outdoor physical settings and facilities for inhabitants’ ease of use. Invitation quality meets the 169 Refereed Full-Papers optional and social activities of the dwellers, in which affordances enable public activities and programs to enhance the quality of social transactions (Gehl, 1987; Giarrusso, 2001). By utilizing James Gibson’s (1986) definition of affordances* as all “action possibilities” latent in the environment, they are objectively measurable—and although often independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them, affordances are always assessed in relation to the social actor. The built environment affordances indicate not only the ability, but also the capability of physical and social actions in a community (as cited in Knox, 1995). Approach Research Design 1) Embedded case study. Yin (1994) argues that the case study allows an investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events such as individual life cycles, organizational and managerial processes, neighborhood change, and national and international relations. As an empirical inquiry, case studies enable the investigation of contemporary phenomena within real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomena and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 1994). An embedded case study design was selected for use in this project. Embedded case studies enable researchers to capture the complexity of social interrelationships by allowing for multiple units of analysis (Yin, 1994; Caronna et al., 1997). Caronna et. al (1997) state that embedded designs also employ at least two levels of analysis as independent sources of data, “such as individuals, organizations, and environments” (p. 4), which are categorized as “cases” and “contexts.” In the proposed research, older adults living in selected supportive facilities are identified as “cases” embedded in socio-spatial contexts. In addition, supportive facilities will be considered as cases embedded in geo-political, regulatory environments that determine their location, function, and structure. Caronna et al. (1997) allow for the combination of these two case/context models in a multi-level design. 2) Case selection. Urban form: One of the goals of the study is to understand how the existing spatial distribution of the aging population impacts older adults’ public health. This study will select facilities and individual cases from two distinct urban forms— inside the growth development boundary and suburban areas—from two major metropolitan areas in two West Coast states, Portland (Oregon) and Seattle (Washington). Facilities: Eight facilities will be selected, four 170 per metropolitan area, with two located in the inner city and two in the suburban area. Facilities will be selected based upon residents’ level of independency— functionally independent (use of outdoors without any assistance), or semi-dependent (use of outdoors with or without supervision and with some device like a cane, wheelchair, or walker). Facilities such as “retirement homes” and “assisted living centers” will provide minimum support to accomplish activities of daily living. Although matched cases are not possible, facilities will be similar enough to collect appropriate comparative data. Individuals: Thirty individuals in each of the settings (total 240) will be selected to complete questionnaires using purposive and maximum variation sampling to address our research power analysis (Carbtree & Miller, 1999). An additional 40 individuals (five per setting) will be recruited to volunteer for participation in photovoice* focus groups. 3) Data collection. Washington State University Institutional Review Board approval will be obtained prior to the beginning of this research. Data will be collected from each of the cases and contexts identified above. Two general sets of data will be collected from each context: those measuring physical geography and those measuring social geography. Data measuring the physical geography of both urban form and their embedded facilities will be collected using GIS urban measures such as residential density, land use, street connectivity, proximity to physical activity resources, and public transit access (Papas et al., 2007). Zoning and regulatory data will be collected using standard record and document retrieval techniques. Data on regulatory and licensing requirements for supportive facilities will also be collected. Data on social geography will be collected through the survey questionnaires (open and close ended questions), participant observation, and photovoice technique to verify the quality of spatial parameters, urban features, quality of the built environment affordances, the number of hours that residents spend outdoors, the types of outdoor activities, and the types and quality of older adults’ social transactions. Demographic data will be collected from both the participant and facility * Photovoice is a participatory action research tactic by which people create and discuss photographs as a means of catalyzing personal and community change (Wang, 1998). It is important to note that photovoice techniques produce qualitative data that rely on participants’ ratings of the built environment qualities to validate built environment measurements, which may not correspond to the visual preferences of professional observers. Refereed Full-Papers records. Self-reported health status questions are included in the questionnaire. All participants will receive informed consent documentation for their information and participation approval. 4) Analysis. All quantitative data will be analyzed using GIS. All GIS measures will be constructed using ArcGIS 9.2 and ArcView 3.3. to provide diagrams of spatial features and to measure block face characteristics. Also, GIS provides visual definitions of the most commonly used geometries, such as streets and sidewalk lines, blocks, tax lots, block face lines, building footprints, and building frontage lines (Purciel et al., 2009). Use of GIS enables comparison of the associations between factors of physical geography, such as built environment affordances and socio-behavioral activities of study participants. In the absence of GIS equivalents for some physical settings, more contextdependent spatial data may be included and some organizational features which are not well measured will be omitted (Holahan & Sorenson, 1985; Lynch, 1960). Text-based qualitative data will be managed with NVivo8 software to organize and analyze complex non-numerical information. Initial observational will be open coded to enable identification of common themes (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The association between each of the spatial geography variables and social and physical activity patterns will be tested after adjusting for individual-level correlates of older adults’ self-reported health status indicators. Multilevel regression models will be used to test the association of the urban form’s level of social cohesion with physical activity applicable to the older adults’ health quality. While this may be an optimal analytic strategy, its power may be limited by the small number of participant cases. The individual level of data such as age, sex, education, income, marital status, years of residence in the neighborhood, and self-reported health status are considered nested within social interactions and transactions as defined by census block groups and models. In the process of data analysis, three-way interactions among the variables will be tested. The first is the correlation between physical geography and social activities; the second will measure the relationship between social activity and physical activity; and the third will analyze the association of social activity and public health (a composite variable of measures of social interaction, health status, and network ties). These correlations will be tested to retain the theoretical model for possible amendments to May 2011 – Make No Little Plans future urban planning and design guidelines according to health considerations. The credibility and validity of the data will be established by peer debriefing, which presents analyses and conceptual abstractions of the data to other experts to explore the investigators’ biases and to clarify meanings and interpretations. Member checks, which present the analysis of data to selected participants for their confirmation or revision, will be performed (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). 5) Design limitations. Because these data are cross-sectional, they cannot directly capture the timespace continuum inherent in the process of ongoing social transactions for which a longitudinal design is better suited. Giddens (1984) suggests, however, that although social research must be “sensitive to the timespace constitution of social life,” attending to “the contextual features of locales through which actors move in their daily paths and the regionalization of locales stretching away across time-space” (p. 286) enables the analysis of social activities to occur. The embedded case study design that enables collection and analysis of data on multiple units of analysis from both cases and contexts is intended to provide the “sensitivity” Giddens (1984) finds necessary in conducting research on social life. Outcomes and Impacts Outcomes: • Finding the pros and cons of different urban forms that older adults residing in supportive facilities confront. • Increasing opportunities for built environment affordances to promote expressive social interaction (social transaction) that maximizes mobility, social capital, access to health and human services, and finally, public health. Data collected from individual older adults relevant to their social, physical, and neighborhood contexts will be used to construct models for practical application in urban planning and facility design. Models will also serve as the basis for continued applied research such as Health Impact Assessments, and for continued scholarly contribution to the study of in health geography. Impacts: • Increased public health of older adults has the potential to decrease cost of long-term care, increase capacity for contributions by older adults to create 171 Refereed Full-Papers social capital, and enhance social and physical environments within the urban core. • Possible shifts in planning and design trends from continued suburban development of supportive facilities for independent and semi-independent older adults to those in the urban core. • Increases in social contribution and self-efficacy for older adults despite living in supportive facilities. 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For the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) sufferer, however, the built environment can be a frightening and confusing place, difficult to negotiate and tolerate. The challenge of integrating more fully into society is denied by an alienating built environment. This barrier can be magnified for ASD pupils in a poorly designed school, where their environment can further distance them from learning. Instead, if more at ease in their surroundings, in an ASD-friendly environment, the ASD pupil stands a greater chance of doing better. Whilst researchers have looked at the classroom environment, the transition of classroom to corridor and beyond has so far been largely ignored. However, the need for a well-considered threshold between class and corridor needs to be considered. In this regard, threshold is much more than a doorway, but instead an event that demands a carefully considered place. The following paper firstly outlines why threshold as place and event for the ASD pupil should be given consideration. It then goes onto highlight, through case studies in an Irish context, the opportunities for aiding the ASD pupil integrating in a mainstream school environment through sensitive use of threshold. Finally it highlights in conclusion, some of the benefits for an enriched school environment for all pupils, if considering threshold as design generator. The objective is straightforward. By increasing awareness of the relationship between the ASD child and the built environment it will hopefully facilitate greater inclusion of the ASD pupil into mainstream education and society at large. Introduction Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a term that covers the many subgroups within the spectrum of autism. Autism can be termed as a lifelong complex 174 developmental disorder. It is characterised by a triad of qualitative impairments in social communication, social interaction, and social imagination. (Wing & Gould, 1979) The range of the spectrum is such that while some sufferers may be able to live relatively independently, others will require lifelong continuous support. In addition to these problems, sufferers often struggle with sensory sensitivity to visual, auditory, tactile, proprioceptive, gustatory, and olfactory stimuli (Hinder 2004). Hence one of the very many difficulties for the ASD sufferer can be to simply feel at ease in their own environment. For such people, the built environment can become difficult, confusing, and even threatening (Grandin, 1995; Harker & King, 2002; Williams, 1996). Adding to this concern is the fact that recent statistics suggest the incidence of ASD is on the increase and even growing at alarming levels. The UK National Autistic Society has put the current incidence of ASD at around 1 percent of the population (National Autistic Society, n.d.)(Baird et al, 2006). For architects and designers, this is indeed a stark reality. The architectural profession has long been entrusted with the duty, responsibility, and privilege to provide a built environment that will promote well-being, be inclusive, and enrich life. By contrast, the disorientation and fear experienced by many ASD sufferers is very far removed from this ideal and greatly distances them from the possibility of ever feeling the “pleasure and protection when the body discovers its resonance in space” (Pallasmaa, 1996, p.67). Being sensory sensitive, and unable to fully integrate and communicate with others means that the ASD sufferer can find the world a disorientating and even frightening place. For the school child, this is especially damaging. Any unwanted distraction can impact badly upon that child’s ability to learn. The background and surrounding environment that most of us are able to ignore or cope with will actually act as a barrier between child and teacher, further hampering the child’s development. Discussion For children, school has a special and important place in their formative years. To a child, a school is many things; not just a place of learning but also a place of new experiences, a test-bed to develop social skills, and a supportive environment in which to develop and find themselves. In all aspects, it should be an environment in which the child feels comfortable. Accordingly, it is encouraging that a number of researchers have recently Refereed Full-Papers looked specifically at the design criteria of ASDfriendly classrooms (Humpreys, 2005; Vogel, 2008; Scott, 2009; McAllister, 2010). Measures employed in maximising the optimum learning environment in the ASD-friendly classroom include reduction in detail, flexibility, zoning, and lighting strategies. However, the classroom is only one component of the school environment. A school for children is in many ways a world within a world, a ‘micro-city’ within the city (Hertzberger, 2008, p112). There, assembly hall, playground, music room, principal’s office, and classroom represent for the child, agora, piazza, concert hall, town hall, and street, respectively. In this analogy, the classroom becomes the pupil’s home—a place of peace, structure, and calm. It is the place of safety, tranquillity, and respite in the city that is school. This is especially true for the ASD pupil, where visual timetables, structured zoning, and teaching strategies help make them feel ‘more at home’. The corridor or street, on the other hand, is a place of constant flux, movement, noise, and change. It is the place of chance encounter, the impromptu and unplanned. Like the street in the city, it is a constantly changing environment, and one where surprise and delight for some is not the case for others. For the ASD pupil, the corridor can be a place of anxiety where they cannot feel comfortable. For the vulnerable, it is also where discipline problems frequently arise, when “students change classes and travel from one part of the school to the other” (Curtis, 2003, p12). The desired opportunity for excitement and exploration where a child can encounter occasional mystery and drama (Dudek, 2005) can for the ASD pupil, because of their disorder, become a Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland-like environment of confusion and fear. This fear and worry of street is poignantly illustrated by the ASD artist Elaine, with her picture entitled A Safe Place 2 (Myscape 2010). Elaine shows herself sitting in the safety of her bedroom viewing the street through a screen of vegetation while the front door of the house is clearly barricaded (Figure 1). Therefore, the transition to and from both classroom and corridor to other school venues needs to be carefully considered. If the link from corridor to room is abrupt, it can unsettle and undermine the effectiveness of the classroom intervention. Hence threshold becomes a vital consideration. Moreover, if considered carefully, the threshold can help limit the difficulties inherent with transition for the ASD pupil. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans FIGURE 1 - A Safe Place 2, by Elaine Of course, transition is an integral part of many schools. This can take many forms. It may be the age-dependant progression from junior to intermediate and then to senior classrooms. This is the case in the seminal Hans Scharoun Darmstadt school design of 1951, where children, as they get older, move along the school, which itself also acts as a transition between the busy public square at the entrance and parkland setting beyond (Blundell Jones, 1995). Similarly, so too in the Bolles-Wilson designed kindergarten for Frankfurt Griesheim in 1991, the form of the school is one that from the entrance increases in both area and volume— representing, in built form, the ‘building growing’ alongside the progression and transition of the pupils during their time at the school (Dudek, 2000, p77). However, transition for pupils between different school areas, and specifically between class and corridor, is different. For the ASD pupil, the transition is not so much from corridor to classroom but from setting to setting. This is magnified by the settings having such different characters. 175 Refereed Full-Papers In the classroom, to help clarify pupil activities, layouts are best designed and ordered into clearly defined zones. One activity will take place in one zone. The identification of one activity to one area is an important one for the ASD sufferer (Mostafa, 2010). Therefore, the actual threshold or place of transition is for the ASD pupil an event that needs a specifically considered and designed place. ASD sufferers themselves have written about the difficulties encountered when trying to cope with the sensory overload from the physical environment (Grandin, 1995). In doing so, they relate the coping mechanism of single-thinking on one issue at a time to help themselves deal with the challenges of sensory overload. Having a clearly defined threshold dedicated to transition can help with this strategy. Yet all too often as architects and designers, we pay tacit attention to threshold. It can simply be a few lines drawn on a plan that can represent a door swing, a change of floor finish, a change of level, pattern, or spatial zone. The threshold is not genuinely considered as a “place in its own right” (Hertzberger, 2005, p32). More so, often in school design, the main design generator can be employing the corridor as street or central spine, off which the rest of the accommodation is spatially arranged. Character, quality, and place are subservient to the order and organisation that the corridor brings to the school design. In a school setting, most pupils will be able to move directly along the streetscape of corridor from starting point to destination without interference. Distraction may come in temptation to detour, to visit, or to see. Not so for the ASD sufferer. The distractions along the corridor can bombard the senses. Disoriented and unsettled, the pupil then enters the classroom. The safety, quiet, and security felt in the classroom are compromised. In effect, the corridor and disruption enter the classroom. Instead, a buffer is required; a threshold where corridor can be left behind before entering the classroom. As an architectural device, this is not new. There are many examples of change between public and private realms via a semi-private area. The hallway of many domestic houses works in this way. It is a filter between the outside world and the private home domain. The use of church steps or gathering space outside a church entrance is a similarly a threshold—between the sacred and profane. At the Siren-designed chapel at Otaniemi (1957), the gathering space and threshold outside the entrance is a place in itself, designed to increase the quality of the experience of those visiting the church (Architectural Record, 1958). 176 This is a far cry from the reality in many schools, where a row of coat pegs alongside a door in a corridor is all that signifies the transitional zone to classroom. It becomes a place of transition only in that it is the place where coats, shoes, and schoolbags may be deposited. This is not only potentially unsettling to ASD pupils, but also an opportunity lost. The threshold could be so much more: a place of respite and collection, a place to reinforce learning, a filter or starting point for those venturing into the bustle of the wider school environment, and not just a buffer between corridor and classroom. Case Studies Many lessons can be learned when evaluating the effectiveness of intervention and design in existing schools. At St John’s Primary School in Newry, a former educational diagnostic base was refurbished as an ASDfriendly classroom four years ago. The diagnostic base was a collection of rooms where young children would be educationally assessed. It therefore did not conform to the rigorous classroom space allocation schedules prevalent today in school design. Instead, it was a collection of rooms that collectively had a floor area of 92 square meters. With the additional floor area compared to a typical 60-square-meter classroom, the staff were able to implement a zoning strategy best suited to their pupils. Specifically, this included a coat and shoes area within the classroom—this is carefully considered with identifiable storage for each pupil. Situated as you come into the classroom, it is defined by wall and storage units making it an identifiable place where pupils can prepare, rest, and ready themselves for the change in environment and setting when both leaving and entering the classroom. From there, pupils can either prepare for leaving the class or alternatively orientate themselves to their classroom timetable. Of course, not all classrooms can accommodate an area within its floor area for the threshold transitional cloakroom area. If this is the case, then attention needs to shift to the corridor. In this regard, a lesson can be learned when looking at the example of Armagh High School for Boys. It too had an ASD-friendly classroom implemented four years ago, this time converted from a general use classroom for boys with ASD between the ages of twelve and sixteen. The school follows a common typology of post-war schools by having a central corridor with a series of classrooms accessed directly off both sides of the corridor. By chance, the classroom chosen for conversion to an ASD-friendly classroom was adjacent to two stores Refereed Full-Papers Figure 2 – Forward Steps Diagnostic Centre, Belfast, Todd Architects (2004) that were set back from the corridor, thereby forming a 14-square-meter recess outside the classroom doorway. This fortuitously positioned recess has proved to be a useful and welcome place for the boys waiting to enter the classroom. It affords the opportunity to gather and wait without being in the corridor itself. While still noisy, there is at least respite from the jostling and physicality of the main circulation area. This is extremely important for ASD sufferers, many of whom require greater personal space around themselves in which to feel comfortable. Here, the recess provides this and gives an important place of transition between classroom and corridor. Once again, threshold becomes an identifiable place. It is an intermediary threshold to and from the classroom, and one in which the ASD pupils can start to become part of the corridor culture of the school. The concept of making more of the use of threshold and actually employing it as a design generator is one that can also be employed to good effect. This has been the case at the Forward Steps Diagnostic Centre in Belfast (2004) designed by Todd Architects, where the idea of threshold as place informs the design of the groundfloor layout of the building. The Centre is used for early intervention in ASD children between the ages of three and five and also in educating their parents with regard to the disorder. Although small in scale, the promenade from exterior to classroom is one of a series of identifiable places. This is reinforced by including a series of display opportunities at those places along the circulation route where children are encouraged to stop and look. Here, children can orientate themselves and prepare for the May 2011 – Make No Little Plans forthcoming change in environment. Specifically, views out are avoided to limit opportunities for visual distraction. Instead, views are curtailed by solidity (Figure 2). Special consideration has been given to the entrance. The roof overhang comes down over the entrance, making a covered porch. The slope of the roof also makes the threshold one of changing scale and a shield against sunshine. To heighten the feeling of place in which to gather oneself in, the windows overlooking the approach are purposely downplayed. They are articulated as a series of vertical slots in the vertical timber cladding. This helps lessen the likelihood of visual distraction for the ASD child. Similarly, the staff office also does not overlook the entrance. The porch therefore becomes a self contained element and a genuine place of transition from exterior and interior. It is a threshold and buffer to the change between the two. Then when travelling to the classroom via the reception area, views are ended by communicative visual pictures that further prepare the child for entry into the classroom. Ending the transition, each classroom has a zoned cloakroom area within it. In effect, the promenade becomes a series of events on a journey—importantly, a series of events that prepare the pupil for the changes ahead. While the three examples highlighted thus far deal specifically with environments designed solely for pupils with ASD, the Celbridge North Kildare Educate Together Primary School (NKET PS) is unusual and worthy of closer study because it was designed for both ASD and non-ASD pupils (Betsky et al, 2004) (Architecture Ireland, 2004). Recognizing the need for, but also the opportunities provided by genuinely engag- 177 Refereed Full-Papers FIG. 3 – North Kildare Educate Together Primary School, Celbridge, Grafton Architects (2005) 178 Refereed Full-Papers ing with threshold as place can result in a very fertile school environment. In this regard, NKET PS, designed by Grafton Architects, is a triumph that illustrates a range of rich spatial sequences that can result when including appropriate use of threshold as one of a variety of strategies in the school design (Figure 3). Designed as an eight-classroom primary school for children between the ages of five and eleven, the school also incorporates an additional two-classroom ASD unit as an integral part of the school. Designed by architects who had never designed a special needs school environment, the design team first visited and liaised with special needs schools and teaching staff. This led to the realisation that there is a very real need for both quiet spaces to withdraw into and social spaces in which to learn how to interact with their peers. The idea of including places for both withdrawal and interaction then led the architects to look at monasteries as a precedent typology that might help inform their design work. In a monastery, the environment is one of solitude in the case of the monk’s cell, interaction in the case of the chapel or refectory, and the cloister as intermediary between both. Whilst the monastery is arguably still a micro-city in the city, it is one that is better aligned to the internal environment that suits the characteristics of the ASD pupil where the cloister takes the place of street. The cell, or classroom, was carefully considered and designed to suit both ASD and non-ASD pupils. One form is used throughout the school to encourage integration of ASD pupils into the mainstream classroom when appropriate. All classrooms have a number of shared components and features, further strengthening this factor. All have direct access to a garden area, often used as an external classroom. All classrooms have a ‘den’, a place that can be used by pupils to retire into if needed or alternatively that can be used as a stage, a reading room, or for other uses. Situated on the garden side of the classroom, the dens punctuate the garden elevations and help articulate the important transition between classroom and garden. All classrooms also have toilets within the classroom, and storage and sink areas on the wall facing the garden. They also all have ‘sun boxes’ in their sloped ceiling. These help bring reflected sunlight into the classroom and bring warmth to the quality of light in the interiors. There are, of course, some slight differences between the ASD and mainstream classrooms— the ASD classrooms are the only rooms to have smooth May 2011 – Make No Little Plans plaster walls and underfloor heating to help reduce the visual distraction that wall-mounted radiators and exposed blockwork might provide. The entrances to both types of classroom are also handled differently, but both carefully consider the importance of threshold in doing so. The ASD classrooms are accessed via a room off the corridor that acts as a cloakroom from which the children can pass into the classrooms. The cloakroom therefore acts as threshold and buffer, a place in which to orientate and prepare for change. It also means that the cloakroom helps act as a visual and acoustic barrier between classroom and corridor, lessening the possibility of sensory distraction from the corridor. The classroom therefore can become a “nest” or place of safety and tranquillity in which the teaching environment is enhanced. The mainstream classes are treated differently. All have a coat and shoe storage area next to the door inside the classroom. However, this is part of a service zone consisting of cloakroom area, sink, storage, and toilets which the pupils pass through to get to the teaching spaces beyond. This is the threshold and intermediary zone between classroom and corridor. Even with the inclusion of a display window beside the door of each mainstream classroom, there is an identifiable threshold between corridor and teaching area for the pupils. The pupils know where teaching takes place and respect this division. This sensitivity towards the use of threshold is also used elsewhere in the school. Moving the cloakrooms into the classrooms allows the corridors to be treated more like the cloisters of monasteries. This is especially the case where corridors pass by the exterior and main sensory garden at the heart of the school. The corridors themselves become a quiet intermediary zone between interior and garden. Here, pupils can sit on the windowsills and talk, see artwork on the wall, and access the garden. The corridors are given different qualities and characteristics; some are open to the exterior, others are quieter and more still with changes in fenestration and materiality. Communal spaces overlap and interlink with one another; for instance between the ASD pupils’ play area and the sensory garden. Importantly, this gives choice for the ASD pupil and the chance to decide in which area they feel more comfortable. They are, in effect, opportunities to collect oneself and then choose. 179 Refereed Full-Papers Conclusion By recognising that ASD sufferers often feel more comfortable in a place they associate with one activity, it is of benefit to offer them a place in which to decide and prepare for change in environments throughout the school. This can help in promoting integration between ASD and non-ASD pupils. As ASD pupils commonly suffer with difficulties in social interaction, increased exposure to mainstream school life can be of great benefit. Where this occurs, the school becomes a genuine teaching and informative teaching place for many of the skills for later life. This is not to preclude the increasing use of corridor outside the classroom as an extension of the classroom. This is increasingly common, with corridors used as makeshift teaching areas or shared resource areas in which independent learning or small-group teaching out of the classroom can take place. But if this is the case, the threshold between classroom and corridor once again needs to be given due consideration. Treating the threshold as a specific place in which an important event occurs is the key and one that can and arguably should be used throughout the school environment. Considering the threshold as a place for the event of transition is not limiting, as it opens up the possibility of choice and opportunity to both ASD and non-ASD pupils. This can be the buffer between different activities, such as classroom and corridor, or a place in which to decide where pupils want to go in the school. In both cases, the well-considered and designed threshold provides the opportunity for schoolchildren to feel comfortable—surely no bad thing. 180 References Architecture Ireland (2004) NKET School, Celbridge, Co.Kildare, 201, Oct 2004, 23-26. Architectural Record (1958), December 1958, 142-147 Baird et al. (2006). Lancet. July 15; 366 (9531), 179-181. Betsky et al. (2004).New Irish Architecture 19. AAI Awards 2004. Gandon Editions: Dublin Blundell Jones, P. (1995) Hand Scharoun The Alternative Tradition Ten Projects. Sheffield: A3 Times. Curtis, E. (2003) School Builders. London: John Wiley & Sons. Dudek, M. (2000) Architecture of Schools. Architectural Press, Oxford. Dudek, M. (2005) Children’s Spaces. Architectural Press, Oxford. Harker, M. & King, N. (2002). Designing for Special Needs. London: RIBA Press. Hinder, S. (2004) keynote address to Good Autism Practice Conference. Oxford 19-04-2004. Grandin, T. (1995). Thinking in Pictures. New York: Vintage. Hertzberger, H. (2005). Lessons for Students in Architecture. (5th ed rev.) Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. Hertzberger, H. (2008). Space and Learning. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. Humpreys, S. (2005, Feb/March). Autism & Architecture. Autism London Bulletin. 7-8. Myscape (2010) A Journey Into The Architectural Landscape, Exhibition Catalogue. 26.1-20.2.2010, Glasgow: Project Ability McAllister, K. (2010) The ASD Friendly Classroom – Design Complexity, Challenge and Characteristics. DRS2010 Conference, Montreal, Canada 07-09 July 2010. Mostafa, M. (2010) Housing Adaption For Adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Open House International Vol 35, No.1, March 2010, 37-48. National Autistic Society (n.d.) Retrieved on 21-09-10 from http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/some-facts-andstatistics/statistics-how-many-people-have-spectrumdisorders.aspx Pallasmaa, J. (1996). The Eyes of The Skin: Architecture and the Senses. (2nd ed). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Scott, I. (2009) ‘Designing learning spaces for children on the autistic spectrum.’ Good Autism Practice. 10(1), 36-59 Vogel, C. (2008) Classroom Design for Living & Learning with Autism. Autism Aspergers Digest, May-June. Retrieved 01-07-09 from http://www.designshare.com/index.php/ archives/901 Williams, D. (1996). Autism – An Insideout Approach. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Wing, L. & Gould,J. (1979). Severe impairments of social interaction and associated abnormalities in children: epidemiology and classification. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 9, 11-19. Refereed Full-Papers A Systemic Theory for Historic Preservation: Land Use Management Strategies as Preservation Policy Galen Newman (Clemson University) Abstract: Historic preservation efforts need to move beyond saving single objects of historical or aesthetic significance to the broader context of rural and urban planning. Rapid development within civic hinterlands throughout America has helped to facilitate the relocation of both populations and land uses, leaving rural and urban core areas replete with functionless, unused, and unmaintained heritage structures. This rapidly expanding, decentralized growth is spreading a homogenous form across the landscape and destroying multiple layers of cultural history in its wake. Many once-vital structures have been removed, while others have been abandoned and left to decay—a process known as demolition by neglect. While historic preservation efforts have enacted policies to salvage these structures, these efforts have initially focused on the preservation of each building individually, based on its historical value and architectural merit, not taking into account its role in a constantly changing contextual landscape. Rather than treating the sources of this neglect, the current movement in historic preservation seeks to preserve entire municipalities, in effect freezing them in time. Attempts to counteract this process and the negative effects of fringe developments through land preservation have gained momentum since the 1970s. However, contemporary policies enacted by preservationists only micromanage this epidemic internally through the utility of floating zones such as historic districts. New methods need to be explored to avoid the rigidity of applying locality-sized zones in an effort to retain historic structures. In response to growing concerns about the climbing rate of neglected historic structures, utilizing a historical-interpretive method, this research traces the epistemological evolution of cultural landscape theory employed by both historic preservationists and cultural geographers (two disciplines which stemmed from identical origins), critically explores the fallacies involved with preservation theory and preservation policy, and May 2011 – Make No Little Plans suggests a new paradigm, a systems approach, which will expand the scale in which historic preservation policy should be applied. Because a primary driving force of demolition by neglect lies in the swiftly developing outskirts of our cities, this research suggests that, through new systemic management of historic structures, external land use management strategies could be employed as part of historic preservation policy schemas. This new approach would then shift the scope of preservation theory and move the discipline beyond traditional preservation ordinances, transforming the theoretical underpinnings from positing landscape as a product to viewing it as a process. Introduction The predominant tenet for the management of cultural resources in the United States involves the process of documenting and either continuation or reuse of existing structures and sites, known broadly as historic preservation. The enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 emphasized, primarily, the cultural and aesthetic values of these structures. That rationale carries an inherent weakness: the resulting plans are based on a philosophy that values architectural merit and historic integrity over utility and viability. The current range of policies to help manage historic buildings or historic districts still only attempts to deal with the problem within these small-scale contexts— i.e., by saving each individual building one at a time. Rather than examining external (i.e., related to broader regional development planning) approaches to help manage this dilemma, the current movement in historic preservation simply shifts preservation efforts to a larger scale through the preservation of entire municipalities. Those who were once satisfied with individual buildings and districts now speak of preserving entire landscapes (Francavigilia, 2000). Large-scale, community-wide preservation has been highly criticized and does not address the cultural landscape as an entity situated within a constantly changing, interrelated system of causal mechanisms. The vitality and viability of these structures is equally important to allow them to remain functional in an active and engaging environment. Rather than expand the scale of historic preservation to include entire localities rather than a collection of historic districts which has been highly criticized, it could be possible to incorporate different land use management strategies as a part of an overall preservation policy scheme. 181 Refereed Full-Papers The Costs of Sprawl The historic resources of our American cities are disappearing at an accelerating rate. Our landscape may be the richest historical record we possess, but many of the remaining fragments of our past ways of life are threatened by removal due to decay and neglect. As vitality (people) and viability (function) flee to the peripheries of our towns, the result is a propensity to remove heritage structures that have deteriorated due to a lack of utility. A five-year study conducted by the Transportation Research Board and the National Research Council on the impact of sprawl (Transportation Research Board, 2002) identifies urban decline and land conversion as two of the primary, interrelated consequences of the sprawling American landscape. Because major concentrations of historic structures are located in urbanized centers, these two outcomes must be addressed simultaneously in order to reverse the process. Historic preservation efforts have attempted to reverse the effects of decentralization and counter-urbanization by enacting various local preservation ordinances. These include financial incentives, interim zoning controls, design review strategies, transfers of development rights, incentive zoning, and the application of floating zones such as historic districts (Collins, Waters, & Dotson, 1991). Unfortunately, because these strategies are internally oriented and do not address contextual change, they seem to be only delaying the inevitable demise of historic structures (Jigyasau, 2003). Parallel to the aforementioned dilemma in the city core, attempts to preserve peripheral areas, thereby slowing decentralization and sprawl and helping to sustain inner cities and towns, have become increasingly popular. However, there is currently little understanding of the effect of these land use management strategies on cultural landscapes and, in particular, whether these efforts have helped to slow the decay of existing historic structures to the point where demolition is cheaper than rehabilitation, a process referred to as “demolition by neglect.” Demolition by neglect is defined as the destruction of a heritage landscape or area through abandonment or lack of maintenance (Goldwyn, 1995). This epidemic is a recognized challenge both globally and nationally, as the number of demolition applications being submitted continues to rise (Wallace & Franchetti, 2007). Goldwyn (1995) noted its severity 15 years ago: “The State Preservation League of New York held a conference on DBN in 1993, the National Trust 182 for Historic Preservation included this as a topic for a panel discussion and presentation at the 1994 national convention in Boston, MA, and the United States Preservation Commission Identification Project report, released in 1994, listed it as the most difficult situation for local commissions to solve, with only 25% of respondents reporting that they have the authority to protect designated structures from demolition by neglect.” Decay of a structure is inevitable; it is the expression of its duration through time. This decay can actually add character to structures and can even be a creative intent of a designer. Demolition by neglect, on the other hand, occurs when an owner lets a building deteriorate until it becomes a structural hazard and then turns around and asserts the building’s advanced state of deterioration is the primary reason to remove it. Causes include deferred maintenance, developmental pursuits, absentee ownership, circumstantial outcome, and function relocation (Wallace & Franchetti, 2007). The process of demolition by neglect directly contradicts the traditional philosophy of historic preservation in America (Goldwyn, 1995). For example, preservation policy places a value on factors long considered intangible, such as architectural merit or societal importance. Preservation philosophy demands that property owners recognize and accept this value. Value, however, is contingent upon interpretation and the value that preservationists place on a structure is not always the same as the value that the owner may have for it. Despite substantial restrictions on the demolition of historic buildings imposed by local historic preservation ordinances, many historic properties are destroyed each year as a result of conscious efforts by their owners to avoid the application of these restrictions (Pollard, 1989). The Theoretical Underpinnings of Cultural Landscape Studies There are two different approaches to protecting the cultural landscape. Although both cultural geography and historic preservation stemmed from Carl Sauer’s coining of the term “cultural landscape,” the theoretical evolution of each discipline is severely dichotomized with one field interpreting landscape as a system (cultural geography) and the other interpreting landscape as a singular entity (historic preservation). The field of cultural geography interprets the cultural landscape as a dynamic system, constantly in flux and continually Refereed Full-Papers altering. Preservationists, however, view the cultural landscape as purely material and hold steadfast to its earliest definition put forth by cultural geographer Carl Sauer. Whereas cultural geographers utilize more recent productions of geographic thought, these discussions have not penetrated the realm of historic preservationists. In a 1925 essay entitled “The Morphology of Landscape,” Sauer set forth his definition. “The cultural landscape is fashioned from the natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent; the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape the result.” (Wilson & Groth, 2003) Sauer believed that interaction between nature and culture created materialized pockets that were more culturally influenced than naturally based. Dissatisfied with the efforts toward environmental determinism and the view that the physical environment rather than social conditions determined cultural outcomes, Sauer believed that the human impact on landscape played a larger role in cultural outcomes than did the physical environment. This impact, according to Sauer, then revealed itself within the image of landscape through what is known as material culture, a stable form based on cultural interaction which could be observed and interpreted. The term material culture was coined to label those parts of the physical environment which had been transformed from the natural state by human action for human purposes (Kyvig and Myron 2000). While Sauer’s approach dominated cultural geography through the first half of the twentieth century, other scholars began to alter and expand his theoretical positions. Fred Kniffen, a student of Sauer’s, believed that there were similarities in this material culture and these similarities were geographically clustered. He called these collections “cultural strains” (Riesenweber, 2008). While Sauer sought to define individual natural and cultural forms, Kniffen concentrated purely on cultural relationships and sought to delimit cultural regions through revealing their relationships with one another. Although the goal of these cultural strains was to identify specific boundaries for in which similar material culture was present, Kniffen never achieved his goal due to immense overlaps in cultural characteristics which were difficult to decipher. Geographers such as D.W. Meinig and Allen Noble utilized Kniffen’s theory in attempts to generate what they called “cultural hearths.” These hearths were another effort to delimit the boundaries of different collections of material culture. Similar to cultural strains May 2011 – Make No Little Plans but different in that they spatially located specific similar cultural forms into geographical boundaries on a regional scale rather than just a municipal scale, utilizing building material and typology as dominant characteristics. Cultural hearths illustrated original source areas with distinctive settlement forms, as well as other cultural attributes, from which certain clearly identifiable elements were carried to other parts of the continent (Noble, 1984). One of Kniffen’s disciples, Henry Glassie, took this concept even further. Whereas Kniffen and Sauer were primarily concerned with the more the permanent fixtures upon the landscape and enduring material culture, Glassie introduced the concept of material folk culture. He mapped municipalities based on the distribution of these more localized cultural forms, which split material culture into typologies. Glassie also believed that there was a discrepancy in cultural landscape studies and that they were too reliant upon historical change rather than spatial variation. He stated that “material folk culture exhibited major variation over space and minor variation over time” and that “students of folk culture should listen more closely to the cultural geographer than the historian to establish cultural regions (Riesenweber, 2008).” Hence, from Sauer to Kniffen, the boundary of the cultural landscape was growing larger and larger (from specific material culture to regional sized pockets of material patterns) as well as encompassing more and more components (enduring landmarks and material folk culture). A synthesis of all of these approaches would inevitably alter the field of cultural landscape studies. John Brinkerhoff Jackson, a landscape architect, would legitimize the field more so than any other practitioner by creating a framework which combined the existing theories, interpreting landscape as a complete multiscaled entity with multiple individual components. It was Jackson, also, that made the concept of cultural landscapes a familiar one with the design professions at the University of Berkeley in 1957 (Riesenweber, 2008). He had an interdisciplinary approach to landscape which created an alliance between the design fields and historic preservation. This merging of disciplines would eventually lead to the consideration of historic districts, entire communities, and rural landscapes as cultural landscapes that merited preservation due to their distinguishing characteristics. Jackson’s theoretical framework for the cultural landscape was based on two dimensions: the establishment and the vernacular. The establishment would serve 183 Refereed Full-Papers as the stage in which vernacular stage props would constantly be removed and recreated as scenes changed. The establishment, according to Jackson, was made up of the relatively permanent fixtures upon the landscape and the consistent fabric which was well thought out in regards to the future and promoted order, architecture, law, and property. Establishmentarian elements of the landscape described rigid spaces within the landscape which create stability, uniformity, and sequence among the other chaotic actions which constantly occur upon it. Political boundaries, national, state, and local laws, large scale architectural structures, and primary arterial roadways are good examples of what he labeled as components of the establishment. The vernacular, on the other hand, consisted of the more dynamic and ephemeral elements of landscape, including but not limited to the material folk culture investigated by Kniffen. Vernacular spaces described those spaces which constantly alter as cultural preferences change. They are the ordinary, common, typical, and everyday elements of landscape. These elements of landscape are temporary elements which are built by necessity and dependent upon the materials with which they are constructed. According to Jackson (1984), “The beauty that we see in the vernacular landscape is the image or our common humanity: hard work, stubborn hope, and mutual forbearance striving to be love.” In Jackson’s viewpoint, the human impact on landscape had become so widespread that delimiting boundaries based on cultural characteristics had become nearly impossible. What makes this framework important is not only that it combined each of the prior theories, but is also initiated the idea that there were portions of the landscape that were unstable and constantly in flux. Although Jackson was a landscape architect, the Berkeley School of Cultural Geography was still continuing the expansion of the theoretical scope of cultural landscape studies. Pierce Lewis (1979), a cultural geographer, took Jackson’s premise of the cultural landscape as a two-tiered network of materialized culture unable to be categorized by distinguishable boundaries, and promoted the idea that all landscapes had cultural meaning. This theory signified the idea that all landscapes were in fact cultural at least to some degree and put forth the notion that the human impact on the natural landscape was omnipresent. However, the cultural imprint on the natural landscape, according to Lewis, was also a direct reflection of human desires. He believed that the human interaction with 184 nature left an indelible mark of the environment and these imprints were inscribed within the landscape and could be read like a text through deep interpretation. “If we want to understand ourselves, we would do well to take a searching look at landscapes. The human landscape is an appropriate source of self knowledge because it is our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values, our aspirations, and even our fears.” (Lewis, 1979 p.12) Other, more current, theorists such as architectural historian Spiro Kostoff and Anne Spirn have also accepted this position. While Spirn’s The Language of Landscape (2000) presents a theoretical methodology in which to interpret this text, Kostoff still concentrates on the historical aspects of the cultural landscape as a means for contemporary interpretation. His statement, “We are, indeed, what we have built,” embodies both Lewis’ and Sauer’s theoretical positions (Kostoff, 1991). Whereas the cultural landscape was originally viewed through a historicist lens, Lewis’ more post-structurally oriented view assumed that the image of the landscape was both a direct reflection of and a collective depository of our cultural wants and needs. The problem involved with every landscape now being viewed as cultural was that if all landscapes were cultural landscapes, then there could be no such thing as either a cultural or natural landscape; they must then be interactive and one in the same. Culture, like nature, is a reactive and dynamic phenomenon. James and Nancy Duncan, in 1980, posited that culture was “superorganic” and even questioned its manifestation as a materialized entity (Riesenweber, 2008). This theory interpreted landscape as a superorganism comprised of multiple interactive organisms. These organisms unremittingly interacted with one another and altered the visible image of the landscape. Cultural forms were superior to individual interactions, and were dependent upon entire societal values. This marked the point where the (cultural) landscape began to become viewed as a system, presupposing that existing “cultural manifestations” were so rapidly changing and unstable that they were actually unattainable and therefore uncategorizable. Other scholars such as Denis Cosgrove supported the Duncans’ criticisms but proposed that within these societal systems, there must also be a physical system which it interacts with, and that due to the superorganic nature, individual mental process also had a role in the generation of cultural form. Cosgrove posited that perhaps landscape was as much an idea as it was a tract of land. In other words, the superorganic social Refereed Full-Papers aspects of landscapes which composed the material realm were also reliant upon the imaginative processes emergent from interaction within a specific space at a specific time. This concept put forth the notion that we shape the landscape and it, in turn, shapes us. Cosgrove believed that there was a simultaneous shaping of both space and inhabitants. Landscape, as idea, meant that landscape was constructive, not reproductive. There then had to be a symbolic undertone to the built environment, which also played a role in this constant making and remaking of landscapes. These inquiries led to questioning about the entire theoretical framework for cultural landscape studies. Because multiple interactions now composed a landscape which with both tangible and intangible dimensions, observational methods alone proved to be insufficient means of landscape interpretation. Instead, there was a push to surface the symbolic dimensions of cultural forms and the meaning invested in these forms by those who have produced and sustained them (Riesenweber, 2008). The unquantifiable, systematic (cultural) landscape now had both a material and an immaterial character. Successive theorists began to consider landscape meaning to be fluid and shaped by the circumstances and social positions of its occupants and presumed that simultaneous understandings of landscapes must, therefore, also exist. Landscape presents itself as stable but is constantly in flux; it is both manipulated and manipulable. The (cultural) landscape was now viewed as a concretized version of commonly held interpretations and transformations of the changing ideologies involved within shared realities. Stephen Daniels calls this transformative concretization the “duplicity of landscape” (Daniels, 1989). In Daniel’s view, landscape is discourse, a framework in which all interactions and practices are negotiated. This discourse is then constantly be re-materialized and must be unraveled like a tapestry. Inversely, historic preservationists still utilize the original concept of the cultural landscape that originated in the 1920s from Carl Sauer. Accepting the National Park Service’s formal definition of the cultural landscape as “a geographic area associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values” (Alanen & Melnick, 2000), preservationists still seek to retain material remnants of the past and concentrate on the appearance of material culture. This premise still views the cultural landscape as a stable product. By concentrating on historical significance and integrity as cornerstones for designation, May 2011 – Make No Little Plans preservationists can sometimes ignore the larger context which this material culture resides within and more importantly, the impact of changes within this context. Edge cities, strip malls, and suburban development pull the population and building functions away from historic buildings, generally resulting in demolition of these structures either by removal, neglect, or a combination of both. As long as the fringe areas continue to welcome corporate office parks, along with the residential and commercial development they generate, our (historic) inner cities will continue to rot at their cores (Daniels, 1999). The Fallacies Involved with Contemporary Preservation Philosophy Despite the attempts at conserving historic structures through policy implementation, the philosophical foundations of only promoting aesthetics and historical relevance can sometimes hinder preservationist goals. Historic preservation of aged structures prioritizes form to the extent that it can sometimes overlook the need for a structure to remain functional in its context. Goldwyn (1995) calls this epidemic a “loophole” in preservation tactics. This loophole in the preservation system creates a situation where historic structures are preserved, but not utilized, thus resulting in their ultimate demolition due to neglect. Our tendency to destroy old forms justifies the preservationist movement to an extent in the sense that these forms are unique and cannot be recreated. However, since landscape is a continuum, our towns must also be flexible enough to absorb some modernization to cater to the inherent populace and functional economy. Structural preservation on a local scale can sometimes sever the civic chord of progression, resulting in museumized relics and artifacts within the landscape. New construction within historic areas has received much debate. However, historic context is not limited to only neighboring sites. Development patterns within the peripheries of our cities and towns can also have a huge impact on their inner cores. The ability of preservation standards to support both viability of sites and historic character increasingly depends on effective processes for examining changes within the larger town or urban context (Alderson, 2006). But, because context is constantly in flux, form and function rarely coincide for very long in any environment (Jackson, 1997); our contemporary tendency is to give priority to form. The flaw in this premise is that when building function is dissolved, too often building form, itself, is simply 185 Refereed Full-Papers removed. The primary concern for promoting the management of historic core areas has been, in particular, to develop strategies to restore the original rationality for their existence. The viability of these historic structures must also be incorporated into preservation philosophy, because the lack of the ability to attract investment is what is causing their removal, not their lack of integrity. As a result of these conditions, there are four fallacies involved in the theoretical foundations of historic preservation. First, there is an incompatibility between preserved landscapes and landscapes allowed to continue the process of change. The rift created between a significant decrease in the transformative process of preserved landscapes and those allowed to progress rapidly creates a lopsided appreciation of landscape, which devalues those portions of landscape which are not in preservation programs while emphasizing other human artifacts on display for enjoyment. This incompatibility places simultaneously places a higher value on those structures enrolled within preservation programs while devaluing other portions of the landscape. The various fortunes each historic structure came to know and the altercations which took place upon the landscape created the very characteristics which call for is preservation. Severing this chord of progression not only discontinues the very process which created its distinctiveness, but the overuse of this technique will generate the same outcome. Second, historic preservation, in its purest form, is virtually impossible, and the current effort to preserve entire localities only amplifies this impossibility. It is a physical impossibility to completely stop the transformation of a landscape. Human interaction with heritage sites unavoidably alters both their nature and context (Lowenthal, 1985). Since the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the pace of historic preservation activities has vastly increased (Longstreith, 2008). But because historic preservation has been accused of “freezing landscapes in time” (Cook, 1996), it is not always the appropriate tool to achieve such a large goal, especially on such a dramatic scale. The preservation of entire cities makes them no longer relevant to their occupying culture, but simply historic remnants of a population whose time has passed. In this sense, these cultural landscapes will be no longer cultural, only culturally historic. The restrictive laws and guidelines imposed by historic preservation regulations can place too much strain on large-scale landscapes, which need some modern amenities to serve society’s current needs. 186 Third, the over-use of preservation, if used on a municipal scale, of historic landscapes will devalue the very objects which are attempted to be appreciated. A large scale approach to historic preservation will eventually result in huge pockets of historic buildings everywhere, the very pattern that preservationists are fighting against. An overabundance of preserved landscapes will create a situation where those landscapes which are not preserved will become unique. Landscapes are different places based in part on their ability to change (Melnick, 2000). The attempt at eliminating this change will eventually lead to stale, ubiquitous landscapes. The irony in this statement is that historic sites are preserved, mostly, due to their character and ability to stand out from the repetitious stamped-out developments which currently characterize the American landscape. Finally, the pluralism of landscape history is impossible to untangle. Attempting to disentangle the multiple histories which exist on each site inevitably leads to the appreciation of some aspects of cultural change and the depreciation of others (Clay, 1976). This has created an aperture in the acknowledgement of the differing ethic histories in a multicultural civilization. Many Native American histories are only cloaked in the guise of place naming while other histories such as African American and Hispanic histories are in many cases, pushed to the background and forgotten in remembrance of a history which relates better to population majorities. Also, communication about the past is inextricably intertwined with communication about particular places. This communication is thus dependent upon the values and historical associations we place upon the landscape. These values can taint the historical references we sometimes refer to in an effort to decipher the past. Lowenthal (1998) states that “history is told by the victors,” so the history we choose to preserve may not be entirely accurate. In this sense, attempts at disentangling these histories may be in vain because they are not fully precise. Treasuring heritage as authentic history can blind us to our own legacy’s biased limits. Moreover, these histories are not limited to specific parcels of land. The built environment does not exist in a vacuum, it is surrounded by a complex system of elements which support it and form its setting, and the setting which encompasses our historic structures not only tells a portion of their story, but also forms the context which dictates their function. Refereed Full-Papers A New Paradigm: The Cultural Landscape as a System The field of cultural geography has changed the meaning of landscape from a noun to a verb (Riesenweber, 2008). The epistemological evolution of cultural landscape studies changed its interpretation from a being viewed as an artifact to a being seen as a progression. The problem lies not within specific buildings and infrastructure, where historic preservationists attempt to address the quandary, but in the swiftly developing outskirts of our cities to which the structures are inescapably connected. This rapidly expanding, decentralized growth is spreading a homogenous form across the landscape and destroying multiple layers of cultural history in its wake. As long as the fringe areas continue to welcome corporate office parks, along with the residential and commercial development they generate, our inner cities will continue to rot at their cores (Daniels, 1999). The protection of the cultural landscape is therefore not only a product, but a process. Preservationists must then begin to value both viability and aesthetics. “Failing to plan for and manage growth, or leaving the fate of cities to the random collision of economic forces, is likely to result in the destruction of our historic places and in diminished cities…..We must look beyond traditional preservation ordinances and landmark commissions to address those planning forces that have the most influence over their city’s future development.” (Collins, Waters, & Dotson, 1991 p.8). Stated in the original guidelines of the National Trust’s Critical Issues Fund (CIF) in 1981 is for historic preservation to “play a responsible role in the processes that will decide the future for historic properties” (Collins, Waters, & Dotson, 1991). The CIF has actually begun to encourage efforts to weave preservation values in land use management and zoning policy in order to limit demolition of these structures. Hence, the current efforts involved in the historic preservation of cultural landscapes call for a new paradigm which will expand the magnitude of the population which it attempts to serve. Preservation efforts need to move beyond saving single objects of historical or aesthetic significance to the broader context of rural and urban planning (Cook, 1996). A systems approach to landscape preservation will require not only the recognition that the cultural landscape is only one part of a living environment, but also assessment of the political, economic, and natural May 2011 – Make No Little Plans process that shape it. We must then view the entire landscape as a collection of links within an entire dynamic network of interacting processes. Attempts to counteract the process and the negative effects of fringe developments through land preservation have gained momentum since the 1970s. The techniques of land use management strategies as a means to limit the effects of suburbanization has also broadened since this time through the implementation of agricultural preserves, wildlife preserves, conservation easements, and recreational networks carving out non-developable spaces in civic hinterlands. Utilizing these techniques as a portion of and in combination with existing preservation policies then treats the cause of demolition by neglect at its source, rather than attempting to deal with circumstances as they inevitably arise. However, this systems approach will require national, state, and local input. This expansion then begins to simultaneously address many of the aforementioned fallacies involved with current preservation philosophy. First, it will help to limit the effect of urbanization on historic structures by allowing for more external measures and peripheral land use management techniques to be included as portions of local and regional preservation schemes. As Jigyasau (2005) has explained, historic sites have two fundamental dimensions: the first deals with aspects of integrity, and the second deals with their relationship to the living environment in which they exist. Most risk factors threatening living heritage sites are progressive, making these historic treasures increasingly vulnerable to the current trend of growth in the United States. These risks extend into all portions of the landscape, but they are especially present in areas where development pressures and urbanization have occurred. These historic areas have not received the attention and support they deserve to maintain their viability, protect their structural integrity and heritage value, and stimulate their local economic base as their populations undergo various incremental processes of transformation (Jigyasau, 2005). The use of growth limiting strategies as preservation policy also addresses the pluralism of historic narratives embedded within preserved structures by allowing for the context to also be preserved. The built environment does not exist in a vacuum; it is surrounded by a complex system of elements that support it and form its setting. Because the setting that encompasses our historic structures not only tells a portion of their story, 187 Refereed Full-Papers but also forms the context that dictates their function, land preservation as a growth management strategy can actually add to the historic character of localities and historic sites through telling portions of their historic narrative. Also, utilizing land use management strategies as preservation policy helps to sidestep the widespread criticism that historic preservation freezes landscapes in time and provides a structure that allows for more flexible landscapes which can cater to more modern technological alterations. New disciples of cultural landscape preservation, by virtue of this dual nature, must then also mediate two forces: the accommodation of the values of a larger society and the ability to retain historic structures despite these accommodations. These systems will then continually acquire new significance which can inform the present (Cook, 1996). This will create a heritage with which we continually interact. Better management of this entire system, along with the current small-scale policies, is the only way to prevent the removal of historic landscapes while still allowing for growth within a living environment. Literature Cited Alanan, A. & R. Melnick (2000). Preserving cultural landscapes in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Alderson, C. R. (2006). Responding to context: Changing perspectives on appropriate change in historic settings. APT Bulletin, 37(4): 22-33. Collins, R. C., Waters, E. B., & Dotson, A. B. (1991). America’s downtowns: Growth, politics, and preservation. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press. Cook, R. (1996). Is landscape preservation an oxymoron? The George Wright Forum, 13(1): 42-53. Clay, G. (1976). Whose time is this place? The emerging science of garden restoration. Landscape Architecture Quarterly, 66(3): 217-218. Daniels, S. (1989). Marxism, culture, and the duplicity of landscape,” New Models in Geography, ed. Richard P. and Nigel T. Winchester, Mass.: Unwin-Hyman, p.196-220. Daniels, T. (1999). When city and country collide: Managing growth in the metropolitan fringe. Washington, DC: Island Press. Francaviglia, R. (2000). Selling Heritage Landscapes. In Alanen, A. & Melnick, R. (Eds.), Preserving cultural landscapes in America (pp. 44-69). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Goldwyn, A. (1995). Demolition by neglect: A loophole in preservation policy. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 188 Jackson, J.B. (1984). Landscape in Sight: Looking at America. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Ed). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jackson, J. B. (1997). The future of the vernacular. In Groth, P. (Ed.), Understanding ordinary landscapes (pp. 145-156). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jigyasau, R. (2002). Monuments and sites in their setting: Conserving cultural heritage in changing townscapes and landscapes. India: ICCROM. Kostoff, S. (1991). The city shaped. New York: Bullfinch Press. Kyvig, D. E., & Myron, A. M. (2000). Nearby history: Exploring the past around you. New York: Altamira Press. Lewis, P. (1979). Axioms for reading the landscape: Some guides to the American scene. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes. Oxford University Press, p.11-32. Longstreith, R. (2008). Cultural landscapes: Balancing nature and heritage in preservation practice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press Lowenthal, D. (1985). Age and artifact: Dilemmas of appreciation. In Meinig, D. W. (Ed.), The interpretation of ordinary landscapes (pp. 103-128). New York: Oxford University Press. Melnick, R. (2000). Considering nature and culture in historic landscape preservation. In Alanan, A., & Melnick, R. (Eds.), Preserving cultural landscapes in America (pp. 22-43). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Noble, A. (1984). Wood, brick, and stone: The North American settlement landscape. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Pollard, D. (1989). Empirical processes. Statist, Sci.(4), 341-346 Riesenweber, J. (2008). Landscape preservation and cultural geography. In Longstreith, R. (Ed.), Cultural landscapes: Balancing nature and heritage in preservation practice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 23-35. Spirn, A. (1998). The Language of Landscape. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Transportation Research Board, National Research Council. (2002). The costs of sprawl. Transit Cooperative Research Program at Rutgers University. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Wallace, P. & Franchetti, A. (2007). Heritage at risk: Addressing the issue of the demolition by neglect of historic heritage in New Zealand. (NZHPT) New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Wellington: Sustainable management of Historic Heritage, Discussion paper No. 6, August. Wilson, C, & Groth, P. (2003). Everyday America: Cultural landscape studies after J.B. Jackson. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Refereed Full-Papers Valuation of Cultural Heritage: Toward a Conceptual Model and Potential Evaluation Strategies Zena O’Connor (The University of Sydney, Australia) Abstract Places of cultural significance bring a range of benefits for the wider community, as well as shared responsibilities and opportunities for public participation. As such, places of cultural significance represent a community’s cultural capital. However, can cultural capital be measured or quantified? The benefits of applying a valuation process to cultural heritage is an important step beyond identifying places of cultural significance, as it provides a basis for decision-making in regard to short and long term conservation and maintenance strategies. To arrive at a point where valuation may proceed requires identifying relevant value factors followed by a determination of the means by which to assess and measure these value factors in order to achieve valuation and comparative examination. However, the valuation of cultural heritage may also be influenced by the impact of time as well as contextual and sustainability issues; and the process of valuation may also be complicated by a diversity of culturally based values and competing intentions. Given the complexity of these issues, it is important that whatever valuation process is devised, it must be fair, balanced, and transparent. This paper proposes a conceptual model for valuation of cultural heritage as a starting point for further discussion. In addition, a range of potential evaluation strategies including assessment and measurement methods are proposed, along with recommended group participants and likely outcomes. Identifying Items of Cultural Significance Prior to assessing the valuation of cultural heritage, it is important to initially discuss how items of cultural significance may be identified and the link with cultural heritage. Therefore, an ‘item’ of cultural significance is herein defined as a resource that has the capacity to attract existing or potential cultural heritage value. This term is used as an extension of the term ‘place’, defined May 2011 – Make No Little Plans under Australia’s Burra Charter as a “site, area, land, landscape, building or other work, group of buildings or other works, and may include components, contents, spaces and views“ (AICOMOS, 1999, p. 2). In addition, the term ‘item’ also encompasses the following: - Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings, and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art, or science; - Groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art, or science; - Sites: works of man; combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological, or anthropological points of view (UNESCO, 2008a). The Link Between Cultural Heritage and Items of Cultural Significance Putting aside Lord Charteris’ claim that cultural heritage means “anything you want,” cultural heritage arises from the interaction between people and items of cultural significance (Charteris cited in Hewison. 1987, p. 32; Mitchell, Rossler, & Tricaud, 2009). That is, it is the “set of values that the current generation place on artefacts and identities associated with the past” (Gilmour, 2007, p. 4). Australia’s Burra Charter suggests that these values include “aesthetic, historic, scientific, or social” values relative to “past, present, or future generations” (AICOMOS, 1999, p. 12). Similarly, the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention suggests that cultural heritage represents: a group of resources inherited from the past which people regard, irrespective of who owns them, as a reflection and expression of their own constantly evolving values, beliefs, knowledge, and traditions. It includes all aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction between people and places through time (COE 2005 ¶1). Identifying Value Factors of Cultural Heritage Cultural heritage is clearly a relative rather than absolute concept, and the interface between people and items 189 Refereed Full-Papers of cultural significance appears to be multi-dimensional and open to influence from a range of different, interrelated factors which may be objective or subjective. Throsby identified five broad sets of values: aesthetic value, spiritual value, social value, historical value, and symbolic value (Throsby cited in Avrami & Mason, 2000, p. 26). While under Australia’s Burra Charter, four main values are identified as follows (AICOMOS, 1999): - Aesthetic value, including aspects of sensory perception; - Historic value, which encompasses historical figures, events, and activities within the history of aesthetics, science, and society; - Scientific value links with research value and these depend on the rarity, quality, and representativeness of the place under consideration; - Social value, the spiritual, political, national, or cultural sentiment relative to a majority or minority group. More specifically, UNESCO uses the following (abridged) criteria to assess sites for the World Heritage Listing: i. Represent a masterpiece...; ii. Exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world...; iii.Bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition...; iv.Be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape...; v. Be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture...; vi.Be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance...; vii.Contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance (UNESCO, 2008b). Similarly, Carter and Bramley (2002) offer the following value indicators: - Cultural traditions: History of association; 190 - Appeal: Outstanding natural beauty or artistic qualities; - Aesthetic qualities: Grandeur, contrast, colour, pattern, texture, and ‘viewability’; - Scientific interest: A history of base-line research; - Existing level of protection; - Threats: Level of impact and risk of the impact occurring; - Sustainability: The ability of the resource to be selfsustaining or the level of management input needed to protect values; - Location: The resource’s ability to provide other community benefits (such as income generation); - Fragility: The level of resistance and resilience of the resource to likely perturbations (Carter & Bramley, 2002). It is important to note that cultural traditions tend to depend on the perspectives and frames of reference of different individuals and groups (Gilmour, 2007; Lynch, 1960; Rapoport, 2005). While cultural significance may link with historical elements or events, interpretations of cultural traditions and past events tend to reflect the perspectives and outlooks of the present, as well as different intentions or frames of reference. Therefore, individual and cultural frames of reference in conjunction with changes over time impact on cultural heritage value. Evaluation of Cultural Heritage: Towards a Conceptual Model As a starting point for further discussion, a model representing valuation of cultural heritage is proposed that is derived from Lewin, who considered behaviour as a function arising from the interactions between people and their environment (Lewin, 1967): B = f (P, E) In regard to cultural heritage, ‘behavior’ implies a broader range of interactions occurring within a transactional framework that is complex and influenced by a range of external, environmental factors and internal cognitive and affective factors at different scales (as per Moore, 1987). Using an amended version of Nasar’s probabilistic model of aesthetic response to building attributes, this framework may be expressed as follows (Nasar, 1994). Refereed Full-Papers Within the context of this framework, the following conceptual model of the valuation of cultural heritage is proposed. This model includes value factors identified as relevant and can be modified to include additional value factors: VCHx = f (SG • HT • RO • AE • CX • S) Wherein the valuation of cultural heritage n respect to Item x is a function of: • SG refers to an assessment of the significance of Item x in respect to a cultural group, sub-cultural group, ‘expert’ group or stakeholder group (i.e., interested parties such as government agencies, NGOs, funding bodies, developers, etc). This value factor encompasses the qualities by which the item has accrued or is likely to accrue spiritual, political, national, or social sentiment or symbolism relative to a particular group; • HT refers to an assessment of the historical interpretation of historical figures, events and activities associated with Item x, as well as the likely changes in historical interpretation that may occur over time; • RO refers to an assessment of the relative rarity, quality, and representativeness of Item x and whether it exists as a unique or outstanding example; • AE refers to an evaluation of the overall aesthetic qualities of Item x as determined from different perspectives: individual/public, cultural /subcultural group, ‘expert’ group, stakeholder group; • CX refers to an assessment of the relevance of Item x within a broader physical context, landscape or setting; • S refers to as assessment of issues relating to sustainability (both internal and external) in respect to Item x. Figure 1. Probabilistic framework for cultural heritage evaluation May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 191 Refereed Full-Papers Potential Evaluation Strategies, Methods and Outcomes The determination of valuation of cultural heritage may rely on an amalgam of different assessments relative to each value factor. Therefore, a range of potential assessment methods are proposed as follows.1 1.1Identification of items of cultural significance Identification of the actual/potential spiritual, political, national, and/or social significance of items of cultural significance may be achieved using nominal group consensus via survey or panel group interviews. Nominal group consensus This technique is one of a number of techniques used to gain consensus in respect to research aims. Unlike the Delphi technique, which only uses a panel of experts, the nominal group consensus technique comprises a broader group of people considered to have relevant knowledge or experience specific to the aims of a research study (Campbell & Cantrill, 2001; Keeney, Hasson, & McKenna, 2001). It is suggested that a non-probabilistic purposive sampling approach is applied and stratified cluster sampling is recommended. Stratifying allows for gender balance and a range of different age groups; while clustering allows for a sample that is representative of particular groups: cultural, subcultural as well as ‘expert’, etc (Coolican, 2004; Groat & Wang, 2002; Hinton, 2004). The key outcome would be nominal group consensus in respect to the identification of items considered to be culturally significant according to a range of different groups: cultural, sub-cultural, and ‘expert’. 1.2 Assessment of historical interpretation Key points of historical interpretation and meaning need to be clearly articulated for each item of cultural significance and a reiterative process is recommended. Firstly, an ‘expert’ group of historians conducts an assessment, and this is followed by a review conducted by a broader range of participants (sourced from relevant cultural, subcultural, ‘expert’, and stakeholder groups). The key outcome would include clearly articulated statements of significance, historical interpretation, and meaning in respect to items of cultural significance achieved via broad consensus. 1.3 Measurement of significance and historical meaning It is suggested that significance and historical interpretation and meaning are assigned values to enable individual and comparative rating, and semantic differential rating scales may provide a means of clustering and rating items. Semantic differential rating scales These scales are used to elicit cognitive judgements and affective appraisals (dependent variable/s) about independent variable/s (usually represented by visual stimuli). Responses from semantic differential rating scales can be analysed using factor analysis and analysis of variance. There is no standard set of semantic differential rating scale items; instead it is usual to use rating scale items that are considered relevant or meaningful to the construct or stimulus about which judgements are to be made (Heise, 1970; Ward & Russell, 1981). Therefore, rating scale items may include those relevant to judgements of significance, historical value and preference: Significantinsignificant; Meaningful-inconsequential; Important-not important; Historically valuablehistorically insignificant; Priceless-worthless; Familiar-unfamiliar. It has been suggested that more than one rating scale item per construct or dimension is necessary and four rating scale items per dimension is desirable (Heise, 1970). Heise (1970) also suggests that the maximum number of evaluations should not exceed fifty, as any more than this may lead to participant fatigue and affect the reliability of results. Seven anchor points are considered to provide “good reliability values and correlates well with other attitude scales thus producing high concurrent 1 Parametric statistical analysis that relies on standard normal distribution may be inappropriate when valuing cultural heritage given that outlier scores arising from such analysis may in fact represent key cultural or sub-cultural groups for whom an item of cultural significance holds particular value. To address this issue, stratified cluster sampling is recommended and findings shouldn’t be generalise findings to a broader population. 192 Refereed Full-Papers validity” (Coolican, 2004, p. 176). In addition, numeric values as labels coupled with subjective rating scale adjectives have been found to influence the way participants complete a semantic differential rating scale (Schwarz, Knauper, Hipler, NoelleNeumann, & Clark, 1991). However, labelling of anchor points may not lead to a scale that contains equally balanced positions between each point; and the distance between ‘very’ and ‘fairly’ may be a perceptually larger distance between the next anchor points of ‘fairly’ and ‘slightly’ (Friedman & Amoo, 1999). It is recommended that visual stimuli are used in conjunction with a rating scale and the following stimulus sampling process is recommended to ensure that visual stimuli are representative, visually consistent and free from visual distractions (Schroeder, 1988; Wohlwill, 1977). This process involves collecting a large range of images and developing selection criteria that includes: - Representative exemplar image/s of item x; - High photographic quality; - Nil visually distracting elements (i.e., people, cars, etc); - Consistency of ambient lighting, background details, etc. It is suggested that a non-probabilistic purposive sampling approach is again applied as per the discussion of stratified cluster sampling above. The key outcome would be articulated ratings in respect to significance and historical interpretation of items of cultural significance achieved via nominal group consensus. 1.4 Assessment of rarity, quality and representativeness It is recommended that the Q-sort technique is used in conjunction with visual stimuli to achieve levels of nominal group consensus in respect to decisions about the rarity, quality and representativeness of items of cultural significance. The Q-sort technique, developed by Stephenson in the 1930s, elicits perceptions and judgments of a subjective nature by directing participants to sort visual stimuli (representing independent variable/s) using categories defined by the researcher. Participants may be directed to find patterns of similarity or dissimilarity using categories devised May 2011 – Make No Little Plans by the researcher or to rank visual stimuli using a system devised by the researcher (Amin, 2000; Groat & Wang, 2002; Stephenson, 1953). It is proposed that a nominal group (comprising members of particular cultural/sub-cultural and ‘expert’ groups) are asked to sort images of items of cultural significance into categories such as: “Rare example of...”; “Outstanding example of...”; “Unique example of...”; and “Representative example of...” Once items have been categorised as above, a second Q-sort can be conducted to further categorise and rate items of cultural significance as follows: “Extremely rare example of...” “High quality example of...” “Rare example of...” “Good quality example of...” It is suggested that a non-probabilistic purposive sampling approach is again applied as per the discussion of stratified cluster sampling above. The key outcomes of this process would be clearly articulated ratings in respect to rarity, quality and representativeness of items of cultural significance achieved via consensus among nominated group(s). 1.5 Aesthetic evaluation Aesthetic response is known to vary due to individual and cultural differences and is considered to involve a complex interaction of affective and cognitive responses, many of which may be of a non-linguistic nature and therefore difficult to quantify (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1975; Ulrich, 1983; Zajonc, 1980; Zajonc & Marcus, 1982). Despite the complexity of aesthetic response, semantic differential rating scales are often used as a measurement device in conjunction with visual stimuli (Janssens, 2001; Osgood et al., 1975; Ou, Luo, Woodcock, & Wright, 2004; Russell, 1988; Russell, Ward, & Pratt, 1981; Taft & Sivik, 1997; Tannenbaum & Osgood, 1952; Urland, 1997; Wohlwill & Harris, 1980). Rating scale items may include: Like-dislike; Pleasant-unpleasant; Beautiful-ugly; Harmonious-disharmonious; Exciting-gloomy; and Stimulating-dull. Both factor analysis and analysis of variance could be applied to the resulting data. Factor analysis is 193 Refereed Full-Papers an exploratory data reduction technique previously applied to semantic differential rating scale data which allows for the identification of key factors via eigen values and factor loadings which provide a statistical basis for linking variables to constructs. In addition, analysis of variance provides an indication of variance in terms of aesthetic response ratings. However, outlier scores would need to be carefully considered and included in the resulting data analysis (Coolican, 2004; Hinton, 2004; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). It is suggested that a non-probabilistic purposive sampling approach is again applied as per the discussion of stratified cluster sampling above. The key outcomes would include an indication of relevant factors (rating scale items) linked to positive aesthetic response in respect to individual items of cultural significance. Analysis of variance would indicate which items of cultural significance are rated more highly in terms of aesthetic response. 1.6 Contextual assessment An item of cultural significance generally exists within a broader context, landscape or setting and may be contingent on, or impacted by, contextual factors. A contextual assessment may provide an indication of the environmental factors relevant to an individual item of cultural significance such as the nature of the contextual setting; the existing level/s of environmental protection; and likely threats in terms of types of impact and risk of occurrence. Beyond identifying and articulating relevant contextual factors, a rating scale based on levels defined by nominal group consensus could be applied that indicates the relative weighting of key contextual factors in respect to a particular item of cultural significance. Given the mostly objective nature of contextual assessment, this task could be performed by an ‘expert’ group comprised of people with expert knowledge in terms of environmental assessment and economics. Key outcomes would include contextual assessment statements that identify key contextual factors; plus a range of scores (from high to low) of items of cultural significance in respect to defined levels of contextual evaluation. 194 1.7 Sustainability evaluation Cultural heritage links with sustainability from two angles. Firstly, cultural heritage must exist within a system that supports the objectives of sustainable economic development. Secondly, cultural heritage can contribute to sustainable economic development when the economic potential of cultural heritage is utilised in economic policy without compromising its inherent values (COE, 2005). UNESCO suggests that the key decisions regarding the sustainability of heritage items includes defining which elements of an Item are (i) to be conserved at all costs, (ii) subject to limited change provided that the overall character and significance is maintained, and (iii) suitable for exchange in return for other benefits (Mitchell et al., 2009). In light of the above, a sustainability assessment would need to address the following: - The item’s ability to be self-sustaining; - The inherent ability of the item to provide community benefits (such as income generation); - The level of management needed to conserve, protect, and maintain the item - The ability of the community to maintain levels of protection, maintenance, etc. In addition, each of the above factors could be evaluated in terms of a rating scale which provides different scores in respect to levels defined by nominal group consensus. Given the objective nature of a sustainability evaluation, this task could be performed by an ‘expert’ group comprised of people with expert knowledge of sustainability issues, tourism issues, economics, etc. The key outcomes would be sustainability evaluation statements that clearly articulate key aspects of sustainability in respect to particular items of cultural significance; plus a range of scores (from high to low) of items of cultural significance in respect to defined levels of sustainability. Discussion The valuation of cultural heritage is a multi-dimensional process and the conceptual model of cultural heritage and the range of evaluation strategies detailed above are offered as a starting point for further discussion. These strategies, which follow a cumulative Refereed Full-Papers approach, may assist with quantifying overall value in respect to items of cultural significance. However, the process of acknowledging history within the broader environment needs to be about more than just nostalgia. Blakely suggests that “heritage buildings are no heritage when they interfere with the future of a community... if everything is preserved, then nothing has value” and that it is the act of selective preservation that generates new value (Blakely cited in Gilmour, 2007, p. v). Therefore, the process of assessing and quantifying value needs to be methodical and systematic as well as fair, balanced, and transparent. References AICOMOS. (1999). The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance. Retrieved 8 April 2010. from http://australia.icomos.org/images/pdf/BURRA_ CHARTER.pdf. Amin, Z. (2000). Q methodology - A journey into the subjectivity of the human mind. Singapore Medical Journal, 41, 410-414. Avrami, E., & Mason, R. (2000). Values and Heritage Conservation (Research Report). Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute. Campbell, S. M., & Cantrill, J. A. (2001). Consensus methods in prescribing research. Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 26(5-14). Carter, R. W., & Bramley, R. (2002). Defining heritage values and significance for improved resource management: An application to Australian tourism. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 8(3), 175-199. COE. (2005). Presentation of the framework convention on the value of cultural heritage for society (Faro, 2005). Retrieved 18 August 2010, from http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/ cultureheritage/heritage/identities/faro_pres_en.asp Coolican, H. (2004). Research methods and statistics in psychology (4th ed.). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Friedman, H. H., & Amoo, T. (1999). Rating the rating scales. Journal of Marketing Management, 9(3), 114-123. Gilmour, T. (2007). Sustaining heritage: Giving the past a future. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Groat, L., & Wang, D. (2002). Architectural research methods. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Heise, D. R. (1970). The semantic differential and attitude research. In G. Summers (Ed.), Attitude measurement. Chicago: Rand McNally. Hewison, R. (1987). The heritage industry: Britain in a climate of decline. London: Methuen. Hinton, P. R. (2004). Statistics explained (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Janssens, J. (2001). Facade colours: Not just a matter of taste. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 14, 11-16. Keeney, S., Hasson, F., & McKenna, H. P. (2001). A critical review of the Delphi technique as a research methodology. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 38, 195-200. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Lewin, K. (1967). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. London: Social Science Press. Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge: MIT Press. Mitchell, N., Rossler, M., & Tricaud, P. M. (2009). World Heritage Cultural Landscapes: A handbook for conservation and management (World Heritage Paper 26). Paris: UNESCO. Moore, G. T. (1987). 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Affective quality attributed to environments: A factor analytic study. Environment and Behaviour, 13(3), 259-288. Schroeder, H. W. (1988). Visual impact of hillside development: Comparison of measurements derived from aerial and ground-level photographs. Landscape and Urban Planning, 15, 119-126. Schwarz, N., Knauper, B., Hipler, H. J., Noelle-Neumann, E., & Clark, L. (1991). Numeric values may change the meaning of scale labels. Public Opinion Quarterly, 55(4), 570-582. Stephenson, W. (1953). The study of behavior: Q-technique and its methodology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1996). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). New York: Harper Collins. Taft, C., & Sivik, L. (1997). Color meaning and context. Paper presented at the Colour Report: Colour and Psychology F50, Gothenburg. Tannenbaum, P. H., & Osgood, C. E. (1952). Effect of color on the meanings of advertised products. In C. E. Osgood, G. J. Suci & P. H. Tannenbaum (Eds.), The measurement of meaning. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Ulrich, R. S. (1983). Aesthetic and affective response to natural environments. In I. Altman & J. F. Wohlwill (Eds.), Human Behaviour and Environment (Vol. 6). New York: Plenum Press. UNESCO. (2008a). Operational guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre. UNESCO. (2008b). World Heritage Sites: The criteria for selection. Retrieved 10 August 2010, from http://whc. unesco.org/en/criteria/ 195 Refereed Full-Papers Urland, A. (1997). Attempt at finding the objective factors underlying subjective aesthetical evaluations of exterior architectural colour schemes - an experimental research study. Paper presented at the Colour Report: Colour and Psychology F50. AIC Interim Meeting, Gothenburg. Ward, L. M., & Russell, J. A. (1981). The psychological representation of molar physical environments. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 110(2), 121-151. Wohlwill, J. F. (1977). Visual assessment of urban riverfront. Unpublished manuscript. 196 Wohlwill, J. F., & Harris, G. (1980). Response to congruity or contrast for man-made features in natural-recreation settings. Leisure Science, 3(4), 349-365. Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35(2), 151-175. Zajonc, R. B., & Marcus, H. (1982). Affective and cognitive factors in preferences. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(2), 123-131. Refereed Full-Papers Conceptual Foundations for Modeling the Sociospatial Structures of Activity in Facilities Programming Lubomir Popov (Bowling Green State University) Introduction Human activity constitutes a major theme in the social sciences. It is such a fundamental category that no matter how much it is explored, some areas are still need additional development. While there is a tremendous concentration of resources and publications in a number of social science domains, in others, there are almost no explorations of human activity. Many areas do not attract enough scholarship efforts because they are not typical of social science endeavors, they do not threaten the social structure and order, or they are not supported by government or foundation funding. Such areas also require an interdisciplinary engagement and the bringing together of intellectual resources from quite diverse fields. This project is dedicated to one such domain: the social aspects of the built environment, including applied research such as facilities programming. The current paper presents a study of human activity for the purpose of creating a conceptual foundation for construing the structures of activity that encompass both social and spatial elements. Such activity structures will form the core of facilities programming research designs. Facilities programming provides project-specific information for design decision-making. The facilities program describes building users and their activities, norms, needs, and preferences. During the programming phase, user behavior patterns are studied, priorities about allocation of resources are made, and user requirements are formulated. Facilities programming is a complex process that involves information gathering and analyzing, decision-making, and spatial reasoning (Harrigan, 1987; Preiser, 1993; Sanoff, 1992). The core of programming is the study of activities and user operations that take place in the built environment. An analysis of the literature on programming shows that activity analysis constitutes the foundation for developing user requirements (Harrigan, 1987; Bechtel, May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 1977; Moleski, 1974; Sanoff, 1992). The activity theme exists, directly or indirectly, in almost all publications on programming. It is presented in different disciplinary languages, ranging from the terminology of the social sciences, to the lingo of operations managers, to the plain language in leisure and recreation planning. There are several reasons for this attention to human activity. In brief, the concept of activity should have a privileged status within facilities programming research because it is activity that forms the nexus of all relationships; it constitutes the medium of interaction, and it is the realm wherein other sociospatial categories acquire meaning and importance. The numerous models of human activity developed in the social sciences—within a multitude of different domains—are well known. Most of these activity models have been created for purely academic pursuits or for the particularized needs of management, marketing, social work, education, human-computer interaction, and other fields (Bedny & Karwowski, 2007; Berglind, 1988; Good & Brophy, 1995; Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006; Kotler, 2003; Lamport, Coffey, & Hersch, 2001; Robins, 2003; Staubmann, 2006; Stewart, 1998; Valach, Young, & Lyman, 2002). These conceptualizations of activity predominantly envisage the sociocultural aspects of human action, and they usually focus on the relationships between its social elements and attributes. Such models are not conceived for the study of the built environment and the sociospatial interactions, and in many aspects they are not relevant to and efficient for such applications. Besides, the variety of activity models is often a source of information overload and confusion, impeding the search for conceptualizations that are relevant to sociospatial research. Sociospatial studies, and programming research in particular, have their own specific requirements regarding activity models. These requirements result from the nature and objectives of programming research, the nature of sociospatial phenomena, and the information needs of the design process. Such circumstances influence all of the discourse on activity and its spatial dimensions, and they also constitute the subject matter for activity studies in programming. Correspondingly, they will generate the basic criteria for assessing activity models in terms of their appropriateness and efficiency regarding programming research. The goal of this paper is to present conceptual foundations for modeling human activity for the purposes of facilities programming research. The objective is to 197 Refereed Full-Papers suggest directions for analyzing activity systems and for building activity models with respect to necessary conditions. These directions will also facilitate the search for specific aspects and structures of activity that relate social and spatial elements. Additionally, they will help to reveal the structures of activity that allow for the identification of the necessary conditions and undesirable influences (impediments, restrictions, and limitations) that impact the facilitating and sustaining of activity processes. The development of specific activity models remains outside the scope of this paper. A Short Review of Selected Activity Models There are myriad perspectives on and models of human activity in dozens of disciplines, areas, and domains. This makes the task of finding the appropriate point of view for analyzing human activity both challenging and time-consuming. This section discusses only selected positions, thus restricting the scope of conceptualization to a manageable size. The emphasis is on four major ways of analyzing human activity in terms of (a) its constituent individual processes; (b) the scale of the segmentation of activity; (c) the content of activity; and (d) pragmatic models from practice fields. Activity Models Based Upon Constituent Individual Processes These models usually consider physiological and psychological processes. Many authors (Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson, 2007; Lamport, Coffey, & Hersch, 2001) add the motor processes as well as selected social aspects. The physiological processes are relatively uniform for most user groups, with the exception of groups formed on the basis of specific health status, ability, or age. At the psychological level, the main processes that constitute activities are cognitive, emotive (affective), and conative. Within this perspective, there is a tendency to analyze and optimize processes one by one. The models are very productive at the micro scale, in human factors and ergonomics, but they are not created for analyzing the holistic relationships between activities at the building scale. In accordance with many authors, real activities will be viewed as entities on a large scale—that is, molar phenomena (Kuutti, 1999). Correspondingly, the identification of the necessary conditions (needs) in facilities programming should be determined not in relation to isolated, segmented, and fragmented elements (such as physiological, psycho-physiological, and psychologi- 198 cal processes) but in the context and on the basis of the whole stream of human behavior. Activity Models Based Upon Scale of Segmentation of Activity Activity can be modeled in terms of actions, operations, and acts (Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson, 2007; Davidov, 1990; Engestrom, 1999). Such a perspective is used in the psychology of work, human factors engineering, and job design (Aamodt, 2006; Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson, 2007; Smither, 1998). The value of this approach might be obvious to professionals engaged in productivity enhancement, personnel training, and job design. These models are usually developed for the study of operations and operators’ reactions, as well as separate individual processes. Such models tend to focus too much on human performance in small-scale situations. However, despite a number of positive contributions, these models fall short of describing holistic large-scale activities at building scale. Activity Models Based Upon Content of Activity In contrast, there are alternative models that tend to embrace larger units of study that are different from the sum total of all constituent processes. These models also represent the units of study in a larger context (Hewitt, 2003; Strauss, 1993). The content-based models of activity include information about the type of operations performed, the interconnections between operations and processes, the algorithms of organizing these operations and processes, the agents (actors, participants), goals and motivation specificity, functions and outcomes, meaning and importance, volume of transactions and flows, and similar considerations. In the content model perspective, the basic assumption is that it is not the separate individual processes and qualities of the participants that shape the environmental interactions, but rather the syncretic result of their synchronized and interrelated flow (Davidov, 1999). One example of the content-based approach to human activity is the concept stream of activity (Hewitt, 2003), which is similar to the concepts stream of behavior (Barker, 1968) and activity chain (Perin, 1970). This concept is operationalized by breaking down the activity processes into more simple units on the basis of their content. The activity structures are construed by describing the various “things” a person does (Hewitt, 2003). These descriptions inevitably include or refer to the environment where the individual acts are embed- Refereed Full-Papers ded. Such an ideographic method naturally bridges the abstractness of social science conceptualizations and the experiential approach with which space planners and designers think about human activities. Pragmatic Activity Models From Practice Fields In environment and behavior research, and particularly within the field of space syntax, the predominant research problems are related to the spatial structures of activity and are expressed in terms of movement, physical communication, and proximity (Hillier, 1996; Peponis & Wineman, 2002). These problems are interconnected, because face-to-face communication requires the arrangement of all participants together, closer in space. That proximity is, in turn, provided by movement. However, no matter how important and heuristic these problems are, they strongly overshadow all other considerations and bias the general picture. Another tradition, one that is both holistic and experiential, has grown in the field of leisure and recreation. These models display descriptive stance, content orientation, and everyday rationality. Kraus (1997) implicitly uses a framework that consists of participants, type of activity, activity events (contests, shows, and so forth), social significance of activity, value for participants, developmental functions of activity, personality functions of activity, skills and abilities needed for participation, administration and leadership, and community development. Rossman and Schlatter (2008) work within the same tradition, although they make a somewhat different categorization: activity (content), patterns of organization, and format. The format is described in terms of instructors, personnel, officers; registration and participant fees; class size, meetings, and units; and location, facility, and publicity. The level of specificity is guided by the requirements of particular professional routines and responsibilities. An important perspective can be gleaned from the fields of organizational studies and organizational design (Cummings & Worley, 2001). The conceptualization and the parlance are different from the traditions in the major social sciences. From this vantage point, it is more likely to construe basic activity models that can be used as foundations for developing theories of organization and guidelines for management consulting. The major interests focus on organizational structure, processes, and outputs. These areas are interpreted in terms of communication and flows, applied to several different categories: resources, participants/actors, and May 2011 – Make No Little Plans information. The emphasis is on exchange and interaction, both among social agents and among activities. Conceptual Directions: Activity Dimensions Regarding the Organization of Space These directions for activity modeling are developed by interpreting the major dimensions and relationships among activities, as well as among activities and their settings. The relationships among activities situated within built environment evolve along several lines: functions; operations, flows, and communication; space and time; and conditions and resources. Each one of these lines is elaborated below in order to provide conceptual grounds and guidance for designing situationspecific activity models that can be used in facilities programming projects. The actual model-building will take place in a later project, and the results will be presented in a subsequent paper. Functions Function can be construed as a relation of contributing within and among activities. In this study, function refers to the contributions made by one activity to the “existence” or “flow” of another activity, as well as to each activity’s maintenance and support of the activity system. The functional structure of activities emerges on the grounds of “demand-supply” or “input-output” relationships. Functional analysis describes the interdependence between activities, and explicates the social meaning of these relationships. It is the stepping stone for the conceptual re-envisioning of the activity systems that are to be serviced by the building. When a proactive approach is adopted, advocating redesign of activity systems and the social organization as the grounds for functional programming, function is determined first; only then are the operations necessary for its performance designed. From a functional perspective, activities can be categorized according to the effects they supply, their performance, and their role within the broader context. The list of functions is virtually endless, and its content depends on the specificity of the situation. Some functional classifications can be designed on the grounds of importance, for example, basic and secondary activities. In addition, it is productive to conceptualize a layer of “servicing” activities. They are defined on the grounds of the support they provide to basic and secondary activities. 199 Refereed Full-Papers Operations, Flows, and Communication The flows of resources, participants/actors, and information within an organization or a setting constitute a system of exchanges among activities and generate a cluster of structures that set the corresponding relationships among activity units. For example, the exchange of resources encompasses raw materials, products, and byproducts. The exchange can be conceptualized in terms of inputs and outputs. The products or results of one activity might become “inputs” for another activity. The inputs are raw materials or prefabricated components that may inform another activity. The concept of “output” is broad enough to encompass not only desired outcomes but also all types of emissions, including side effects and counterproductive influences. In complex organizations, the flows acquire special importance. The specific way the flows are interrelated exerts a profound effect on the overall organizational design. When the participants are viewed as bodies (anthropometric aspect), their movements constitute one of the flows (Hillier, 1996; Peponis & Wineman, 2002). However, since actors are more than inanimate objects, this flow is strongly affected by a drive to minimize loss of energy, time, and level of comfort. These factors affect activity and its operational patterns through influencing the personal dispositions of the social agents toward one or another course of action. At the level of information flows (which go along several distinct lines), close attention should be paid to face-to-face communication and other modes of information-transfer that require particular spatial conditions. Space and Time Activities take place in time, and they have to be organized along this dimension as well (Gren, 2001; Whipp, 2002). Temporal synchronization is even more important than spatial organization, because the flow of time is unidirectional, and disrupted connections cannot be substituted or changed, as is possible in space. The view of activity as a stream or chain stresses its transience and underlines its temporal aspect. The temporal aspect is of primary importance in organizing cooperative action, because cooperation presupposes synchronization of flows of people, materials, energy, and information. In this respect, the synchronization of start, end, and duration is of greatest importance. Duration is another parameter that is often influenced by the actual possibility of the social system to carry out all its activities within the limits of natural cycles. 200 Space and time are interrelated (Crang, 2001, Gren, 2001, Stein, 2001). For example, moving in space takes time, and using one and the same room/place for different activities requires a time schedule. Temporal separation among activities can be substituted for spatial separation. Different and often incompatible activities can be carried out in the same room—if they are separated in time and are conducted at different times according to a schedule. Temporal organization is the simplest means of solving such problems. From a certain point of view, sequential use of spaces for different activities is also a way of saving resources, because with close attention to temporal considerations, the use of the premises may be maximized and the need for new rooms may subside. Conditions and Resources Following these conceptualizations, activity can be viewed as a medium of interaction and interrelation between social agents and spatial configurations. Spatial configurations provide the “stage” and supply conditions necessary for the agents to function and sustain social relations. These conditions have an impact on the trajectory of activity and the psychological states of the agents. Sometimes the environment is supportive of the premeditated action plans; in other situations, the action plans have to be modified in order to prevent collisions with the “hard” environment. From such a perspective, agent-environment interactions are analyzed as necessary conditions and resources. The basic principles of people-environment interactions and the goal structure of programming research imply a differentiation of activity systems according to the conditions they need. The interrelation of activities and spatial arrangements brings about the problem of necessary environmental conditions. Conditions constitute the contact points in sociospatial interactions. The artificial physical environment is built with the purpose of producing (supplying) necessary conditions for activities and processes. From this point of view, facilities programming research aims to identify needs and need-related phenomena with the ultimate goal of translating them into design requirements. This aspect of activity constitutes the basis of activity studies in facilities programming and generates the basic criteria for assessing activity models regarding their productivity in programming. The process of environmental interaction is dynamic and variable. The psychological and social states of the social agent change as a result of the impact of the en- Refereed Full-Papers vironmental conditions. At the same time, in each new state, the agent requires new conditions. In other words, the agent enters into a new series of relationships with the environment. The same interactional dynamic takes place when the social agent moves from one type of behavior setting to another. He or she enters into a different situation characterized by a different set of conditions. The new conditions presuppose that the agent will enter into different relations with environment. Every specific situation generates new need-states—and thus new requirements and necessary conditions. Synthesis: A View of Activity From a Sociospatial Perspective The notions presented above constitute the grounds for construing the sociospatial structures of activity and for designing new activity systems. The real sociospatial effects emerge when activities are organized within physical reality. When constructing activity patterns, both the spatial and the temporal influences must be considered. From this point of view, sociospatial structures are comprised of the relationships among activities and their necessary conditions and, respectively, undesirable influences, and other impeding and blocking factors that act to limit or restrict the activities. The sociospatial structures can also be identified in relation to those dimensions of activity that are influenced by the size and the configuration of space, adjacencies, and temporal coordination, to name several of the most basic characteristics. The study of activity for the purposes of facilities programming presupposes an emphasis on the relationships among activities that emerge with respect to the environmental conditions necessary for sustaining and reproducing human action. Also of vital interest are the relationships among social agents that emerge with regard to these conditions. The sociospatial analysis focuses on the structures of activity that emerge in the process of social interaction with and in the physical environment. These sociospatial structures represent the existence of social phenomena in space, as well as the social functioning of built artifacts. In a metatheoretical plan, the notion of sociospatial structures of activity shapes the research goals and the criteria for information collection in facilities programming. These ideas serve as a platform for generating a new conceptualization of the social realm, a notion focused on the environmental aspects of activities. Following this line of thinking, activities interact and enter into May 2011 – Make No Little Plans relationships because of their goals and the products, effects, and emissions they produce, and also because these elements constitute or contribute to the environment of other activities in the system. When activity interactions are managed by spatial or temporal means, new, derived relations emerge among activity units in respect to the spatial environment—relations like compatibility or incompatibility, cooperation or competition, complementarity or conflict, mutual support or impediment, succession or parallelism, autonomy or dependency, and so forth. These dimensions of activity interactions and interrelations influence the spatial organization of activities in real situations/settings. In its own turn, the organization of activities in space often brings about changes in their operational structures and specificity. The newly modified activity configurations interact again with one another and with the ambient environment. As a result, change takes place within these configurations, and a change in the resulting relations occurs as well. In reality, this is a cyclic, iterative process. The impact of space and the corresponding sociospatial effects and reconfigurations are natural outcomes of the reciprocal person-environment interactions. Concluding Remarks The propositions mentioned above constitute a way of thinking that is intended to serve as conceptual foundations of activity studies in facilities programming. In a metaphoric sense, activity is a medium that binds together participants, organization of participation, necessary conditions, and spatial structures. This vantage point establishes the grounds for a specific conditions and resources perspective on activity and also for a new kind of activity models for sociospatial research. The conceptualization of activity as a medium of interaction provides the basis for a new approach to analyzing the patterns of building use and the sociospatial structures of social reality. The purpose of the built environment is to supply necessary conditions for the functioning of human individuals, and this purpose presupposes the information needs of designers and the goal structure of facilities programming research. The results of the present study can be utilized in a number of ways. Other scholars can critically analyze the ideas presented here and offer new conceptualizations of activity regarding programming research. Furthermore, the paper can initiate a discussion and foster the development of alternative approaches, guidelines, and models. The author intends to use the conceptual 201 Refereed Full-Papers directions in a second project that will develop more concrete activity models, the purposes of which will be to guide the research design process in programming projects, to delineate the type of information to be collected, and to facilitate the interpretation of the data. The programmers will have the liberty and flexibility to adapt the models to their projects. References Aamodt, M. G. (2006). Applied industrial/organizational psychology. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. Barker, R. (1968). Ecological psychology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bechtel, R. (1977). Enclosing behavior. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross. Bedny, G. Z., & Karwowski, W. (2007). A systemic-structural theory of activity: Applications to human performance and work design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. Berglind, H. (1988). Towards an action theory for social work: Five essays. 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Refereed Full-Papers The Architecture and Urban Design Project Viewed as a Catalyst of Identity: Analysis of Recent Contributions to ‘Montrealness’ Alena Prochazka (University of Montreal, Canada) Abstract How and toward what evolves the “Montrealness” of the built environment of Montreal? How does the built landscape’s personality evolve as fact (in terms of physical landscape) and as idea (in terms of ideational landscape), as seen in recent projects? Between the typomorphological urbanism, the new modernism and the intent to adapt new technologies to the enduring nature and spirit of a place, architects and designers are creating a renewed Montrealness. The idea of the specific character (in terms of materials, construction systems, forms, styles, scale, density, networks) that is to be imposed on Montreal’s built environment to maintain and support its unique identity is created by its interpreters: architects and designers (through their projects) and observers (through the critical reception of the projects). The idea emerges from recycling, from one project to another, those characteristics that typify it. Despite and beyond a certain codified tradition of Montrealness, we have recently witnessed the emergence of projects that seem to break with the established imagery of identity. Is this a paradigm shift or a slow effacement of a Montreal personality recorded in the earlier strata that makes up the cityscape? By identifying the emerging trends among architects and designers who care about the continuity of Montreal’s imagery of identity—which gives physical reality to the personality of Montreal through the built environment— but who also demonstrate the innovation and creativity characteristic of the neomodernists, our research has revealed the emergence of a new hybrid paradigm, “critical contextuality.” Introduction My doctoral research was involved with the idea of “The Montrealness of Montreal;” more precisely, we examined the process by which recent urban and architectural projects in Montreal contribute to create May 2011 – Make No Little Plans its urban identity, i.e., the specific perceived personality of a built landscape. Montrealness has been a focus of interest since architect and urban artist Melvin Charney coined the expression in the late 1970s. Our position is that Montrealness is a result of representations and discourses which are attributed to architectural and urban features, and thus would originate during the genesis of projects, i.e., in the design choices made with respect to figures and strategies. Hence, our methodology is based on an analysis of projects’ “genetic” documents such as drawings, models, and other material used during the creative process, which communicate architectural concepts and intentions while confronting their Montrealness with the critical discourse surrounding the projects. This approach, while contributing to investigate the role of representations in the production of space, is primarily concerned with the continuity of urban form— in space as well as in time—within the perspective of change. In other words, we are looking into the process of updating the idea of Montrealness. The renewal of urban identity is particularly crucial in the context of globalization, which creates tensions between the local and the global (Castells, 1997), namely in the form of economic and cultural rivalry between cities. Indeed, research shows (Dear, 2001) that a strong self-image may be a factor in positioning cities in the global context. From this standpoint, how—by what mechanisms and tools during the design process— may urban projects contribute to asserting, intensifying, or updating such identity? Learning from Montreal, a Model or a Personality? There is an ambiguity indeed in the “learning from” question, particularly when discussing the built form of one city, in this case Montreal, with actors concerned with cities elsewhere. By “learning from,” do we mean studying a model to serve as an example for planning elsewhere, or are we interested in “learning from” as a design method for planning and building the urban landscape of that particular city? Trevor Boddy has made this crucial distinction, even though his focus was not on design methods but on discourse (writings) about Vancouver. Speaking of Vancouverism (Boddy, 2004), he rightly distinguishes between Vancouverism as a kind of “New Urbanism” prototype for planning new high-density residential neighbourhoods (in this case tall, skinny high-rise towers set on townhouse podiums) as opposed to Vancouverism meant as an intimate Vancouver sense of place. In other words, he contrasts the Vancouver 203 Refereed Full-Papers model with what one might call the Vancouver style (let us rather use the word personality). In Trevor Boddy’s (2003) words: “Vancouverism is evolving a second and more interesting sense, that of the latent [urban] character. [...] Call it the theory, or the legacy, or the idea of Vancouver, but increasingly our writers are producing books that capture this precious moment of self-knowledge, as this good-looking adolescent of a city enters a more complicated young adulthood.” However, Canadian cities, young and old, are the subject of this process of self-knowledge not only for the sake of historical insight. Our focus is that the very idea or image of the personality of a place which is being asserted by such investigations or discourse is a potent ingredient in the design of the urban landscape when it is taken into account in design methods. As a result, a unique urban identity is conferred upon that landscape. Certainly, this identity is continuously subject to change. We propose to show that such change, such an updating process, is brought forth through a few seminal projects combined with the recognition— or critical reception—that surrounds them. Urban identity is thus the result of a negotiation between the material landscape and the ideational landscape of its representations and the discourses created around it. In our doctoral research, we were looking particularly into the urban and architectural design methodologies that recycle this precious stuff of which the identity of a place is made. In their projects, how do urban designers and architects promote and/or update the special quality attributed to a particular city? To tackle this subject, two questions are raised with respect to the case of Montreal. How did the particular personality of Montreal’s built landscape which we call Montrealness become codified and established as an ideational landscape? What is the mechanism that enables some projects to contribute to the evolution of the “Montrealness of Montreal,” and in what way does this occur? Two concepts will be explored in order to get to the heart of the matter: 1- The process of codification of the idea or image of Montreal’s built form—this involves observers (critics, theorists, and artists who consecrate images of a city in their productions and writings); 2- The concept of recycling and/or updating this idea or image in projects—this involves urban designers and architects. 204 The Montrealness of Montreal With respect to the codification of the special quality attributed to a city, Montreal has an interesting and rich history which we will not go into in detail; however, let us briefly mention its milestones. The first coherent manifesto that involved Montreal’s specificity was published in 1971 by artist and architect Melvin Charney, then a professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Montreal. This neo-rationalist manifesto explores a populist approach to urban form: a sort of argument for “Learning from Montreal,” published a year before Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s landmark Learning from Las Vegas (published in 1972). Charney’s approach is resolutely urban vernacular (according to him, authentic modern architecture typical of Québec is to be found in the streets), and populist (this architecture has evolved, as he says, independently from official and academic architecture). He maintains that beyond its monuments, the architecture that is characteristic of a city is revealed in the street and in the buildings that constitute it: the street provides the built landscape with its overall cohesiveness. Charney uses this fertile ground as the basis for asserting the necessity, or as he puts it, the quoteunquote “project,” of affirming the Québécois identity and renewing it through the original works of architects. New buildings are to be linked to the urban fabric and are to respect the autonomy, so to speak, of a character specific to Montreal. In 1980, Charney coined the expression “the Montrealness of Montreal” to express this specific character of the urban landscape. In 1978, Charney founded the Urban Architecture Unit at the University of Montreal’s School of Architecture. The Unit would give rise to a project approach which became known as the School of Montreal (Martin, 1995:10). Of course, this posture, a sort of “urbanism of the street,” was at that time, in the 1970s, in line with postmodern ideologies devoted to reintroducing the semantic value of the built environment into design methods. In Quebec, project methods were marked by a typomorphological contextualism that took into account the urban dimension of the architectural intervention. Themes such as “continuity,” “insertion” and “integration” were typical of the era. For proponents of this approach, urban identity was a matter of reprise (a French word for mending and recycling) or emulation of the characteristics of earlier eras or of the “existing” built form. Urban continuity consisted in “fitting in” and in preserving the traces of existing structures, whether manifest or hidden Refereed Full-Papers (evolving around the idea of a palimpsest). From the 1980s onward, Montreal’s projects were praised and rewarded precisely for their integration into the existing context. Vaguely based on Charney’s paradigm and that of supporters of historical conservation, critics used Montrealness as a generic attribute without further exploring its figures. Meanwhile, a rather restricted idea of Montrealness became codified and is now pervasive in Montreal’s municipal bylaws, perhaps owing to former Urban Architecture Unit graduates hired by the city throughout the years. The intention to recycle the existing characteristics captured in charts and laid down in regulations is being strongly implemented. Today, in spite of the regulatory framework, is this codification being transgressed in some recent projects that are successfully updating the very concept of Montreal’s ideational landscape? Our studies have revealed that in recycling such a codified identity, architects and urban designers have stood up to the contemporary challenge and have come up with a new blend of neo-modern and post-modern attitudes. Before we point out some brief examples of this in Montreal, let us discuss a couple of precedents from elsewhere. An inspirational example is Christian de Portzamparc’s redevelopment of the Parisian Left Bank neighbourhood around the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France. In the late 1990s, he devised an interesting urban regulation tool he calls l’ilot ouvert (the open urban block). Based on his hybrid urban model, suitable for what he calls the Third Age of Cities, he makes reference to the 20th century heritage that includes both progressist and cultural approaches to city form. He rejects both the classical concept of contiguous buildings that shape the streetscape and the total independence of buildings from the street. His model for recycling the idea of the typical Parisian urban fabric is in fact a hybrid that lies somewhere between, on one hand, Le Corbusier’s ideal of fresh air and natural light for most individual dwellings on one hand, and on the other hand, the 19th century’s idealized integrity of the street as a living urban civic space. In other words, he refers to the two paradigms that either coexist or oppose one other everywhere today: the “culturalist” paradigm in which the city is understood as an urban fabric—referring to the classical culture of the “active void” between buildings—and the modern “progressist” paradigm in which the city can be considered the sum of buildings as autonomous isolated objects. We can also consider another “learning from” mani- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans festo that might be useful to revisit today. Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York1—a sort of “Learning from New York” published in 1978, seven years after Charney’s “Learning” and six years after Venturi and ScottBrown’s—is concerned with the volumetric space of the urban streetscape combined with modernist free-standing high-rise buildings. In the image “The City of the Captive Globe”, Koolhaas and Zoe Zenghelis imagine the possibility of creating a continuous space of streets shaped by an alignment of urban blocs punctuated by a collection of “metropolitan” buildings’ free-reference shapes. In contrast to what Trevor Boddy describes as Vancouverism as a model, Koolhaas’s study is not an example of how to build elsewhere. Instead, it inspires as a method of investigation through tools proper to architects and urban designers: the project as both instrumental know-how and as knowledge or, in other words, as both task-oriented thinking and critical thinking. Throughout our research, we have been fascinated by examples of projects everywhere that recycle the existing characteristics of urban landscape (an attitude based on typomorphology) while hybridizing with a neo-modernist freedom of invention within the contemporary paradigm. These projects may subsequently be recognized by critics and observers of urban architecture for their contribution to a city’s specific character, thus changing the expected image codified in the ideational landscape while embracing the ideal of urban continuity in time and in space. In doing so, these projects do in fact succeed in reinventing and updating the urban identity of a particular city. Their impact on this shifting identity is achieved through a serial effect, as other designers and architects become aware of the revised ideational characteristics and use them. In this manner, a process that can thus be called “learning from Montreal” takes place. Meanwhile, rather than merely identifying these seminal projects, our research was concerned with the mechanisms intrinsic to the design methods used and the transformation of the ideational characteristics (in our case, features of Montrealness) that speak of a specific urban identity of built form (the Montrealness of Montreal). “Learning From” as a Design Method We have observed that this hybrid attitude—which appears to be developing concurrently with other attitudes in architecture, some of which are much less concerned with physical context or local identity—seems to have appeared simultaneously in many places (Paris, 205 Refereed Full-Papers Singapore, Vancouver, Montreal). I am tempted to call this observed trend a “critical contextualism” which is specifically concerned with the urban landscape, in contrast to Kenneth Frampton’s well-known critical regionalism, which seems to rely rather on examples from regional architecture or isolated urban buildings. In Montreal, I have documented examples of such hybrid updating of Montrealness. They show how the already codified Montrealness is recycled in new and unexpected ways. This would be the second concept mentioned earlier: the updating process as we were able to observe it in the “genetic” material (drawings, models, notes) of “delinquent” projects: delinquent visà-vis the expected, the codified image of the city’s built form at a particular time. In this case, “learning from” becomes truly a design method, an emerging paradigm among design postures that refer to the physical context of projects to be built. Let us briefly examine a few examples of the features of Montrealness which were produced to implement this new paradigm. One such feature would be a type of urban contingency new to Montreal. In some seminal projects that have recently shaped the new face of the Quartier international de Montréal—namely Daoust Lestage’s much praised Centre CDP Capital2, set in the newly revitalized urban project Le Quartier international de Montréal, also designed by the team, and the new addition to the Palais des congrès de Montréal, designed by a consortium lead by Saia Barbarese Topuzanov3—we can observe the emergence of a particular blending of the modernist model of layered segregation which gave birth to Montreal’s underground city as it developed from the Place Ville-Marie project in the 1960s (Figure 1) with the traditional model of horizontal organic contingency of public and semi-public pedestrian space which is characteristic of the historical urban fabric typical of Montreal up to the mid-20th century. In line with the modernist ideal (Figure 2), as Vanlaethem puts it (Vanlaethem, 2004), of verticality (the tower, as a built object, surrounded by open space) and three-dimensional urban space (a base of infrastructures performing at the level of the urban block and the region, including its depressed and elevated highways and the underground networks of its indoor city) which prevailed during Montreal’s Urban Renewal episode, the neighbourhood of the future Quartier international was thoroughly devastated, mainly by the construction of the Ville-Marie Expressway (Figure 3). As Daoust Lestage set out to mend and reconstruct the public 206 realm in this very central part of the city, they acknowledged both these contradictory traditions in their hybrid proposal, which combines the modernist ideal of multilayered verticality with the typomorphological ideal of spatial continuity of the public realm indoors and in, under and above ground level, in order to provide the city with alternative pedestrian itineraries that are intertwined with the fabric of streets and sidewalks linked to the underground city (Figure 4). A similar interest in urban connectivity seems to be occurring in some recent projects elsewhere, such as in the Singapore “landscrapers.” Thus, the indoor city, a distinctive feature of Montreal, is complemented by underground passages or alternative paths that pass through buildings, sometimes at groundfloor level (Palais des congrès), sometimes across buildings suspended, as veritable bridges, above former streets that have been reconfigured (a linear hall, the “Parquet”, runs through the Centre CDP Capital from east to west, forming a sort of hyphen connecting two urban squares, Figure 5). This variety of pedestrian itineraries creates the sort of relationship between outdoor public space and indoor public (or semi-public) space so essential to the typomorphological approach from which the paradigm inspired by Melvin Charney has emerged. One of the founding images of this approach, Gianbattista Nolli’s 1748 plan of Rome, an analytic horizontal view of the solids and voids of the city, which was rediscovered and adopted by the neo-rationalist proponents of typomorphology4, exemplifies the typomorphological ideal of organic horizontal contingency. Initiated in this project, the typomorphological ideal was successfully blended with the modernist model of layered segregation. As this idea is being used in other projects, a new feature of Montrealness, genetically linked to Montreal’s imagery of identity, is being borne. Another feature of Montrealness is the reference to the emblematic Montreal greystone in the use of contemporary materials and technologies in curtain walls. In contrast to the glass façades of the 1960s, which were widely criticized for their lack of integration into the existing traditional urban landscape, some designers and architects are reinventing contemporary tectonics to provide continuity with Montreal’s typical stone façades (Figure 6) in terms of a greystone-like stereotomic quality of shadows, textures and thickness. These recent projects demonstrate a rich plasticity of surface, a tectonic quality that distinguishes them from the first generation of glass curtain walls. An inspirational example is again Daoust Lestage’s Centre CDP Capital. According to Refereed Full-Papers the designers, and as is apparent in the design drawings, the concern with using an innovative construction system—a double glass wall that was developed specifically for this project and provides exceptional thermal performance—and adapting it to the idea of the Montrealness of stone walls can be considered an example of an investment in identity through invention. Montreal greystone, which is both a material and an imagery of identity, can be considered “translated” into a contemporary expression. Indeed, according to Éric Gauthier, one of the architects of the project, the intention was to use this articulated curtain wall to make reference to the details of a stone wall by creating a kind of effect of thickness (Figure 7). The changing lines of shadows reveal projections and hollows, the play of thicknesses within the double glass wall, of transparency and of relief. An effect of grain, of texture and grey colour is thus achieved, enhanced by the use of strips of greystone cladding. All of these tectonic impressions refer back to the craft of the stonecutter. So after its frequent use in the 1960s and 1970s, the all-glass curtain wall is back to Montreal. Will a second generation be more concerned with preserving the memory of a built environment consisting predominantly of masonry? And will this concern be expressed as a contemporary translation of a generic Montreal characteristic rather than as an imitation, as is the case with artificial stone clad façades? A careful look at the contemporary architectural production in Montreal does point to a sort of a series effect of this genetic feature of Montrealness. Our research has yielded these and other examples of such contemporary transfer of ideational characteristics that are a translation rather than an imitation of Montreal’s existing cityscape. Here, the mechanism involves an abstracted idea of Montrealness rather than any specific architectural vocabulary of forms and ways to build. A common aspect of this emerging paradigm is the hybridization or cross-fertilization between the modern and classical paradigms. While keeping with the modern heritage that shaped Montreal’s identity as a modern metropolis decades ago, architects and designers are drawing on references within the evolving universal culture and simultaneously making a clear reference to the city’s classical or traditional heritage. A fascinating example of this hybridization is found in another aspect of Daoust Gauthier’s Centre CDP Capital project. We refer to the evolution of the crowning of a building. Since the completion of this project, May 2011 – Make No Little Plans many recent buildings mark a return to the classical idea of tripartite composition: base, body, crowning (Figure 8). While this feature is part of the recent universal architectural culture, it resonates with the continuity of Montreal’s character: most historical buildings surrounding the new projects in the Quartier international de Montréal do in fact follow this principle (Figure 9). However, a closer look reveals that the roof-level strategies of these new projects have more in common with the idea of the fifth façade, or “living on the roof”: one of the most striking images of the new and the modern which was so important to the Modern Movement from the outset5. In contrast, consider an example of a recycling of architectural features which lacks the updating that would ideally take place: a project from the 1990s which merely imitates Victorian roof shapes to top a contemporary high-rise hotel on the edge of Old Montreal (Figure 10). This feature of modernity has slowly made its way in Montreal’s urban landscape since the 1970s, when the initial attempts to domesticate rooftops appeared in the form of ad hoc sundecks and eventually more formal rooftop additions and penthouses, which later developed into genuine crowning elements that involved the entire volumetric composition of the building. The whole concept of the fifth façade points to other future developments such as the increased popularity of the idea of “green roofs” and the “Urban Agriculture” movements. We hope to have shown how our research reveals design methods that recycle and/or update the idea of Montrealness. In this sense, “learning from Montreal” is part of a design process that draws upon the talent and imagination of architects and designers who virtually create the sense of place in their projects by contributing to the identity of the place called Montreal. Heirs of post-World War II project methodologies that recycle the semantic value of the built environment in new buildings and urban improvement schemes and take into account the context in which they will be set, these projects contribute to the urban identity of the built environment through the recognition of the imagery of identity which they convey. While identity does rely on a good measure of continuity in time and in space, nevertheless these architects do not adhere to merely retrospective attitudes. In the approach that underlies their projects, will there be a meeting of the minds to overcome the apparently irreconcilable opposition between supporters of the recent enthusiasm for the neo-modern option, indifferent as it often is to context, and supporters of the realism of practices that look to the conservationist op- 207 Refereed Full-Papers tion to provide a sense of perennity and urban continuity? Thierry Paquot (2005) —a French scholar at the Institut d’urbanisme de Paris, a prolific scientific writer and the editor of the magazine Urbanisme— reminds us that in this age of globalization of urbanism, it is more than ever important to investigate the links between professional practice (architecture, urban design, urban planning) and the culture, identity, and history of a place and its inhabitants. In an era of reconfiguration of identities, it seems to us that in updating codified identities the contemporary challenge is to produce a new amalgam of the modern and the post-modern heritage. Some illustrations (many more will be added to the presentation on screen) Figure 1 The modernist model of layered segregation which gave birth to Montreal’s underground city as it developed from the Place Ville-Marie project (architects I.M. Pei and Ass., with Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, arch., 1958–65). Place Ville Marie, was developed as an entire city block by Canadian National Railway Company Real Estate. It confirmed the importance of Montréal’s below-ground pedestrian walkway system, which had its origins in CN’s Central Station. (Source: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects website [http://www.pcf-p.com/a/p/5503/s.html] accessed on March 4, 2005) 208 Figure 2 The modernist ideal of verticality (the tower, as a built object, surrounded by open space) and three-dimensional urban space (a base of infrastructures performing at the level of the urban block and the region, including its depressed and elevated highways and the underground networks) as illustrated in Ludwig Hilberseimer’s 1924 watercolour Cité verticale: vue en perspective, rue nord-sud from the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, a gift of George E. Danforth (Source: Ruth Eaton, 2001©:177) Figure 3 During Montreal’s Urban Renewal episode, the neighbourhood of the future Quartier international de Montréal was thoroughly devastated, mainly by the construction of the Ville-Marie Expressway from 1966 on. The Ville-Marie Expressway was part of the site for the Centre CDP Capital project. Daoust Lestage’s building would eventually span the depressed expressway. (Source: Daoust Lestage, architecture et design urbain archives) Refereed Full-Papers Figure 5 A linear hall, the “Parquet,” runs through the Centre CDP Capital from east to west, forming a sort of hyphen connecting two urban squares. Drawing by N.O.M.A.D.E. (Source: Daoust Lestage, architecture et design urbain archives) Figure 4 Inspired by the idea of the palimpsest, Daoust Lestage’s urban improvement project for the Quartier international de Montréal set out to mend and reconstruct the public realm in this very central part of the city by combining the modernist ideal of multilayered verticality with the typomorphological ideal of spatial continuity of the public realm indoors and in, under and above ground level, in order to provide the city with alternative pedestrian itineraries that are intertwined with the fabric of streets and sidewalks linked to the underground city. Illustrated here in a drawing titled Les éléments de la composition urbaine: interventions souterraines (Source: Le projet du quartier international de Montréal, Volet aménagement, Esquisse préliminaire, June 1999, Gauthier Daoust Lestage Inc. – Provencher Roy & Ass. Architecture et design urbain. Illustrtation by N.O.M.A.D.E.) May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Figure 6 Montreal’s typical greystone façades feature a stereotomic quality of shadows, textures and thickness. (Source: photo Alena Prochazka) 209 Refereed Full-Papers Figure 7 Daoust Lestage’s Centre CDP Capital features an articulated curtain wall that makes reference to the details of stone walls by creating a kind of effect of thickness. (Source: Daoust Lestage, architecture et design urbain archives) Figure 8 Daoust Gauthier’s Centre CDP Capital project is an example of the evolution of the crowning of Montreal’s most recent buildings. Since the completion of this project, most landmark buildings have followed this trend. While this feature is part of the recent universal architectural culture, it resonates with the continuity of Montreal’s character. 210 Figure 9 The 1912 Unity Building designed by David Jerome Spence for the Unity Building Company is neighbouring Doaust Lestage’s project in the Quartier international de Montréal. (Source : Ville de Montréal Heritage Website [http://patrimoine.ville.montreal. qc.ca/prix/speciaux03.htm#wawanessa] accessed on March 15 2006) Figure 10 Centre de commerce mondial de Montréal, designed in 1991 by Provencher Roy architectes (Source: Daoust Lestage, architecture et design urbain archives) Refereed Full-Papers NOTES 1 This work (Koolhaas, 1990) presents Koolhaas’s theory that “Manhattan has generated its own metropolitan Urbanism–a Culture of Congestion…” and suggests the hypothesis that “the metropolis needs/deserves its own specialized architecture, one that can vindicate the original promise of the metropolitan condition and develop the fresh traditions of the Culture of Congestion further…,” p. 242. 2 Designed by the Consortium Gauthier, Daoust Lestage inc. / Faucher Aubertin Brodeur Gauthier / Lemay et associés. 3 Designed by the Consortium TDS inc.: Les architectes Tétreault Parent Languedoc et assoc., Saia Barbarese Topouzanov Architectes, Les architectes Dupuis, Dubuc et associés (Ædifica) and Hal Ingberg Architect as independent consultant. 4 Inspired by the work of the Italian neo-rationalists and taken up again by Castex and Panerai (the French School) as well as by the School of Montreal, urban typomorphology as a design approach has remained active under the auspices of the group around the magazine Urban Morphology, along with other European partners, Michael Conzen and Anne Vernez-Moudon. 5 The idea of the fifth façade or “living on the roof” was suggested to le Corbusier by the FIAT racetrack in Torino as he published it, speaking of his fascination with industrial architecture, in his Vers une architecture (Paris: Arthaud , 1977). In fact, Le Corbusier’s 1930 terrace apartment on the roof of an apartment building in Paris, commissioned by a wealthy client named Charles de Beistegui is one of the very first Modern Movement projects featuring living on the roof. In this, Le Corbusier was took also inspiration from Mediterranean vernacular architecture. References Andrieux, Jean-Yves « Préface », dans Capucine Lemaître et Benjamin Sabatier (dir.) (2008), Patrimoines : fabrique, usages et réemplois, Québec, Éditions MultiMondes, Collection Cahiers de l’Institut du patrimoine de l’UQAM, no 6, p. iix-x. Andrieux, Jean-Yves et Fabienne Chevallier (dir.) (2005), La réception de l’architecture du mouvement moderne : Image, usage, héritage, Saint-Étienne, Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne. Balschaw, Maria et Liam Kennedy (dir.) (2000), Urban Space and Representation, Londres, Pluto Press. Bilodeau, Denis (1997), Precedents and Design Thinking in an Age of Relativisation. The Transformations of the Normative Discourse on the Orders of Architecture in France between 1650 and 1793, Delft, Delft Baukunde Publicatie. Boddy, Trevor (2004), “New Urbanism: ‘The Vancouver Model’”, Places, Form and Territory, 16.2, Berkeley. Boddy, Trevor (2003), ‘Vancouverism and its Discontents: Feature Review of Dream City by Lance Berelowitz and Vancouver Walking by Meredith Quartermain’, Vancouver Review Magazine, Vancouver, BC, June. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Boyer, Marie-Christine (2001 [1994]), The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press. Castells, Manuel (1997), The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Chassay, Jean-François et Bertrand Gervais (dir.) (2002), Les lieux de l’imaginaire, Montréal, Liber. Charney, Melvin (1971), “Pour une définition de l’architecture au Québec”, a presentation at J.A. de Sève Architecture et urbanisme au Québec conference, later published by Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1971, 11-42. A shorter version also published as “Towards a Definition of Quebec Architecture”, Progressive Architecture, vol. 53, no 9 (Sept. 1972), 104-107. Charney, M. (1980), “The Montrealness of Montreal. Formations and Formalities in Urban Architecture”, The Architectural Review, n° 999, May, 299-302. Corboz, André (2001), Le Territoire comme palimpseste et autres essais, préface de Sébastien Marot, Besançon, Éditions de l’Imprimeur. de Biasi, Pierre-Marc. « Pour une approche génétique en architecture », dans Pierre-Marc de Biasi et Réjean Legault (dir.) (2000), Genesis. Manuscrits. Recherche. Invention : revue internationale de critique génétique, no 14, Paris, Jean Michel Place et Montréal, Centre Canadien d’Architecture, p. 13-66. Dear, Michael J. (ed.) (2001), From Chicago to L.A. : Making Sence of Urban Theory, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Eaton, Ruth (2001), Cité idéales, L’utopisme et l’environnement (non) bâti, Bibliothèque des Amis du Fonds Mercator, Anvers, Belgium: Fonds Mercator and Ruth Eaton. Koolhaas, Rem (1978), Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, Louis (1995), « De l’école à la ville : la naissance d’une École de Montréal », Architecture-Québec ARQ, no 83, Febuary, Montreal, 10-11. Paquot, Thierry (2005), Lettre de recommendation, an unpublished manuscript. Paquot Thierry and Patrick Baudry (eds) (2003), L’urbain et ses imaginaires, Pessac, France : MSH. Pinson, Daniel (dir.) (2008), Métropoles au Canada et en France : dynamiques, politiques et cultures, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. Vanlaethem, France (2004), “Le centre-ville moderne de Montréal,” talk given at the ACFAS meeting in Montréal, May, unpublished. 211 Refereed Full-Papers Environmental Values and Their Relationship to Ecological Services Herbert W. Schroeder (USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station) Abstract Natural environments give rise to value in diverse ways for different people and groups. In this paper, I present a conceptual scheme for how different kinds of value may arise from a natural environment. I use this scheme to illustrate the different ways in which people value natural environments and to clarify the relationship between environmental values and ecological services. The concept of ecological services calls attention to beneficial ecological functions of natural environments that have historically been neglected because they are not priced or traded in markets. When first introduced, the idea of ecological services focused on certain biological and physical services that are important for human well-being, but that often go unrecognized in environmental design and management. As the concept has gained in popularity, however, there has been a tendency to broaden its definition, so that the definition of ecological services now commonly includes all forms of environmental values, from tangible products to cultural, aesthetic, and even spiritual values. Although some of the ways in which value arises from natural environments involve services that nature provides for people, people also may value an environment (or some part of it) for its own sake, even if it performs no services for them. Thus, it is inappropriate to equate environmental values with ecological services. The concept of ecological services contributes to environmental design and management by giving a more complete account of how nature benefits human well-being, including ways that have heretofore been overlooked in society’s decisions about natural environments. Attempting to understand all environmental values in terms of ecological services, however, may lead us to misunderstand or leave out of our thinking other important ways in which people value natural environments. 212 Introduction Natural environments give rise to value in diverse ways for different people and groups. Various systems and models have been proposed for identifying, cataloging, and considering these values in environmental decisions. Recently, increasing attention has been focused on the idea of ecological services (also called ecosystem services or environmental services; see for example Daily, 1997; Farber, Costanza, & Wilson, 2002; National Research Council, 2004). There does not appear to be consensus on precisely what this term means, but the general intent seems to be to provide a fuller accounting of the contributions that natural systems make to human well-being, in a form compatible with the economic criteria that dominate public and private decision-making in the modern world. By doing this, it is hoped that environmental design and management decisions will give appropriate consideration to essential ecological functions that have historically been neglected because they are not priced or traded in markets. Because so much of decision-making about environments and land use in modern society is driven or constrained by economic considerations, framing environmental values in economic terms seems like a logical approach to getting them included in society’s decision-making process. Indeed, advocates for protecting natural environments and incorporating natural features into the design of built settings have been eager to embrace research showing that natural features and systems provide tangible services that can be measured and assigned an economic value. Despite the current enthusiasm for ecological services, however, I wish to argue for taking a broader view of environmental values, even when doing so does not lend itself to an economic assessment of benefits. Value is a complex concept that relates to many different aspects of human experience and behavior. It may be difficult or impossible to encompass all the relevant senses of the word “value” into a single analytical or conceptual framework. Taking a broader view of values can help us to keep in mind aspects of the human-nature relationship that might be overlooked in an analysis of ecological services, and to grapple with the complexities and ambiguities that often arise in discussions of environmental values. In this paper, I describe a conceptual scheme for thinking about how different kinds of value may arise from a natural environment. I use this scheme to discuss some of the different ways in which people value natural environments and to examine the relationship between environmental values and ecological services. Refereed Full-Papers Pathways to environmental value The word “value” is defined in different ways in different disciplines (Brown, 1984). Readers wishing an introduction to the literature on values in natural resource management are referred to review articles by Dietz, Fitzgerald, and Shwom (2005), Farber et al. (2002), and Satterfield and Kalof (2005). For the purposes of this essay, I approach the concept of value in terms of human experience. That is, I understand “value” to mean the feeling or sense of importance, worth, or significance that something has for someone. Figure 1 illustrates several different ways in which an experience of value may arise from a natural environment. The large rectangle on the left side of the figure represents an environment, with the perimeter of the rectangle corresponding to the environment’s spatial boundaries. The smaller boxes located inside the large rectangle stand for things or processes that are part of or that take place within the environment, and the boxes located outside the rectangle stand for processes or things that can take place outside the boundaries of the environment (although they might occur within it as well). Value is experienced at the endpoints of different pathways that begin within the environment. When a symbol indicating value lies inside the rectangle, it means that a person must be physically within the Figure 1. Pathways to ecosystem value. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans environment to experience that value. When the value symbol lies outside the rectangle, it means that a person may experience that value when they are outside the environment’s boundaries as well as when they are within it. The boxes for “design” and “management” at the top of the figure reflect how the values associated with an environment are influenced by human interventions and modifications. Natural environments are a source of physical materials, which can be transported out of the environment and used in various ways. These materials may be of value when directly consumed, or they may be used to manufacture products that people value. In the diagram, this is represented by the pathway leading to value-1. In terms of the user’s experience, value-1 is directly associated with the materials or products at their final point of use, not with the environment from which they came. A person does not have to be in the environment to experience this value, and may not even know where the materials to make the valued product came from. For example, a person can experience the value of owning and living in a house without stopping to think that some of the materials to build the house and its furnishings came from trees and other plants harvested from a natural environment. A second pathway begins with biological and physical processes taking place within the boundaries of the environment. These may lead to outcomes (that is, changes in the state of the world) that people value or that positively affect their quality of life. Some of these outcomes may extend beyond the boundaries of the environment, for example improved air and water quality in the surrounding region, buffering of storm surges, and mitigation of global warming (Daily, 1997). This is represented by value-2 in the diagram. A person’s experience of this kind of value is directly associated with these final outcomes, rather than with the environments in which the outcomes originated. As with value-1, a person may experience this kind of value without actually being in the environment and may not be aware of where or how the valued outcome arose from the environment. For example, a resident of a flood-prone region may enjoy the benefit of a dry basement without being aware that flood water retention in the watershed upstream from their home helped to create that outcome. A person’s experience of both value-1 and value-2 occurs one or more steps removed from the environment in which the pathway leading to that value 213 Refereed Full-Papers originates. A person may experience these two kinds of value without being involved in any direct contact with the environment itself. Value-3, by contrast, occurs only when a person is within the environment and is engaged in some form of direct interaction with it. Value-3 represents the enjoyment or appreciation that occurs during the person’s immediate experience of that interaction. The interaction may involve physical activity and movement, such as kayaking on a river or riding a bicycle on a forest trail, or it may be less physically active and more focused on the perceptual experience of the environment, for example the aesthetic appreciation of a scenic landscape. In either case, the value arises in the person’s direct experience of their interaction with the environment, which occurs while they are physically within it. Value-4 also has its origin in a person’s direct interaction with the environment. In this case, however, the value derives from subsequent psychological, social, or physiological outcomes of this interaction, which might not occur until after the person has left the environment. For example, as a consequence of walking on a trail in a park, a person may experience improved cardiovascular health, which improves their quality of life beyond just those occasions when they are recreating in the park. Time spent in natural environments may help a person to recover from mental fatigue (Kaplan, 1995) and may reduce symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome (Kuo & Taylor, 2004), which may bring subsequent improvements in their performance at work or at school. Other people might also benefit from outcomes of a person’s contact with a natural environment. For example, an increase in job performance may mean higher productivity and more profits for the person’s employer. A reduction in mental fatigue may make a person less irritable and more enjoyable for their family and friends to be with. As with value-1 and value-2, a person’s experience of value-4 is directly associated with these subsequent outcomes and not with the environment itself. A person might experience this value without being aware that it is a result of their (or someone else’s) earlier interaction with a natural environment. Value-5 stems from the many ways in which the experience of being in a natural environment or a place can evoke meanings that are important for a person. Examples of such meanings might include sense of place (Williams & Stewart, 1998), community identity, and knowledge of the natural, historical, or cultural 214 aspects of a place. Value-5 also includes meanings that a place or environment has for a person when they are not currently in it, such as memories from visiting a place in the past, family connections to a particular area, or symbolic meanings associated with a particular kind of environment or land use, such as wilderness (Cole, 2005). Meanings are readily communicated from one person to another and can be formed based on indirectly obtained knowledge about an environment, for example by reading about it, hearing friends tell about it, or seeing it in movies or on TV. Thus, to experience value-5, a person does not necessarily need to have ever been in the environment. Relationship between environmental values and ecological services The diversity and complexity of ways in which value can arise from a natural environment leads to the question of how the different value pathways in Figure 1 relate to the notion of ecological services. When the idea of ecological services first began to appear, the discussion focused mainly on biological and physical functions of natural environments that are important for human well-being, but which often go unrecognized. In a National Research Council (1999) report about the values of natural systems, for example, ecosystem services were included as one heading under the general category of biological values. Ecosystem services in that report included things like water purification, erosion control, pollination, and protection of coastal zones from storm damage. Ecosystem services were seen as a special subset of biological values, while social and cultural values were treated as a separate class of values. But as the concept of ecological services has gained in popularity, there has been a tendency to broaden its definition, so that now many people define ecological services as an all-inclusive category that covers all forms of environmental values, from production of tangible products to social, cultural, aesthetic, and even spiritual values. For example, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003), following the lead of De Groot, Wilson, and Boumans (2002), includes four broad categories of ecosystem services, ranging from products such as food, fresh water, and fuel to “cultural services” such as spiritual and religious benefits, aesthetics, inspiration, sense of place, and cultural heritage. Thus, the tendency now is to subsume all forms of environmental value under the rubric of ecological services. A service by definition is an activity performed by Refereed Full-Papers someone or something for the benefit of somebody else. Thus, when we speak of “ecological services,” we are viewing the environment in terms of how it serves our desires and needs. Our focus of concern—what we value—is not the environment itself, but the things that it does for us. This way of looking at environmental values seems appropriate when we consider value-1, value-2, and value-4. For those kinds of value, it is the products and outcomes derived from the environment that have value, and as noted above, a person might experience the value of these services without even realizing that a natural environment was involved in creating them. An ecological services approach makes an important contribution by explicitly identifying these kinds of values and their linkages to the natural systems from which they originate. Some instances of value-3 might also be appropriately conceptualized as ecological services. For example, for a person engaging in a recreation activity, the environment may have value because it provides the necessary conditions and features that allow the activity to be enjoyed. What the person actually values is the recreation activity, and the environment performs a service by enabling the activity to occur. In other cases, however, a person’s immediate experience may involve a sense of appreciation for the environment (or some part of it) in and of itself. In this case, the experience of value is not so much concerned with what the environment can do for the person as with the environment as an entity that is valued for its own sake. For at least some people, experiencing aesthetic appreciation for an environment involves valuing the environment for the beautiful place that it is rather than for what it does for the person. To speak of this kind of value in terms of ecological services may not be an accurate representation of the way in which such people value places and things that they love. Similar considerations apply to value-5. In some instances, an environment or place may play an enabling role in evoking or representing a meaning that is central to a person’s or group’s sense of identity. For example, a natural feature such as a tree might take on symbolic meaning because of a key historical event that occurred there. If the feature is not valued for its own sake but functions as a carrier of a valued symbolic meaning, then it might be appropriate to consider this to be an ecological service. On the other hand, the meanings that people find in natural environments and places sometimes do focus on the environment or place per se, May 2011 – Make No Little Plans as an entity worthy of admiration for what it is in itself. A person’s attachment to a natural environment may involve a sense of respect and obligation that motivates the person to care for and protect a place for its own sake. If the term “ecological service” is to be applied to this situation, then it must be understood more broadly, to include not only how environments serve the needs of people, but also how people feel called on to serve the needs of environments, places, and ecosystems. The distinction I am making here—between valuing a natural environment for the services it provides to humans versus valuing it (or some part of it) for its own sake—is similar but not identical to the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value, which is a focal issue in discussions and debates about environmental values and ethics (Light & Rolston, 2003). I am not, however, arguing that natural environments and systems have objective value or moral standing independently of the human beings who value them. I am simply pointing out that people are capable of valuing and caring about natural environments, places, and things for what they are in themselves, rather than only valuing them instrumentally as a source of goods and services (see Sagoff, 2009). The fact that people can and do value nature for its own sake is reflected in several areas of environmental research. Economists have created the concept of existence or nonuse value to account for the fact that people may value a natural place or thing even if they never make any actual use of it (Freeman, 2003; Krutilla, 1967). Research on existence value suggests that it may be based in part on a moral and ethical concern toward nature that cannot be captured in economic cost/ benefit analysis (Brookshire, Eubanks, & Sorg, 1986). In a study of environmental attitudes and beliefs, Stern and Dietz (1994) drew a distinction between egoistic, altruistic, and biospherical value orientations, with the latter defined as a concern for the wellbeing of non-human species or the whole biosphere. Biospheric concern may be related to a personal sense of empathy with and inclusion in nature (Schultz, 2000; Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004). Studies of ecosystem restoration volunteers found that they may be motivated by a strong desire to defend and help threatened natural organisms and systems that they perceive as struggling for survival (Grese, Kaplan, Ryan, & Buxton, 2000; Schroeder, 2000). In the place attachment literature, Brooks, Wallace, and Williams (2006) suggest that recreationists develop committed relationships with 215 Refereed Full-Papers valued places in much the same way as they do with other people. In all these cases, it appears that natural environments and organisms are valued and appreciated for their own sake and not just as a source of services. Attempting to cast all environmental values as ecological services could lead us to draw some inappropriate conclusions concerning human interactions with natural places. For one thing, if what we value are the services provided by the environment and not the environment itself, then we must consider whether there are other ways to provide these same services. Perhaps we can substitute a service provided in one environment for an equivalent service provided in another environment some distance away—or perhaps we could even derive the same service from a non-natural source. This assumption of substitutability is the basis for establishing markets for trading ecological services, for example carbon credits (Hoover, Birdsey, Heath, & Stout, 2000). This is a reasonable assumption for carbon sequestration and for many other instances on the value-2 pathway, but it may not be so reasonable for some instances of value-3 and value-5. If, for example, we think of sense of place as an ecological service, then we might conclude that a unit of sense of place in one location can substitute for a unit of sense of place somewhere else. If a management action diminishes sense of place in one location, then we might think we could compensate by creating an equal or greater amount of sense of place at a different location. We might even set up a market for trading sense of place, analogous to what has been done for carbon credits. But this runs counter to the very definition of sense of place, which is place-specific and non-substitutable (Mitchell, Force, Carroll, & McLaughlin, 1993; Williams, Patterson, Roggenbuck, & Watson, 1992). It may be inappropriate to think of sense of place as an ecological service, because it is not the sense of a place that is valued, but the unique place itself. The distinction between valuing something for what it is versus valuing it for what it does for us is not always clear-cut, however. An awareness of the many ways in which an environment enhances a person’s life may, over time, lead the person to have a sense of appreciation for the environment itself, that goes beyond a simple valuing of the services provided. At the same time, when a person cares about an environment or a place for its own sake and not simply out of concern for their own self-interest, this may create a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in that person’s experience 216 of their own life. This enhancement of a person’s life experience arguably could be considered an ecological service. Thus, valuing natural environments for the services they provide is not mutually exclusive with valuing them aesthetically, emotionally, or spiritually for what they are in and of themselves. In a person’s experience of an environment, these two different ways of valuing may exist side-by-side, mutually reinforcing each other. Thinking about all environmental values only in terms of services, however, could limit the ways in which we can understand and experience environmental values and the human-environment relationships on which they are based. Conclusions The concept of ecological services makes an important contribution to environmental design and management by increasing awareness of certain ways in which nature contributes to human well-being—ways that have often been overlooked in society’s decisions about natural environments. It is not appropriate, however, to subsume all the ways in which people value environments under the umbrella of ecological services. Services represent one way in which value can arise in the relationship between a person and a natural environment, but it is not the only way. In a person’s relationship with the natural world, as much as in their relationship with another person, the experience of value can arise out of a sense of gratitude, compassion, justice, obligation, attachment, identity, respect, or beauty, even when no service is being performed. A key question in this regard is whether it is the environment per se that is valued, versus some product or outcome provided by the environment. If the latter, then it seemingly would make no difference whether the service is provided by the environment or in some other way. Attempting to encompass all environmental values in an ecological services framework seems to imply that natural environments in and of themselves have no value for people, that their degradation or destruction need not concern us as long as we have alternative ways of obtaining the same services at a reasonable cost. This does not accurately describe the full range of ways in which people experience and care about nature. The concept of ecological services seems most useful and relevant for the pathways to value-1, value-2 and value-4 in Figure 1. Much of the current interest in ecological services does in fact focus on value-2 and value-4, which have hitherto not been adequately Refereed Full-Papers recognized in environmental design and management. Research on ecological services is providing the conceptual and analytical tools we need for identifying and taking into account these important services. But if we come to rely on a single concept such as ecological services to understand all forms of value that arise in the relationship between humans and nature, we may misunderstand or leave out of our thinking other important aspects of how people value environments and places, particularly for value-3 and value-5. By keeping our thinking open-ended and drawing on a broad range of concepts for environmental values we may be better able to understand and represent these values in environmental design and management. References Brooks, J. J., Wallace, G. N., & Williams, D. R. (2006). Place as relationship partner: An alternative metaphor for understanding the quality of visitor experience in a backcountry setting. Leisure Sciences 28, 331-349. Brookshire, D. S., Eubanks, L. S., & Sorg, C. F. (1986). Existence values and normative economics: Implications for valuing water resources. Water Resources Research 22, 1509-1518. Brown, T. (1984). The concept of value in resource allocation. Land Economics 60, 231-246. Cole, D. N. (2005). Symbolic values: The overlooked values that make wilderness unique. International Journal of Wilderness 11(2), 23-27, 10. Daily, G. (ed.) (1997). Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, DC: Island Press. De Groot, R. S., Wilson, M. A., & Boumans, R. M. J. (2002). A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services. Ecological Economics 41, 393-408. Dietz, T., Fitzgerald, A., & Shwom, R. (2005). Environmental values. Annual Review of Environmental Resources 30, 335372. Farber, S. C., Costanza, R., & Wilson, M. A. (2002). Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 41, 375-392. Freeman, A. M. III. (2003). The measurement of environmental and resource values: Theory and methods (2nd Ed.). Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. Grese, R .E., Kaplan, R., Ryan, R. L., & Buxton, J. (2000). Psychological benefits of volunteering in stewardship programs. In P.H. Gobster & R.B. Hull (eds.), Restoring nature: Perspectives from the social sciences and humanities, 265-280. Washington, DC: Island Press. Hoover, C. M., Birdsey, R. A., Heath, L. S., & Stout, S. L. (2000). How to estimate carbon sequestration on small forest tracts. Journal of Forestry 98(9), 13-19. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology 15, 169-182. Krutilla, J. (1967). Conservation reconsidered. American Economic Review 57, 777-786. Kuo, F. E. & Taylor, A. F. (2004). A potential natural treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Evidence from a national study. American Journal of Public Health 94, 15801586. Light, A. & Rolston, H. (eds.). (2003). Environmental Ethics: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2003). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. Washington, DC: Island Press. Mitchell, M. Y., Force, J. E., Carroll, M. S., & McLaughlin, W. J. (1993). Forest Places of the Heart: Incorporating special spaces into public management. Journal of Forestry 91(4), 32-37. National Research Council. (1999). Perspectives on Biodiversity: Valuing Its Role in an Everchanging World. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press. National Research Council. (2004). Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision-Making. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Sagoff, M. (2009). Intrinsic value: a reply to Justus et al. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 24:643. Satterfield, T. & Kalof, L. (2005). Environmental values: An introduction -- relativistic and axiomatic traditions in the study of environmental values. In L. Kalof & T. Satterfield (eds.), The Earthscan Reader in Environmental Values, xxixxxiii. London: Earthscan. Schroeder, H. W. (2000). The restoration experience: Volunteers’ motives, values, and concepts of nature. In P.H. Gobster & R.B. Hull (eds.), Restoring nature: Perspectives from the social sciences and humanities, 247-264. Washington, DC: Island Press. Schultz, P. W. (2000). Empathizing with nature: The effects of perspective taking on concern for environmental issues. Journal of Social Issues 56, 391–406. Schultz, P. W., Shriver, C., Tabanico, J. J., & Khazian, A. M. (2004). Implicit connections with nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology 24, 31–42. Stern, P. C. & Dietz, T. (1994). The value basis of environmental concern. Journal of Social Issues 50, 65-84. Williams, D. R. & Stewart, S. I. (1998). Sense of place: An elusive concept that is finding a home in ecosystem management. Journal of Forestry 96(5), 18-23. Williams, D. R., Patterson, M. E., Roggenbuck, J. W., & Watson, A. E. (1992). Beyond the commodity metaphor: Examining emotional and symbolic attachment to place. Leisure Sciences 14, 29-46. 217 Refereed Full-Papers Rethinking Architectural Research Benyamin Schwarz (University of Missouri) Abstract While architectural research is a unique mode of inquiry that needs to inform and guide architectural practice, it should not emulate the natural sciences. Because scientists and architects work within irreconcilable paradigms of inquiry, efforts to reconcile them or search for commonalities may not serve either profession. Attempting to offer substantiated knowledge to architects, whose occupation requires devising a course of action under specific conditions where such knowledge does not and cannot exist, seems to be a futile conduct. The aim of this paper is to call attention to the central problem of architectural research, namely that research in this field has to lead to sensible and useful knowledge. It simply cannot follow in the footsteps of the natural sciences. Instead, architectural research must pursue its own paradigm of inquiry and ways to generate practical knowledge. Introduction Current architectural research includes several spheres: Environmental Research investigates the physical context of architecture; Cultural Research studies place-making and norms of the inhabitants of natural and built places; Social Research examines the people who inhabit and use the spaces of architecture; Technological Research investigates the physical materials, methods, element, systems, and science of architecture and the design and construction processes; Design Research considers the processes of shaping and making places; Organizational Research examines the way in which individuals and teams collaborate in the practice of architecture and in the client organizations; and Educational Research examines the pedagogies of architecture and related fields. With the exclusion of architectural theory and criticism, which has emerged as an autonomous branch of the humanities, this comprehensive list is a testament to the breadth of architectural inquiry on the one hand, and a demonstration of the confusing assortment of the types of research in architecture on the other. Located in several adjacent and sometimes overlapping domains, architectural research has taken many forms. However, 218 it is noticeable that except for Technological Research, all the listed branches of research are nestled in the social sciences. Much of the research conducted in the field, however, imitates methods and processes that characterize natural science. Regretfully, a great deal of this so-called “body of knowledge” finds itself on dusty shelves in a depository of an academic library instead of the hands of professional practitioners. In their attempt to classify and organize the field, Joroff and Morse (1984) proposed a hierarchical framework for architectural research by placing different modes of inquiry along a continuum based upon how systematic they are. Observations of one’s environment—“a random stumbling process, never organized or recorded in any formal way” (Wampler, 1979)— lie at one end of their continuum as the most loosely formed architectural inquiry, and the laboratory model of research lies on the other end. In between these two extremes, the authors place the act of design, review of precedents of current knowledge, manifesto, normative theory, development, scholarship, and social science type research. This classification is somewhat vague, but the authors claim that the lack of a comprehensive framework that encompasses and integrates various research activities hinders the field of architectural research from “systematic acquisition of ‘knowledge’ that may effectively inform practice” (p.16). Joroff and Morse (1984) struggle with the notion that many of the categories on their continuum are ambiguous and confusing. For example, they acknowledge that using design as a research tool may be self-defeating because the artifacts of architectural design are specific solutions, applicable in particular context at a specific time, whereas “the artifacts of science are generalizations, theories, or laws of nature from which empirically testable propositions can be deduced” (Krippendorff, 2006, p. 29). Despite the inherent differences between scientific research and architectural inquiry, there have been numerous attempts to frame architectural research in the context of natural sciences. These attempts have failed. Architecture still has no commonly shared body of knowledge, and the lack of consensus about what architectural research is continues to plague the field. We can see the problem—architectural research has not had the kind of success in developing a comprehensive body of theoretical and methodological knowledge that can inform practice, like other practice-oriented professions have had. The solution, however, seems less clear. Since the establishment of research-based universities Refereed Full-Papers in the mid-nineteenth century, architects have looked up to academia for readily available knowledge that can be easily applied in their practice. But universities have found it difficult to balance the training of young practitioners through increasing demands with the expectations of academic research. In addition, the more closely architectural researchers try to align themselves with the traditions of academic research in humanities, natural, and social sciences, the more they distance themselves from the real concerns and the agenda of active professional practitioners (Allen, 2008). It is the primary thesis of this paper that while scientific research is a unique mode of inquiry that needs to inform and guide architectural practice, it should not emulate the natural sciences. Because scientists and architects work within irreconcilable paradigms of inquiry, efforts to reconcile them or search for commonalities might not serve either profession. Scientific research, with the theories it produces, “is rooted in past observations, and the predictions it suggests assume that the patterns found in the past will persist in the future. This kind of knowledge, celebrated since the Renaissance, is of little interest to designers who are intent to change the world in ways not predictable from natural laws” (Krippendorff, 2006, p. 29). Attempting to offer substantiated knowledge to architects seems futile; their occupation requires action under far less certain conditions. Consequently, the commonly understood notion of “architectural research” is an oxymoron. The aim of this paper is to call attention to the central problem of research for architecture, namely that research in this field has to lead to sensible and useful knowledge, but it simply cannot follow in the footsteps of the natural sciences. Instead, research for architecture must pursue its own paradigm of inquiry and ways to generate practical knowledge. A Short History of Scientific Research and Architecture By definition, research is an exploration of uncharted territories. It involves conscious attempts to make sense of discoveries in order to place them in the changing map of knowledge through the development of theory. The nature of research is based on the identification of a problem that needs to be investigated while being associated with answerable questions. Conducted from an awareness of previous, related inquiry, research is an inquisitive process that is planned and carried out in a methodical and rigorous manner. The outcomes are characterized by testable results, which are accessible to May 2011 – Make No Little Plans others (Cross, 2006). In a narrow sense, the product of research is knowledge that describes an existing reality or truth. This knowledge may or may not be applied in practice. When the primary purpose of a study is to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowing more, it is often termed basic research. When a research is centered on practical usefulness, such as making better buildings, or improving the efficiency of building process, it is often termed applied research. Bruce Archer proposed that “research is a systematic inquiry, the goal of which is knowledge” (Archer, 1981). This minimalist definition was proposed at a time when architectural inquiry was searching for generalizable methods whose success recommended wider use, systematic treatment like in other professional inquiries, and teaching methodology. The study of methodology entered the design discourse in the 1950s. It was originally fueled by the impressive rigor of natural science. It has been generally recognized that through the use of science, as opposed to other ways of inquiry, we may more likely obtain correct answers to questions and better solutions to specific problems. As Ackoff (1962) noted: This is to assert not that better results are always obtained by science, but that such results are more likely to be obtained by its use. This follows from the superiority of the scientific process of inquiry. This superiority of scientific inquiry derives from the fact that it is controlled. A process is controlled to the extent that it is efficiently directed toward the attainment of desired objectives (p.3). In other words, science aims to tell us, and often succeeds in telling us, what the world is like. And according to some views, a field is scientific when it uses rigorous methods and delivers results we should trust. Natural sciences do not ask the same questions as other branches of knowledge-seeking disciplines. Science mainly seeks to uncover natural laws, causal and explanatory relations between events and variables while maintaining an interest in answering a special class of questions. “The same holds for simplicity and explanatory power. Science is particularly interested in finding answers to the questions, ‘What theory explains suchand such a set of phenomena?’ ‘What is the simplest theory that would explain X, Y, and Z?’ and so forth” (Goldman, 1999, p. 246). Obviously, when questions of this sort are posed, scientific practices have a significant 219 Refereed Full-Papers advantage in answering them over any set of non-scientific practices available to human beings. The success of science has been undeniable. Its products—technological spinoffs, such as antibiotics, computers, and airplanes—dominate our lives. In Western society, we assign an astounding credibility to any claim that is successfully represented as being scientific. We are so impressed with science that we tend to ignore the fact that sometimes it can impoverish our lives or even take them away. Be that as it may, the major aim of science is to provide us with empirically adequate theories (van Fraassen, 1980). It was Thomas Kuhn (1962) who introduced the philosophy of science to the concept of paradigm. By his account, a mature science always has a paradigm. In the narrow sense, a “paradigm” is an “exemplar,” an influential presentation of scientific theory. In the Postscript that Kuhn added to a later edition of his book, he disclosed that in much of his original text “the term ‘paradigm’ is used in two different senses. On the one hand, it stands for the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques and so on shared by the members of a given community. On the other, it denotes one sort of element in that constellation, the concrete puzzle-solution which, employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science” (Kuhn, 1970, p. 175). Kuhn used the phrase “normal science” for scientific work that is well organized and occurs within the framework provided by a paradigm. The most significant thing that happens when the work in an area constitutes normal science is that various puzzles are solved in a manner of the exemplary work and scientists agree on how to approach problems, as well as how to assess possible solutions. However, after some time, a number of unresolved puzzles occur. As anomalies multiply, science in that area enters a period of crisis that is resolved when a new paradigm replaces the old one (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). The search for the relationships between architecture and science has been part of the architectural discourse for several centuries. Architecture and science were linked at the very inception of Western tradition. In the writings of Plato and Socrates, architecture had the same status as science and was positioned above practice. Scientia was contemplated as the proportional order that architecture embodied, not only within a building ”but as a human situation, in the space-time experience” (Perez-Gomez, 1999). In the fourteenth 220 century, the art of architecture meant the skill of building, and the science of architecture, techne, meant the theoretical or scientific root of the skill of building. What was understood at that time was that the architect needed both skills: “art,” the skill of practical knowledge, and “science,” or the skill that requires theoretical knowledge (Ackerman, 1949). The necessity for both kinds of knowledge in architecture was held up earlier by Vitruvius who noted in The Education of the Architect: The architect’s professional knowledge is enriched by contributions from many disciplines and different fields of knowledge, and all the works produced by these other arts are subjects to the architect’s scrutiny. This expertise derives from practice and theory. Practice consists of the ceaseless and repeated use of a skill by which any work to be produced is completed by working manually with the appropriate materials according to a predetermined design. Theory, in contrast, is the ability to elucidate and explain works created by such manual dexterity in terms of their technical accomplishment and their proportions (25 B.C./2009 p. 4). However, this state of affairs started to change during the seventeenth century, when Perrault asserted that theory was no longer absolute truth, and its purpose was simply to be as easily “applicable” to guide architectural practice. From the seventeenth century onwards, an increasing separation was launched between art and science. The disconnection between the two disjointed practice from theory, empiricism from reasoning, and the subjective from the objective—which completed the schism between the creative arts and the scientific fields of nature (McCleary, 1984). Efforts to rationalize the practice of architecture according to scientific principles became widespread during the twentieth century (Frampton, 1999). The concerns about the relationships between science and design emerged in the 1920s with a search for scientific products at the inception of the Modern Movement. Perhaps the most famous manifesto was reflected in the words of Le Corbusier, who wrote in 1929 about the house as an objectively designed “machine for living.” The aspirations of many designers of that generation were to produce objects of art and design founded on objectivity and rationality, just like in science. The quest for scientific design process took another form during Refereed Full-Papers the 1960s with the establishment of the design methods movement (Cross, 2006). The movement intended to improve the quality of design by responding to the rapidly changing nature of design tasks at that time. The rapid growth of scientific foundations in disciplines such as engineering, material science, building science, and behavioral science set this idea in motion and convinced intellectuals that modern architectural design had become too complex for intuitive methods. What resulted was an interest in the type of non-intuitive methods that stem from scientific knowledge. But the design methods movement was unsuccessful because it failed to address what designers actually do. Ironically, some of the pioneers of the movement rejected the underlying values of the design methodology they helped to formulate and adopted new, more explicitly intuitive design approaches. Christopher Alexander, J. Christopher Jones, and C. Thomas Mitchell—three of the most prominent pioneers of the design methods movement—criticized the movement they helped fashion during the 1970s. Despite their earlier interests in design methodologies, all three have shifted their focus in favor of more applicable approaches to design over what Jones called, in 1977, the “machine language, the behaviorism, the continual attempt to fix the whole of life into a logical framework.” In an interview with C. Thomas Mitchell in 1980, Jones said: We sought to be open minded to make design processes that would be more sensitive to life than were the professional practices of the time. But the result was rigidity: a fixing of aims and methods to produce designs that everyone now feels to be insensitive to human needs. Another result was that design methods became more theoretical, and many of those drawn to the subject turned it into the academic study of methods (methodology) instead of trying to design things better. The language used to describe designing, and describe the aims and purposes of things designed, became more and more abstract. The words lost touch with how it feels to be a designer and how it feels to inhabit system being designed (Mitchell, 1992, p. xi). Natural Science and Architectural Inquiry: The Odd Couple Whether they follow empiricist, structuralist, or instrumentalist research models, scientists look for knowledge and methods that transcend the idiosyn- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans crasies of observations that are made in specific points in place and time. Generalization and development of explanatory and predictive theory are the hallmarks of scientific research. In fact, unique events that cannot be generalized are of little interest to natural scientists that would rather believe they do not exist. Predictions about future events in science always presume that the theorized properties are stable and unchanged within theoretical limits. Moreover, scientists are required to be value-free and detached from the data they intend to analyze “to assure that scientific findings, theories, and laws are about an observer-uncontaminated nature” (Krippendorff, 2008, p. 28). Natural science requires compliance with at least three criteria of scientific practice: inter-subjectivity, reliability, and verifiability in an empirical sense. Inter-subjectivity, the quality of scientific result, allows the resulting information to be interpreted by different people in the same way. Scientific reliability means that repetition of measurements under unchanged conditions should render identical results. This needs to be true in circumstances in which the same investigator judges a particular situation more than once, and each time comes to the same conclusion, which is called internal reliability. In addition it needs to be true in external reliability, where different investigators judge the same situation and conclude with the same results. The third criterion of verifiability means that in order to qualify as a scientific study, the structure of the study, the data collection, the data analysis, and their interpretation must be transparent and open for debate and criticism. This allows other researchers the opportunity to repeat the study in different times and different places and challenge the results. Only a fraction of architectural research can meet these criteria of scientific investigation. Yet scholars in this field maintain that scientific research can make the design process and physical settings it produces more efficient. Many scholars in a variety of branches of architectural inquiry have repeated these assertions over the past fifty years. Domains such as the design methods movement, computer-aided design, system building, environment-behavior studies, or most recently evidence-based design have promised, at different times and different places, to help architects become more efficient and cause their buildings to become more effective through the use of scientific procedures. The field of Environment and Behavior Studies (EBS) is a case in point. Since its inception in the late 221 Refereed Full-Papers 1960s, those who follow EBS philosophy have believed that architectural design should be based on an understanding of the intricacies of human and environment relations, and that design should be shaped by researchbased knowledge. Inherent in this approach to architectural design has been the assumption that studying the behavior of people in relation to the environment can elicit knowledge, which can be generalized and applied in various design contexts. EBS came into existence in response to various social and political developments of the late 1960s. A small number of social and behavioral scientists, along with a few architects, committed to the need for more socially responsible approaches to planning and design of the environment and attempted to articulate a new model or paradigm for the design process. Both the need for a theoretical understanding of the relationship between people and their surroundings and an immediate, pragmatic concern over mismatches between people, institutions, communities, and other designed environments provided impetus for this field. The motivating force was the premise that knowledge of the fundamental principles of human behavior helps designers clarify an understanding of the relationship between environment and behavior. This in turn, helps architects consider how the designed environment can afford people of different backgrounds distinctive experiences and diverse activity patterns. Lang (1987) claimed that this knowledge enables designers to understand what they can predict with confidence and when they are really “going out on a limb.” The practice model promoted by EBS involves two fundamental steps: gathering research-based social knowledge and then using the resulting information in a programming stage that integrates this social knowledge in the design process. The presumption of this model has been that if followed, this process would result in buildings that would better fit the needs of their future occupiers and users. The last step in EBS practice, a post-occupancy evaluation, completes the circle by providing the source for new knowledge to inform the design process for the next round of projects. Two kinds of criticism of EBS surfaced over time. One was aimed at the environmental psychologists in the domain who have sometimes treated the built environment simply as a relatively incidental stimulus array rather than as a meaningful environment. The other criticism targeted the reliance on behavior rather than cognition as an exclusive outcome of human interaction with the physical environment. This approach stems 222 from the long-lasting approach of the natural sciences to inquire into nature as if it existed independently of its investigators. This approach conflicts with the notion that architects cannot thrive in operationally constructed reality because architectural design is concerned with real people’s interaction with their environment, and relies on people’s ability to understand their settings and create their worlds; have insights, intelligence and feelings; and communicate freely with each other as well as researchers, observers, and critics. The natural science approach has reduced human beings to billiard balls moving aimlessly, a version of humans that is a far cry from the character of people that should be developed for architectural inquiry. Studies in environment and behavior continue, as in other spheres of architectural inquiry. Yet despite a wealth of confirmed research findings on building use and human behavior, perception, and emotions in various environments, the mainstream of architectural practice and education seems almost unaffected. The “gap” is still there. Social Science and Architectural Inquiry In his book, Making Social Science Matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again, Bent Flyvbjerg (2001) reviews the history and rationale of social science and shows “why social science never has been, and probably never will be, able to develop the type of explanatory and predictive theory that is the ideal and hallmark of natural science” (p. 4). He begins by introducing the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, which is translated as prudence or practical wisdom. To quote Aristotle, phronesis is a “true state, reasoned, and capable action with regard to things that are good or bad for man” (Aristotle, 1976. Quoted in Flyvbjerg, 2001, p.2). This concept surpasses the analytical, scientific knowledge (episteme) as well as the technical knowledge of the know-how (techne) and has to do with judgments and decisions made by an expert social and political actor. The introduction of phronesis into the discussion of what social science is and can be helps Flyvbjerg describe the predicament of the field when it attempts to emulate natural science in order to produce explanatory and predictive (epistemic) theory. Flyvbjerg argues that; The two types of sciences have their respective strengths and weaknesses along fundamentally different dimensions, a point which Aristotle Refereed Full-Papers demonstrated but which has since been forgotten. At present, social science is locked in a fight it cannot hope to win, because it has accepted terms that are self-defeating… in their role as phronesis, the social sciences are strongest where the natural sciences are weakest: just as the social sciences have not contributed much to explanatory and predictive theory, neither have the natural sciences contributed to the reflexive analysis and discussion of values and interests, which is the prerequisite for an enlightened political, economic, and cultural development in any society, and which is the core of phronesis (2001, p. 3). Flyvbjerg claims that context and judgment are central to the understanding of human action, however theory of context and judgment are impossible. Flyvbjerg further maintains that by emulating the natural sciences, social sciences set for themselves an impossible task in the study of human affairs, especially in the efforts to develop a theory, which typically is perceived as the peak of scientific endeavor. Therefore, he argues, mainstream social science and methodology are in need of reorientation. Unlike the natural sciences, social sciences do not evolve through scientific revolutions. Rather, social sciences go through periods where various constellations of power and waves of intellectual fashions dominate the field (Dreyfus, 1982). When change occurs, it may look like a paradigm shift, though it is actually a process in which researchers within a given area abandon a “dying” wave for a new one without the accumulation of knowledge as in Kuhn’s model of normal science. Style changes, rather than paradigm shifts, characterize social science. Instead of a case of evolution, social science changes through fashion substitution. Most of architectural research goes through similar changing fashions. The lack of a cumulative body of knowledge, the missing guiding paradigm or central theory, and the ineffective attempts of emulating natural sciences, reflects the similarities with social science. This resemblance is apparent when we compare architectural inquiry to the natural science conduct as described by Kuhn (1970). Architectural research takes place in an unstructured system of discourse, which is rarely shared by the participants in this environment. Unlike natural science, the knowledge in architectural research does not accumulate like building blocks in a structure we all understand and does not lead to a May 2011 – Make No Little Plans “body of knowledge.” At best, it leads to a “body of discourse” (Foucault, 1973). The recent trends in professional practice, such as sustainability, new materials, urbanism, and digital technologies, are changing the architectural agenda. These new domains promise to become venues for collaborative research among academicians and practitioners. However, significant research domains of the recent past, such as Environment and Behavior or Environmental Gerontology, decline just like fading fashions. Conclusions and Implications: Rethinking Architectural Research Because architectural research to a large extent is located in the domain of social science, we need to make it phronetic research; one that is pragmatic, context-dependent, and oriented toward action. As such, architectural research should focus on values and praxis. It should take its point of departure from the value-rational questions: “Where are we going? Is it desirable? What should be done?” (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 130). Therefore, to empower architectural inquiry, we need to do three things. First, we should stop attempting to emulate natural science. Producing cumulative knowledge and predictive theory does not work in architectural research. The purpose of architectural inquiry is to carry out analyses and interpretations in order to contribute to both professional practice and society. It may take many forms. Sometimes it may focus on clarifying. Sometimes it may take a form of action or intervention, and sometimes it may center on generating new insights and perspectives. Architectural research needs to “serve as eyes and ears in our ongoing efforts at understanding the present and deliberating the future” (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 166). Second, we must address architectural and environmental problems that matter to the local, national, and global communities in which we live. Finally, we must effectively communicate our findings to practitioners of architecture and, through them, to society at large. Results of architectural research have to be approachable to architects and other designers and have to be communicated in helpful means. Architectural research needs to be practiced with an emphasis on the practical before the epistemic knowledge. Our goal should be to contribute to society’s capacity for forethought and action. We are not there yet, but we should make every effort to be there. 223 Refereed Full-Papers References Ackerman, J. S. (1949). ‘Art since Scientia Nihil Est’: Gothic theory of architecture at the cathedral of Milan. The Art Bulletin 31-32: 84-111. Ackoff, R. L. (1962). Scientific method. New York: Wiley. Allen, S. (2008). Collaborative, practice-based research. In N.B. Solomon, (Ed.), Architecture: Celebrating the past, designing the future. Washington, DC: The American Institute of Architects. Archea, J. (1987). Puzzle-making: What architects do when no one is looking. In Y. E. Kalay (Ed.) Principles of computeraided design: Computability of design. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Archer, L. B. (1981). A view of the nature of design research. In R. Jacques and J. Powel (Eds.) Design: Science: Method. Guildford, UK: Westbury House. Aristotle. (1976). The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J.A. K. Thomson. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Cross, N. (2006). Designerly ways of knowing. London, Springer. Dreyfus, H. (1982). “Why studies of human capacities modeled on ideal natural science can never achieve their goal.” Revised edition of a paper presented at the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, October 1982. Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. New York: Cambridge University Press. Foucault, M. (1973). The order of things: an archeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage. Frampton, K. (1999). The Mutual Limits of Architecture and Science. In P. Galison and E. Thompson (Eds.) The Architecture of Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 224 Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003). Theory and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a social world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, J. C. (1977). How my thoughts about design methods have changed during the years. Design Methods and Theories, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 50-62. Joroff, M. L. and Morse, S. J. (1984). A proposed framework for the emerging field of architectural research. In J. C. Snyder (ed.) Architectural Research. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Krippendorff, K. (2006). The semantic turn: A new foundation for design. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis. Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (First published in 1962). Lang, J. (1987). Creating architectural theory. New York: Van Nostrand Reinholds. McCleary, P. (1984). History of technology. In J. C. Snyder (ed.) Architectural Research. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Mitchell, C. T. (1992). Prefaces to the second edition, 1992. In J. C. Jones Design Methods (2nd Edition). New York: Van Nostrand Reinholds. Perez-Gomez, A. (1999). Architecture as Science: Analogy or Disjunction? In P. Galison and E. Thompson (Eds.) The Architecture of Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. van Fraassen, B. (1980). The scientific image. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vitruvius, M. P. 25 B.C. (2009). On architecture. Translated by R. Schofield. New York: Penguin Books. Wampler, J. (1979). Watching, Journal of Architectural Education 32:20 (May 1979). Refereed Full-Papers Therapeutically Enhanced School Design for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Comparative Study of the United States and the United Kingdom Ghasson Shabha (Birmingham City University, UK), Kristi Gaines (Texas Tech University) Abstract This paper compares and contrasts the findings of the empirical studies conducted in both the United Kingdom and the United States to assess the impact of sensory environmental stimuli on students’ behaviour in school buildings. Analysis of teaching layouts and the sequence of activities in selected school buildings were conducted. Opinions of focus groups including teachers and carers working with students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) were initially explored to assess the extent of the sensory problems and to highlight any design limitations and constraints. A questionnaire was formulated based on the feedback gleaned from the focus groups and subsequently administered to target groups. Relevant perceptual information about behavioural reactions to varying sensory stimuli was compiled. Visual information of selected schools, including photos and drawings of ASD workstations, were gathered, annotated, and analysed for further examination. Several visual triggers were identified, including bright colours and light, pattern, and glare. Sound triggers. including sudden and impact sound, high and low pitch sound, and background noise levels, were also identified. There are a few variations between the two studies regarding particular sensory triggers and their importance, which can be attributed to differences in school design, layout, internal finishing, and workstation configuration. Other factors, including the size of the study sample, location, and climatic differences, are also implicated. The study provides further understanding of the key factors contributing to the quality of the teaching environments in school buildings in both May 2011 – Make No Little Plans the UK and the U.S. This might assist in developing alternative school design guidelines based on a more user-centred approach; therefore, creating a responsive teaching environment that is more humanely attuned to the needs of affected groups. Background Autism is a developmental disorder of neurological origin that occurs in a large variety of forms, ranging from mild to severe. It is currently defined by behavioural criteria, which include impairments in social interaction, impairments in verbal and nonverbal communication, and restricted interests and activities. Other impairments including lack of facial recognition and poor social skills have also been identified together with limited and repetitive gross motor and cognitive skills (Eldelson, 1995; Jordan & Powell, 1995). Individuals and adults with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are among the most vulnerable groups in our society. This is due to the overwhelming effects of the sensory built environment within which they live and the difficulties of modulating and processing sensory information in their own surroundings. The latter have been identified as the main culprit underlying stereotypical and selfstimulatory and ritualistic behaviour exhibited by individuals, which can have profound effects on their learning (Jordan & Powell, 1995; Eldelson, 1995; Williams, 1996; Waltz, 1996; Hatch-Rasmussen, 1997). Individuals can be described as hyposensitive or hypersensitive to environmental stimuli; they engage in this behaviour either to block out or activate sensory stimuli. Grandin (1995) argued that treatment and awareness of sensory problems are often overlooked in many educational programmes, claiming that stereotypical and ritualistic behaviours are the result of fear and harsh sound stimuli that cause pain and confusion. Eldelson (1995) attributed this behaviour to the difficulties in alternating and shifting attention to varying sound stimuli in their immediate and wider surroundings. Visual perception problems are specifically associated with ASD and have more profound and far-reaching effects; many individuals see the world in a maladaptive and malfunctioned manner that makes them reactive to surface glare and shine as much as to daylight contrast, which significantly affects their space perception and impedes navigation in the wider built environment. This is contrary to the claim that natural light improves academic performance (Lyons, 2003; Fielding, 2002), relaxes pupils, permits better concentration, and reduces hyperactivity in typically developing children (Dunn, 225 Refereed Full-Papers et al., 1993; Benya et al., 2002). However, many ASD individuals have difficulty processing bright light. According to Dr. Megson (2001), this can be attributed to involuntary dilation of the pupils involved in regulating both natural and artificial light. Secondary impairment emanating from above can be discerned by i) lack of focus and ii) reduction in visual acuity problems, both of which militate against learning and are compounded by light contrast. These visual perception problems are particularly relevant as many individuals with ASD are visual learners. Most rely on visual memory in retrieving information, necessitating visual cuing and “serial mapping,” both of which become increasingly instrumental to initiate communication and facilitate learning (Grandin, 1994, 1995; William, 2006). Distraction due to motion stimuli, which is essentially processed through the visual cortex of the brain, has also been observed in an ASD subgroup to increase hyperactivity and motor agitation. Many individuals with ASD cannot process incoming motion stimuli and moving objects, such as a train approaching a platform and a moving car (Green, 2001; Gepner, et al., 1995; Gepner & Mestre, 2002 a, b), which pinpoints impaired motion perception in autism. Both hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity to sound stimuli have been recognised; which can be depicted as opposite extremes of the same continuum (HatchRasmussen, 1997; Chang, 1998). This is attributed to wide range of factors including, inter alia, sound abnormal activities, sound sensitivity, and difficulties in modulating auditory input. There is mounting evidence that many individuals with ASD have difficulties in controlling the volume of sound or filtering low-frequency background noises such as “white” and “pink” noises and whooshing and humming noises, leading to symptoms similar to tinnitus (Hazell, 2000). Adverse reactions to higher-frequency shrills and spinning noises from extractors, vacuum cleaners, and cold water pipes pressure surge were also observed. This can be compounded by other sensory inputs, primarily tactile and olfactory, leading to sensory overload (Lowton, 1997; Shires, 1998; Chang, 1999). According to Porges, et al., (1996) a lack of tension in the tympanic membrane and middle ear muscles could lead to i) an inability to filter out lower frequency noises which interfere with speech comprehension and ii) inability to cushion higher intensity and impact sounds generated in the immediate surroundings. Porges (1996) argued that the perception of sound is 226 not equal at all frequencies. Sounds at low frequencies seem as if they are softer than they really are. In contrast, we are relatively accurate in estimating the acoustic energy of human voice. The Fletcher-Munson equal loudness contours (Fletcher & Munson, 1933) illustrated how human perception attenuated the “loudness” of low frequency sounds. As measurement technologies improved, researchers refined the perceived loudness contours and sound meters were modified to include a scale known as dBA, which adjusted for the perceived differences in loudness as a function of frequency (i.e., the acoustic energy of lower frequencies had to be greatly increased to be perceived at the equivalent loudness of a higher frequencies). This contrasts to sound pressure level, which describes the physical energy of the signal and does not apply any perceptually based weighting to the frequencies that constitute the acoustic stimulation. The perceptual process of hearing low frequency sounds as softer parallels the anti-masking functions of the middle ear muscles (attenuating the sounds at low frequencies). This is an area which merits further examination. Porges (2006) hypothesised that many individuals with ASD exhibit “predator vigilance.” This is a phenomena where they in are in constant sound stress due to heightened alertness to sound stimuli in their immediate vicinity. Training software utilizing modulated human voices has been developed by Porges (2006) as an active intervention approach to rectify the problem. Other sensory and auditory integration interventions have been developed over the last two decades to ameliorate the impact of these problems. These proved to be beneficial, although their long-term efficacy remains controversial. There is growing recognition that extent of such sensory distortion might be detrimental to learning, leading to poor attention, poor concentration and lack of communication and social interaction. The Theoretical Framework of the Study The literature on the sensory environment in school buildings shows that there are multiplicities of interrelated and somehow conflicting spatial, visual, and acoustic stimuli which have to be considered (Bright, et al., 1997, 1999; Cook, et al., 1997, Cook, 1998, Wright, et al., 1999, Edwards, 2002; Shabha, 2006; Gaines, 2008). There seems to be a lack of understanding about what constitutes a therapeutic and sensory teaching environment. Most research on school designs are descriptive and qualitative (Powell, 1999; Allen, Refereed Full-Papers Figure 1: Common layout for a U.S. classroom with recessed fluorescent downlights and low levels of natural light. 2000). The focus has been mainly on assessing the impact of a single environmental factor or parameter on a restricted aspect of the learning process, in particular teaching settings such as pupil tasks, attitudes, visibility, and reading performance (Wilkins & Carven, 1987; Wilkins & Chronicle, 1991; Wilkins, 1995). Overall effects of the sensory environment on users’ psychological and behavioural responses have largely been overlooked or ignored. For instance, there are some clues about the impact of chronic noise exposure on stress levels and cognitive performance of pupils in classrooms (Haines & Stansfeld, 2001; Evans & Maxwell, 1997), the effect of fluorescent lighting on headaches and migraine due to invisible flickering (Yunfan, 1983; Wilkins & Craven, 1987), and visual stress (Wilkins, 1995). The effect of light on body metabolism and hormone levels has also been demonstrated, along with its impact on mood , arousal, and aggression. Symptoms of stereotypy and hyperactivity have been demonstrated in windowless and brightly colored school buildings, providing an insight about the phenomenon of the “biorhythm” of the body (Karfikova, 1994). Quantitative studies are mostly prescriptive in their scope. The overall effects of the sensory environment on users’ behaviour have largely been overlooked or ignored. For instance, there are some clues about the impact of noise levels on pupils’ anxiety and stress levels in ordinary classrooms and the effect of fluorescent lighting on headaches and migraine due to invisible flickering (Yunfan, 1983; Wilkins & Craven, 1987; Wilkins, 1995, 1996). Echoing and background noise level were observed to affect sound comprehension and verbal performance of pupils in classrooms (Elmallawany, 1985; Lercher, et al., 2003). Symptoms of stereotypy, agitation, and hyperactivity have been widely observed in windowless school buildings and those with bright and patterned walls (Zental, 1986; Cohen, 1990; Sheri, 2003; Wohlfarth & Sam, 1989; Kuller & Lindsten, 1992). Similarly, indoor surface shine and glare due to natural light reflection and refraction were equally observed as triggers for undesirable behaviour both indoor and outdoor (Observation by staff at Sunfield, Clents UK; Williams, 2006). Bright daylight and sharp contrast between shade and light has been consistently noted to exasperate visual perception, as observed by the authors of this study in both localities in their random research visits to schools in the West Midlands, UK, and Texas. Colour and tonal contrast of main surfaces (e.g., floors, walls, and ceilings) and secondary surfaces (e.g., furniture and equipment) can act as visual triggers. It was claimed that colour effects are perceived visually but are also absorbed by the skin (Torice & Logrippo, 1989; Wohlfarth & Sam, 1982). Figure 2: Shine and refraction on walls and ceilings- UK May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 227 Refereed Full-Papers Table 1: The main visual and sound triggers. These effects include changes in mood and attention, blood pressure, and brain development (Engelbrecht, 2003). Red, for instance, increases blood pressure and heightens the sense of smell, while blue decreases pulse rate and lowers body temperature. Lighting also affects colour perception (Morton, 1998). It remains to be seen what influence colour and tonal contrast have on students with ASD. Clearly, very limited research has been conducted to assess the overall impact of sensory environment on students with ASD. Apart from anecdotal evidence and personal accounts from teachers and carers in the field, the secondary data is largely fragmented and inconclusive. A more holistic approach is, therefore, needed to address such complexity of environmental stimuli since its impact on impaired individuals seems to be interrelated. A matrix of key visual and sound triggers have been refined and identified, as shown in Table 1. The authors believe that sensory stimuli are interwoven in the way they affect behaviour: one particular stimulus might have a cascading effect and act as a catalyst for further reactions, leading to worsening behaviour. A global hypothesis was formulated that the interrelated effect of sensory environmental stimuli significantly influences the daily learning performance of individuals with ASD and adversely affect their behaviour. An attempt will be made to identify the most influential sensory triggers and to enable their impacts on individual behaviour to be fully assessed and understood. Methodology Setting In both studies, a multi-faceted approach was adopted in compiling factual and perceptual information about teachers’ and carers’ observations of students’ 228 response to varying sensory stimuli. Based on focus groups, opinions of teachers and carers were initially explored to assess the extent of sensory problems in the existing teaching settings in the UK and U.S. and to highlight any design limitations and constraints. Focus groups are particularly useful tools to be considered given the geographical spread of the schools and the number of schools selected for the empirical study in both localities. This method is essentially based on systematic analysis process. According to Krueger (1994), this method yields two dimensions in the way data are gathered and handled, and by incorporating specific processes both of which dictate sequential process. A pilot questionnaire was distributed to selected teachers and carers to allow further refinement and embellishment of both the form and the content of the questionnaire. This also provides snapshot feedback about the appropriateness of technical phraseologies and terminologies, as well as clarity of the questions against any likely misinterpretation by respondents. It also serves to identify further key issues and problems based on the respondents’ observations of their own settings and to pinpoint to any potential design problems associated with existing classrooms. Feedback from the pilot study was used to formulate the final questionnaire in the UK study, while initial responses from the focus group were used to develop the final questionnaire in the U.S. study. Given the geographical spread of schools in Texas, a Web-administered questionnaire survey using SurveyMonkey was considered to be more appropriate. The common emphasis in both studies, however, was almost entirely the same: collecting a diverse range of data in order to enable research objectives to be better addressed. Refereed Full-Papers Measures This study argues that a survey questionnaire targeting teachers and carers in selected schools is the most effective tool to gauge and assess students’ reaction to the sensory environment. It is entirely based on their verbal responses and observations of individual behaviour in different teaching settings. This provides a quantifiable description of attitudes, opinions, or trends of the study through a sample (Creswell, 2003; Babbie, 2009). This study argues that students with ASD are conscious of their immediate surroundings and are interactive and responsive to their own settings in ways which cannot be understood by studying artificial simulation (McNeil, 1992). However, teachers’ and carers’ verbal responses to the ways individuals react to the sensory environment is difficult to measure objectively. The authors believe that if consistent patterns emerge through the responses of the questionnaire, then it can be argued with higher probability that a causal effect exists. Procedures The questionnaire focused on gathering primary data about the schools, teaching settings, and behavioural reactions. Both open-ended and closed-ended questions were used in both studies. Questions were formulated based on the feedback, fine-tuned by omitting technical jargons and needless words, and refined further to ensure clarity, coherence, and understandability prior to being administered. While SurveyMonkey was used to administer the questionnaire in the U.S. study, the UK questionnaire was administered face-to-face. The responses and identity of the respondents remained confidential. Secondary data were also collected using the researcher’s notes, videotape, and memory. The data were then reviewed for dominant themes that emerged throughout the discussion. These themes were selected according to verbal and nonverbal responses to questions, the number of participants mentioning an issue, and agreement or disagreement on an issue. Target Groups Special education educators in Texas public schools were the participants for Phase 2 of the U.S. study. Most special education teachers work with children with mild to moderate disabilities, although some work with severe cases of autism or mental retardation. Since schools are becoming more inclusive, special education teachers’ roles include designing and adapting curricu- May 2011 – Make No Little Plans lum and teaching techniques to meet varying individuals’ needs. They are also involved in their students’ behavioural and social development. At the time the questionnaire was distributed, there were an estimated 32,546 staff involved. A total of 608 teachers participated in the Texas study, based on random sampling, which was reduced further to 546 to ensure reliability and representativeness of the sample following initial analysis of responses. The U.S. study sample represents 1.8 percent of the target sample in Texas area. In the U.K. study, 96 out of 588 teachers and carers participated in the West Midlands, where there are much fewer schools. Data Analysis Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the gathered data, including percentages and frequency distributions, in order to provide a matrix of most correlated factors and triggers affecting behaviour. The period of analysis was adequate to allow a greater understanding of the underlying issues and the significance of sensory triggers on students’ behaviour. Findings The purpose of this study was to assess the realtionship between visual and acoustic/auditory learning environments and the behaviour of students with ASD. Both studies show that visual and auditory stimuli have adverse effect on the behaviour of students with ASD. The ability to focus attention is necessary for learning and managing behaviour. Distractions within the sensory environment should be minimized considerably to enable students to manage their learning environment more effectively. The focus of this study is becoming more critical due to current drive toward inclusion in the both the U.S. and UK. Although the results from both studies primarily support the association between sensory stimuli and the behaviour of students with ASD, the results differ in the sensory parameters and triggers that were perceived to be most problematic. Visual Triggers In the UK study, it was found that the source of light (96 percent responding affirmatively), luminance (87 percent), and intensity of light (82 percent) were the primary visual triggers with the greatest effects on students. In contrast, respondents in the U.S. study identified the source of light (44 percent), intensity of light (38.9 percent), and luminance (19.7 percent) as major visual triggers. The participants of the UK study consid- 229 Refereed Full-Papers ered visual changes and distraction—the most frequently selected choice of the U.S. study, at 67 percent—as much less problematic (11 percent). The discrepancies in the order of importance of visual triggers might be attributed to differences in daylight factors, which are affected by classroom height as much as window areas and heights in both localities. This is given the climatic variations; the climate is mostly overcast in the West Midlands and brighter in Texas. Greater reliance on artificial lighting and internal luminance in schools in the West Midlands most likely contributed to such a significantly heightened visual reaction. The UK study did not include “undefined space” and “clutter” as choices for the question concerning visual triggers. The inclusion of these sensory triggers came about due to the discussion within the focus group. The choices were second and third most often selected by the participants in the U.S. Other choices for the questionnaire that were not present on the UK survey include highly decorated classrooms, which 41 percent of teachers identified as a main visual trigger, compared to windows at 19.2 percent ,items hanging from lighting (18 percent), and linear furniture arrangement (2.6 percent). Conversely, “stripes on radiators, grills, gratings, and light diffusers” were considered significant by only 3.1 percent of the participants in the U.S. study, compared to 36 percent in the UK study. This could be attributed to the extent to which these fittings have been used in classrooms in the UK as compared to Texas. Sound and Auditory Triggers The most common sound trigger in the UK study was “unduly harsh and lengthy echoes caused by large uncurtained window areas and hard floors and ceilings in larger areas,” as indicated by 77 percent of the respondents, as compared to 20 percent in the U.S. study. “Noise from heating and air conditioning systems” was selected as an auditory trigger by 15.7 percent of teachers in the U.S. study, compared to 42 percent of participants in the UK study. This may possibly be attributed to effective noise-control measures and better specifications in Texas schools compared to relatively outdated service systems in West Midlands schools. The third most frequent response in the UK study was “low pitch sounds from main road traffic” at 37 percent, compared to only 12.2 percent in the US study. This can be attributed primarily to proximity to main roads and the type and quality of external glazing. However, “background 230 noise from adjacent rooms and corridors” was identified by 38.6 percent of respondents in the U.S. study, compared to 15 percent in the UK. Such variations are indicative of the type and specifications of materials for internal partitions, where a lightweight timber construction is commonly used in U.S. schools, compared to heavy concrete blocks as the main construction material in the UK. Conclusions The disparity in findings between the UK and the U.S. can be attributed to several factors. The design of the learning environments may differ between Texas and West Midlands. There are some differences in the classroom area and size. The overall size of public schools in Texas, as compared with special needs schools in the West Midlands, could be a factor. In addition, climate and the amount of sunlight could account for the variation in the choices of lighting between the two studies. The internal design layouts of the classrooms vary. Areas and size of the classrooms also differ. The findings of the two studies largely support Grandin’s (1995) observation and her claim that students with ASD experience heightened sensitivity to light and other visual stimulation. This partially supports the commonly held claim that students with ASD display strengths in visual learning (Mesibov et al., 2004). Based on the results of this study and others, the learning environment should be designed to reduce the impact of moving visual stimuli and distractions. The study highlighted spatial organization, lighting, and colour as three of the factors that should be addressed in achieving this purpose. Learning Space Organisation (U.S. study only) The importance of visual and physical organization cannot be overemphasized when designing learning environments for students with ASD. Based on the results from the focus and survey groups, a cluttered and a highly decorated classroom may lead to undesirable behavior. Items hanging from overhead lighting were cited by approximately 18 percent of the teachers as having a negative influence on behaviour. The focus group participants reported that no negative influence occurred as long as the items had meaning within the context of the classroom. For example, signs over centers, or decorations involved in the theme of the classroom were determined to enhance rather than to distract attention in the learning environment. According to the survey group, space should be well defined because Refereed Full-Papers undefined space is one of the major factors contributing to undesirable behaviour. Different areas of the classroom should provide for independent work, group work, and leisure (Mesibov, et al., 2004). The focus group reported that an open concept space is difficult for students with ASD, as they will desire to roam or run around the area. The TEACCH approach (Mesibov, et al., 2004) and claims by Stokes (2003) emphasize the need for organization of the physical environment. These assertions are backed up by the current study, since undefined space was the second most common visual trigger selected by the participants. Lighting Natural light improves academic performance (Lyons, 2003; Fielding, 2002), relaxes students, per- Table 3: Comparison of the findings of UK and U.S. regarding visual triggers Table 4: Comparison of the findings of the UK and the U.S. regarding acoustic/auditory triggers. May 2011 – Make No Little Plans 231 Refereed Full-Papers mits better concentration, and reduces hyperactivity in children (Dunn, et al., 1993; Benya et al., 2002). Torrice & Lagrippo (1989) observed full-spectrum lighting increased productivity, improved mental attitudes and alertness, and had therapeutic effects. Both studies reported that intensity of light, source of light, luminance, and presence of windows were all found to trigger sensory hypersensitivity and stereotypic behavior. In this comparative study, intensity of light was found to have the greatest effect of the three. Megson’s (1995) claims regarding involuntary dilation of the pupil are instrumental in regulating a higher intensity and bright light. While this is beyond the scope of this study, it is significant to identify the need for cross-disciplinary research to investigate the interrelation between the trios of physio-cognitive-sensory environment. However, unmasked windows were also seen as a source of distraction for students with ASD. Colour and Pattern Colour and pattern were found to serve as visual triggers for students with ASD, but to a lesser extent than factors contributing to space organization and lighting. Certain colours and/or colour contrast were each selected by almost 15 percent of the teachers as having a negative effect on behaviour for students with ASD. Patterned fabrics were selected by 12.4 percent of the teachers, while patterned wallpaper was reported as having less impact on behaviour. These findings may be a result of the nature of school design in the United States instead of the true influence these sensory parameters have on students with ASD. For example, the participants of the focus group stated that they believe they had little control over colours in the classroom. Many classrooms are painted neutral colours. In addition, patterned wallpaper may be used less frequently in school interiors than other finishes. These factors were not a focus of the study; however, they may have an effect on the results of the empirical research. Colour and tonal contrast of main surfaces (floors, walls, ceilings, and doors) and secondary surfaces (furniture) were selected by less than 7 percent of the survey participants as a main visual trigger. This may be due in part to the lack of contrast within the space (Texas Centre for Educational Research, 2006). Colour effects are perceived visually but are also absorbed by the skin (Torice & Logrippo, 1989; Wohlfarth & Sam, 1982). These effects include changes in mood and attention, blood pressure, and brain development (Engelbrecht, 2003). For example, red increases blood 232 pressure and heightens the sense of smell. Blue slows the pulse rate and lowers body temperature. Lighting also effects colour perception (Morton, 1998), but this is beyond the scope of this study. Noise Hard surfaces should be avoided as much as possible to help control noise. Noise from flickering fluorescent lights was found to be a problem for 17.7 percent of respondents in this study. Noise levels of up to 50 db (A) have been recorded from fluorescent lighting (Manlove et al., 2001). Only 9.7 percent selected plumbing noise as a main acoustic/auditory trigger. However, the open-ended responses from the survey group revealed that some students with ASD display sensory processing problems due to toilets flushing. Even modest noise levels (typical of North American neighbourhoods) can affect the development of the cognitive systems of children (Lercher et. al., 2003). Conclusions This research aims to assess the relationship among a few sensory environmental parameters and individuals’ behaviour in school buildings both in the UK and U.S. The findings clearly demonstrate that sensory stimuli have an adverse effect on individual behaviour in varying teaching settings including classrooms, gymnasiums, and main halls. This supports previous claims (Jordan & Powell, 1995; Eldelson, 1995; Williams, 1996; Waltz, 1996; Hatch-Rasmussen, 1997). The authors believe that students with ASD learn and interpret the world around them through their senses. Unfortunately, when their sensory receptors are bombarded by information simultaneously, this leads to processing difficulty and sensory jumbling. In turn, heightened sensory perception and stereotypic behaviour interferes with attention and affects their learning. The findings strongly support the claims that sensory stimuli are a complex and multi-faceted issue which might be affected by the spatial characteristics, design layout, and finishing of classrooms. Stereotypical behaviour is particularly aggravated by the source of light, intensity, luminance, and contrast, supporting previous claims by Yunfan (1993), Zental (1986), Cohen (1990), Sheri (2003), Wohlfarth & Sam (1989), Kuller & Lindsten (1992), and Megson (2001). Sound echoing and reverberation in larger spaces have similar influence supporting Grandin’s (1996) claim. This is determined by the volume of space as much as the internal finishing, such as having large uncurtained Refereed Full-Papers window areas and hard floors. These findings add credence to previous claims by Elmallawany (1985) and Lercher, et al. (2003). Low frequency sound from traffic noise, extractor fans, and PC fans have been shown to influence behaviour significantly. This supports previous claims by Haines & Stansfield (2001), Evans & Maxwell (1997), and Porges (1996, 2006). These might interfere with sound intelligibility, leading to fragmentation and loss of meaning of the perceived sound both in terms of content and context. Outcomes, Practical Benefits, and Implications This study represents a leap forward by providing a comprehensive measuring framework by which some sensory environmental attributes can be assessed objectively and their impact on individual behaviour can be thoroughly assessed. The findings have pinpointed the key factors that need to be considered to ameliorate the adverse impact on the teaching environment. Many benefits could accrue to sensory impaired students who are the ultimate beneficiaries of this study. Other intended beneficiaries are policy makers, teachers, carers, psychologists, design and construction firms, school managers, architects, facilities managers, building materials manufacturers, and researchers in the field as follows: 1. Providing a measuring framework by which some sensory attributes can be assessed objectively and their impacts on children’s comfort and well-being can be thoroughly examined. Other likely risks of harm can be minimised or mitigated. 2. Providing further insight and in-depth understanding about what constitutes a therapeutically enhanced learning environment for sensory-impaired individuals. Also, identifying the key influential environmental factors contributing to quality school buildings while enhancing the level of prediction in dealing with similar problems in the wider built environment. The findings might have a wide range of implications to sport, leisure, commercial, retail, and other communal facilities, along with promoting inclusive approaches which facilitate the use of buildings, equipment, and services by those with sensory impairments. 3. Maximising the level of control on the design and construction of school buildings by further reducing the undesirable consequences of the aforementioned May 2011 – Make No Little Plans sensory problems towards improving the operational efficiency of school buildings. Ultimately, to promote inclusive approaches which facilitate use of buildings, equipment, and services by those with sensory impairment. Clearly, educational policies in both countries advocate integrating sensory impaired individuals into mainstream schools. This might have wider implications in terms of ameliorating the impact of these problems when considering renovating and adapting existing schools. Based on the findings, there is a need to develop new design guidelines and design tools and to amend the current guidelines in both countries (DEFS, 1997, a, b), as well as to inform architects and interior designers involved in renovating existing buildings or designing new school buildings. Areas for Future Research In the light of the findings, there is a need to develop a cross-disciplinary approach to the impact of the environment on individual behaviour. The findings need to be interpreted further by using behaviour mapping and participant observations, which will be the focus of the next research stage. Another area for further research might include new intelligent materials to mitigate the changeable flow and fluctuating impacts of acoustical and visual stimuli. Further considerations will be given to explore and develop new performance specifications for adaptive materials. This might enable manufacturers of building materials to optimise their method of production and specifications to effectively meet the needs of individuals with sensory/perceptual impairment. There is also a need to examine new adaptive and sensory substitution technologies (SST) to mitigate the undesirable impacts of the sensory environment and to enhance sensory processing in the wider environment. This, in turn, might assist rehabilitation of sensory impaired individuals (SII) to perform to their full potential in the wider built environment. 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Journal of School Psychology, 27 (2), 165-17 http://encarta.msn.com/ encyclopedia761565821/Sense_Organs.html. 235 Refereed Full-Papers Residential Experience of Rural Immigrants: Understanding Migrant Enclaves in Urban China Yushu Zhu (University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign) Abstract Migrant enclaves encroaching on rural settlements have dramatically changed the social, spatial, and economic landscapes of the Chinese city and have aroused heated debate over housing policies. Drawing upon 43 semi-structured interviews about residential experiences of rural immigrants in three urban villages and one shantytown in three cities, this research provides new perspectives towards of the formation of such social space in urban China through the lens of spatial and social exclusion. It also adds to the debate of social exclusion and housing in western societies by providing empirical evidence within the context of a developing country. It is argued that rural immigrants are spatially trapped in such residential space, which is a spatial manifestation of multidimensional social exclusions imposed on them. Yet on the other hand, migrant enclaves play a significant role in promoting social inclusion of rural immigrants in the long run by providing cheap accommodation and employment opportunities in the city. With the vacuum of provision of public housing for rural immigrants, elimination of these migrant enclaves can intensify social exclusion if no consideration is given to rural immigrants. Introduction Housing stratification in urban China is manifested in the prevalence of migrant enclaves, including “urban villages” (chengzhongcun) and shantytowns (penghuqu). The two types of migrant enclaves are distinct from each other in terms of formation history, yet they are both mostly dilapidated and sub-standard residential neighborhoods and accommodate the bulk of rural migrant households in urban areas. Migrant enclaves are regarded as “new urban space” formed (Ma and Xiang 1998) by rural immigrants as a result of exclusion from various social resources and civil rights due to the rural-urban dichotomy of social system (Fan, 2002; F. L. Wu, 2004). This new social space is made possible by the market reforms implemented since the 1980s. On the one hand, since the housing reform in late 1990s, extensive urban expansion and redevelopment have encroached on the rural settlements, dramatically changing the social, spatial, and economic landscapes of the Chinese cities (Ma and Xiang, 1998). However, due to the duel land use systems—state-owned in urban area versus collectively owned in rural areas, the municipal governments tend to leave the residential land in rural villages intact to avoid costly relocation and compensation. On the other hand, labor reform has freed rural labor surplus to urban areas and given rise to growing demand of cheap housing in the cities, which left indigenous villagers room for rent seeking. As a result, indigenous villagers built informal buildings upon their land and let them to rural immigrants. Many villagers were able to move out of the village to better commodity housing, leaving rural immigrants the dominant residents in these villages. The proliferation of such migrant enclaves has been witnessed over the last two decades. In 2000, the 277 urban villages in Guangzhou had 1 million inhabitants (Zhang, Zhao et al., 2003); similarly, 241 urban villages in Shenzhen accommodated approximately 2.15 million inhabitants (Song, Zenou et al., 2008); in Xi’an, there are 187 such villages, 55 of which are located in the downtown area (Wang, 2004). While urban villages are most pronounced in the Pearl River Delta and Beijing, the shantytown (penghuqu) is another representative type of migrant enclaves which feature the migrant settlements in Shanghai1. These migrant enclaves, which accommodate a substantial number of rural immigrants, have been given a negative image as the pathology of the city, which give rise to crime, disorder, and many other problems (Ma and Xiang 1998; Song, et al. 2008). Consequently, urban village renewal projects are implemented by urban governments, with an aim to turn the “pathological” space into profitable projects without taking into account of the interests of migrant dwellers. It is not until recently that migrant enclaves were recognized as 1 No systemic statistics of penghuqu are found in Shanghai. This statement is confirmed by Professor Lixun Li, an urban village expert in School of Geography and Planning of Zhongshan University, China, and by Professor Yinfang Chen, the director of Sociology Department specializing Shanghai penghuqu. 236 Refereed Full-Papers the primary housing resource for rural immigrants by Chinese governments, which came to understand that rural migrants could have positive impacts on urban economics through their contribution of labor in fields shunned by permanent residents of the cities. In 2007, the Chinese central governments issued Guidelines on Improving Living Conditions of Rural Workers (Ministry of Construction, Development and Reform Commission (abbr.) et al., 2007), announcing the responsibility of work units to improve housing conditions for rural workers and that the housing provision for rural workers should be included in the planning of housing development for each city government. Yet a wide gulf still exists between recognition of the positive benefits of migrant enclaves and actual active support among municipal authorities. Extensive research has been done on the formation of the migrant enclaves, most of which is on urban villages. Most scholars attribute the emergence of urban villages to institutional factors related to the rural-urban dual social system (Tian, 2008); others, on the contrary, argued that aside from the structural mechanism, urban villages result from rational choices made by indigenous villagers, such as rank-seeking activities during the rapid urbanization (Zhu, 2004; Lan and Zhang, 2005). However, missing in the literature are mechanisms for the formation of migrant enclaves from the perspectives of rural immigrants who are the de facto users of such space. It has been pointed out in growing literature that urban villages, as a form of migrant enclaves, play a critical role in housing rural immigrants (Wu, 2002; Liu and Wu, 2006; Song, Zenou et al., 2008). This paper therefore aims to understand the space of migrant enclaves, drawing upon their residential experiences in the city. Space and social relations are mutually integrated. Social relations are constituted through space and constrained and mediated by it (Wolch and Dear, 1989; Ma and Xiang, 1998). Therefore, this paper employs the concept of “social exclusion,” which has been widely applied in housing policy studies in European countries to understand the inequality in access to urban space (Marsh and Mullins 1998; Somerville 1998). “Exclusion through housing” has been observed in public housing products in these western countries (Ratcliffe, 1998; Hills, 2001). Nonetheless, the empirical research of China, where a distinct housing system is in effect, could provide new evidence to this debate. In a nutshell, this study intends to provide a new perspective of understanding the space of migrant enclaves May 2011 – Make No Little Plans through the lens of social exclusion. Specifically, this study adopts case studies with in-depth interviews to investigate two main questions: What is the relationship of the residential experience of rural immigrants, including housing condition, housing choices, and residential mobility, to migrant enclaves? What is the relationship of social exclusion to housing: is housing causation of social exclusion or representation of social exclusion? Housing Accessibility Of Rural Immigrants And Migrant Enclaves In Urban China The open-up policy of Chinese government in market systems, including the labor market in the 1980s, freed numerous rural labors from agricultural areas to seek new opportunities in higher-wage coastal cities with high growth of economic development (Liu and Liang, 1997). Two categories are defined for migration— permanent migration with changes of household registration (hukou) and temporary movement without changes of hukou, or origin. The latter group is officially referred as “floating population” or “temporary migrants.” According to the 2005 census, the floating population, who had left their household registration place for at least half a year, accounts for 24 percent of the city population. As for the floating population, about 35 percent are less-educated rural migrant workers, or “nongmingong” who hold an agricultural hukou. (State Council and State Statistical Bureau, 2007). The influx of the large stream of rural-urban migration gives rise to challenging issues concerning housing accessibility of rural immigrants for Chinese city governments. Rural immigrants are largely excluded from the mainstream housing distribution system (Wang and Murie, 2000; Wu, 2006). Market-rate commodity housing units are out of their reach, either because they cannot afford them or a bank mortgage is not available for rural immigrants. Meanwhile, participation in the secondary housing market usually requires a local hukou (Wu, 2004). In addition, subsidized public housing, including the Economic and Comfortable Housing (jingji shiyong fang) and affordable rental units, are exclusively offered to local urban residents. The constraints rural migrants face lead to limit choices of housing products for them. One spatial response to shortage of housing resources for rural immigrants is the wide-spread migrant enclaves in urban areas (Liu and Liang, 1997), which are regarded as informal settlements in which housing units are built on rural land but traded in urban markets. Ur- 237 Refereed Full-Papers ban villages in China are literally rural communities in urban built-up areas. They were originally rural settlements where indigenous villagers lived on agricultural activities organized by collective units such as village committees, and they hold rural household registration. As urban expansion reached the urban fringe, the Chinese government converted agricultural land to urban use while leaving the residential land intact to avoid costly relocation and compensation. As a result, the planning, land use, organizational structure, and people of these villages are excluded from the urban system. Urban village, village-in-the-city, and chengzhongcun are interchangeable synonyms referring to this unique migrant enclave in China. However, unlike urban villages in the contexts of western societies, which respond to a planning ideology to pursue a village-style living as a way of escaping contemporary alienating cities, Chinese urban villages are not developed from any planning schemes, rather, they are believed to result from the structural deficiency of the country’s planning and social system inherited from the pre-reform period. These two neighborhood forms, therefore, fundamentally differ from each other in origins, physical structures, and social compositions. A comparison between these two contextualized notions has been systematically reviewed by Chung (2010). The spread of urban villages in China has provoked extensive academic debates. Chinese language literature has provided detailed documentation on the physical settings, land use, and living conditions of urban villages (Zhou and Gao, 2001; Chung, 2010). Zhejiang village in Beijing is the first documented and one of the most notable urban villages for case studies in China (Wang, 1995; Ma and Xiang, 1998). It was estimated that in the mid-1990s, about 70 percent of the 50,000 Zhejiang migrants in Beijing lived in Zhejiang village (Wang, 1995). Lan (2004) and Wang’s (2004) detailed investigations in Guangzhou and Shenzhen respectively have suggested that as much as 90 percent of the land available in these settlements has been built on. From a macro perspective, the deficiency in planning systems and social structures are attributed as causes of urban villages. Urban villages are believed to be shaped because of dualism land-use patterns, governance inefficiency, and housing marketization (Li, 2001). From a micro perspective, the rank-seeking activities of aboriginal villagers is believed to be the driving forces behind the formation of such residential space (Zhu, 2004; Lan and Zhang, 2005). It is not until recently that the importance of urban villages to urban development 238 and to rural immigrants has been widely acknowledged (Chan, Yao et al., 2003; Song, Zenou et al., 2008; Chung, 2010). However, the role of rural immigrants who are the de facto users of the space has been largely overlooked in shaping the urban village. Although literature has documented the social life, such as social network and self identity, of rural immigrants (Ma and Xiang, 1998), little has been found on the relationship between their residential experiences and the formation of space per se. Shantytowns, also known as penghuqu, are mostly found in Shanghai and Jiangsu. Unlike cities in the Pearl River Delta in southern China, there are few urban villages in urban areas of Shanghai. Instead, the role of urban village as accommodating low-income immigrants in the inner city has been taken mostly by the shantytowns. The history of penghuqu dates back to the Opium War and continues through the civil war in the 1940s. Many local refugees or those from surrounding provinces, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shandong provinces, built their own shelters in Shanghai to escape from wars or natural disasters and settled down there. After decades of urban development, these selfbuilt shelters gradually deteriorated and the areas where these settlements were concentrated became shantytowns (interview with a Chinese researcher studying shantytowns in 2010). In the 1990s, as migration from rural to urban areas grew, most of the first settlers and their families in penghuqu moved to better housing and more and more rural immigrants resided in penghuqu. Despite the distinct institutional driving forces that shape urban villages and shantytowns, the two types of migrant enclaves share much in common with regard to their scattered locations in cities, sub-standard housing conditions, and low socio-economic composition. Yet, while urban villages are the cause of heated debates, little attention has been paid to the shantytowns. Chen (2006) adopted ethnography to investigate the life history of native villagers, but immigrants have been missed in this book. Space And Social Relations: Social Exclusion Through Housing? Space is a production of social practices (Lefebvre, 1991). The perspective on socially integrated space is essential to understand urban space. Madanipour (1998) adopted the concept of “social exclusion” to interpret urban space in European counties. He articulated the relations between social exclusion and the production of urban space by arguing that multi-dimensional social Refereed Full-Papers exclusion—economic, political, and cultural exclusions, which constrain social choices of marginalized groups, would give rise to constraints in spatial choices and consequently finds its spatial manifestation in urban areas. Social exclusion is a relatively new concept, which dates back to the late 1990s and finds its antecedents in earlier debates in France, Britain, and the U.S. on poverty and the “underclass.” There are diverse interpretations of this concept with regard to different emphasis. Room (1995) argued that the notion focuses primarily on inadequate social participation, lack of social integration, and lack of power, emphasizing social participation and citizenship. Other scholars (Walker, 1997) regard the concept as caused by social processes and the multi-dimensional nature of disadvantage, in contrast with the static nature of poverty. Housing is an appropriate choice for illustrating the applicability of such a theory to a specific set of social relations in that housing is both an essential element of the domestic labor process and an important product of capitalist labor processes (Somerville, 1998). Empirically, starting in the late 1990s (Lee, Murie et al., 1995), the concept of “social exclusion” has been applied in analysis of public housing in mostly European countries. The main area of such debates lies in the processes of “exclusion through housing” in two ways: residence in particular localities may reinforce difficulties in securing access to employment opportunities and citizenship benefits; and housing processes which deny certain groups control over their lives and reduce access to wide citizenship rights (Marsh and Mullins, 1998). Some also argue that housing is not the causation of distinctive bases of social exclusion, but rather an expression of exclusionary effects (Somerville 1998). To what extent can the concept of social exclusion through housing (Smith, 1989; Massey and Denton, 1993) be applied to understanding migrant enclaves in the contexts of Chinese cities? Some China scholars argued that migrant enclaves have a signification role in the urbanization process in China by promoting considerable housing for rural immigrants. It is hence tempting that instead of causation of social exclusion, migrant enclaves can have positive effects with regard to social exclusion in Chinese contexts. Method and Sample The data for this research was collected with the aid of semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews. The May 2011 – Make No Little Plans fieldwork was conducted between May and July 2010. Four villages, one urban village in Guangzhou, two in Shenzhen, and one shantytown (penghuqu) in Shanghai were selected as study cases. Oral consent was obtained before interviews. The interviews lasted 20 to 40 minutes. The interviews were audio recorded and later transcribed verbatim in order to analyze the information. The questions for this interview were open-ended and were designed to explore residential experience of rural immigrants. Specifically, we investigated the housing conditions of rural immigrants living in these neighborhoods, their residential history, housing-related decision-making process, and residential mobility. It aims to understand how rural migrants adapt their housing conditions and housing choices in response to institutional barriers. Interviews are tailored to rural immigrants, yet some urban immigrants are also included so that comparisons can be made between rural and urban immigrants to discern the effect of hukou. Interviewees were recruited by random indoor visits. I visited each village at late morning and late afternoon to avoid meal time or bed time. Two steps were taken before an interviewee was recruited: first, asking for permission to interview; and second, asking for background information, such as length of stay in the city, to decide whether they fall in the category of our target interviewees. Age is one important indicator to decide whether one is a household decision maker. Teenagers are usually with their parents or brothers/sisters, therefore, they are excluded from the samples. In sum, 43 interviews were conducted, among which 14 were conducted in Guangzhou, 17 in Shenzhen and 12 in Shanghai (Table 1). Three group interviews were conducted (No. 0104, 0112, and 0201). As a result, the total number of participants is 47, 11 of whom hold urban hukou. Their ages range from the early 20s to late 50s. Selected cases Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai are three major destination cities for rural immigration. In 2005, nearly half of the de facto population in Shenzhen were rural workers; and for Guangzhou and Shanghai, the percentages were 18 percent and 15 percent respectively, double the national average of 8 percent (State Council and State Statistical Bureau, 2007). 239 Refereed Full-Papers Shipai village in Guangzhou Shipai village is the first urban village in Guangzhou. Due to its proximity to two local prestigious universities and the prosperous economic development of its neighbors, this urban village accommodates a large population of immigrants. It is estimated that Shipai village hosts about 60,000 rural migrants, which also makes it the biggest urban village in Guangzhou. Dachong village and Baishizhou village in Shenzhen Dachong and Baishizhou were selected as two cases in Shenzhen because, on the one hand, most residents have moved out of Dachong village due to the ongoing redevelopment of this village; on the other hand, many of those who moved out of Dachong went to Baishizhou village due to their proximity. Therefore, the two cases are conducive to understanding the dynamic process of residential mobility of rural immigrants by comparing the two villages. Dachong and Baishizhou are two big urban villages located within Shenzhen’s special economic zone. Dachong village is adjacent to the Shenzhen high-tech industrial park. Before redevelopment, this village used to accommodate over 60,000 residents and more than 1,400 buildings. Baishizhou is one of the biggest urban villages in Shenzhen. Located to the southwest of Dachong village, this village is one of the alternatives for residents who have to move out of Dachong village. Caojiacun village in Shanghai Caojiacun village is one of remaining shantytowns in Shanghai. It is located to the west of Shanghai’s inner city. According to local villagers, to date, there are around 3,000 households living here and the population exceeds 20,000. Most residents are immigrant renters. Understanding Migrant Enclaves Through The Lens of Rural Immigrants Substandard living conditions There are four types of residential patterns for immigrants in the three migrant enclaves. Most respondents (30 out of 47) rent a residence for one single household; some (nine respondents) live with other households to split the rent. Those who run a business in the village tend to rent a place for both residence and business, which are usually located on the first floor (four respondents). Their apartments not only serve as a place to live, but also as a storage room or a “factory” for their business. Finally, there are immigrants (four respon- 240 dents) who live with colleagues in a dormitory provided by their employers. The fieldwork observation is consistent with previous findings that the overall neighborhood environment in migrant enclaves is substandard: overly narrow streets and pathways, cracked road surfaces and “hand-shaking” buildings. The building heights in the three urban villages mostly range from four to seven stories, which are much higher than that in the shantytown (typically three stories). Due to the high density and height of the buildings, most housing properties in the urban villages are hardly ever exposed to sunlight. Darkness and dampness are common issues for most housing units in urban villages. While Caojiacun has fewer of these issues; due to old age, the structural condition of its buildings is much worse than the other three neighborhoods. Exterior walls of many buildings have started to peel off. Most housing units in urban villages have individual bathrooms and kitchens, although these two are usually combined in one single room. The majority of housing units in Caojiacun do not have bathrooms or kitchens. Instead, residents have to use public toilets in the village and public shower rooms outside of the village. Overcrowding is a severe issue for rural immigrants in all four villages. Statistics shows that the average living space per capita of Guangzhou city in 2008 reaches 20.3 square meters (Guangzhou Economic and Social Development Statistics Bulletin, 2009). However, the majority of rural immigrants in this study live in a space smaller than half of that. Living space per capita for most households ranges from 3 square meters to 10 square meters. Only six housing units visited exceed 10 square meters per capita, and four of them are occupied by households with urban hukou. For most rural immigrants, their room is no more than a place to sleep and rest. Many of them live in a studio, where there is one living room/bedroom and one bathroom/kitchen. A bed, a table or desk, a cabinet, and a TV are the only furniture for many households. Home appliances such as a refrigerator and washer are mostly not available, because there is not enough room and many of them cannot afford these appliances or utility costs. In addition to crowding, rural immigrants are more likely to live in the worst locations in the village, such as end of an alley, or a less-preferred floor in a building, usually the first floor and the garret at the top floor. Rooms at these locations are mostly dark, damp, and with poor ventilation systems. The garrets are places Refereed Full-Papers where thefts usually take place. Among respondents in these villages, those who live in these locations are all rural immigrants. Overall, although the living conditions of rural immigrants could meet their basic needs, crowding, lack of housing facilities and poor neighborhood environments make migrant enclaves far from quality residential space, such as the expensive commodity housing estates for the urban nouveau riches. Residential Mobility: Spatially Trapped Tenants Consistent with previous studies (Wu, 2006), rural immigrants are found to have high rates of residential mobility between different locations in the city or between properties in one neighborhood. Most rural immigrants interviewed live in one housing unit for three months to three years; very few of them would stay in one place for longer than that. It has been argued that groups with higher incomes and better education tend to make an active use of space whereas lower income groups tend to be trapped by it (Pahl, 1965). This is true for rural immigrants in migrant enclaves. Despite high rates of residential mobility, the majority of rural immigrants only move from one migrant enclave to another, or between migrant enclaves and work sheds. There is little mobility out of such a residential space. Only a few interviewees ever lived in other forms of neighborhoods, such as commodity housing estates or danwei compounds. In cases where they had, interviewees had social networks or had found enough acquaintances to split the rent so that they could afford to live in these places; once the network in the new neighborhood breaks down or their roommates were gone, they move back to migrant enclaves. A rural immigrant (Case 0411) in Shanghai used to live in two commodity housing units with her colleagues for a couple of years. For the first one, a two-bedroom unit, the rent of 1,000 CNY was split between six people. For the other unit, the rent of 1,200 CNY was split between four people. She had to move back to the shantytown after her colleagues left because she could not find colleagues to share the rent with her. Among the four major reasons found associated with interviewees’ moving decisions, improving living conditions or neighborhood environments was the least mentioned. Given other conditions, no moving decisions will be made unless the housing unit is so poor that safety or their properties are threatened, and this usually results in intra-neighborhood mobility. A male May 2011 – Make No Little Plans in Shipai village moved to the unit he lives now because the prior unit was flooded in a big rain. Moved because of theft, Shipai village, Guangzhou Case 0112, a couple, around 40 years old. Rural immigrants, both work in a hotel near the village. They live in a sandwich room between two floors of about 8 square meters. They came to Guangzhou when they were in their 20s and lived in current housing unit for more than three years. “We always looked for places to live within this village. We moved four to five times. In the beginning, we just wanted to find a cheap room only for sleep after work. Gradually we found it was important that the room stayed dry even in rainy days, because clothes never got dry in a damp room… We used to live in a garrote on the top floor because it was cheap and our salary was just about 600 CNY (about 90 U.S. dollars). At that time, the landlord didn’t take any measures against theft or other safety issues so the thief got a chance to come to our apartment from the garrote of a neighboring building and stole our gas tank while we were sleeping. We were afraid of living there since then.” Changes in household structure, such as getting married, having a child, or the arrival or departure of a household member, usually lead to mobility from one housing unit to another in the same neighborhood. They tend to move to a bigger unit with a larger household size and a smaller unit if the household size decreases. For instance, a female in Baishi village moved from a studio she shared with her husband to a much smaller room after her husband left for another city. Relocation to another neighborhood takes place when one changes a job or when migrant workers are forced to move against their will. In most cases, the respondents would live near their working locations to save commuting time and costs. In some circumstances, rural immigrants do not have choices but to move, either to another unit or another neighborhood. These reasons include an increase in rent which makes the current housing unit no longer affordable to them; a housing unit that needs renovation and the landlord forces them to leave; or that the village they currently live in is to be rebuilt. Regardless of the different reasons for their residential mobility decisions, migrant enclaves seem to be the only resort for most rural immigrants. They tend to be trapped in the lower end of housing stock in a city, 241 Refereed Full-Papers particularly migrant enclaves, because they are unable to achieve transfers off the state or have no social networks outside of these neighborhoods. On the contrary, although most urban immigrants live in migrant enclaves, they have more choices of housing units than rural immigrants and are able to make active decisions to stay in such a space. For instance, one female in Shipai village who owned a property in Guangzhou city claimed that she and her husband would live in the village because they wanted to save money for investment in their real estate business. Constraints of Housing Choices: Social Exclusions Instead of “exclusion through housing,” the proponents of which argue that residence in particular localities may reinforce difficulties in securing access to employment opportunities and citizenship benefits, it is found that the spatial entrapment of rural immigrants results from multiple constraints of the housing choices they face, which indicates multidimensional exclusionary effects arising from institutional structures, labor process, and deprivation of welfare. Rural immigrants tend to make passive housing decisions. On the one hand, they complain about the poor living conditions and desire better housing units; but at the same time, they expressed helplessness with the current situation due to limited choices and have to adapt to it. This woman has to move to another place, and she was looking for an affordable to live yet a better one so that her son and his girlfriend could live with them, “… We can’t afford a house with a rent of higher than 1,500 CNY… but most housing units with kitchens and bathrooms in this area are above that price. We would like to find a better place, but it’s too expensive; yet at the same time, neither do we want to wrong our son by living in a worse apartment… “—Case 0403, Caojiacun, rural immigrant The first and foremost constraint facing rural immigrants in housing sector is low income and inaccessibility to desirable housing units. The commodity housing units are mostly out of their reach. Most respondents only have a budget of 150 to 250 CNY (about 20 to 35 US dollars) per person for rent, which is about 10 to 20 percent of their monthly household income, not including other housing expenses. This proportion could add up to an estimate of over 90 percent or more on an apartment in commodity housing estates in the inner city. 242 “The upper limit of rent for us is 1,000 yuan (for three family members). … We all come here to make money, which is not easy. Like me, I’m doing a cleaning job and make only about 1,000 yuan every month. My husband earns about 3,000 to 4,000 yuan each month. We need to pay the rent and the utilities, that leaves us barely any money. So we can’t afford to live in a better house… ” — Case 0303, Baishizhou village, rural immigrant. In addition to high rent, insecure job and employment status is another hurdle for rural immigrants to overcome. Even if some of them may consider sharing rent with others in a better neighborhood, it is not always their decision to make because they are not welcomed in these neighborhoods, as the home owners there would not trust their financial ability to live there unless they have social networks. Lack of social networks outside migrant enclaves is therefore another factor that confines workers in these enclaves. Scholars have pointed out the importance of kinship and friendship ties acting as social institutions in housing decisions (Banerjee, 1983; Conway, 1985). And it is shown that rural immigrants tend to rely on strong ties, which are relatively socially homogenous, rather than weak ties. Most respondents found the current village to live through references from their family members, relatives, or other fellow-townsmen (laoxiang). Some are recommended by friends. Only a few found a place to live by themselves or through an estate agent. To a number of immigrants, reference of an acquaintance is essential to find a place to live when they first come to the city (case 0110). Those who have settled down in the city tend to find a place on their own through posted rent advertisements in the neighborhoods or an estate agent. “I have fellow townsmen there (so I came here). Nonlocal people wouldn’t come here unless they have fellow townsmen who are familiar with it, otherwise how could you know (it’s good to come here)…You don’t know here well, where could you live?” – Case 0110, Shipai village, rural immigrant Kinship and friendship ties are also important for housing decisions involving moving into a more expensive commodity housing estate or when workers are in need of help finding a place to live. They would not move into a commodity housing unit unless they could Refereed Full-Papers find their relatives or colleagues to move with them. In cases when they could not find a place to live, staying with fellow townsmen is one way for them to get through a transitional time. Rural immigrant couples or households with children face more constraints than individuals without a family in the city. They could not live in dorms provided by their employers if they want to stay with their family; neither would they consider living with other unacquainted households in order to maintain privacy and convenience. For case 0202 in Dachong village, who was forced to move out of the village due to the renovation project, it was more difficult for him to find a suitable place to live because of his child: “We are now looking around this area… If we can’t find any place to live, I don’t know (what to do). We don’t have any choices. If it were not for the child, we could live anywhere… (Would you consider living with other households?) We have a kid, sot it’s not convenient to live with others. And it’s not an economic way either. Now it may cost as much as 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan to rent an apartment with two bedrooms and one living room. Housing prices are too high. ” – Case 0202, Dachong village, rural immigrant As a result, rural immigrants have to minimize their requirements for housing so that they can at least afford a place to stay in the city. Rural immigrants would rather sacrifice comfort of living conditions for marginal economic benefits in the city because they cannot “spend every penny they earn on housing” (excerpt from an interview). However, their urban counterparts have more choices. One urban immigrant in Baishzhou village indicated that he could move to a better housing unit if he wanted, yet he thought it was not necessary. Role of Migrant Enclaves: Exclusion or Inclusion Through Housing? What do migrant enclaves mean to rural immigrants? To understand the role of migrant enclaves in rural immigrants’ residential experience, interviewees were asked whether the renovation of such neighborhoods could affect their life in the city and what they would do if such villages are reformed. Different attitudes were found among interviewees in Shipai village of Guanzhou, Baishizhou village of Shenzhen, and the Caojiacun of Shanghai. Most of them May 2011 – Make No Little Plans hold positive attitudes. They anticipated no tremendous affects that the redevelopment projects would bring to their life. Some of them have dorms provided by their employers as “backup” accommodation, which to some extent relieves their concerns, while others believed that there would always be a way out, such as moving to suburban area or sharing an apartment with others. However, some concerns were still expressed about the difficulty of finding an affordable place to live after the renewal of migrant enclaves. Some said they would have to go home if they could not find one. Despite the indifference with the future of the village they currently live in, migrant enclaves are still regarded as the primary, even the only choice for rural immigrants in Shipai, Baishizhou, and Caojiacun villages should the current village be redeveloped. Most of them expected to move to other villages on the fringe of the city. Other neighborhoods, including commodity housing estates which were regarded as unaffordable, were not an option for most of them. “I don’t wish to tear down this village. … Where are we supposed to move then? For one thing, you have to rent a place. As for those housing units in commodity housing estates, those are definitely out of our reach. … Those units are all apartment complexes which are always expensive. There are no studios for us. Why tear it down? ... We would have to go back home if it really happens…. We would only consider villages like this. What else could you consider? You can only find places worse than this, not better.“ — Case 0306, Baishizhou village, rural immigrant While respondents in Shipai, Baishizhou, and Caojiacun villages responded to a hypothetical scenario, Dachong village in Shenzhen, which is now undergoing a redevelopment project, provides a real picture of how rural immigrants respond to such a rapid change. Contrasting positive attitudes in the other three villages, much depression and passive responses were observed in this case. The renewal of this village has resulted in difficulty for rural immigrants in finding a suitable place to stay. A large number of immigrants who moved out of the village to the surrounding neighborhoods are believed to have given rise to increasing demand and rising rents in housing units in those villages. One respondent in Baishizhou village told us that the rent in this village has doubled since before the renovation of Dachong village. Consequently, most 243 Refereed Full-Papers interviewees had to move away, often as far as beyond the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen. Many of them are even forced to go home because of high living expenses in the city. Households who have school-age children and those who owned a small business in the village are facing more constraints due to the renewal project, such as Case 0202, who is considering sending his child, currently at primary school, back to his hometown because he could not afford a place to keep his business near the school district. Another male had to end his business because his established networks in the area will be ended after the demolition of the village. While public housing in European countries has been criticized for intensifying social exclusion due to their fixity in poor locations, proximity to job opportunities is another major reason for rural immigrants to move into migrant enclaves. As a matter of fact, in the long run, migrant enclaves could serve as a bridge for rural immigrants to achieve social and residential mobility. In their home cities, few rural immigrants have obtained homeownership, even though the housing prices are much lower than in the coastal cities. In this regard, in the Chinese contexts, where deficiency in housing provision for rural immigrants is widely felt, migrant enclaves play a significant role as a transitional space for them to realize upward social mobility by providing considerable affordable accommodation and job opportunities in the city. Conclusions and Discussion Drawing upon 43 semi-structured interviews about the residential experiences of rural immigrants in four migrant enclaves of three cities, this research provides new perspectives towards of the formation of such social spaces in urban China through the lens of spatial and social exclusion. It also adds to the debate of social exclusion and housing in western societies by providing empirical evidence within the context of a developing country. It is found that rural immigrants live in sub-standard housing units with regard to living space, air conditioning, and housing facilities. Despite the high residential mobility observed during their stay in the city, rural immigrants are spatially trapped in the residential space of lower-end housing units because most of them only move between different migrant enclaves or those housing units with equivalent, if not worse, living conditions, such as dorms or work sheds. Such spatial entrapment is believed to represent multidimensional 244 social exclusions imposed on rural immigrants, which have incurred multiple constraints of housing choices, such as low income, insecure employment status, and lack of social networks. As a result, rural immigrants tend to make passive housing decisions. They comprise comfort of living space to achieve marginal economic benefits in the long run, have low standards of housing preferences, and have to adapt to the environment despite their dissatisfaction with it. Due to affordability and proximity to job locations, migrant enclaves like urban villages and shantytowns hence serve as a prime, if not the only, residential space for rural immigrants. Despite many respondents’ indifference, the undergoing reform of such residential neighborhoods can force most rural immigrants to move farther to the fringes of the city or to more expensive commodity housing units, sharing with other households. The case of Dachong village, a reforming village, reveals a picture where a good number of rural immigrants are placed into a desperate situation as a result of redevelopment. 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