Sociology

- For Unit – V : The students are advised to read their class notes or Re Collect
the discussions we had in class to understand Family , life styles, back
ground, religion, caste, income group and region – and their impact on
Architecture.

Also recollect from Introduction to Art and Architecture - the sociological

aspects of evolution of shelter forms

- For Unit – VI: The students are advised to read their class notes/assignment
or Re Collect from Class discussions to understand Sociological problems of
Interaction, isolation, privacy, accessibility, conflict, alienation in Planning and
design of Buildings.

- For Unit VII: The students are advised to go through the web sites of GHMC,
HMDA and APonline to understand power structures and building sanction
processes

- The following notes is for an overall understanding of the subject and can be
used to answer any question that is related

Sociology and Architecture

What is the relationship between the individual and his or her designed environment
or social setting?

What is the relationship between an organization and the building wherein it resides?

Architectural sociology approaches these questions in examining how architectural

forms both influence and react to socio-cultural phenomena. A large proportion of
our human experience and social interaction occurs in the buildings in which we live
and work. Therefore, architectural sociologists use sociological perspective to
enhance building design.

The sociological position of architectural design deals not only with society
as a whole but also with society at the level of the individual. Design relative to
individuals must provide for their basic needs as well as respond with a language
that they may accept as defining their place within society.

This idea of place carries meaning on two levels;

place as a built entity, and place as a component of social order.

It is at the level of the individual that people will seek out housing to suit their needs
(local and social order) and will choose to work in locations which reflect their ideals
of social position.
Individuals bear a great deal of influence on architectural design in the
manner by which they interact, behave, occupy and control space or ignore it.
Safety and security are related to personal feelings that can be affected by the
space that the individual inhabits. The feeling of security, or the perception of
danger, will be affected by the built environment, and thus will affect the
individual in that location. These feelings carry a great deal of influence in how
an architectural design solution is viewed relative to its surrounding society.

Architectural design incorporates both the available technology towards

construction and the known societal initiatives into a built form. It is not enough
to view the Parthenon in Rome as a structure, as to some it may merely look like
an old building. A building such as the Parthenon must be viewed relative to the
context in which it was constructed. It must be fully appreciated with regard to
the society that constructed it, the design rationale that conceived it, and also
with regard to the citizens of the specific culture that inhabited it.
True works of architecture are not fully understood without the inclusion of
knowledge of the culture that surrounded these designs. The cultural influence is
the “personal” sense of time and place that contribute to the building’s place.

An understanding of the concept of personal space is important within architectural

design in order to create an environment that can respect the individual as well as
groups. This initiative is explored within the concept of space to promote awareness
of the nature and context of ourselves and those around us. While we may take
societal behavior is taken for granted through our daily lives, architectural design
must be able to create environments that controls these behavioural aspects that we
take for granted.

Architectural sociology is born out of frustration over architectural practices. In

project after project, It is seen that major gaps and disconnects in the process of
creating humanized spaces for people and in creating meaningful places for
organizations. A lot of people have worked to spread the knowledge of this emerging
field and educate sociologists and architects to the benefits of working together to
better connect people to their designed environments. The person in the building is
just as important as the building itself.

We may define architectural sociology as the application of social theory and

methods to the architectural design process. It provides quantitative and qualitative
research tools to anticipate how designs impact people on a variety of levels. Here
we may note on how we are amazed when we look at the latest architectural design
magazines with all the wonderful pictures of the latest buildings. The people who use
these buildings are seldom shown. Our experiences reveal that architects are
interested only in designs as art or in the construction aspects of their projects, but
have virtually no training and limited interest about the human responses to their
designs. Architectural sociology addresses the purpose of architecture as it relates to
our society.
Even if architectural sociology is an emerging subfield, it draws on the existing fields
of environmental psychology, ecological sociology, organizational ecology,
organizational sociology, and community sociology. In practice, architectural
sociology builds upon social design theory and uses research methods such as
survey research, Internet research, interviewing, field observation, secondary data
sources, and unobtrusive measures.

Observing people in their natural setting can provide clues for the architect on how
social interaction occurs in various settings such as classrooms, meeting rooms,
office spaces, and pedestrian walkways. In particular, the areas where research
methods assist the architect include human use of space, environmental and user
preferences, and post-occupancy evaluation. Sociology helps architecture in all
phases of the design process, including the pre design and programming, design,
construction, and post-construction phases.

Architectural Sociology improves our understanding of the interrelationships between

people, organizations, and their built and natural surroundings. This field’s methods
and theories can help in understanding social characteristics of the community and
to gauge future population growth patterns of the community. It also helps architects
to see the potential impacts of their design decisions on the environment before it is
even constructed, or how the space can support social interaction etc,. In this way
Architectural sociology, in considering the individuals within the social setting,
enhances the architectural process.

Architecture and sociology will continue to inform each other. Architectural sociology
will remain viable because it addresses questions such as what the buildings we
construct say about us as a society. The future of the field is linked to educating
design professionals to see the relationship between social setting and the individual
and organization. Sociology has a huge contribution to make to a new way of
thinking in architecture.. As with all new paradigms, architecture will not change
easily. Nevertheless, architectural sociology has a promising future.

The Role of Architectural Sociology in Organizational development

Organizational development not only involves administrative changes, such as

establishing new lines of authority, rules, and work processes, but also most often
necessitates a matching design or redesign of the physical environment. If a
company choose to have steep hierarchies of authority and the usual functional
separations of work tasks, then buildings would typically be designed to place the
highest executives on the top floor with secondary administrators on lower floors and
workers with the least status occupying the bottom floors. Walls, partitions, and
separate buildings would also probably be designed to house workers as per their
specialized function for the company.
In contrast if a very different approach is required for administration of an
Organization then the Architecture of such an Organization has to be different. An
environment should be created to complement the approach of this type, let us say,
who have to promote open communication, integration of work units, and team
problem-solving, and to encourage self-directed, creative, and extremely dedicated
workers, then perhaps removal of walls, and creation of magnet centers, “think
rooms,” and on-location ancillary services, such as day care, banking, car service,
and restaurants, should be considered as part of the architectural design.

Initiating a new administrative approach and/or designing a new building requires

that we do the necessary research by gaining the input from all the major
stakeholders, including the workers, managers, owners, directors, and existing as
well as prospective clients.

Careful evaluation of the successes and failures of similar organizations that have
implemented related administrative approaches and physical environments would
also be beneficial.

Successful organizational development efforts derive from well established and over-
lapping sociological, psychological, business and Architectural theories.

Architectural sociologists draw upon their organizational theories and their research
to describe how the physical environment reflects managerial philosophies and also
to analyze how the physical environment subsequently impacts the participants,
processes, and outcomes of the organization.

Thus the sociological factors are of great assistance to the architect on matters of
building and landscape design, choice of furnishings, layout of work stations,
locations of conference and break rooms, decision about who receives valued
space, public perceptions of a company based on building layout and aesthetics, to
make the physical environment assist the organization in its development.