Zitong Wang 17.10.

2021

How Affordance formed Ambiguity

A theory to better understand ambiguity in Van Eyck’s design

In The craftsman，Sennett, R. introduce us the ambiguity in Van Eyck’s design of playgrounds

in Amsterdam. According to Sennett，the boundary and the group of users being not strictly
defined create a sense of ambiguity that enable the users to generate their own rules and
pattern to interact with the imprecise space and with each other. Through this kind of
ambiguity，Van Eyck tried to making ‘Place and Occasion’ in which people can observe and
learn cities (Sennett, R., 2008. P231-P235). What give this unstatic property to space and how
it works deserve further discussion and It’s could be better understood with theory of
affordance.

Affordance of environment meaning what the environment provide for individual, is neither
an object or a subject property (or it is both) which implies a complementary relation between
individual and environment. It is a invariant property but still vary considering the variety of
observers as individual or groups and their ‘niche’ (Gibson, J.J., 1979 P119,P120,P121 P130). The
affordance can be ambiguous for different individual or groups, and it can be either good or bad.
In Van Eyck’s design the climbing dome and funnels can be climbable for children, or it can afford
optical information of bad consequence like falling. Similarly, the concrete block can afford sitting,
stepping, and jumping but stumbling as well; locating in the middle of street open and public
offers a large place for running and chasing with audience watching but also danger from passing
car and intrusion of pedestrian. This train children to develop their rule to both keep safe and have
fun. For pedestrian, those facilities may not afford information of playing with but can still afford
the vitality when children are playing there. Without children, the playground with elementary
constructions can also afford a suitable place to occupy and take a rest instead of giving
information of being too childish to stay making this playground a ‘Pocket park’ that suits different
groups.

Except for physical construction, affordance also come from other people which ‘comprise the
whole realm of social significance for human being’ and we pay ‘the closest attention’ to it (Gibson,
J.J., 1979, p120). The most representative case is the affordance form children and those who
observe them aside in the playground, most likely their parents. Those benches may afford a place
to sit but the key affordance is a place high in ‘drift’ (measure how far the observer is from the
centroid of isovist) of isovists where they can have view of most area in the playground and thus
convenient to watch over and take care of their kids with least interference (Benedikt, M. 2020,
p76). This behavior is formed by the relationship and well allocated by the design of space. For
those passing by or adolescent, though there’s hardly any physical boundary force them into
specific direction and area, the pavage of the floor, the occupation by children to the ‘territory’
and the parent’s watching eyes all afford optical and acoustic information about what they are or
not supposed to do. Their behavior was formed by the phenomenon of how others behave as a
kind of subjective, psychical affordance. Then the intangible rule for those groups to share the
space was developed in an autonomous way base on the ambiguous design.
Van Eyck’s design revealing the world as a ‘complex where relationship are just as important as
the thing themselves’ (Strauven, F, 2002, p67). The varying affordance of space, objects and human
behavior creating ambiguity. The relation and interaction between them that forms those
phenomena of reality seems to be the clarity out of this ambiguity.

Reference
Sennett, R., 2008. The craftsman / Richard Sennett., New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gibson, J.J., 1979. The ecological approach to visual perception / James J. Gibson., Boston, Mass. ;
London: Houghton Mifflin. Hillier, B. et al., 1984. What do we mean by building function? pp.In:
Powell, J.A. and Cooper, I. and Lera, S., (eds.) Designing for building utilisation. (pp. pp. 61–72). E
& F.N. Spon Ltd: London, UK. (1984).
Benedikt, M. 2020. Architecture beyond experience. Applied Research and Design.
Strauven, F, 2002 ’Wasted Pearls in the fabric of the city’ in Lefaivre, L (ed), Aldo Van Eyck, the
playgrounds and the city, NAi Publishers:Rotterdam;