Architectural Theory and Practice and The Behavioral Sciences

FUNCTIONALISM REVISITED
Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai in 2004

Functionalism Revisited
Architectural Theory and Practice
and the Behavioral Sciences
JON LANG
University of New South Wales, Australia
ERG/Environmental Research Group, Philadelphia, USA
WALTEr MOLESKI
Drexel University, USA
ERG/Environmental Research Group, Philadelphia, USA
First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright © 2010 Jon Lang and Walter Moleski
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Functionalism revisited : architectural theory and practice
and the behavioral sciences.
1. Functionalism (Architecture) 2. Architecture--
Philosophy. 3. Architecture--Human factors.
4. Architectural design--Psychological aspects.
I. Lang, Jon T. II. Moleski, Walter.
724.6'01-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lang, Jon T.
Functionalism revisited : architectural theory and practice and the behavioral sciences /
by Jon Lang and Walter Moleski.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-0701-0 (hardback) 1. Functionalism
(Architecture) 2. Architecture and society. I. Moleski, Walter. II. Title. III. Title: Architectural
theory and practice and the behavioral sciences.
NA203.3.L36 2010
720.1--dc22
2010011712
ISBN 9781409407010 (hbk)

Contents
List of Figures vii

List of Tables xiii
About the Authors xv
Preface xvii
PART I INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

AND FUNCTIONAL THEORY 1
1 The Inheritance: Architectural Practice and Architectural Theory Today 3

2 A Framework for Theory in Architecture 27
PART II CREATING A THEORY OF FUNCTIONALISM 31
3 Concepts of Function in Architecture 33

4 Experiencing Architecture: The Foundation for a Theory of Functionalism 39
5 Functionalism Updated 63
PART III THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT:

THEORY AND PRACTICE 73
Basic Functions
6 The Accommodation of Activities: Behavior Settings and Architecture 79

7 Shelter and Salubrious Environments 111
8 Physical and Psychological Safety and Security 131
9 Architecture, Financial Security, and Profit 155
10 Identity and Community 173
11 Identity, Individualism, and the Unique 205
12 Buildings as Signs and Status Symbols 213
Advanced Functions
13 The Cognitive Function of Architecture: The Environment

as a Source of Learning 243
14 Experiential Aesthetics and Intellectual Aesthetics 255
vi functionalism revisited
PART IV EXTERNALITIES: BUILDINGS IN CONTEXT 289
15 The Function of the New as a Shaper of its Environment 291
PART V CONCLUSION 313
16 Architectural Theory, Functional Theory, and Design Methodology 315
References and Bibliography 321

Index 345
List of Figures
Frontispiece: Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai in 2004 ii
Part I Burj al ‘Arab Hotel (2000) and Jumeirah Madinat (2003) 1
1.1 Rationalism and Empiricism in Modernist architecture 6

1.2 The application of early twentieth-century Rationalist concepts
in urban design 7
1.3 The second generation of Modernist architecture 9
1.4 Utilitarian, or Corporate Modernism 11
1.5 Neo-Modernist architecture and the architecture of structural dexterity 15
1.6 The architecture of signification: literal, abstract, and Post-Modern 17
1.7 Deconstruction in architecture 19
1.8 Revivalist and Neo-Traditional architecture 21
1.9 Images of sustainable environments 22
1.10 A traditional approach to architectural theory—A focus on the creator 24
1.11 A traditional approach to architectural theory—A focus on the design
paradigm 25
2.1 Architectural theory and functional theory 28

2.2 Environmental psychology as a basis for design theory and design practice 30
Part II The Grande Arche at La Défense, Haut-de-Seine, France (1983-9) 31
3.1 Traditional concepts of functionalism 35

3.2 Architects’ world views and concepts of functionalism 37
4.1 The fundamental processes of human behavior 39

4.2 Balance Theory 42
4.3 Environment, spaces, objects, and people 45
4.4 Buildings as objects in space and as environment makers 47
4.5 Behavior settings 49
4.6 Fixed- and semi-fixed feature milieus 51
4.7 Potential and effective environments 52
4.8 The concept of affordance 54
4.9 The hierarchy of human motivations as seen by Abraham Maslow 56
4.10 The concepts of competence and environmental press 57
4.11 The perception of environmental quality in terms of costs and rewards 58
4.12 The elements of a living culture 59
viii functionalism revisited
5.1 A human motivations-based model of architectural functionalism 64

5.2 Environment types and human and machine needs 69
Part III Tegel Harbor Phase 1 Housing, Berlin, Germany (1988) 73
Basic Functions: Trump Tower, New York City, USA (1983) 77
6.1 Designing for activities and the issues involved

80
6.2 Places and links 81
6.3 A Neo-Traditional district shopping center—Rouse Hill Town Centre,
NSW, Australia (completed 2008) 83
6.4 Designing for the efficient (and safe) movement of pedestrians
and motorists 87
6.5 Dual circulation systems 88
6.6 Interior landscape, free-plan, campus-plan, or open-plan design 90
6.7 House form and culture: India 92
6.8 Zones of penetration and residential unit design 94
6.9 Management organization, activities, and floor plans 96
6.10 Room geography, sociopetal, and sociofugal settings 97
6.11 Anthropometrics and ergonomics 100
6.12 Activities and illumination levels 102
6.13 Barrier-free environments 103
6.14 Playgrounds as challenging environments for children 105
6.15 The Richards Memorial Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania (1957) 107
6.16 Le Corbusier’s Modulor based on an image of the human body 108
7.1 Designing for shelter (and comfort) 112

7.2 The destructive power of nature and people 114
7.3 Climate and urban and building form 118
7.4 Mechanisms for ameliorating climatic conditions 120
7.5 Humidity levels and architecture 121
7.6 The Gallaretese Housing, Milan, Italy (1967-70) 123
7.7 The Rationalists, Empiricists, and salubrious environments 125
7.8 Shelter and the architecture of structural dexterity 126
7.9 Energy conserving, comfortable buildings in a variety of climatic zones 128
8.1 The segregation of movement systems for safety, efficiency, and comfort 133
8.2 Designing for defence—walls and gates 135
8.3 Designing to counteract terrorism and its effects 137
8.4 Building types and territorial hierarchies 139
8.5 Designing for defensible space 141
8.6 Freeway Park, Seattle, Washington, USA (1976) 142
8.7 Layouts that make way-finding difficult 143
8.8 The elements of cognitive maps in urban areas and in buildings 144
8.9 A dynamic model of privacy 146
list of figures ix
8.10 The interplay of distance and the formality of the behavioral loop
between people according to Hall’s Proxemic Theory (Hall 1969) 148
8.11 Proxemic Theory and room geography 149
8.12 The visual invasion of privacy 150
8.13 Sacred geometries and architectural design 152
9.1 Developers and the financial security of their investments 156

9.2 Operating costs and ecological design 158
9.3 The public sector as property developer 159
9.4 Security of tenure and investment decisions 160
9.5 Public investment as a basis for creating a sense of financial security
for private investors—the case of Bilbao, Spain 162
9.6 Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany—property developers
and urban design 163
9.7 The architecture of the international money markets 164
9.8 Signature buildings 166
9.9 The architect as developer 168
9.10 Generic building forms 171
10.1 Complete territorial communities—do they exist? 176

10.2 Cresive communities 178
10.3 Building design and community formation 180
10.4 Designing for a sense of community—the case of Bedok Court,
Singapore (1985) 181
10.5 The neighborhood unit concept 183
10.6 Neighborhoods and communities 184
10.7 Districts 187
10.8 The aesthetics of community and the New Urbanism 188
10.9 Neighborhood personalization and ethnic identity 190
10.10 Public art and identity 192
10.11 Memorials, shared histories, and a sense of community 193
10.12 Symbolism and cultural diversity 195
10.13 Changing/destroying the identity of a building and a place 197
10.14 Modernist and Neo-Modernist approaches to the creation
of a sense of place 199
10.15 Revivalism as a technique for establishing a sense of regional identity 201
10.16 Route 7 in Rutland, Vermont and Harrisburg Pike in Carlisle,
Pennsylvania 202
10.17 The German Pavilion (1928), Barcelona, Spain 204
11.1 Environments as expressions of self 205

11.2 Buildings as images of self 206
11.3 Uniqueness in design 209
11.4 Naïve works of architecture and display? 210

x functionalism revisited
12.1 The taste cultures of architects and of lay people 214

12.2 Taste cultures 217
12.3 Prestigious urban landscapes 219
12.4 Skylines and prestige 221
12.5 Building size, height, and prestige 223
12.6 House form and social status in India 225
12.7 Prestigious building types 227
12.8 Interior architecture, symbolism, and status 229
12.9 Taste cultures and interior architecture 230
12.10 A mediational theory of environmental meanings applied to doors 232
12.11 Doors and windows 233
12.12 Le Corbusier doors 234
12.13 Design characteristics, maintenance levels, and the perceptions of status 235
12.14 Les Echelles du Baroque, Montparnasse, Paris (1979-85) 238
Advanced Functions: Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe,

Valencia, Spain (2000) 241
13.1 Formal, semi-formal, and informal opportunities for learning 245

13.2 Educative urban environments 246
13.3 Playgrounds as formal settings for informal learning 248
13.4 Architectural theory and the cognitive functions of the built
environment at the beginning of the twenty-first century 253
14.1 Federation Square, Melbourne observed as an object, set of objects,

and as a set of behavior settings 256
14.2 Aesthetic theory and the domains of functional and architectural theory 257
14.3 The Cathedral of St Joseph and St Philomena, Mysore, India 257
14.4 Sensory aesthetics 259
14.5 Formal aesthetics 261
14.6 The Gestalt theory of perception’s laws of visual organization 262
14.7 Expression through line and form 264
14.8 The dynamics of visual form 265
14.9 Proportional systems 266
14.10 Proportional systems and building design 268
14.11 The relationships between visual complexity and pleasure 269
14.12 Serial vision/sequential experience as analyzed by Gordon Cullen 271
14.13 Sequential experience in the design of the university city
of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (1972+) 272
14.14 Attitudes towards the destruction of the World Trade Center towers
as explained by Balance Theory 274
14.15 A contemplative analysis of the Bianchi House, Riva San Vitale,
Switzerland (1971-3) 276
14.16 The architectural idea and aesthetic appreciation 277
14.17 The Jewish Museum, Berlin (1999) 279
list of figures xi
14.18 Decorated sheds, ducks, and a duck in the foreground

and a decorated shed in the background? 281
14.19 Compositional and abstract design as mechanisms for visual
expression in the work of Le Corbusier 282
14.20 Habituation level and aesthetic preferences 285
14.21 The traditional Japanese garden and Shibuya—aesthetic expressions
in two very different behavior settings 286
Part IV Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA in 2006 with the
Walt Disney Concert Hall (1987; opened 2003) 289
15.1 Investment decisions and their catalytic effect 293

15.2 The potential effect of out-of-scale developments on neighborhood space 294
15.3 Dealing with blank façades 297
15.4 Reflections and glass façaded buildings 298
15.5 Building design and wind movement 300
15.6 Urban patterns and climate impacts 301
15.7 Overshadowing 303
15.8 New buildings and a sense of place 305
15.9 New buildings and their contexts 307
15.10 Marin County Civic Center, California, USA (1958-72) 309
15.11 Low environmental impact buildings 311
Part V Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California, USA (1981) 313
16.1 Functional theory, procedural theory, and the design process 317
References and Bibliography: Alexandrina Library, Alexandria, Egypt (1989-2002) 321
Index: Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz (1970s) 345

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List of Tables
3.1 Building functions and the concerns of architecture 38
4.1 The human perceptual systems 40

4.2 The affordances of environmental features for children’s activities 53
10.1 Formal and communal organizations 174

10.2 Spatial and aspatial communities 175
10.3 A classification of community types 177
12.1 Taste cultures, aesthetic standards, and architectural patterns 216

Professor Lang is an international authority on architectural theory and has contributed to
generations of young architects and urban designers through his teaching and writing. This
latest publication on functionalism serves as a much needed roadmap for understanding
buildings and cities in transition from the last century to the present.
Alfonso Vegara, Fundación Metrópoli, Spain
About the Authors
Professor Jon Lang is the principal of his own urban design consulting firm in Sydney
as well as Director for Urban Design for ERG. He headed the School of Architecture at
the University of New South Wales and was Associate Dean for Research during the
1990s and early 2000s. Earlier, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania where he
headed the joint M. Arch/MCP program in urban design during the 1980s. He has been
a visiting professor at a number of universities in the Americas, Europe, and Asia and a
juror for international architectural competitions and a consultant on architecture and
urban design in Afghanistan, Australia, India, Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Libya,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, as well as the United States. His cross-cultural
perspective is clear in the books he has authored on urban design, the relationship
between people and the built environment, and on modern architecture in India, the
land of his birth. In 2010 he received the Reed and Malik Medal from the Institution of
Civil Engineers in London.
Walter Moleski is executive director of ERG/Environmental Research Group, Inc. The

firm specializes in the study of the relationship of people, their activities and aesthetic
values, and built form as a basis for architectural design. The firm’s projects have included
commercial and university buildings, the improvement of public housing schemes,
inner city developments, and a variety of art, medical, and research facilities as well
as neighborhood planning. Throughout his long career he has developed new methods
of evidence-based architectural programming and design. He has been a consultant to
many of North America’s leading architectural firms, organizations such as Revenue
Canada and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and academic institutions such as Harvard,
Princeton and Tulane Universities. He has taught at Drexel, Temple, Carnegie Mellon,
and the University of Pennsylvania. His contributions to the field have been recognized
by two Progressive Architecture prizes, an American Planning Association award, and a
career award in 2002 from the Environmental Design Research Association.
Preface
The concept of functionalism was central to architectural thought and much practice
throughout the twentieth century. It still is. It has generally referred to the instrumental,
or utilitarian, purposes a building or urban space is to serve, and the purposes its
structural and constructional systems are to fulfill. This definition is no longer sufficient.
A more generous view of functionalism is taken in this book. In providing this view
the book describes the broad range of purposes that buildings and, more generally, the
built environment affords people and, but only in passing, other species. It also describes
what architects are striving to do today and the purposes, or functions, of buildings that
they deem important.
We have learnt much about the built environment, the purposes it serves and the
manifestations of these functions in the buildings of different cultures. This knowledge
has come primarily from the behavioral science research of people in the field that is
loosely called environmental psychology or person-environmental studies but also from
architects. The research results are, however, scattered and thus difficult to access. The
purpose of this book is to provide a framework for organizing our present understanding
of the functions that buildings and urban areas that fall within the domain of concern
of architects can perform. It is also to locate this understanding within the body of
knowledge that is loosely called theory in the design fields.
The Argument
Our present model of functionalism simply does not cover the range of functions that
buildings can afford human beings nor is it tied in a conceptually clear manner to
architectural theory. Indeed, it is important at the outset of this book to clarify what
we mean by theory in the design fields. It will be argued here that it should cover not
only an architect’s intentions and the mechanisms used to convert those intentions into
building forms, but also how people experience those forms given their own knowledge,
attitudes, and motivations.
The argument continues by stating that buildings can be experienced as environments
or as objects. Each involves a specific mode of paying attention to the world. Considering
the built environment as a set of nested behavior settings enriches our understanding of
what it affords us. We do, however, also appreciate buildings as aesthetic objects to be
admired (or not).
The first two parts of the book deal with the nature of current practice and the necessity
of having a clear understanding of the nature and scope of theory for the discipline of
architecture. The goal is to add clarity and specificity to the knowledge base that informs
practice. It will be argued that what is needed is a theory of the functions that buildings
can perform and theories of architecture, as ideological statements of what actions should
xviii functionalism revisited
be taken. The focus in the book is on the first. A model of functionalism based on the
theory of human motivations developed by Abraham Maslow (Maslow 1987, Huitt 2004)
helps us understand the various tugs on architects’ hearts and minds in practice. It adds
clarity to the debates about what our contemporary design ideologies offer us. What one
does with this body of knowledge—this functional theory—depends on one’s attitudes.
The core of the book, Part III, contains a description of the purposes that the built
environment can serve. Buildings afford not only activities, but can also fulfill shelter,
security, and esteem needs, and offer aesthetic interpretations. Secondly, buildings are
often a source of financial gain and are frequently designed with that purpose paramount.
New buildings also change their surroundings. They can be catalysts for change and can
be specifically located and designed to fulfill that function. Often, however, the side effects
of erecting a building are not considered by its designers. They are left to be dealt with
by those people affected by the impacts. Part IV of the book looks at the issues involved.
Part V of the book contains a brief essay relating this new model of functionalism to the
act of designing and thus to our understanding of design methodology.
Acknowledgments
This book brings earlier statements of functionalism up-to-date as continuing research

enhances our understanding of the nature of architecture. In so doing it draws heavily on
the professional architectural experience of Walter Moleski and the ERG/Environmental
Research Group in Philadelphia. The book clearly owes a great debt to many other
practicing architects and academics. In particular, the work of those researchers enhancing
our knowledge of architectural designing as a socio-political act and of the environment-
behavior relationship must be acknowledged. Their names parade through the pages of
the book and the References and Bibliography at the end of it.
Visiting and examining cities and buildings around the world and interviewing
architects and critics is expensive. I have been aided in this task by many organizations. In
approximately chronological order, they are the Philadelphia Foundation, the University
of Pennsylvania, UNESCO, NATO, the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the
American Institute of Indian Studies, the Grosser Family Fund, the Australian Research
Council, the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales, the
Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design, and the Getty Foundation. I have been
extraordinarily fortunate in receiving the generous support of these institutions and
programs. This book was written and prepared for publication entirely at the University
of New South Wales. The indirect financial support provided by the Faculty of the Built
Environment in its production over a number of years is very much appreciated.
Many individuals have given Walter and/or me a highly precious commodity—time,
either their time or time to allow us to develop our work. The list of people includes
Janet and Mick Aylward, Mark Brack, Michael Brill, Charles Burnette, Akhtar Chauhan,
George Claflen, Abner Colmenares, Alexander Cuthbert, Madhavi and Miki Desai, Ruth
Durack, Sengül Gür, Linda Groat, Roman Herrera, Hwang Luxin, Arun Jain, Jin Jung
Hwa, Bruce Judd, Aykut Karaman, Aziz Kraba, Anemone and Jusuck Koh, Kathy Kolnick,
Geraldine Lang, H. Powell Lawton, Lee Jung Man, Tom Lee, Ranjit Mitra, Francisco
Moccia, Aileen Moleski, Ng Waikeen, Karen Rutberg, John McCory, Neela Shukla,
preface xix
Cornelia Thiels, Alfonso Vegara, Alix Verge, Jamie Whitehouse whose help with
preparing the illustrations for publication was invaluable, James Weirick, and most
recently, Caroline Nute. Thank you.
Over the past 40 years the clients of ERG have provided the opportunity to test in
professional practice the utility of the model of the functions of buildings and urban
designs presented in this book. From the first project, the Federal Reserve Bank in
Philadelphia, clients and architects have supported ERG financially and have provided
the group intellectual stimulation and many new ideas. Of the clients who have enabled
the firm to pursue research as well as professional objectives, a number deserve special
recognition: The Philadelphia Orchestra, The National Center for the Humanities,
Princeton University, Richard Allen Resident Council, Seattle University, The Washington
Home, and the University of Washington Law School in Saint Louis. The contribution
of many architectural firms to the intellectual underpinnings of ERG’s work also needs
to be acknowledged. They include Hartman-Cox, Filson Eskew, Louis Sauer, and WRT
[Wallace, Roberts and Todd]. Ron Goodrich and George Manos with Walter Moleski
founded and developed ERG and Michael Rubin, an architect and anthropologist, added
a host of intellectual concepts to its work. The firm’s experience was recognized by the
Environmental Design and Research Association [EDRA] in awarding Walter Moleski its
career award for the application of environmental design research in practice.
The Illustrations
Jane Jacobs’s book The Death and Life of Great America Cities (1961) contains no illustrations.
Instead she wrote: “For illustrations please look closely at real cities. While you are
looking, you might as well also listen, linger, and think about what you see”. In contrast,
this book is full of illustrations. They are only examples of what can be observed in cities
and buildings around the world. Almost all could have been taken from any one city.
Jane Jacobs’s advice is still sound and worth following. The illustrations are no substitute
for experiencing the environment around us at first hand.
Compiling illustrations is an arduous task. In assembling them for this volume, I
have been aided by many people: friends, relatives, students, academic colleagues and
many, many professionals. The photographs, diagrams, and drawings, unless otherwise
indicated, are by me or I am their copyright holder, or they are in the public domain.
Every effort has been made to contact and credit the copyright holders of the other
material used. It has been extremely difficult to trace a number of them. I have no record
of the provenance of the illustrations identified as being part of the “Collection of Jon
Lang”. If copyright proprietorship can be established for any work not specifically
or erroneously attributed, please contact me at the Faculty of the Built Environment,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2052 or at jonl@unsw.edu.au. I will
be pleased to rectify any errors.
Jon Lang
Sydney, February 2010
[Modern architecture’s problems] are due not to its having been too functional
but to its not having been functional enough.
James Marston Fitch (1980)
[A] narrow functionalism [cannot] be sufficient for complex societies.

Ali Madanipour (2007)
Part I
Introduction: Architectural Theory
and Functional Theory
Burj al ‘Arab Hotel (2000) left Jumeirah Madinat (2003) right

Tom Wright of WS Atkins PLC, architect. DSA [Dubai South Africa], architects.
1 functionalism revisited
This introductory part of the book describes what we understand by theory in architectural
practice and education and how that understanding can be taken a step forward. The
argument presented is simple. We need a general model of the scope of architectural
theory. We need to differentiate between our understanding of how the world of buildings,
streets and landscapes functions and our theories of what good architecture and a good
built world are. The first can be quasi-scientific but the latter is always socio-political and
thus shaped by the political economy within which architects work (Clarke 2004).
There are, it will be suggested, three bodies of theoretical knowledge for the design
fields: a) a theory of functionalism, b) a set of architectural theories—statements of the
purposes that buildings and urban designs should serve in a particular circumstance
and how to achieve them, and c) theories about the design process. The first draws on
the experiences obtained in practice and on systematic empirical research while the
second consists of the normative philosophical statements of individuals and schools of
architectural thought on what is deemed to be important and what good environments
are. The third deals with design methodology—the theory of designing. That too can be
divided into two parts: knowledge of design processes and techniques and ideological
positions on how to employ that knowledge. The issues of design methodology fall
outside the scope of concern of this book but they are discussed in passing in Chapter 2
and later in Chapter 16, the conclusion to this book. The objective here is to revisit the
concept of functionalism.
Although the Modernists who were designing functional buildings (Behne 1926,
Le Corbusier 1923, Sert and CIAM 1944, Gropius 1962, Giedion 1963) and critics
(e.g., Norberg Schulz 1965, Steele 1973) wrote much about what the functions of
architecture should be, they provided only sketchy outlines of the functions that buildings
can serve. There are many descriptions of architectural theories (see, for instance, Conrads
1970, Nesbitt 1996, Hays 1998, Jencks and Kropf 2006). What the range of functions of
architecture is perceived to be in these ideological statements is unclear. In response
there have been a number of calls for an explicit and broader theory of functionalism
than that the Modernists provided and we now possess (see, for example, Canter 1970,
Lynch 1984, Milner 2001, Venturi and Scott Brown 2004, Madanipour 2007).
The purpose of Chapter 1: The Inheritance: Architectural Practice and Architectural Theory
Today is to give a synopsis of what is happening in current architectural practice, the
philosophies that guide it, and their twentieth-century antecedents. Much current
practice fails, however, to attract the attention of architectural critics. Its work fails to
interest the cognoscenti. The concern here is with what is actually being built. As a
consequence we provide a broad overview of the range of current practices. The purpose
is to provide a foundation on which to build a model of functionalism that can serve
architects well today.
If Chapter 1 establishes what we now regard as architectural theory, Chapter 2: A
Framework for Theory in Architecture distinguishes more thoroughly between the nature of
functional theory and the nature of architectural theory. It also relates these two bodies
of knowledge to procedural theory in architecture, to design methodology.
1
The Inheritance: Architectural Practice

and Architectural Theory Today
He who loves theory without practice is like a sailor who boards a ship without a rudder
and a compass.
Leonardo de Vinci, architect, sculptor, inventor
We live in fragmented times. The arrival of the twenty-first century was accompanied
by a diversity of architectural attitudes and thus designs. This diversity is not surprising
because the Modernists’ focus on what they called “function” gave way to concerns of
style and during the latter part of the twentieth century to “signification” (Venturi and
Scott Brown 2004). Architectural theory today focuses not on describing and explaining
how the built world can and does function but on the ideas and works of individual
architects, and/or schools of architectural thought whose members espouse similar
views. In practice the concern for the functionality of buildings has not disappeared
but rather architects today emphasize different functions than their predecessors. To
understand our contemporary architectural theories and practices we need a clear theory
of functions. Such a theory must be of practice and live and die by its practical utility. In
order to achieve this end our story begins by looking at our contemporary architectural
ideas and their philosophical underpinnings.
The Intellectual Heritage
Two streams of philosophical thought shape architectural theory and practice (Broadbent
1990, Pevsner, Sharp, and Richards 2000). They are the Rationalist and the Empiricist.
The former line of thought has roots in Platonic philosophy and later in the philosophies
of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz and more recently in the Napoleonic legal code. It is
associated with the urban design and architectural ideas that poured out of Continental
Europe during the twentieth century. The latter line is rooted in Aristotelian ideas, the
scientific tradition of Bacon and the Enlightenment, the philosophies of Locke and Hume,
and English common law.
Rationalists among designers rely on reasoning not tradition to establish ideal
buildings and urban designs. The functions that the Modernists among them believed
architecture should serve were best elaborated in the Athens Charter of CIAM (see Sert
and CIAM 1944, Le Corbusier 1973, and Sharp 1978). The problem in Rationalist views of
architecture and particularly urban design is that in seeking the ideal in a geometrically
ordered world the baby often gets thrown out with the bathwater—what works well in
terms of people’s lives with what does not.
In designing for the future Empiricists rely on their perceptions of what works as
well as what does not, and on learning from precedents—images of the good places
and buildings of the present and past. The Empiricist position is exemplified by a whole
series of statements written during the past 30 years (for example, Alexander et al. 1977,
Appleyard et al. 1982, Lynch 1984) but can best be illustrated during the early twentieth
century by the writings of Ebenezer Howard (1902) and, in a very different vein, Camillo
Sitte (1889, Hegemann and Peets 1922). Today Empiricist attitudes are displayed in the
advocacies of Jane Jacobs (1961) and the Neo-Traditionalists (see Katz 1994, Perera 2005,
Talen 2005). Designs, however, have to function in the future. The future is unknown and
to be created. No architect can be an extreme Rationalist or a complete Empiricist.
Rationalists and Empiricists are united in their concerns for enhancing the quality of
life of people and their belief that the built world can be made a better place than it is
now. They differed because each had its own image of what future societies should be
like and, implicitly, the functions that buildings and urban places should serve. Neither,
however, had a fully fleshed model of the functions buildings do serve and might serve
for people on which to clearly build their arguments.
Today, in the globalized economy, a distinction is often made between Western and
Asian attitudes towards the world and thus towards architecture. The distinction between
Western liberalism (emphasizing tolerance) and Asian authoritarianism (emphasizing
discipline and order) is, however, very misleading. It would classify Plato and Saint
Augustine along with Confucius and Kautilya as Asian philosophers and Rationalists
while Ashoka, Gautama Buddha, Akbar the Great, Lao-tzu, Mahatma Gandhi or Sun
Yat-sen as Western and Empiricists (Sen 2000).
Early Modernist Schools of Thought
The architectural theories and practices that attract the attention of the cognoscenti—those
people who are highly respected for their deep knowledge of a field—still owe much
to Modernist theories, both Rationalist and Empiricist, and to the designs developed
during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. Modernist architecture is, however,
generally associated with avant-garde European architects of a period extending from the
late nineteenth century to the 1970s. These architects were primarily Rationalists.
The First Generation of Rationalists
The Rationalists among Modernists shared a common concern for functionalism and
the use of orthogonal geometries in design. They embraced modern technologies,
industrialization and the standardization of building forms but rejected the use of applied
ornamentation. The most influential Rationalist architects were those associated with the
Bauhaus (1919-33) in Germany, and those allied with Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard
Jeanneret). There were, however, many other groups such as the Expressionists and the
Italian Rationalists. The goal of all of them was to have an architecture congruent with
the requirements of their image of what modern life should be. Although they rejected
the past their designs, nevertheless, drew on nineteenth-century Rationalist ideas (see
Turner 1977 and Brooks 1997 on Le Corbusier).
the inheritance 1
Modernist architecture first appeared in Europe before World War One in such urban
design proposals as those of Tony Garnier and in such buildings as the Fagus Shoe-
Last Factory at Alfeld an der Leine (1911) designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer
(see Figure 1.1a). Gropius and his colleagues at the Bauhaus considered functional
architecture to be one in which built forms are efficient in accommodating activities that,
in turn, are carried out efficiently and that destinations in buildings and cities should be
reached in as simple a manner as possible. The structure and construction techniques
employed would also be efficient (Giedion 1963, Banham 1967, Benevolo 1980).
Le Corbusier’s proposal for the “city for the machine age civilization” (1924; see
Figure 1.2a), his designs for the Maison Suisse (1932) in the Cité Universitaire, Paris and
the Citrohan houses proposals of the early 1920s had a major impact on the development
of architectural and urban design thought during the middle third of the twentieth
century. His designs between the two World Wars reduced building forms to the basic
geometric shapes of rectilinear, plane surfaces, cubes, and, sometimes, cylinders. His
buildings stood on pilotes and, often, had strips of fenestration, glass walls, and flat
roofs. They had no applied decoration. In his urban designs the streets were edges
to orthogonally placed clusters of buildings and were strictly channels for vehicular
movement not seams joining the two sides of a street to make unified wholes. Streets
were thus not seen as the center of life of communities, but, rather, places to avoid except
for vehicular movement. His ideas were driven by the Spartan, puritanical view of life in
which he was raised as a Calvinist (Brooks 1997).
Fine Modernist buildings celebrating the purity of forms and the interpenetration of
spaces were built (for example, Figure 1.1aiii) and continue to be built around the world.
The least successful are the mass housing projects built for low-income people. Based on
the perceptions of what a good sanitary simple functional environment is, they largely
failed to offer any broader qualities of life (J. Jacobs 1961, Smithson 1968, Brolin 1976,
Blake 1977, Gold 2007). Many such projects built in Europe and in the United States
during the 1950s and 1960s have been demolished. They continue to exist, however, in
extremely large numbers in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and are still
being built in Asian countries such as Korea and China (Figure 1.2d and e).
The Second Generation of Rationalists
The second phase of Modernist architecture gave the world a series of buildings more
visually lively than their immediate predecessors. Patterns of built form were declared
to be an important mode of artistic expression (see Figure 1.3). The definition of function,
implicitly rather than explicitly, broadened to include the communication of ideas
through the symbolic qualities of built form.
In the design for the pilgrimage chapel of Notre Dame de Haut at Ronchamp (Figure
1.3d), Le Corbusier strove to communicate his feelings, positive and negative, as a
religious puritan, about Catholicism (Samuel 1999). One has, however, to understand the
symbol system to discern the meanings he was striving to communicate—an intellectual
aesthetic exercise (see Chapter 14). Many other buildings with sculptural forms designed
by leading Modernists were contemporaneous or followed. They include the TWA
Terminal at Kennedy Airport designed by Eero Saarinen and the Sydney’s Opera House
designed by Jørn Utzon. The forms are even more dramatic now.
Source: Garnier (1917)
ai. The Railway Station, Une Cité Industrielle (1906-17);

Tony Garnier, architect.
bi. Frank W. Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois, USA

(1901; restored 1975); Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
Collection of Jon Lang
aii. The Fagus Shoe-Last Factory, Alfeld an der Leine,

Germany (1911); Walter Gropius and Adolf Mayer,
architects.
bii. Detail, Otaniemi Technical

University, Finland (1949-64);
Alvar Aalto, architect.
aiii. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, biii. India International Center, New Delhi, India
Chicago, IL, USA (1950-6); Ludwig Mies van der (1959-62); Joseph Allen Stein, architect.
Rohe, architect.
Figure 1.1 Rationalism (a) and Empiricism (b) in Modernist architecture

the inheritance 1
© FLC/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2010 Adapted from Hilbersheimer (1940)
a. An aspect of “a city of the machine age civilization” (1922; a

design sponsored by an automobile manufacturer); Le Corbusier
and Pierre Jeanneret, architects.
b. A generic Bauhaus-type residential

design (1940); Ludwig Hilbersheimer,
architect.
c. Tangley neighborhood, Roehampton d. Ilsan new town, Korea (1990s).

Housing, London, UK (1957-8).

Photograph by Kathy A. Kolnick
e. Lianhua Bai, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China f. The future Dubai, United Arab Emirates as
(late 1990s-early 2000s). envisaged in 2006.
Figure 1.2 The application of early twentieth-century Rationalist concepts in urban design
The Empiricists
The buildings and urban designs of the architects who worked within the Empiricist
tradition were based on their creator’s experiences of what worked and what did not
work and on precedents (see Figure 1.1b). The term “regressive utopians” sometimes
applied to them is misleading because they, like the Rationalists, looked forward to a
better new world and their designs broke away from existing norms. In urban design the
Empiricists can be divided into two groups: the urbanists (for example, Camillo Sitte, Jane
Jacobs, Gordon Cullen, and Christopher Alexander), and the garden city protagonists
(Ebenezer Howard and his disciples). They differed because they had different values
and were inspired by different precedents. Both groups regarded streets as seams for life,
and focused on what they believe works as much as on eliminating what does not.
In the design of buildings the Empiricists consist of a broad range of architects. They
include people as diverse as Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn, architects working
today within classical traditions such as Alan Greenberg and Leon Krier, and those such
as Robert Stern in the United States and Raj Rewal in India looking back at their own
traditions.
Today there are three philosophical traditions on which Empiricists draw: positivism
(Winett 1987, Zeisel 2006), structuralism (Jencks and Baird 1969, Lawrence 1989) and
phenomenology (Norberg-Schulz 1980, Seamon 1987). The first group draws heavily
on systematic empirical often experimental research. Architects today, however, have
generally preferred to rely on the speculative philosophies of the latter two groups, but
this book draws inspiration from all three intellectual traditions. Others rely on their
own experiences of a multi-variate world (Franck 1987). A different sort of Empiricism
also exists. It is exhibited in the corporate world.
The architecture of Corporate or Utilitarian Modernism Many buildings today are built in

the spirit of the Modernism of the major commercial architectural firms of the twentieth
century such as Emory Roth and Sons in New York, Albert F. Martin Jr. in Los Angeles,
and Richard Seifert in London. Some of the works of later firms such as Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill [SOM], César Pelli, Norman Foster, and Kohn, Pedersen and Fox fall
into this category.
Today Utilitarian Modernism covers a wide variety of building types. In the United
States and in Europe the buildings tend to be towers and curtain wall buildings. In
tropical countries they are generally made of reinforced concrete slab and beam, flat-
roofed construction, with their façades having shading devices similar to a brise soleil.
The brise soleil is often employed when not required for its shading purpose as a symbol
of being up-to-date.
Often in commercial architecture ceiling heights are kept at the legal minimum and
internal spaces have large spans so that they can be subdivided in many ways (see
Chapter 9). Many commercial firms, nevertheless, show a greater degree of flexibility
in their architectural thinking than those architects receiving international accolades.
They strive to meet the needs of individual clients rather than their own need for
artistic expression.
the inheritance 1
b. The Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

(1967-74); Jørn Utzon, architect. Completed by Peter
Hall, architect.
a. Universidad Autónima de Mexico, Mexico
City (1950-3); Mario Pani, planner; José Villagrán
Garcia and others, architects. Photograph by William Leatherbee
ci. TWA Flight Center, Kennedy Airport, Jamaica, NY, cii. An interior view.
USA (1956-62); Eero Saarinen, architect.
Drawing by Omar Sharif
(i) Plan form. (ii) Exterior view. (iii) An interior view.

d. Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France (1950-4); Le Corbusier, architect.
Figure 1.3 The second generation of Modernist architecture

10
The Criticism
The criticism of Modernist architectural ideologies was stinging and, perhaps over-
reactionary. It is important to understand because it brings attention to the strengths and
weaknesses of contemporary understandings of the functions that buildings and urban
designs can fulfill. The criticism came from behavioral scientists (for example, Gans
1968, Sommer 1974b, Michelson 1976), critics (for example, J. Jacobs 1961, Perin 1970,
Wolfe 1981), and from architects (for example, Venturi 1966, Goodman 1971, Brolin 1976,
Blake 1977). The criticisms identified three major problems: the designs failed to meet
their stated objectives, the models of the human being used as a basis for design were
simplistic, and the perception of the human being-built environment relationship was
naïve and deterministic. Implicit in these observations were questions about the nature
of the functions of architecture, and the adequacy of the knowledge base for design.
These criticisms overlap because views about one impinge on the others.
The Designs
The criticism of Modernist designs, especially those of the Rationalists, was particularly
harsh and vehement at the urban design level. It was observed that one simple building
in a complex setting stands out dramatically as a foreground element against a backdrop
of others, but when all the buildings are set back from the street in a regular orthogonal
geometry set in a park-like area in the name of progress and rationality a boring world
is created (J. Jacobs 1961, Blake 1977). There is little incentive for people to explore such
places because the view around the next corner is the same as the present one.
… the car would abolish the human street, and possibly the human foot. Some people would
have airplanes too. The one thing no one would have is a place to bump into each other, walk the
dog, strut, one of the hundred random things that people do … being random was loathed by Le
Corbusier. (Hughes 1980)
Large-scale Rationalist housing projects offered and still offer little in the way of adventure
for young people (Montgomery 1966, Ward 1990, Ladd 1978), and the homogeneity of
uses, and often people, reduces the opportunities for everyday vicarious learning about
the world (Smithson 1968, Parr 1969). They provided panoramic views (see Figure 1.2a)
but were not participatory environments (Lozano 1988). In addition the internal layouts
of buildings failed to afford the ways of life that their inhabitants desired (Brolin 1976).
A major criticism was that site and building designs in many parts of the world created
a loss of a sense of personal security (Montgomery 1966, Newman 1972). They inhibited
the development of a sense of community. Much of the architecture was hard—it was
difficult to adapt (Sommer 1974b). Symbolically the aesthetic quality of the buildings often
carried negative messages to people about themselves (Goodman 1971, Newman 1972,
1980). Much antisocial behavior resulted as youngsters, particularly underprivileged
adolescents with few outside opportunities, sought challenges and excitement through
vandalism (Ladd 1978, Ward 1990). The architecture is, however, a symptom, not the
cause, of such social malaises.
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a. Centre Point, London, UK (1967); b. 565 Fifth Avenue, New York c. Trump International Hotel
attributed to Robin (Richard) Seifert, City, USA (1993); Norman Jaffe and and Tower, Chicago, Illinois,
architect, but possibly by George Emory Roth and Son, architects. USA (2009); Adrian Smith of
Marsh. SOM, architect.
d. Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, CA, e. Dongchangan Jie, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
USA (1976); John Portman, architect. in 2006.
Figure 1.4 Utilitarian, or Corporate Modernism

Designs that looked good on paper had few affordances for a broad range of activities.
They served only a limited range of functions (Blake 1977, Fitch 1980, Mikellides 1980,
Madanipour 2007). What was included in this range was what architects perceived
should be and not what the inhabitants of the environments sought (Michelson 1968,
Ellis and Cuff 1989; see also Weaver 2006, Gold 2007, and Dalrymple 2009). Architects
began to look anew at their assumptions about people.
Models of People and Model People
All designs are, implicitly at least, based on assumptions of how people use and derive
meaning from the world around them. The Rationalists based their designs on ideal
people. They were limited models. Joachim Israel (Israel and Tajfel 1972) identified a
number of such models—the organismic, the role, and the relational—implicit in the
architectural and urban design theories and practices of the first two thirds of the
twentieth century (Stringer 1980).
The first assumes that human needs can be reduced to a few universal, primarily
physiological, requirements. The second stresses activity patterns and the third social
relationships. Fulfilling these needs was regarded as paramount in the theories of the
Bauhaus and by Le Corbusier. These needs are indeed important in establishing a
functional theory for designing, but they were often operationally defined in simplistic
terms. The criticism was that the models of people and their behavior on which designs
had been based were much too limited in scope (Gans 1968, Stringer 1980, Scott Brown
2004, and Madanipour 2007, among others).
The models are not based on observation and analysis, or behavioral tendencies, or
on people’s aspirations. They have also been too limited in the range of types of people
considered by age, stage in life cycle, social status, and cultural background, and in
the range of behaviors of importance to them (Appleyard 1976). Rather than enriching
life through the creation of behavioral opportunities, simplified solutions based on too
narrow a definition of function willy-nilly eliminated such opportunities. It is, however,
easier to design with a simple rather than a complex model of people in mind!
The late twentieth and early twenty-first-century criticism has been more specific. The
needs of the handicapped are forgotten (Robinette 1985, Goldsmith 2000, Milner 2001,
Graves 2002), the environment as a source of day-to-day learning is neglected (Ward
1990, R. Moore 1991, Woolley et al. 1999), and cultural specific behaviors are ignored
(Rapoport 1982, 1990a, 2004). The model of the human still tends to be universalist, often
based on the architect’s image of, usually, himself (Brooks 1997). It was a male-oriented
view of the world (Weisman 1992, Rothschild 1999, Hayden 2003, P. Williams 2009). There
is certainly often a social and an administrative gap between users and designers; they
have no direct contact (Zeisel 1974, 2006). More broadly the issues of concern to architects
often exclude those of building users resulting in many award-winning buildings being
thoroughly disliked by their inhabitants (Weaver 2006).
The greatest successes of the Modernists were in bespoke house design (see
Chapter 11). A close working relationship and articulate clients who could specify their
needs to the architect, plus a similarity of their social backgrounds, provided the basis
for behaviorally congruent designs (Eaton 1969, Zeisel 2006). The client/user hired the
architect. Considerably less success was achieved when public agencies or company
the inheritance 13
officials intervened between architect and user-clients. Often the agencies’ or officials’
needs for the survival of their positions seem to have overridden those of the people they
were supposed to be representing. In these cases architects have had to rely on their own
assumptions about what is good for people.
The Person-Environment Relationship
The third major criticism was and still is that architectural ideologies are based on an
unrealistic model of the impact of built forms on human activities especially social
behavior, self-esteem, and, more generally, quality of life. The layout and aesthetic
qualities of the world matter but the way the built world functions was misunderstood.
It was believed to be deterministic in shaping human behavior. It was assumed that the
users of a building would use it sensibly as the architect intended.
Possibly many architects did not believe their own rhetoric but used it simply as a
marketing ploy—to make themselves seem more important in shaping future lives than
they really are. Much architectural discourse still assumes that changing the shape of
the physical world will make “better” people. Many of the relationships we see between
behavior and built form are, however, based on the situational opportunities that people
perceive. A design may afford an opportunity for a child to play or for criminal behavior
to take place. It does not mean that they will occur.
The Response: Current Practice
No development in the theory of functionalism emerged in response to the criticism of

architectural theory. Practice, nevertheless, evolved. Architects’ oral responses and their
correlates in practice were to develop new patterns of built form, to claim less for the role
of the built environment in people’s lives and, sadly, to turn their backs on difficult social
concerns (particularly in urban design). The first led to a variety of new ideas about what
architecture should be. The second and third responses led to a general avoidance by
the profession of any concern for the socio-political issues of architecture. The attitude is
displayed in much architecture today.
Current architectural practice can be categorized under a number of rubrics covering
specific lines of thought evident in the patterns of form used. For the purpose here they
are Neo-Modernist design, with the architecture of structural dexterity forming part
of it, Post-Modernism in a number of forms, and Deconstruction. Clearly Empiricist in
nature is a range of Neo-Traditionalist design strategies, and Ecological architecture.
The overlaps among them are substantial. The new building forms that have resulted
may seem to indicate substantial shifts in architectural thinking but that is not really
the case.
Neo-Modernist Architecture
The core ideas of the Modernists persist although recent designs are visually livelier. For
one group of what one might call Neo-Modernists the concern is still for an architecture
of pure geometrical forms and the interpenetration of spaces and volumes. Often, but not
always, the goal has been for buildings to be appreciated as objects to be contemplated as
much as for the activities and the spatial experiences they afford in their interiors. These
values can be seen in the photographs in the left hand column of Figure 1.5.
Typical of recent architecture are the office buildings being built around the world.
They attempt to get away from the Corporate Modernism of the 1960s, but have become
symbols of the architecture of global capitalism—of the multi-national corporations. Still
predominantly in tower form, and often with generic plans of central cores surrounded
by letable floor space, the exteriors break away from the box-like forms of the 1960s; their
materials are more colorful although their general shiny character has resulted in many
being dismissed as “glitzy”.
Differing from such exuberant forms of artistic and structural display is a contrasting
Neo-Modernists approach. It has been called weak or, better, discrete architecture (de Sola
Morales 1989). It is an architecture of good manners in which well-executed buildings fit
into their contexts discretely. It is associated with the architecture of post-Franco Spain,
particularly Barcelona, in which a major consideration was given to how buildings,
with a sense of decorum, build good urban precincts. The architecture of structural and
geometrical dexterity stands in strong contrast to it.
The architecture of structural and geometrical dexterity Exploring ways of enclosing space
has long been of interest to architects and engineers. Many of the forms they have
devised have been highly sculptural (Charleson 2005). They do not, however, necessarily
house what they are supposed to accommodate well. A well known exponent today is
Santiago Calatrava Valls. His design for the Museu de les Ciències (see Figure 1.5bii) in
Valencia, Spain is a ribbed structure of concrete, aluminium, and glass, that proposed for
the transportation hub at the World Trade Center site in New York has soaring ribs.
Recently developed computer-based design algorithms allow for geometric and
structural calculations that were too laborious and time consuming to consider before.
Many new, particularly twisting, forms are being explored. The buildings are objects
in space with little concern for the quality of life for pedestrians or any other impact
they might have on their surroundings. A 2008 design by architect David Fisher is
for 70 and 80 story buildings for Moscow and Dubai respectively. Each floor can be
rotated independently by its occupants with speeds from an hour to three hours for
a full turn. Given the number of stories the permutations of the design are vast. The
buildings are supposed to generate more than enough energy to power themselves
from wave action and solar access. There are many such towers with a twist in the
offing (Callaghan 2008).
The architecture of abstract signification Providing for a sense of place is seen as a significant
function of architecture although it is seldom described as such (see Chapter 10). Place is
an ambiguous word. It can refer to a social, temporal, or a geographic location. One way
to create a sense of locale through the exterior appearance of buildings has been to take
elements of local architectures and to incorporate them directly in new buildings. Much
nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century colonial architecture in countries as
diverse as Morocco, Vietnam, and India sought to achieve this end (Figures 1.6a, 10.12a,
and b). Robert Venturi suggested an alternative approach.
the inheritance 15
bi. The Baha’i House of Worship, Delhi, India

(1980-6); Fariborz Sahba, architect.
ai. Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California,

USA (1995); Mario Botta, architect.
aii. Administrative Complex, Houn, El Jufrah, Libya bii. Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe,
(2002); Daniel Bruun and Jussi Murole of B&M Valencia, Spain (2000); Santiago Calatrava,
Architects, architects. architect.
aiii. El Museo del Arte Thyssen-Bornemisza renovation, biii. Southern Cross Station, Melbourne, Victoria,
Madrid, Spain (1989); Rafael Moneo, architect. Australia (2006); Grimshaw Architects. Winner of
the Lubetkin Prize in 2007.
Figure 1.5 Neo-Modernist architecture (a) and the architecture of structural dexterity (b)
Venturi argued that the elements of regional architectures should be incorporated in

buildings in abstract rather than literal forms (see Figure 1.6bi and ii; Venturi 1966, Venturi
and Scott Brown 2004). If, however, the forms are visually dissimilar to the referent, lay
people do not recognize the architect’s intended meanings unless those meanings are
explained to them (Groat and Canter 1979). This observation holds even more so when
metaphors and literary allusions are form generators as in the Jewish Museum in Berlin
(1998-2001) designed by Daniel Libeskind (see Chapter 14). In this case only the people
educated to understand the referents and allusions can appreciate the architecture in
terms of the architect’s highly intellectual story.
Kenneth Frampton advocated that architects employ a “critical regionalism” in their
work. This approach, like that of Venturi and Scott Brown, suggests that architects
incorporate local patterns in an unsentimental manner rather than simply copying the
vernacular (Frampton 1982, Lefaivre and Tzonis 2003). Critical regionalism today has
antecedents in the writings of Lewis Mumford, and J.B. Jackson in the United States and
in the work of a wide range of Modernists around the world including such unheralded
architects as Oluwole Olumuyiwa in Nigeria and Minette de Silva in Sri Lanka.
Interestingly enough architects, such as Richard Neutra, who are generally identified
with the International School showed considerable flexibility in dealing with situations
outside the main locations of their work. They attempted to tie buildings into their
context in an abstract manner by responding to the local climate and by incorporating
local referents in their designs (Lefevre 2003). The work of Álvaro Siza Vieira exemplifies
the attitude (see Figure 1.6bii). He combines a sensitivity to site and culture with modern
materials while drawing on traditions in abstract forms. Post-Modernism also seeks
signification but it is very different.
Post-Modernism
While Post-Modernism simply refers to anything that came after the Modernist ideals
of the first half of the twentieth century (Ghirardo 1996), Post-Modern philosophy is
more specific. It argues for a pluralism of thought. This statement is based on a number
of assumptions. They include the belief that there is no single reality, no single way to
view the world, and no single way to uncover the truth. Architectural theorists sought an
understanding of the signification of buildings in post-structuralist literary theory.
In literature, texts were no longer studied for the depth of their ideas or the beauty of
their language but for the variety of interpretations of their meanings from various points
of view (Lyotard 1983, Derrida 1997). Buildings too are seen as texts. Post-Modernist
architecture has sought to be anti-rational, eclectic in architectural symbolism, and
non-judgmental. It stands in strong contrast to the architecture of abstract signification
as shown Figure 1.6. Post-Modernism’s goal has been to defeat elitism and a single
worldview. It does not reject empirical knowledge but rather sees it as just one avenue
for explaining the world (Jencks 1977, Ghirardo 1996, Hays 1998).
Michael Graves has been one of the best-known exponents of a restrained Post-
Modernism in the United States. His architecture is marked by a sophisticated neo-
historicism that he calls “figurative”. Buildings such as the Public Services Building in
Portland (see Figure 1.6ci), the Humana Tower in Louisville, Kentucky (1986), the Dolphin
Hotel in Las Vegas (1987-90), and the Swan Hotel at Disney World, Orlando, Florida
the inheritance 17
Photograph by Wendy Dickson
ci. Public Services Building, Portland, OR,

USA (1982); Michael Graves, architect.
a. Église du Sacré Coeur, Casablanca, Morocco
(1930-46); Paul Tournon, architect.
bi. Guild House, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1960-3);

Venturi and Rauch, architects.
cii. TSR Towers, Hyderabad, India
(1957); SEARCH, architects.
bii. Quinta da Malagueria housing, Évora, ciii. Hollywood and Highland

Portugal (1972-90; see also Figures 10.14e and f); development, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Álvaro Siza Vieira, architect. (2002); Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut, and Kuhn,
architects.
Figure 1.6 The architecture of signification: literal (a), abstract (b), and Post-Modern (c)
(1990) display a use of classical and vernacular elements. Much the same can be said of
the work of European architects such as Ricardo Bofill (see Figure 12.14 for Les Echelles
du Baroque in Paris) in Europe and Arata Isozaki in Japan. Implicit in these statements is
a different view of the functions of architecture, but the issue of what constitutes function
was not specifically addressed.
The architecture of Post-Modern exuberance The architecture of Post-Modern exuberance is

a display of popular taste. Two basic ways of creating such an architecture have spawned
many varieties. One draws on traditional architectural, particularly classical, elements,
and the second is a modernesque form. It is a mixture, not an amalgam, of glass and other
shiny materials—marble, polished granite, and metals (see the frontispiece and Figures
1.6cii and 12.2f). Often the two types are integrated into what might be called a “Las
Vegas Modernism” or “Disneyland traditional” (1.6ciii). It tends to be an architecture
that matches the taste culture of the nouveau riche (see Chapter 12).
Many academics dismiss such architecture as kitsch. They find the mishmash of styles
an anathema. Yet the work is important to clients in establishing their status among
their colleagues (see Chapter 12). It is also widespread internationally taking somewhat
different forms in different countries. In countries such as the United Arab Emirates,
China, and Kazakhstan the exploration is with “modern” materials and eccentric forms
although building plans are quite conventional (Dawson 2005).
In India, Trinidadian novelist V.S. Naipaul talked about the “Calcutta Corinthian” and
“Rotten Rococo” of the mansions of the years past (Dutta 1984; see Figure 12.2c). More
recently, Gautam Bhatia categorized much current domestic work in the country under a
series of labels based on what appeared to be their antecedents: “Punjabi Baroque”, “Bania
Gothic”, “Early Hardwar”, “Marwari Mannerism”, “Singhi Hacienda” and “Anglo-Indian
Rococo” (Bhatia 1994). He might have added a Punjabi Le Corbusian! Le Corbusier’s work
has become an inspiration for local work by mistris, contractor-designers, in Punjab.
Deconstruction Deconstruction in literature, an extension of Post-Modern thought,

challenges the status quo by undermining all the taken-for-granted assumptions. In
architecture, the goal has been to create a sense of uneasiness as surfaces depart from
expected forms. A trend-setting firm was Coop Himmelblau (now Himmelb(l)au, an
Austrian group founded in 1968 by Wolf Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Michael Holzer).
Their Merz-Schule project (1981) and roof conversions at Falkestr 6 in Vienna (1983-8)
illustrate their radical agenda. These designs have been followed by a set of “eye-
popping” buildings such as the UFA Cinema Center (1998; see Figure 1.7d), BMW Welt
in Munich (2001-2005) with its 100-meter long titanium roof, the Musée des Confluences
in Lyon (2001-2008), and the JVC Cultural Center in Guadalajara, Mexico (2005+).
The Parc de la Villette (1984-9) designed by Bernard Tschumi is regarded as the first
integrated exploration of the paradigm in landscape architecture and architecture. The
Wexner Center (1986) at Ohio State University, designed by Peter Eisenman is another
early architectural example (see Figure 1.7b). The Vitra Firehouse (1993) in Weil un Rhein,
Germany designed by Zaha Hadid and more, recently, the Jewish Museum (1999-2001; 1.7e
and Figure 14.17) designed by Daniel Libeskind, and the National Museum in Canberra
(2001; 1.7c) designed by Ashton Raggat McDougall are major examples of executed work.
Revivalist and Neo-Traditional approaches stand in strong contrast to Deconstruction.
the inheritance 19
Courtesy of Bernard Tschumi, Bernard Tschumi Architects
b. Wexner Center, Ohio State University,

Columbus, Ohio, USA (1983-9); Peter
Eisenman, architect.
a. Parc de la Villette, Paris, France (1984-9); Bernard

Tschumi Architects.
c. The National Museum of Australia,

Canberra (1999-2001); Ashton Raggatt
McDougal, architects.
Photograph by Mark L. Brack
d. UFA Cinema Center, Dresden, Germany (1998); Coop e. Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany
Himmelblau, architects. (1999-2001); Daniel Libeskind, architect.
Figure 1.7 Deconstruction in architecture

Revivalist and Neo-Traditional Architecture
In the western world there has been a continuity of classical architecture. Architects
such as Allan Greenberg, Rob Krier, Robert Stern, Demetri Porphyrios, Lucien Steil, and
John Blatteau continue to work in this way. Many more specifically revivalist buildings
have been built in recent years. In former colonized countries many new buildings are
Revivalist as politicians and architects search for a unique local identity. Architectural
theorists pay little attention to such work. Traditional, or vernacular, architectures are, in
contrast, attractive to theorists because they emerged over a long period time to deal with
a locale’s resource limitations, local climatic conditions, and culturally based patterns of
activities. Frequently they have the plastic visual qualities that appeal to architects. This
looking back to glean ideas for the future is true of both the Empiricists as represented by
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Rationalists as exemplified by Le Corbusier.
During the last three decades of the twentieth century at least four overlapping
architectural explorations of the vernacular can be identified. The first involved a love
affair with a particular type of architecture and architects strove to reproduce it (see
Figure 1.8ai to aiii and 10.15). In the second, architects strove to understand the design
principles used within specific contexts and reapplied them. The third only occurred
in those countries such as China, India and Korea that have historical religion-based
canonical texts on design. The fourth amalgamates Modernist and traditional types in
deference to local climatic necessities and cultural patterns. The first and second are
widespread. In the third type building owners have required their architects to heed
religious or quasi-religious canons. Some critics believe that such designs are simply
responses to superstitions but many people believe that they have a strong empirical
basis (Bubbar 2005; see Figure 8.13). All of the first three types are employed today; the
fourth is now in the mainstream of architectural ideas.
In a number of countries Neo-Traditional buildings simultaneously achieve the goal
of being up-to-date and having “something of us in them” (see Figures 1.8bi to biii). The
Income Tax Colony Housing (1996) in Navi Mumbai, India is an example. Designed by
Raj Rewal it incorporates elements and patterns from traditional Rajasthani villages in
modern designs. The problem in such designs is how to deal with the automobile. This
was not a problem in Battery Park City, New York because it drew on models of the early
automobile era to establish a sense of place, at least visually.
The Critical Regionalism mentioned earlier can be contrasted to the Neo-Traditionalism.
While Neo-Traditional architecture relies heavily on the use of design patterns from the
past, critical regionalism is “self-examining and self-questioning” (Lefaivre 2003). It relies
more on the abstract use of design attitudes and design principles than on traditional
design patterns to situate new designs in their context.
Ecological Architecture
Designing with nature in mind is an increasing concern among architects, landscape

architects, and urban designers (McHarg 1969, Spirn 1989, van der Ryn and Cowan 1996,
Hough 2004, Roaf 2004). It has been encouraged by the recognition of the finiteness
of the world’s natural resources, the potential effects of extreme weathers and, more
recently, by the potential impacts of climatic changes on buildings and urban areas.
the inheritance 21
bi. The Income Tax Colony, Navi Mumbai,

ai. Shri Ramaiah Institute, Bengaluru, India India (1995); Raj Rewal, architect.
(1990+) designed by contractor-builders.
Source: Barnett (1987)
aii. Artistic Mansion, E. Chang’au Avenue, Beijing bii. Rector Place, Battery Park
in 2006. City, New York City, USA
(1980s); Cooper and Eckstut,
urban designers.
Photograph by Ruth Durack
aiii. McNeill Center for Early American Studies, biii. Seaside, Florida, USA (1980s); Duany
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Plater-Zyberk and Company, urban
designers.
Figure 1.8 Revivalist (a) and Neo-Traditional (b) architecture

a. Village Homes, Davis, California, USA (1970s).

b. Newington, New South Wales, Australia (1996-2002).
© T.R. Hamzah and Yeang Sdn. Bhd. Drawing by Munir Vahanvati
c. Monnikenhuizen, Arnhem-Noord, The

Netherlands (1990s); Meyer and Van Schooten, d. A proposal for a tropical high rise city (2001); Ken
architects, Lubbers Buro, landscape architects. Yeang, architect.
e. Europa Congress Center, Budapest. f. Roof, Euopa Congress Center, Budapest.
Figure 1.9 Images of sustainable environments

the inheritance 23
It has been accompanied by a concern for designing “sustainable” environments. Such

environments are generally understood to be those that reduce the energy consumed in
creating and operating buildings and urban precincts to a minimum, that recognize the
interdependence of human life and the biogenic environment, that reduce the embodied
energy in materials used, and that reduce waste by optimizing the life cycle of materials.
In addition they seek to have low impacts on the energy consumed in their surroundings
(see Chapter 15). We know much more about how to deal with these concerns than
we apply. Arguments for designing environmentally sustainable buildings have yet to
convince developers that the return on capital invested is worthwhile. The hotel industry,
for instance, believes that until energy consumption contributes a significant sum to
operating costs designing energy efficient buildings will not be a priority. Similarly,
symbolic demands require more an architecture of exuberance than of parsimony.
In some climates it is easier to design sustainable environments than in others. In hot
arid climates much can be achieved to reduce the ambient room temperature through
natural ventilation and cooling techniques, but being in air-conditioned comfort is what
most people seek. In temperate climates the use of artificial heating in winter and air-
conditioning in summer is clearly the way to achieve a high level of comfort. It is also
energy consumption intense. As a consequence mixed modes of heating and cooling are
currently being explored. They do require people to trade-off comfort levels for energy
efficiency.
It is easier to achieve energy-efficient design in low density precincts than in high-rise
areas. There are many examples of houses but fewer of tall buildings (see Figure 15.11).
Ken Yeang is one architect who has generated a number of exploratory designs for tall
buildings, mainly for tropical areas but also for Elephant and Castle in London (Yeang
1996; Figure 9.2b). His designs for buildings such as the Menera Mesiniaga (1992; see
Figure 7.9a) in Kuala Lumpur and the National Library in Singapore (2005) have attracted
considerable attention. In urban design, a number of scientists, landscape architects, and
architects have been exploring mechanisms for reducing the heat-island effect of cities,
the way streets can be laid out in relationship to winds to enhance the cleansing effect
of breezes, and the way buildings can be used to shadow (or not) their surroundings
to produce energy saving effects (Givoni 1998, Hough 2004, Smith 2005, Walker 2006).
The research promises much in explaining how buildings function and can function in
context (see Chapter 15).
The Nature of Practice and the Nature of Theory
Architectural practices, whether global or local, have shown a variety of approaches to

design over the past 20 years. We generally look at buildings in terms of their forms but
it is the difference in the perception of what the functions being addressed are that really
distinguishes between one approach and another. Each building reflects its creator’s
assumptions about which of the functions that it could serve are important and which
are not.
Every building may be unique but theory building involves making generalizations on
which architects can draw. Traditionally the theoretical underpinnings of environmental
design work consist of either description of the architectural or urban design ideas of
Collection of Jon Lang Photograph by Peter Kohane
b. Gehry House, Santa Monica, CA, USA

(1979 and 1987) in 1988.
Photograph by Musa Al Farid
a. Frank Gehry in the 1990s.
Courtesy of Shyamika Silva
c. Port Entrance, Barcelona, Spain (1999-2004).
d. The Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA, e. The Guggenheimm Museum, Bilbao, Spain
USA (2000). (1997).
Figure 1.10 A traditional approach to architectural theory—A focus on the creator

the inheritance 25
Photograph by Ruth Durack
b. The City Beautiful: Ceauseccu’s Bucharest

a. The Art Deco: Eros Cinema, (1977-90); Anca Petrescu, architect.
Mumbai, India (1938); Sohrabji K.
Bhedwar, architect.
c. Modernist Empiricism: Beth Shalom d. The Rationalist City: Brasília, Brazil (1957);
Synagogue, Elkins Park, PA, USA (1954-9); Lúcio Costa, planner, Oscar Niemeyer, architect.
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
e. Architecture as pure fine art, The f. Neo-Traditional urban design. The new university
Hassain Doshi Gufa, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, city of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (1970s); Michel
India (1993); B.V. Doshi, architect. Woitrin and Raymond Lemaire, urban designers.
Figure 1.11 A traditional approach to architectural theory—A focus on the design paradigm
individual designers (for example, Frank Gehry; see Figure 1.10), or the classification
of various design paradigms into groups based on similarities in what they look like
(Figure 1.11). The focus on an individual designer and his or her own perception of the
problems facing architecture and society is exemplified by the hundreds of monographs,
often hagiographical, on the work of individual architects. The second approach to
architectural theory is exemplified by this chapter. It has focused on schools of thought—
design paradigms. Architects inevitably fall into ideological categories whose members
can be identified by a similarity in ways of thinking and/or the patterns they use in their
designs. All classification systems have limitations as they are based on similarities;
they can blur significant differences in attitudes. The ones used here will no doubt raise
the hackles on the necks of many architects. It can, nevertheless, be concluded that the
concern of traditional architectural theory has been with architects as creators, their ideas,
the design patterns and materials they use and the buildings that reflect their ideas.
Theorists have shown little interest in the utility of buildings for the people who inhabit
or visit them or on their impact on the surrounding environments. Understanding the
traditional domain of architectural theory is crucial for the education of students and to
the continuing intellectual growth of professionals. Implicit in the work of all architects
and the paradigms they employ is also some theory of the functioning of the built
environment. It too needs to be understood.
Major References
Ghirardo, Diana Y. 1996. Architecture after Modernism. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Gold, John R. 2007. The Practice of Modernism: Modern Architects and Urban Transformations.
Abingdon and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Hays, K. Michael, ed. 1998. Architectural Theory Since 1968. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jencks, Charles and Karl Kropf, eds 2006. Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture
(second edition). London: Academy Editions.
Nesbitt, Kate 1996. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory,
1965-1995. New York: Princeton University Press.
2
A Framework for Theory in Architecture
The knowledge about the world is only to be acquired in the world, not in the closet.
Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope), English writer and politician
Each of our contemporary approaches to architectural design has its proponents and
detractors. It is the architects who are seen as artists and who have global practices—
the Tadao Andos, Santiago Calatravas, Norman Foster, Frank Gehrys, Zahah Hadids,
Rem Koolhaases, Daniel Libeskinds, and Jean Nouvels—who are of particular interest
to the cognoscenti. Their designs, mainly museums, theaters, and other “value-added”
places, stand out in the foreground against a background of more mundane buildings.
Seen as works of art their designs capture the imagination. Their full impact on their
environments, human and artificial, is seldom a major concern to critics.
Studies of architects’ theories are seldom clear on what basis designs are created.
What are their assumptions about the relationship between people and the environment
and between buildings and the environment? Architects’ conjectures are largely implicit
in their theories. Where explicit the arguments are largely unintelligible to most people.
George Orwell in his essay, “Politics and the English Language” believed that the
multiplicity of meanings of the words used by politicians and artists alike has utility.
Arguments simply descend to agreements or disagreements about what people like and
dislike (Orwell 1961). If, however, one takes seriously the United States Supreme Court
declarations that decisions that affect the public realm have to be based on evidence
not suppositions (for example, Daubert v Merrell Dow, US Supreme Court, No. 92-102,
1993), then we architects need to rethink the way we present and argue for our designs
(Stamps 1994).
Dealing with Diversity
Architectural theory deals mainly with architects’ ideas in designing for the elite and
often for global commercial corporations. Wealthy individuals and major corporations,
public and private, are after all the major clients for design services. The criticism
of the results leads to three further observations. The models of people implicit in
architectural practice are over-generalized, the design implications of culturally specific
activity patterns and aesthetic attitudes are poorly understood, and the full range of the
purposes served by the built environment is not included in current models of “function”
in architecture. If architecture, as a discipline, recognizes and embraces the diversity of
values that exist in the larger population, a need exists to extend and reorganize the
body of knowledge that is subsumed under the rubric “theory.”
Organizing our Knowledge Base
In 1987, one of the authors of this work, Jon Lang, suggested that the knowledge base that
forms the foundation of architecture as a discipline can be considered to consist of our
positive architectural theory or theories in contrast to our ideological positions that should
be regarded as our normative theories (Lang 1987). The goal of positive theory would be
to describe and explain phenomena—how the world functions and the affordances of
specific patterns for whom in what circumstances. Normative theories would specify
what should be done. Normative theory would thus deal with the ideological stance
a designer, or school of design thought, takes in creating buildings and urban designs.
These stances are based on views of right and wrong and good and bad. They cover the
entire spectrum of political attitudes.
The terms themselves have various negative connotations to a number of people so
it seems wiser to use Kevin Lynch’s term, functional theory instead of positive theory
(Lynch 1984). We can then use architectural theory instead of normative theory. Whether
these terms are better or not is open to conjecture but architects appear to be comfortable
with them. The foci of attention of the two bodies of theory are compared in Figure 2.1.
As the diagram indicates architectural theory (as described in Chapter 1) focuses on
architects’ design principles. Functional theory, in contrast, focuses on the principles of
environmental experiencing in relationship to the built and natural environments.
a. A conceptual model of the domain of architectural theory.
b. A conceptual model of the domain of functional theory.
Figure 2.1 Architectural theory and functional theory
It is also possible to distinguish between procedural theory or design methodology and

substantive theory. The former deals with the processes of designing: the nature of
programming (that is, the design of the brief, or program, specifying what should be
done), the divergent production of ideas, their synthesis into potential design solutions,
their evaluation, and the eventual acceptance of one as the best option followed by
its implementation (see Chapter 16). The latter deals with the nature of built forms. It
comprises functional theory. Although the focus of this book is on substantive concerns
a framework for theory in architecture 29
architectural theory encompasses both architects’ differing attitudes towards both

functional and procedural theory as manifested in their work.
Given these distinctions, the core of functional theory deals with how people
experience the world. Its purpose is to explicitly describe and explain the nature of the
built environment and what it offers. This body of knowledge is biased by its creators’
understanding of empirical findings about the nature of built form, people’s use of it
and responses to it. What architects do with this knowledge is up to them based on
their values, the possibilities open to them, and the constraints imposed on them by
the circumstances in which they work. Their architectural theories, their ideological
positions, govern what they do.
The positions architects espouse and what they actually do—the behavioral correlates
of their ideological stances—often differ. The reasons for this discrepancy have to do
with the economic and socio-political environment in which they work, the strengths of
their convictions, their need for recognition, and/or their need for professional survival.
Architects have long done the best they can when working in political contexts with
which they strongly disagree.
Behavioral Science Research and Functional Theory
Environmental psychology, as a research and theory building discipline, grew out of

the necessity to understand the functioning of the natural and built environments better
than the Modernists did. It also aimed to get psychologists out of the laboratory to study
animal and human behavior in the everyday ecological environment in which it usually
occurs. The research field goes under various other names such as ecological psychology
(Wicker 1979), person-environment research, and environment and behavioral studies,
but the purpose is the same whatever rubric is applied to it.
The goal of the environmental psychology is to enhance our understanding of the
dimensions of the human experiencing of the built, or artificial, and the natural worlds
(Ittelson et al. 1974, Mehrabian and Russell 1974, Proshansky et al. 1976, Porteous 1977,
Heimstra and McFarling 1978, Bell 1997, Bechtel et al. 2002). Originally action-oriented,
over time it has developed into a field of pure research with less of a concern for the
immediate applicability to design of its findings. Architects wonder about its utility. This
book sets out to indicate it.
Environmental psychologists have been exploring a broad range of ways in which
human beings of diverse social and cultural backgrounds use and appreciate different
patterns of built form. Many of their findings are important to architects but have not been
accessible to them. An organized theory of the functioning of the built environment will
help to reduce the gap between research findings and the creation of design principles of
utility to architects. It will enable architects to explore their options with greater clarity
and to argue for their designs based on knowledge not simply unsubstantiated beliefs
and hopes (Jones 1962, Canter 1970). The interrelationship of environmental psychology,
functional theory and its relationship to practice is shown in Figure 2.2.
Figure 2.2 Environmental psychology as a basis for design theory and design practice
An endless set of descriptive statements on the relationship between people and their
environments is too cumbersome for architects to employ. What is needed is some
framework for organizing this knowledge so that it can be brought to bear on design
efforts. A number of attempts to do so during the second half of the twentieth century
were based on a model of human needs (for example, Alexander 1969) in much the
manner that the Bauhaus did in the 1930s (see Wingler 1969). We can learn much from
them but we can do better now. Our present concepts of the functions of architecture
present a point of departure for understanding how to do so.
Major References
Canter, David 1970. The need for a theory of function in building. Architects’ Journal 151 (5): 299-302.
Lynch, Kevin 1984. Good City Form. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Scott Brown, Denise 2004. The redefinition of functionalism, in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott
Brown, Architecture as Signs and Systems for a Mannerist Time. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press,
142-75.
Part II
Creating a Theory of Functionalism
Photograph by Tata Soemardi
The Grande Arche at La Défense, Haut-de-Seine, France (1983-9)

Johan Otto Spreckelsen, architect.
Functionalism in architecture, as noted already, has traditionally been concerned with the
instrumental or task activities to be housed by a building, the technological mechanisms
for holding it up structurally and operating it, and, although not generally admitted,
what a functional building looks like. A functional building, in Modernists’ terms, was
one that carried out the first two of these purposes with efficiency and the third without
decoration (see Behne 1926, Wingler 1969). There are statements that get away from
this simple model (see Gropius 1962 for an example and Lefaivre 2003 for an overview)
but the architectural discourse returns to it time and again. Under the title Concepts of
Function in Architecture, these topics are discussed in the first of the three chapters that
constitute this part of the book.
The world is experienced in a more complex manner than a simple analysis allows. The
way forward is to examine anew the nature of the way we experience the world around
us and the way that the world impinges on us. The second of the three chapters here,
Experiencing Architecture: The Foundation for a Theory of Functionalism, sets out to address
a series of questions. How do we perceive the built environment? How does it afford
specific behaviors and meanings? How does it constrain what we can do? What is the
nature of the interaction between people and buildings, streets, and other open spaces?
These questions have been long asked. There is nothing new about them. What is new
is that the research of the past half-century in architecture and in the behavioral sciences
and their sub-fields such as environmental psychology has considerably enhanced our
knowledge. The ideological stance taken here is that we should use the knowledge now
available to us. The question is: “How do we organize it?”
The third chapter, Functionalism Updated, makes the argument that Abraham Maslow’s
concept of human motivations, as developed by his colleagues (Maslow 1987) and
brought up-to-date (Huitt 2004), presents a sound intellectual framework for organizing
our present knowledge about the functions served by architecture. The argument builds
on previous efforts, but fundamentally, on the Bauhaus view of the 1920s and 1930s.
Indeed the approach advocated here is sometimes dismissed as “the last kick of the
Bauhaus“.
The Bauhaus view was that designing for human needs or, better in our present
analysis, human motivations, presents a sound basis for thinking about the functions that
buildings do serve, can serve, and should serve. The Bauhaus view was a universalistic
one that failed to recognize the social, cultural, and geographic circumstances in which
buildings function. A step forward is now possible. It is to broaden the limited definition
of function of the Modernists and the Post-Modernists to one that explains what the
scope of architecture is. In that sense it re-examines The Scope of Total Architecture as
presented by Walter Gropius (1962). This new picture presents architects with a
substantive theory of functionalism on which we can build our architectural theories
with a clear intellectual logic.
3
Concepts of Function in Architecture
An architect’s primary aim should be to ensure a building functions well and that nothing
should interfere with its fitness to fulfil its purpose.
“Functionalism” defined (Fleming, Honour, and Pevsner 1999: 210)
The functions that the buildings serve have not changed over time but our models of what
the functions are have. The goal of any model is to reduce a complex world to a level that
we can manage but still be effective in guiding what we do. All models are abstractions
of reality and are thus simplifications. The question is: “Is the model of functions that we
use in architecture so reduced in content to be misleading?”
Ways of thinking about functionalism can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato
considered function to deal with usage, manufacture, and representation. The first was
the most important while the last was not taken seriously (Madanipour 2007). Aristotle
tended to emphasize the process of making—of bringing an object into use. The question
is: “What does use mean?”
Today we tend to refer back to Vitruvius’s views as expressed in De Architectura
(c. 35BCE) and rephrased by Sir Henry Wotton (1624):
In Architecture as in all other Operative Arts

the end must direct the operation
The end is to build well
Well-building hath three Conditions
Commoditie, Firmenes and Delight.
In the writings of the past two centuries, however, only the first two were regarded as
functions; the third was a by-product of serving the other two functions well. A brief
history shows how this definition evolved.
Jean-Louis Cordenoy, a French priest and an advocate of neo-classical architecture,
argued in his book, Nouveau traité de toute l’architecture (1706), for an architecture
of truth and simplicity and that the purpose of a building be expressed in its form
(Rykwert 1980). From the eighteenth to the twentieth century leading architects, such
as Carlo Lodoli, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Otto Wagner, and
Aldolf Loos, considered the function of a building to be its utilitarian purpose. Durand
advocated a Rationalist, idealized, utilitarian functionalism: “One should not strive to
make a building pleasing since if one concerns oneself solely with the fulfillment of
practical requirements, it is impossible that it should not be pleasing”. Wagner added
“Nothing that is not practical can be beautiful”. Loos railed against any use of decorative
features in architecture although in his work he was not quite so strict about it (Loos 1998
originally 1908, Rykwert 1980).
The operational and stylistic simplicity of many nineteenth-century American

products in comparison to the highly ornate work of contemporary Europe impressed
many European critics (Giedion 1969; see also Chapter 14). The idea of functionalism
is, however, today associated primarily with European Rationalism and particularly
with Gottfried Semper (1989 originally 1851) but most clearly articulated in the dictum
associated with Louis Sullivan “form follows function”. As Horatio Greenough (1947)
had 50 years before him, Sullivan wanted to overcome the prevalent form-driven
approach to architectural design. Other architects took Sullivan’s statement to mean
that buildings should efficiently house necessary activities and that their structural and
construction methods be efficient. As Bruno Taut noted, “If everything is founded on
sound efficiency, this efficiency itself, or rather its utility, will form its own aesthetic
laws” (cited in Bletter 1996).
Function came to mean efficient use-ability and build-ability. The purpose of a
building was to facilitate the activities it was supposed to house. It was very much a
time-and-motion approach to design (see Figure 3.1b and c). Despite this observation
the functionalist buildings designed during the early twentieth century introduced
a new aesthetic style (see Figure 3.1a). Functionalism became “vulgarized” to mean a
set of stylistic markers: flat roofs, plain unadorned box-like buildings, and lots of glass
(Prak 1984). Every architect could do it. It was this view that was caught on the cover of
Arkiteketen International (see Figure 3.1d).
At the Bauhaus Johannes Itten argued that “all art is composition and necessarily
opposed to function—all life is function and therefore inartistic” (Wingler 1969). The
wider recognition that the complexity of life cannot be reduced to a few variables led
to a “crisis” in CIAM [Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne] when discussing
housing functions. At the 1947 congress the concern turned to how buildings could
meet the emotional and spiritual needs of people. This new concern was spurred by
having to design in other than western European nations (Eleb 2000). No new model of
functionalism, however, appeared from the discourse.
The much cited observation of Le Corbusier remained the guiding light.
All men have the same organism, the same functions. All men have the same needs. The social
contract which has evolved through the ages fixes standardized classes, functions, and needs
producing standardized products … I propose a single building for all nations and all climates …
(Le Corbusier 1923)
Maxwell Fry (1961) added “There is now an approach to architecture that is common to
all countries.” The discussion in Chapter 1 belies these two observations. The question is:
“How should we build a more powerful model of function than our intellectual ancestors
possessed?”
Modeling Functionalism
All concepts of function in architecture are based on some worldview. In their work,
despite their statements, the Rationalists among Modernists implicitly saw functionalism
in artistic and liveability terms. The artistic was evaluated within the precepts of
concepts of function in architecture 35
Photograph by Peter Kohane Source: Benevolo (1980: 880)
a. The Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany (1925-6);

Walter Gropius, architect.
b. Inefficiency and efficiency in apartment unit design
(1928); Alexander Klein, architect.
Collection of Jon Lang: drawn by Omar Sherif
ci. An inefficient kitchen layout.
cii. An efficient kitchen layout. d. Functional architecture as a style.
Figure 3.1 Traditional concepts of functionalism

contemporary art criticism and the liveability in terms of architects’ perceptions of what
is sensible for people. Thus the concept of functionalism implicit in the early architectural
ideas of Le Corbusier have to be perceived within the context of cubism in art and his
own upbringing within the parsimonious attitudes of Calvinism (Brooks 1997). To be
modern meant to “clean up, re-order, [and] purify” (Pinder 2005). A major concern,
especially in mass housing design, was with the way built forms can function to create
a healthy environment. The focus was on access to sunshine and its role not only in
illuminating and giving warmth to dwellings but also as a sanitizing force. The aesthetic
goal was, implicitly, to create simple built forms using materials in an efficient manner
based on their nature (see Figures 3.2a to c). The concern with sanitation can be seen in
the generic urban designs of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus educators. Hygiene, as the
central issue in design, has fallen by the wayside as living standards have improved.
Providing salubrious living and working environments is, nevertheless, still a basic
function of architecture.
The Empiricists never presented an explicit concept of functionalism. It was implicit
in the precedents on which they drew. Ebenezer Howard’s inspiration was the small
country town that seemed to offer a high quality of life. Similarly, precedents were
drawn on in designing Battery Park City, New York (1979-2003; Figure 3.2e), Poundbury,
England (1990 and continuing; Figure 10.8e) and by Charles Moore’s in designing Kresge
College (1966-74; Figure 3.2d). The precedents were seen to be lively places meaningful
to lay people (see Rapoport 1991, Hardy 2006). The Empiricists did not seek a functional
architecture in a Rationalist sense.
In the mid-twentieth century, Aldo Van Eyck noted that architectural practice based
on a narrowly conceived model of the functions of the built environment had serious
consequences.
Instead of the inconvenience of filth and confusion, we now have the boredom of hygiene. The
material slum has gone—but what has replaced it? Just mile upon mile of unorganised nowhere
and nobody feeling he is somewhere. (Cited in Smithson 1968)
Walter Gropius, by then at Harvard University, expressed concern over the meaning
assumed by architects in phrases such as “fitness to its purpose”. He noted: “Superior
phrases such as functionalism … have deflected the appreciation of the new architecture
into purely external channels” (Gropius 1962). He sought a “total architecture” and a
more comprehensive model of function than in contemporary use.
When James Marston Fitch (1980) observed that many buildings designed by architects
were “not functional enough”, he had a model of function very different to that of the
Modernists in mind. He was concerned not so much for the efficiency of circulation
systems, but for the need for environmental richness. Jean Mukarovsky (1981) and Amos
Rapoport (1990b) among others have argued that buildings function as non-verbal
communicators of identity and as vehicles for self-expression. Buildings act as billboards
(Venturi et al. 1977, Venturi and Scott Brown 2004).
In recent years, architects have been distinguishing among function, meaning, and
aesthetic expression. The former has to do with the housing of activity systems and
any supportive technological equipment, the second with the interpretation of building
forms and their elements by different people within different cultures, and the third
concepts of function in architecture 37
Courtesy of Dion Neutra, architect © and Richard and Dion Neutra Papers, Department of Special Collections,
Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
a. “Rush City Reformed”; A proposal for Los Angeles, USA (1928); Richard Neutra, architect.
Collection of Jon Lang © Kisho Kurokawa architect and associates
b. Alfred E. Smith Houses, New York City, USA c. Zhengdong new town, Zhengzhou, P.R. China
(1948); Eggers and Higgins, architects. (2004); Kisho Kurokawa and Associates, architects.
d. Kresge College, University of California, Santa e. Battery Park City, New York City, USA (1979-2003);
Cruz, CA, USA (1966-74); Moore and Turnbull, Cooper and Ekstut, urban designers. Buildings
architects. designed by various architects.
Figure 3.2 Architects’ world views and concepts of functionalism

Table 3.1 Building functions and the concerns of architecture

Adapted from Lang (1987)
Vitruvius Wotton Greenough Gropius Norberg- Steele

(c.35BCE) (1624) (1850s) (Modern Schulz (1973)
functionalism) (1965)
(1920s)
Utilitas Commoditie Function Function Building task Task instrumentality
Shelter and security
Social contact
Venustas Delight Expression Expression Form Symbolic identification
Pleasure
Growth
Firmitas Firmenes Technics Technics
with architects’ own aspirations as idea-forgers, as symbol-mongers. These distinctions

are useful in that they focus on three purposes of buildings—three functions—and their
interplay. Fred Steele (1973) presented a more elaborate model.
There is still a need for an understanding of the functions served by buildings in terms
of their interior layout and the activities they house, the appearance they present to the
world, as objects of value, and their effects on their contexts. It is also clear that a building
functions differently for different people: its users, its sponsors, and its designers.
All designing involves making trade-offs between the achievement of one objective
rather than another. An architect’s style, or that of a school of architectural thought,
reflects the design decisions made about what functions should and should not be fully
met in buildings and how they should be met. If we start to understand the full range
of functions that a building can serve, discussions about the relative merits of different
works can be articulated more clearly.
“Form follows function” and “fitness for its purpose” remain sound dictums for
design but we need a theory of function that deals with the full range of purposes that
buildings can serve. Understanding the nature of environmental experiencing and
human motivations provides the basis for such a theory.
Major References
Bletter, Rosemarie Haag 1996. Introduction, in Adolfe Behne, The Modern Functional Building
(originally 1927). Santa Monica: The Getty Research Institute for the History of Arts and
Humanities, 1-83.
De Zurko, Edward R. 1957. Origins of Functionalist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
Greenough, Horatio 1947. Form and Function: Remarks on Art, Design, and Architecture, edited by
Harold A. Small. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Ligo, Larry L. 1984. The Concept of Function in Twentieth Century Architectural Criticism. Ann Arbor,
MI: UMI Research Press.
4
Experiencing Architecture:
The Foundation for a Theory of Functionalism
What we see is informed by our theoretical knowledge and our theoretical knowledge by
what we see.
Anthony King (2004: 205)
Understanding how we experience the environment provides the foundation on which a

theory of the functioning of the artificial environment can be built. Our knowledge is far
from complete but it has enhanced our understanding of the role of the built environment
in the lives of people at different stages in their life cycles living in different cultural and
geographic settings. While there are interesting physiological and cultural differences
among people, the basic nature of human beings is universal.
Source: Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 4.1 The fundamental processes of human behavior
Fundamental to any understanding of human activities within the built environment

and/or feelings about it is an understanding of the processes of perception. What we pay
attention to in the environment shapes the way we think about it, behave in it, and the values
we have (King 2004). Perception is guided by our motivations and our attitudes which are,
in turn, directed by our knowledge of the world and what it affords us (Hochberg 1964,
Gibson 1966, Reed 1996, Heft 1997, 2001). We seem to have schemas, mental templates, that
The primary title of this chapter is unashamedly borrowed from Stein Eiler Rasmussen’s classic
book, Experiencing Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1959). Rasmussen’s is one of the few
treatises on architecture that explicitly recognizes the multi-modality of perception.
guide the processes of cognition and behavior that, in turn, modify our schemas (Neisser
1976). Figure 4.1 shows the iterative nature of the processes of human behavior.
Environmental Perception and Cognition
Perception is the active process of obtaining information from the environment around
us via our perceptual systems. The systems for the searching are shown in Table 4.1
(for a fuller description see Gibson 1966). Visual information travels in straight lines;
aural and olfactory bounce and waft around respectively. The movement of an observer
is central not only to accurate perception but to the whole process of environmental
experiencing. Humans have also invented all kinds of equipment to pick up, modify and
transfer information that our basic perceptual systems are unable to detect. Radio and
television enable us to pay attention to airwaves that we could otherwise not discern let
alone comprehend.
Table 4.1 The human perceptual systems

Adapted from Gibson (1966) by Jon Lang
Mode of Anatomy of External Information

System Stimuli Available
Attention the System Obtained
Basic General Forces of gravity Direction of gravity
Vestibular organs
Orienting orientation and acceleration and being pushed
Cochlear organs
Nature and location
Auditory Listening with middle ear Vibrations in the air
of vibratory events
and auricle
Deformation of the Contact with the earth,
Skin, joints tissues, configuration the shape and texture
Haptic Touching
and muscles of joint, and of objects, and their
stretching of muscles solidity or viscosity
Nasal cavity Composition of The nature of volatile
Smell and Smelling; (nose); the medium; substances;
Taste Tasting Oral cavity Composition of The nature of nutritive
(mouth) ingested objects and bio-chemical values
Eyes as related
Sources of Everything available in
to the vestibular
radiant light and the optic array about
Visual Looking organs, the
the structure in objects, materials, animals,
head and the
ambient light motions, events, and places
whole body
We use our perceptual systems to actively scan the world to learn more about it and
to ascertain what is useful to us (see J. Gibson 1966, 1979, Michaels and Carello 1981,
Reed and Jones 1982, Kaminski 1989, Landwehr 1990, Reed 1996, Heft 2001). In addition,
some information, especially that deviant from the norm, impinges on us and attracts
our attention. As we age and mature our competence in picking up information varies.
Throughout our lives we can learn to pay attention to finer and finer details of the world
around us and to establish categories that enable us to make a better sense of it as long
as our faculties remain intact.
experiencing architecture 41
Humans communicate by creating information for others to heed and in so doing

set up behavioral loops and social organizations. We also communicate with each other
through writing, drawing, and mathematical equations. Buildings, urban designs, and
landscapes too are devices for non-verbal communication among people (Rapoport
1990b, Venturi and Scott Brown 2004).
Cognition and Affect
We learn to use the world and the instruments it contains for our own advantages. We have
feelings about the world; we like and dislike certain people, ideas, and environments. We
remember certain things and forget others. Some things are easier to remember than others.
Much depends on what is important to us but also on how information is structured. The
way in which we pay attention to the world and the way we organize information both
aid and distort our actions. We categorize elements of our experiences into groups. We,
for instance, develop categories of building types (Franck and Schneekloth 1994), activity
cycles, and temporal sequences based on certain commonalities. Categories are central to
human existence by forming part of our schemas.
A schema provides us with algorithms for paying attention to the world and for storing
and using knowledge. The definition of a schema provided by Ulrich Neisser (1976) still
serves us well (N. Thomas 2006).
The schema accepts information … and is changed by this information; it directs movement and
exploratory activities that make information available, by which it is further modified.
Within each schema others are embedded. We are thus able to do many things
simultaneously.
Any theory of function in architecture must recognize the relativity of experience.
Meanings depend on the experiences that we have in everyday life and through the
directed (or mediated) vehicle of formal education in schools and other institutions
(see Chapter 13). Thus although the basic nature of our perceptual systems may be
universal what we pay attention to in the environment around us differs. It is culture
and personality-bound and shaped by and shapes our motivations and competencies.
Affect Affect refers to our emotional responses to objects, places, and people. We relate
to enormously varied environments in a few basic emotional ways: arousal, pleasure, and
dominance (Mehrabian and Russell 1974). Arousal results from the level of stimulation
we obtain from the environment, and/or other people and their activities. Pleasure is
the measure of satisfaction we feel. Dominance refers to the degree of control that we
have over a situation. These emotions regulate our approach and avoidance behavior by
modifying our activities. We explore the environment, react to it and the people within
it, and perform in it.
Meanings Our activities and our emotions are affected by the meanings of the various
elements that constitute our environments and, in turn, the meanings are affected by our
activities and emotions. Meanings are obtainable directly from the information available
from the environment. One just has to know, to have learned, what to look for. Carl
Jung argued that there are certain patterns in the environment that evoke meanings and
feelings universally based on the historical experience of the human race (Jung 1968).
Various attempts have been made by psychologists and designers to categorize levels
of meaning. Psychologist James J. Gibson (1966) identified six levels of meaning: the
concrete (that is, the affordances of surfaces and materials), use (that is, how materials and
objects can be used), the meanings of instruments and machines, values and emotional
meanings, and signs and symbols. Signs provide meanings through convention by
coding cultural ideas and references while symbols have deep meanings that go beyond
representation or convention (Arnheim 1969).
We learn to appreciate the world for the meanings it contains. We learn to perceive
the utility of different patterns of the environment although we make mistakes by mis-
recognizing them. We learn from mistakes too. We learn to like and dislike different
patterns of behavior and the settings in which they occur. Architects structure the world to
communicate meanings among themselves and other designers (Chapter 14) and to give an
identity to themselves, their clients, and the general public (see Chapters 10, 11, and 12).
The physical elements of our world—streets, buildings and vegetation—all have
meanings. The meanings we derive are central to our liking or disliking of what is
around us. The process is often immediate and subconscious. The processes that generate
feelings of delight depend on one’s attitudes and how these attitudes develop and change
(Crane and Prislin 2008). An attitude results from a combination of a belief about an object
or a process with a value premise about it. The belief is not so much about a defining
characteristic but rather an associative characteristic.
A defining characteristic of Gothic architecture may be that windows have pointed
arches. This characteristic may also be associated with Christian churches. Associated
meanings are derived from the relationship of a pattern or patterns of built form to
memories and thus to experience. The symbolic meaning of a particular form depends
on one’s mental references. Associated meanings are thus culture-bound and potentially
individualistic.
Balance Theory and cognitive consistency How people respond to the environment depends
on their values. Values define the attractive and repulsive elements of the environment.
A simple, but powerful model of cognitive consistency is that of Balance Theory (Heider
1958, Hummon and Doreian 2003).
a b c d
Figure 4.2 Balance Theory
Balance Theory states that if a person has a positive value to a set of ideas, places or
experiences (the referent), then that person’s attitudes towards another such set being
viewed (the symbol) will be positive provided the relationship between the referent and
the symbol is also positive (see Figure 4.2a). The perception of the relationship between
the patterns of the environment and the referent is what establishes an attitude towards
the pattern being perceived. The values associated with the relationships establish
whether it is a positive or negative experience. Other consistent attitudinal relationships
are shown in Figures 4.3b and c. The values we hold can change over time as we are
exposed to new experiences. We attempt to eliminate incongruities by changing our
beliefs or values. Inconsistent attitudes (for example in d) lead to a change in values or a
denial that the inconsistency exists. We strive for cognitive consistency (Festinger 1962,
Cooper and Fazio 1984).
Motivations
Human behavior is a goal-directed activity that unifies perception, cognition, and action.
Motivations organize these processes to enable a person to get out of an unsatisfying situation.
Our motivations arise from our needs. Biological or physiological needs motivate us to
seek ways to relieve hunger and thirst, to be able to rest, eliminate waste from our bodies,
and engage in activities. Other needs have a biological base with psychological, social,
and cultural variations. These needs—such as sex, self-preservation, providing succor, and
taking care of our body surface—are affected by social or individual factors. Upper order
needs arise solely from psychological and social forces and have no apparent physiological
basis although they may have physiological consequences. Fulfilling psychological, social,
and cultural needs is often as important as fulfilling physiological needs.
The perception of a need can be aroused by internal tensions and/or environmental
stimuli. We learn to satisfy our needs using the knowledge we have obtained through
our social and individual experiences. Our competencies shape our ability to learn new
ways of achieving our goals. The importance of a goal and the perceived probability
of success in attaining it affect how we act. Motivations thus shape how we attend to
aspects of the world and recognize what they afford us.
Modes of attention The processes of perception and cognition involve paying attention to
aspects of the world around us as shaped by our motivations. A number of overlapping
modes of paying attention to the built world exist. They can be purposeful, casual, and/
or subconscious. They vary depending on whether we are tourists or habitués, and/or
observers or creators. Tourists and newcomers are uncertain about the world and look at
it in a sharper manner than those people who know it well. They look at what helps them
navigate. Habitués pay attention to only enough information to enable them to fulfill
other motivations (Thiel 1997).
We can examine the world around us for some instrumental purpose—in order to
achieve some end such as finding our way, or carrying out an activity such as shopping.
We can also examine the world for the pleasure it bring us, for its aesthetic qualities. We
designers, as users of the environment and creators of built forms, pay attention to the
world around us differently from those people for whom the built environment is simply
the background to their lives.
When we design buildings or environments, we focus on the visual images of the
world, its appearance, because that is what we simulate, or model, in our drawings,
whether hand or computer made. We speculate on what people will do in a building
when it is completed, and on what it will feel, smell, and sound like to them. Our
understanding is biased by our knowledge and also by how we value aspects of it.
Spatial Behavior
Everyday behavior is comprised of activities, interactions with others, and emotional

responses to a situation. Activities consist of actions. They are carried out in specific
ways and are associated with behaviors such as dining, shopping or courting that fulfill
a purpose. Almost certainly they have habitual, symbolic or ritual aspects to them.
Responses are in the form of the thoughts and feelings that constitute the subjective
nature of an individual.
Everyday behavior has a structure that includes people’s personal perspectives on
their environments developed by the interplay between them and their social lives. We
routinize the world around us to reduce the number of decisions we have to make. We
form habits and typify what others will do.
If people’s purposes are thwarted they may well feel stressed. They may cope with
such situations or adapt to them by changing their actions. If the situation does not
change a stressed person may feel exhausted. That is not a pleasant experience.
Buildings as Objects, Spaces, and Environments
There are a number of ways in which architects conceptualize the built world. Traditionally
it has been in terms of spaces and objects, but it can also be as environments. Spaces are
defined to a greater or lesser extent by surrounding surfaces; objects have continuous
surfaces and are viewed from the outside. The former are sometimes thought of as
rooms, the latter as sculptures. Environments, however, while they may contain objects,
surround a person (see Figure 4.3). We can pay attention to the world as an environment
or as an object depending on our motivations.
Environments
One way of conceptualizing our surroundings is to distinguish among its major

components: the terrestrial (or geographic), the animate, the social, and the cultural
(Gibson 1966). The distinctions are blurry. A culture develops out of the opportunities
and limitations of the terrestrial, animate, and social environments. They shape it and are
shaped by it endlessly. For instance, the terrestrial environment, as adapted in the form
of buildings and streets by people, is very much part of their cultural world.
The terrestrial environment refers to the nature of the earth and its processes—its
diurnal and seasonal cycles. It consists of gaseous, solid, and liquid components. Solid
surfaces allow us not only to move around but also to re-form them to improve the very
nature of the terrestrial world—to enhance our lives. Such changes do not necessarily
improve the functioning of the terrestrial world. While the terrestrial environment is
unique at any point on earth, for most practical purposes we define broad regions with
similar climatic characteristic and/or similar flora and fauna. The distribution and nature
of seas, hills, valleys, and trees and other vegetation affords some ways of life better
than others. The differences in gravity and in air pressure are largely irrelevant for
architectural purposes as is the shape of the earth. Fine buildings were created when it
was believed that the world was flat.
b. Woden Town Centre, ACT, Australia as seen

as an object in a panoramic view from afar.
a. Farm and Wilderness Road, Plymouth, VT, USA; a
partially manicured natural environment.
c. City Hall, Pasadena, CA, USA (1927) as a space d. Quincy Market, Boston, USA (renovated
making object; Blackwell and Brown, architects. 1970s) as an environment of objects, spaces,
and people. Benjamin Thompson, architect.
e. The Forum, Leichardt, NSW, Australia as f. An opal mine, Chuncheon, Korea as an

an environment created by furniture and environment.
surrounding people.
Figure 4.3 Environment, spaces, objects, and people

The environment that we humans inhabit contains other humans and other species.
Many of the behavioral loops among people occur within specific architectural settings
on a repetitive basis that serve both instrumental and symbolic functions. These loops
form social systems. A social system consists of a number of individuals, their interaction
patterns, and the rules (implicit or explicit) of expected modes of behavior (see Chapter
10). They have long been the basis for architectural design as well as the basic material of
novels and films. Social systems evolve continuously as human needs are manifested in
new ways. To survive, a social system, such as the architectural profession, needs to recruit
and socialize new members to its norms and it has to deal with threats to its existence.
The construction industry and the architectural profession are part of a network of
clients and professionals. In an era of continuing globalization this network is becoming
both more unified at the level of international practice and more diverse and fragmented
at local levels. One hopes that George Bernard Shaw is wrong in saying that, “All
professions are a conspiracy against the laity” (in The Doctor’s Dilemma, I).
The Built Environment
When architects talk about the physical environment they are sometimes referring to the
built world and at others to the whole terrestrial environment. For conceptual clarity, it is
better to think in terms of the built environment as an artificial part of our terrestrial world.
It consists of the settlements, buildings, streets, squares, and parks that we have created. It
is being constantly changed by human endeavours, positive and negative, and by natural
chemical processes, abetted by wind and rain (Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow 1993).
The built environment consists of differently textured horizontal, inclined, and vertical
surfaces. In everyday conversation we, however, talk of floors and walls, illumination
levels, and thus pigmented, or colored, surfaces. These surfaces are composed of different
materials that afford different uses and meanings for different people. Our lives are
conducted within complex sets of surfaces that afford different behavioral opportunities
and aesthetic experiences.
Objects and spaces If environments surround us, we see objects or forms, in contrast,
from the outside—as sculptures. Rather than enclosing spaces, they sit in space but they
may also enclose part of the surrounding space. They are seen as figures against a ground
and, conceptually, at least, can be circumnavigated. It is possible to consider the whole
world as consisting of objects in space but that way of viewing it requires remaining
aloof from, say a city, and looking at it like a bird from the outside as a panorama
(see Figure 4.3b). Certainly a building’s configuration and façades can be looked at as
objects, but they also form part of the set of buildings and natural elements that form our
surroundings. When we walk (or drive) around buildings we examine them as objects, as
sculptures. This mode of examination considers building interiors as spaces to be looked
at or photographed more than as settings for life.
The view of architecture as a set of spaces was promoted by Sigfried Giedion (1963). It is
certainly possible to look at buildings as consisting of uninhabited spaces. The argument
is that the activities, housed will change over time, but the layout will remain the same.
A colorful expression of this attitude is that of Louis I. Kahn, one of the most revered
architects of the twentieth century. He suggested that we think of buildings as potential
b. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul Turkey

(532-7); seen as an object. Isidorios and
Anthemios, architects.
a. Palau de les Artes, Citutat de les Artes y de les

Ciències, Valencia, Spain (2004-7) seen as an object.
Santiago Calatrava, architect.
d. One Canada Square, Canary Wharf,

London, UK (1991) as an object in
space and space maker. César Pelli
and Associates, architects.
c. Sony Center, Berlin, Germany (1995-2000) as an e. Paternoster Square, London, UK

internal open space. Murphy/Jahn, architects. (2000-4); Whitfield Partners, master
planners. Buildings as space makers.
Figure 4.4 Buildings as objects in space and as environment makers

uninhabited ruins, as something to be contemplated. Graham Greene captures this

image in his novel A Burnt-Out Case. His character Quarry, an architect, notes: “I wasn’t
concerned with the people who occupied the space—only with the space” (Greene 1961).
It is a view that separates buildings and the built environment from life. So how should
the interiors of buildings and the way buildings make external spaces be considered?
One manner that is close to the ecology of daily life is as behavior settings.
Behavior settings The built environment provides the setting for life; it is comprised of
behavior settings (Barker 1968, Bechtel 1977, Wicker 1979, Schoggen 1989). Behavior settings
consist of a standing, or recurrent, pattern of behavior or activities, and a particular
configuration or pattern of the world, a milieu, that coexist for a time period. The same milieu
may be used for very different behaviors at different times. When the activity within it
changes the milieu will become a part of a different behavior setting. The more ambiguous,
or multivalent, the milieu is, the greater the multiplicity of uses that can occur. At the
extreme, however, the milieu affords so much that it affords most activities poorly.
Two contrasting types of behavior settings are important to architects: localized
settings, places, and the links among them. Often the one exists within the other. Localized
behavior settings form parts of larger sets; they are part of an activity system or a behavior
circuit. Thus the neighborhood shown in Figure 4.5c consists of many behavior settings
as does the park in 4.5e and the building in 4.5f. They consist of many places and links. In
building design we tend to think of places as rooms and links as corridors. Such thinking
narrows the scope of one’s architectural explorations and hampers creative designing.
Designing is done by habit.
Buildings consist of nested sets of behavior settings and objects (Gump 1971, Le
Compte 1974). The design of the interiors of buildings is usually based on assumptions
about the variety of standing patterns of behavior that will take place within them. An
architect’s concern is with the arrangement of behavior settings and their geographies;
interior designers focus on the latter. The urban environment can be considered similarly
as comprised of behavior settings. The goal of design is to create the milieu so that it best
accommodates desired activities. Failure to do so can stress people.
The milieu The milieu, as noted above, consists of the surfaces that occlude open,
infinite space and of illuminations levels (Barker 1968, Heft 2001). Except in outer space,
all human activities are, at least, related to the horizontal surface of floors, natural or
artificial. The quality of these surfaces is fundamental to their utility as part of a behavior
setting. Illumination is necessary for those of us with eyesight to see and who are not
color-blind to see the world as pigmented. Different patterns of surfaces of different
materials when configured into the furnished milieu afford different activities with
different levels of ease and comfort.
The milieu is designed or redesigned in order to bound behavior settings and/or
internally differentiate them into zones that serve different purposes (see Figure 4.6d). The
boundary elements may be real barriers to the flow of actions and information between
standing patterns of behavior, symbolic barriers such as changes in floor materials, or
simply the distance settings are apart. Real barriers consist of elements such as walls
that prevent the movement of people and/or information; symbolic demarcations can be
easily crossed (see Chapter 8).
a. A behavior setting: a birthday party. b. South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Courtesy of the MUDD Program, UNSW
d. Bay Street, Double Bay.
c. Double Bay, Sydney, Australia.
e. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1913); Paul f. Queen Victoria Building Sydney, Australia
Philippe Cret, architect. (1893-9); George McRae, architect. Restored
(1984-6) by Stephenson and Turner and Rice.
Figure 4.5 Behavior settings

The elements that can be used to divide areas or to support specific activities can be of
fixed-features, semi-fixed features, or movable features particularly furniture, but sometimes
even walls. Many behavior settings consist of a mixture of features. Their walls, fixed
screens, and built in furniture (varying from laboratory tables to lavatories to kitchen
equipment) make fixed-feature space. Semi-fixed features include heavy tables and laden
bookcases and other not-easy-to-move features such as “moveable” partitioning between
settings. The movable items vary from tables to chairs to lamps to potted plants.
Bathrooms, kitchens, and areas housing mechanical equipment tend to be entirely
fixed-feature space (Figure 4.6a). The furniture of the office other than the chairs (b),
the cafeteria other than the tables and chairs (d), and the park seating (c) is fixed. Its
arrangement thus shapes the nature of interactions possible because it dictates seating-
locations. Some items such as the table and benches shown in e are fixed but can be
moved with relatively ease. They are regarded as semi-fixed. The layout, apart from
the bar, in (f) is moveable; the tables and chairs are removed when the room is used for
dancing. It becomes a completely different behavior setting.
People and the Environment
It is easy for those of us concerned with the design of the built world to fall into the
trap of thinking that its configuration—the milieu—determines our social behavior and
aesthetic experiences. This view is attractive because it enhances our self-image as social
engineers. What we create is, however, a potential environment for human activity patterns
and aesthetic appreciation. The effective environment consists of what people pay attention
to and use (Figure 4.7). We scan the world in order to perceive those affordances that
will enable us to fulfill our needs. We learn the affordances of environments, objects, and
processes in a continuously iterative fashion as shown in Figure 4.1. We also forget some.
The Concept of Affordance
The term affordance was coined by psychologist James J. Gibson (Gibson 1979, Reed
1996, Heft 2001; see also Lang 1987). It is a crucial one for any theory of the functions of
architecture. The affordances of a pattern of surfaces and textures of built form are simply
what the pattern makes available for people (or other species) to use or interpret. The term
has slipped easily into the vocabulary of many architects today because it clarifies the
nature of the relationship among the built environment, human activities, and aesthetic
judgments. The term is similar in meaning to Louis Kahn’s concept of availabilities and,
going back in history, to landscape architect Lancelot Brown’s capabilities.
The built world can best be considered to be the afforder of human activities, shelter
and comfort, meanings, and aesthetic experiences. The affordances have to be perceived
with reference to individual species and their individual members in terms of their
competencies, their capabilities, physical and emotional, their motivations (or needs),
and what they perceive to be the consequences of any action. Any pattern of the milieu,
affords some patterns of behavior and the meeting of some aesthetic tastes more easily
than it affords others. Harry Heft (1988) identifies a partial list of the affordances of
environmental qualities for children’s activities.
a. A bathroom. b. Office, Red Centre, University of New South

Wales, Sydney, Australia (1999); Mitchell
Guirgola Thorpe, architects.
c. Park, Mons, Hainaut, Belgium. d. City Bakery, West 13th Street, New York
City, USA in 2009.
Photograph by Vivian Romero
e. Rockdale pedestrian mall, Illinois, USA in 1993. f. The Ballroom, Paragon Café, Katoomba, NSW,
Australia in 2006.
Figure 4.6 Fixed- and semi-fixed feature milieus

a. A potential behavior setting. b. A behavior setting.
c. A potential behavior setting. d. A behavior setting.
e. A potential behavior setting. f. A behavior setting within a behavior setting.
Figure 4.7 Potential and effective environments

Table 4.2 The affordances of environmental features for children’s activities

Adapted from Heft (1988) by Vivian Romero (2010) and Jon Lang
ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES AFFORDANCES
Flat, relatively smooth hard surfaces Walking, running, cycling, skating
Relatively smooth slopes Coasting, running, and rolling down
Graspable, detachable objects Throwing, digging, drawing,

dueling and building structures
Attached objects Hanging, jumping-on/over and swinging on
Climbable features Looking out from and passage to other places
Shelter Providing privacy and microclimate quality
Moldable materials (e.g., dirt and snow) Constructing objects and throwing
Water Swimming and splashing
The types of affordances of a material, an object, or any geometric pattern of the

environment represent their potential functions. Earlier in this chapter it was noted
that the affordances of built forms range from concrete functions to the, often shifting,
symbolic values of materials and patterns. As we learn we are not only able to develop
broader classification of the affordances of elements but also able to distinguish between
finer and finer differences. Architectural historian John James can distinguish the work
of individual masons in the building of Chartres Cathedral (1194-1260+) (James 1982).
He has learnt to attend to variables that few others notice although they are available
for anybody to discern. Some researchers have devoted their lives to discovering the
affordances of new configurations of the environment and the way they might be
fabricated. Structural engineer Robert Le Ricolais was wont say that his life’s task was to
develop “a beam of infinite length and zero weight”.
Built forms afford many things from activities to aesthetic appreciation; they serve
many functions simultaneously. What they afford for whom depends on what their
configurations and characteristics are. Many people will recognize the affordances of the
laundering place (Figure 4.8a) but today nobody takes advantage of them. Split Button
(b) can be used in many ways. Knowing something about its sculptor and his intentions
would enhance its meaning to observers. Few people think of it as more than a curiosity
object that is climbable. Steps everywhere are used as seats (c). The ledge in (e) is studded
but the man in the photograph has precariously adapted himself to it. The affordances of
the environment change by seasons (d). Adults and children can see the affordance for
cooling off in fountains (f) but the latter are less inhibited and take advantage of it.
Luckily for architects a pattern of built form can afford many functions and similarly a
desired function can be fulfilled by many different patterns. Some patterns, nevertheless,
afford specific behaviors better than others. The artist George Braque observed that “this
file in my hand can be … a shoehorn or a spoon, according to the way I use it” (Braque
1959). A purpose-made shoehorn is, however, designed to function better than a file in
assisting people put on their shoes and a file is hardly a good holder of liquids.
b. Split Button, University of Pennsylvania,

a. A communal laundering place, Flayosc, Var, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1981); Claes Oldenburg,
Provence, France in 2008. sculptor.
c. The Metropolitan Museum, New York City, USA.

Photograph by Alexander Cuthbert
d. Grandview Court, Ithaca, NY in summer

(above) and winter (below).
e. A ledge, Hong Kong. f. PPG Place, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Figure 4.8 The concept of affordance

Sometimes the information picked up via one perceptual system differs from that by
another. For instance, a plastic seat cover is often so effectively made to look like leather
that it is difficult to visually discern the difference. Touching it usually enables us to
perceive it for what it is. Sometimes we simply do not recognize what a material affords
us. We slip on ice because we have not recognized its affordances. We might, unknowingly,
eat poisonous berries. We are strongly motivated to learn from such experiences!
Human Motivations and Human Needs
Much architectural theorizing is based on the proposition that the built environment is
created to fulfill human needs. A list of human needs was, for instance, the basis for the
housing design principles promoted by Hannes Meyer, director of the Bauhaus from
1928 to 1930 (Wingler 1969). Some critics say that human needs cannot be described and
that one person’s needs are simply another person’s desires. These observations are worth
heeding but closer scrutiny shows that the critics base their comments on the function of
architecture on some model of human needs. All buildings are designed to fulfill certain
needs, those of their future users, those of the developer, and those of the architects.
Architects have turned to a number of different models of human needs to illuminate
their thinking about the functions of architecture (for example, Alexander 1969, Georghiou
2009). Despite its limitations, the one most widely used today is that of Abraham Maslow
as developed by his colleagues and others (Maslow 1987, Huitt 2004). Maslow suggested
that there are two sets of motivations. They are those to fulfill basic needs, and those that
fulfill cognitive and aesthetic needs.
The motivation to fulfill basic needs, Maslow suggested, occurs in a hierarchical order
from the most pressing, or necessary, to the least pressing. That for survival is the most
pressing. Less pressing are those, in declining order, for safety and security, for affiliation,
for esteem, and for self-actualization. Self-actualization, important though it may be is
a lesser need as it is not basic to life. Recent scholars have added self-transcendence to
the hierarchy (Huitt 2004; see Figure 4.9). At each level except self-actualization and
self-transcendence there are clear correlations with architectural affordances and thus
potential functions.
Cognitive and aesthetic needs fall into another category. They are advanced needs and
thus fulfilling them constitute the advanced functions of built form. At one level of analysis,
cognitive and aesthetic needs are present at every level of human motivation. Learning is
fundamental to survival and even the poorest person may contemplate an aspect of the
world for the pleasure it brings. Certainly, the aesthetic qualities of the environment have
much to do with our self-esteem and as a symbol of the groups to which we belong or
hope to belong. They can, however, also be appreciated for their own sake.
Maslow’s observation is that people seek to fulfill each level of need to a satisficing level
(that is, well-enough) before their motivations shift up to fulfill other needs. As in any
theory the order of needs fulfillment is a general statement. There are many examples
of people who have given their lives for values in which they believe. More curiously
to us today, in bygone years European explorers, in order to maintain their identities
and feelings of self-worth, have died of starvation when surrounded by indigenous
populations living comfortably off the land. In World War Two, Japanese soldiers often
committed suicide rather than suffer the indignity of being captured.
Adapted from Maslow (1987) and Huitt (2004) by Alix Verge and drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 4.9 The hierarchy of human motivations as seen by Abraham Maslow
The Concept of Competence
Our capacity to meet our goals is closely related to our competencies—our abilities.
People differ in their physical capabilities for actions, intellectual capacities for learning
and thinking, their knowledge and how to use it, their social understandings, and their
adaptability to changing circumstances. Many human behaviors and aspirations are
constrained by competence levels. When it comes to architecture it is certainly easier to
consider competencies in ergonomic terms—in terms of human physiological abilities—
than in terms of mental capacities.
Human beings come in various levels of strength. The frailer we are the more the
patterns of built form limit their affordances for us. The highly physiologically competent
can carry out activities and actions that others cannot. As shown in Figure 4.10a, there is
a mutual relationship between a person’s capabilities and the difficulty he or she has in
using the physical patterns of the world. Certain environments are simply too difficult
to use, their press on us is too demanding given our level of competence (Lawton 1977).
Other environments are so unchallenging that our competencies might reduce to what is
demanded of us (Goffman 1961, Lawton 1977).
Our cognitive, or mental, capacities also vary. Sometimes, the variations are based
on our genetic make-up but much is based on our education. Certainly few people,
including many architects, understand much of the architectural philosophising taking
place in academia or understand its correlations in the buildings that result from it.
Times exist when everybody’s competencies tend to be low. Infancy and childhood
maturation requires time. The aging process takes its toll. In illness, competencies
decline. In dangerous situations such as when a building is on fire many people panic.
Our ability to orientate and to find our way varies considerably from person to person
in normal circumstances but in panic situations the variations are even more dramatic
(see Chapters 7 and 8).
The concept of competence applies to organizations as well as individuals (Geboy and
Moore 2005; see Figure 4.10b; see also Florida 2002). Their competence level depends on
their formal and communal structures (see Chapters 7 and 10), their activity networks
and personnel interrelationships, their knowledge and they way they use it, and the
resources at their disposal. The physical facilities an organization is able to inhabit are
one aspect of its resources.
Adapted from Lawton (1977) and Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif Adapted from Ceboy and Moore (2005); drawn by Omar Sharif
a. Individual behavior. b. Organizational behavior.
Figure 4.10 The concepts of competence and environmental press
Companies, like individuals, range in competence from being novices to world-class in

what they do. The latter can overcome the lack of fit between their activities and the
milieu better than ones that are novices. At low levels of environmental press novices can
perform well. If, however, the fit is too poor the environmental press exerted on them will
lead to under performance. The design of work settings may not be the central concern in
shaping the performance of companies but architecture matters. If the environment is too
challenging for it to meet its goals a company, like an individual, will be under stress.
The Concept of Costs and Rewards
Our perceptions of the costs and rewards of being in specific situations are important
to architects. The behavior of people is based on their perceptions of the consequences,
positive and negative, of engaging in specific behaviors. They thus evaluate the milieu
(and more likely, the whole behavior setting, in which they are engaged) in terms of the
costs and rewards of being there (Figure 4.11). We have much higher expectations of
those settings that are costly to us, either in monetary or psychological terms, than of
those that are less expensive. An ideal world, paraphrasing Le Ricolais, would be one in
which the costs are zero and the rewards infinite.
Adapted from Helmreich (1974) and Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 4.11 The perception of environmental quality in terms of costs and rewards
Habituation Levels and Design Evaluations
Our perceptions of the quality of the environments we inhabit are also very much
shaped by the expectations we have of them based of what we are accustomed to or
have adapted to—their familiarity to us. The new can be a shock (Hughes 1980). It
seems that relatively small changes from the norm can be pleasing but major ones take
a period before they are seen for what they really afford us. The history of architecture
is replete with buildings that were once regarded as dismal or in poor taste and that
have become acceptable or even loved after they have been in existence for a number of
years (see Figure 14.20). The reverse is also true; much admired buildings have failed to
be intellectually robust enough to retain people’s admiration over time.
Cultural Factors in Environmental Experiencing
Clear physiological differences exist among different peoples as a result of adaptations

to the geographic environments they have inhabited over the millennia. Such diversity
in physiological status is important to recognize in an era in which clothes and furniture
are traded around the world. Allied to these differences are substantial differences in the
cultural patterns that have also emerged over the centuries.
The living culture of a society consists of three interrelated elements: its tangible heritage
(sometimes referred as the material culture), its intangible heritage of language and rituals,
and abstract elements of behavioral norms and values. Their inter-relationships are shown in
Figure 4.12. Our cultural background shapes what we pay attention to in our surroundings.
Cultures change over time. Today many people worry that the globalization of the world’s
investment policies and ease of communications will shape our behaviors and aesthetic
values into a similar pattern. In their work architects thus have to deal with the twin tugs
of the development of a world order and the forces that strive against it. Architecture
exists within a social, political, and economic order and is shaped by it.
Adapted from Suswanto (2000); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 4.12 The elements of a living culture
Environmental Experiencing and Architectural Theory
Implicit in all architectural theories is some model of how we experience the environment
around us. One can trace the history of architectural ideas during the twentieth century
in terms of contemporary attitudes to how the world is experienced and decisions made
about what is important and what is not. During the first half of the twentieth century
the focus of attention was on the environment salubrious and on buildings as art.
Many of the architectural elite turned to the art world and its abstract representation
of ideas for inspiration. An exciting new visual language for design was developed
particularly at the Bauhaus. It was, however, removed from the everyday ecological
world of people.
The desire to ally architecture with the art world dates back to the late nineteenth
century when architects were trying to establish an identity independent of engineers.
Architects saw themselves as people with particular sensitivities—as people possessing
the “right stuff” and “good taste” (Wolfe 1981). As it is said, most architectural students
do not know about their parents’ lack of taste until they start architectural school. The
view of architecture as a fine art is promoted by much architectural theorizing and
fits in with a popular view in society of an architect. Few people experience the world
as a work of art. It can, however, be looked at as an object in that way (for example,
Olsen 1986).
It is more generous to think of the world as consisting of a set of potential behavior
settings than as spaces. It seems close to the way we actually experience the world in
everyday life. The ecological model of environmental experiencing as developed by James
Gibson and outlined above is an empirical model based on at least a century of study and
will be refined, or even abandoned for better models, as our knowledge develops. Even
in its present state it offers a strong foundation for asking questions about the functions
of architecture (Kaminski 1989, Heft 2001, Georghiou 2009).
During the last two decades of the twentieth century, architectural theoreticians became
increasingly interested in how different schools of design and different people interpret
buildings. Following the philosophies of George-Hans Gadamer (2004) buildings

were seen as texts to be read. This focus was very much on buildings as objects to be
contemplated as intellectual constructs. The approach has continued into the twenty-first
century.
Contemporaneously to the interest in deconstruction philosophies in architecture,
phenomenologists have focused on studying the way we experience our environments.
They rely on the analyses of the subjective, conscious awareness of individuals by
having them reflect on what they have observed. Their goal is to understand people’s
experiencing of environmental elements and the meanings they derive from them. Of
particular interest has been the striving to understand what we mean by the phrase “sense
of place” (Norberg-Schulz 1965, 1980, 1988, Hough 1990). No clear model of function has,
however, emerged from their studies.
The limited understanding of how the built environment is experienced, and what
functions it does serve, has resulted in many buildings having opportunity costs; they
work well-enough but could have worked better if they had been designed in a different
way. Many are thoroughly disliked by their users (Michelson 1968, Weaver 2006). They
were based on a lack of understanding of the concept of affordances and a self-referential
model of environmental experiencing employed by design professionals.
Perhaps more than we architects fully recognize, knowledge of how the layout of the
environment reflects cultural and social attitudes has increased. Understanding how we
experience the world leads to an understanding of how the patterns of built form both
afford various human behaviors, physical and mental, and how to design the program,
or brief, for future buildings and urban designs. The way in which we do so depends on
our beliefs of what the built environment should afford and how those affordances are
designed.
Creative design involves uncovering and resolving problems not previously addressed
and resolving traditional problems in new ways. In architectural practice the affordances
of new materials and construction techniques are being recognized. Similarly, the
previously unrecognized affordances of traditional materials—stone, brick, glass, and
steel—are constantly being uncovered and, often, rediscovered. New forms emerge as a
result. We need to understand how they are capable of functioning in context. We need a
new model of functionalism. The Maslow model of human motivations provides us with
a mechanism for designing a more encompassing model of the functions of architecture
than we possess.
Major References
Gibson, James J. 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Heft, Harry 2001. Ecological Psychology in Context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the Legacy of
William James’s Radical Empiricism. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Huitt, William G. 2004. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta,
GA: Valdosta State University at: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsy/maslow.html
[accessed April 10, 2006].
Kaminski, Gerhard 1989. The relevance of ecological oriented theory building in environment and
behavior research, in Advances in Environment, Behavior and Design 2, edited by Ervin H. Zube
and Gary T. Moore. New York: Plenum, 3-36.
Rasmussen, Stein Eiler 1959. Experiencing Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Reed, Edward S. 1996. Encountering the World: Toward an Ecological Psychology. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Seamon, David, ed. 1983. Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing. Toward a Phenomenological Ecology.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Wicker, Allan 1979. An Introduction to Ecological Psychology. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

5
Functionalism Updated
… Critical cultural awareness is cultivated mostly in the social sciences, humanities and
philosophy, which modern architectural thinkers never take very seriously.
Dalibor Vesely (2004: 5)
The research findings of the past 40 years can tell us much about the functioning of
the built environment. To be accessible to architects they must be organized within a
clear intellectual framework. The Maslow model of human motivations provides such a
framework because human behavior is goal directed. A need, a mental force, motivates
people to get out of unsatisfying situations. Buildings function to reduce such situations
but also to lift one’s spirits.
A diagram showing the functions of architecture based on Maslow’s model of human
motivations is shown in Figure 5.1. Although a simplification of reality it is still complex
because the functions of the built environment are interwoven. With the exception of
the bubble referring to the biological environment, all of them refer to Maslow’s model
of human motivations. The manifestations of human motivations in buildings, urban
designs, and landscapes have to be seen within a social system. Concepts of equality,
justice, freedom of action, liberty, and moral order define the framework within which
human motivations are met. The model presented here is divided into two parts: the
functions that fulfill basic and those that serve advanced motivations. As the same
patterns of built form fulfill different functions and the same functions can be met in a
variety of ways, the contents of the chapters of this book overlap.
The Basic Functions of Built Forms
Maslow identified certain motivations as the most pressing. The way that built forms
afford the patterns of behavior and aesthetic values that fulfill these needs are also the
basic functions of built forms. At the top of the flow diagram in Figure 5.1 is the need
for survival and thus for shelter. Following it in sequence are the needs for safety and
security, identity, and self-esteem.
Shelter Functions
The greatest human motivation is to survive. To do so a person needs life-sustaining inputs

of oxygen, food and water, to be able to sleep, and to move around the evironment to
obtain the necessities of life. Architecture provides a filter between the natural environment
and people. Buildings are organized to accommodate activity patterns, and maintain
temperature levels that make life possible in inclement climates (Knevitt 1996, Roaf 2004;
see also Chapters 6 and 7). Providing shelter for activities is basic to all building design.
Adapted from Lewis (1977) and Lang (1994, 2000); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 5.1 A human motivations-based model of architectural functionalism
People need to be healthy and, ideally, to be comfortable. Comfort and health are
psychological as well as physiological states. People often trade off comfort and health for
prestige. The settings required for such activities are related to the function of architecture
to provide for safe and secure places. In designing the built environment to function
well much depends on what people are accustomed to already—their habituation levels
(Helson 1964)—and their aspirations.
functionalism updated 65
Safety and Security Functions
All people, except those whom we regard as mentally ill, seek to avoid being harmed
even though some may be high-risk takers. The built environment can be designed to
provide safe and secure behavior settings in which people can pursue their lives avoiding
to the extent they can both physiological and psychological dangers. The goal of the
former is to protect people from the potentially damaging impacts of natural events
such as earthquakes and human errors that lead to accidents resulting from fires and the
structural failure of buildings or their components, and, sadly, the anti-social behavior
of people (see Chapter 8). Nowadays the fear of terrorist activity has brought another
dimension to the functioning of the built environment. It is to prevent harm from violent
political expressions.
The function of open spaces, buildings and building interiors psychologically at this
level is even more complex. We need to have control over our environment, to know
where we are in space and time—to not be socially or spatially lost, and to have privacy for
the behavior in which we are engaged. The layout of the environment seldom functions
in a deterministic manner in meeting these needs but it certainly makes a noticeable
contribution to our well-being particularly in the attainment of privacy. Every behavior
has a level of privacy expected for it within a culture.
Privacy involves the control of the flow of information—visual, sonic, or olfactory—
about what one (or a group) is doing to others not involved and control over the intrusion
of information from the outside world into the behavior setting (Altman 1975). The
failure of buildings and, particularly, residential apartments to provide desired levels
of privacy is a major contribution to the dissatisfaction that people have with the places
they inhabit (see Chapter 8).
The security functions of built forms overlap affiliation functions because a sense of
security is also obtained through being a member of a group and being part of a stable
social order. One hypothesis is that when change is occurring rapidly people feel that they
lack control over their lives. As a consequence they attempt to hang on to the symbols of
the past. Much Revivalist and Neo-Traditional architecture is sought at such times.
All buildings, whether they are public or private, large or small, represent financial
investments. For most householders buying a residential unit is the biggest investment
decision that they ever make. Buildings function to provide a financial return on capital
invested. They need to provide their owners with financial security and a profit unless
they are purely philanthropic gestures. (see Chapter 9). It must also be recognized that
many people over-invest in buildings to fulfill their desire for esteem. They forego
financial gain to bolster their egos in other ways.
Identity and Affiliation Functions
Our affiliation needs are met by knowing that we are members of a group and a social
and moral order. The degree to which individuals need to see themselves as part of a
group varies considerably from culture to culture and from person to person. One’s own
identity is wrapped up in that of the organizations to which one belongs. The groups are
diverse and are based on such common characteristics as kinship, locality, and common
interests. The cost to a society of these needs not being met is often high because it can
result in people feeling stressed, isolated, and alienated. They may withdraw from society
and/or engage in anti-social behavior in order to meet their need for recognition.
The layout of buildings and urban areas, if designed to afford opportunities for people
to meet, helps to create bonds among them. The aesthetic qualities of buildings and
building interiors can also act as a symbol of group membership. The ability of the built
environment to meet affiliation needs should be neither exaggerated nor denigrated.
Coupled with the use of the telephone and the automobile, the development of the
Internet has reduced the necessity for propinquity as a factor in group formation. The
necessity has, however, far from disappeared (see Chapter 10).
Esteem Functions
Almost all people need to be held in esteem although many people are so absorbed in
meeting more basic needs that they worry little about it. There are two concerns that
have design implications: the need to hold oneself in high esteem and the need to be held
in high esteem by others. The former is achieved through achievements and the latter by
other people acknowledging those achievements. The second does not necessarily follow
from the first. To obtain a sense of achievement one needs to be able to master tasks, and
to be able to manipulate, organize and own objects, ideas, and time.
Buildings and urban designs as displays are important in establishing not only where
people fit into a society (although some people seek anonymity) but also for esteem. The
characteristics of the environment that have positive symbolic meanings and provide for
territorial control over space are important (see Chapters 11 and 12). This function of the
built world often overwhelms its other functions in people’s expectations. They want to
impress.
The Advanced Functions of Built Form
The cognitive and aesthetic functions of the built environment parallel the basic functions.
The need to be able to learn and the need to positively appreciate one’s surroundings are
fundamental to the quality of life. The concern at an advanced level of human motivations
is, however, really for opportunities for continued learning and for intellectual aesthetic
ends for the intrinsic pleasure they give rather than for the fulfilling of basic instrumental
ends or prestige.
Cognitive Functions
Continuous learning is necessary to live well. Formal institutions such as schools are
important but much learning takes place through the experiences of everyday life. There
is a whole universe for people to explore and in which to test their skills and develop
their knowledge. The world is a storehouse of information awaiting people’s curiosity.
Cognitive needs are thus basic to life and to the good life (see Chapter 13).
The layout of the built environment functions to give access to behavior settings
that provide opportunities to learn about everyday life, about how the world operates,
and about one’s self in relation to it. These functions can serve both instrumental and
self-rewarding ends. Learning for the pleasure of learning occurs at every age from
childhood to old age. It is particularly a characteristic of self-actualized people. To
be fully self-actualized a person needs to be continuously motivated to understand,
to organize, to analyze, to look for relationships and meanings, and to construct a
system of values for its own sake. It is not a motivation to bolster one’s self-esteem, or
provide opportunities for self-expression. It is not a need to receive external rewards.
It is aesthetic.
Aesthetic Functions
The symbolic aesthetic function of architecture is important in meeting affiliation and

esteem needs. The architectural environment also provides something to contemplate
for its own sake and it can be a medium for self-expression (see Chapter 14). At every
level of needs fulfillment people sometimes stop to contemplate the environment
around them and to enjoy it or not as a result of the contemplation. For some people
there is the related cognitive need to understand the aesthetic theory of the building’s
architect. George Santayana (1896) referred to this activity as the intellectual aesthetic
function of works of art. Intellectual aesthetics involves evaluating a building’s
characteristics as “moral and aesthetic judgments of the mind”. To architects who
think of architecture as a fine art, this function distinguishes works of architecture
from simply buildings.
Architecture as a vehicle for self-expression provides for the creative acts of its designers.
Here one is referring to the need to create for its own sake. The need is manifested more
clearly in arts such as poetry, music, painting and sculpture where there is no specific
client whose requirements have to be met. Sometimes architecture functions in the same
way, but usually architects are striving to fulfill their client’s needs as well as their own
basic needs for professional survival and for self-esteem.
Self-actualizing and Self-transendence Functions
Self-actualized people are those who are at peace with themselves. They are motivated
to seek self-fulfillment and realize their full potential. According to Maslow very few
people are fully self-actualized (Maslow 1987). Nevertheless, while most of us are more
engaged in striving to fulfill our other needs, there are aspects of everybody’s life that
involve self-actualization motivations that transcend our concerns for ourselves. The
need to succor others may well be associated with the need to belong to a group or to be
held in high esteem by others but it also can be self-fulfilling. Self-transendence involves
reaching out to others to help them reach their potential. It can be done for the pleasure
of doing so.
The built environment if it functions well on other dimensions and provides for people’s
cognitive and aesthetic needs well will serve self-actualizing and self-transendence
functions well.
Situational and Cultural Variability
The hierarchical ordering of the human motivations may well be universal but the relative
importance of each level will vary from person to person, from time to time, and from
culture to culture. There are variations by gender, by stage-in-life-cycle and by social
status (Rapoport 1990b). It is not simply that activity patterns differ cross-culturally but
so do concepts of privacy, territoriality and security, aesthetic tastes, and cognitive styles.
Acceptable expressive acts and their manifestations in built form vary considerably
across the world. Global architecture has been very much dictated by Western European
cultural norms; those of other cultures and even sub-cultures other than that of the
educated elite have, with some notable exceptions, been largely dismissed by the
architectural cognoscenti. Recognized in music and song, such voices have been little
heeded by the mainstream of architects and architectural historians (Lokko 2000).
In business organizations, families, and in culturally homogenous countries, although
there will be differences among sub-groups of people, the basic behavior patterns can
be identified and generalizations used as basis for design. In multi-cultural societies, it
is possible to tailor make buildings for specific sub-populations. Whether one should
do so or not depends on making moral judgments and the constraints imposed by the
marketplace.
A Note on the “Culture” of Machines
The machines, from air-conditioning to cars, that make our lives easier and more
congenial have their own requirements to operate well. Often their modes of functioning
are more important than those of their operators. People are frequently more adaptable
than their machines. Kyoto Izumi drew a diagram (Figure 5.2) that distinguishes among
the types of environments where questions of fulfilling human needs may well give way
to the necessity of housing machines well (Izumi 1968).
The Functions of Buildings in Context
An important concern for architects, particularly in a litigious world, is the impact of

buildings on their surroundings. The impacts take several forms. Buildings can function
as economic catalysts and spur the development of surrounding areas or they can do the
opposite. They can generate traffic that may have either positive or negative effects on
their surroundings. In addition, the way buildings meet the street affects the experiences
of passers-by. New buildings can help create or destroy a sense of place. In a more
mundane way they can create fire hazards and be dangerous because of inadequate
construction or the use of poor materials. New buildings and urban areas, inevitably,
have an impact on the biological ecology of an area which may subsequently have a
positive or a negative effect on people’s lives.
Tall buildings can overshadow surroundings areas and overlook them reducing
access to sunlight and reducing the privacy of neighbors. They can channel winds to
flush pollutants from city streets, create unpleasant wind tunnels for pedestrians, and/or
reflect heat and winds on to adjacent buildings. The list can go on and on.
Adapted from Izumi (1968) and Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif
a. Refinery, Pusan, Korea. b. New York City, USA. c. Battery Park City, NY, USA.
Figure 5.2 Environment types and human and machine needs
Architects act on behalf of their fee-paying clients to maximize those clients’ interests.
In a globalizing world with cities competing to attract international organizations, there
are twin tugs on public officials and thus on architects. On one hand officials need to
provide the type of opportunities that international developers and entrepreneurs seek
and on the other the increasing recognition that a series of buildings serving the interests
of individual clients seldom adds up to a well-functioning urban environment either
aesthetically or in terms of the activities of people.
The Functions of Built Form for Architects
Most architects are concerned that their designs meet the requirements of their paying
clients satisfactorily but architects also have their own motivations. These vary from
the very basic need of economic survival to aesthetic and cognitive needs. The survival
of an architectural firm depends on it getting work. Some architects may well rather
“die“ than solicit or produce work that does not adhere to their own tastes. They
see themselves as only beholden to themselves. More mundanely, the survival of an
architectural firm depends on having skills and successfully marketing them. Large
firms such as that of Foster and Partners (660 employees with 50 partners in 2006) have
to have work rolling in continuously to sustain their practices (Linn 2007). The firm
shares and competes in a corner of the marketplace for services with those of other
“muscular” high profile architects.
To survive architects need to have a niche in the world of professional practice. An
important function of designed built form is thus to give an identity to its creator, to
show where an architect fits in as a service provider, and/or as an artist among other
architects. A building serves the dual function of giving an identity to its designer as
well as to its owner. These two ends are often mutually supportive although there can
be a clash between them. Architects, such as fictional Howard Roark, who fight for the
right of self-expression (Rand 1943) are often held in high esteem by other architects
and the cognoscenti even though their work may be heartily disliked by its users and/or
inhabitants.
Artisans construct each building generally taking pride in their work. Many
architectural innovations have come from builders. While contractors may seem to be
only interested in completing a work at a maximum profit, craftspeople get self-esteem
from a job well done. Some architects recognize this function of buildings and embrace
craftspeople as co-designers but others see them as the enemy standing in the way of
their own efforts to “do things right”.
The Functions of Built Form for Sponsors and Property Developers
One of the most important functions of buildings is as a capital investment (see Chapter 9).
All buildings have somebody or some organization that is footing the bill. “Sponsors”,
an ambiguous term, can refer to people who are lending the money to finance a project or
the owners or clients who are proposing a project. Although each may be concerned that
a building functions well in a multi-dimensional manner for those who use and/or view
it they also have their own economic concerns. Public agencies are often in a difficult
situation. While they are ostensibly representing the interests of their clients, there is
often a social and administrative gap that keeps agencies and their clients apart (Zeisel
1974, 2006). They are placed in the situation of having to represent their clients’ interests
while dealing with their own. One of their needs is to survive.
Developers of projects are often seen as primarily concerned with the marketability of
a project and with maximizing their profits. Their buildings have to be marketable and
have to make a profit but the profit motive often gives way to other motivations. Their
need for self-esteem often leads developers to forego profit in order to get their own way.
While some developers hold the view that “there is a sucker born every minute” and
whose rewards come from sharp practices, most are much more self-conscious about
the quality of their work given the segment of the population to whom they wish to sell
their products.
Banks and lending institutions are mainly interested in buildings as investments.
They need to feel assured that loans will be paid with interest and on time. To many
homeowners and other property owners, the functioning of buildings as investments is
high on their list of priorities. They are prepared to forego high quality on a number of
dimensions of importance to them in order for their properties to be easily marketable.
Certainly, those clients who hire “signature” architects are interested in increasing the
market value of their buildings as much as being a patron of the arts. They seek the
value-added component of having a building designed by a prestigious architect.
Functional Theory and Architectural Theory
Most architects continue to differentiate between form and function. It makes little sense.
Many also argue that buildings should be designed from the inside out. The outside
appearance of buildings is, however, important so buildings are often still designed from
the outside in. Communication is an important, if not the important function.
A number of major architects have recognized this situation. Buildings are signs and
should be designed recognizing their communication function (Venturi and Scott Brown
2004). Buildings survive many changes in use as the instrumental purposes and activities
they house become obsolete. What does survive change is the presentation of the building
to the outside world in its physical and temporal context. As a result buildings ought to
be designed as much from the outside in as from the inside out. Venturi asks why cannot
the modern building and a billboard be integrated—the sign and building be one thing?
The theory of the functions of architecture and their order of importance presented
here enables architects to track changes in the societies of which they are a part and
enables them to understand the potential contribution to their own work of the ongoing
research about the functioning of interiors, buildings, and the public realm of urban
precincts. Architectural theory has been much more concerned with the impact of the
environment on built form than on the impact of built forms on the environment. The
concern for regarding buildings as part of the evolving biogenic environment rather than
something responding to the hostility of nature is recent (see Chapter 1). Architectural
professionals and academics have lagged behind the landscape architecture profession
and the scientists associated with it, in coming to grips with designing with nature in
mind (see McHarg 1969, Hough 1990, 2004, Spirn 1989), but we are catching up (see, for
example, Lyle 1992, Smith 2005, Bay and Ong 2006, Walker 2006).
Although Maslow’s model is highly suggestive about what is important in architecture
there is considerable tension among the various functions that buildings and urban
designs serve. How does one create a coherent, viable scheme? How does one reconcile
the architecture of structural dexterity, the needs of architects to have successful practices,
the requirements of property developers to make a profit, and the needs of sponsors and
users when one is looking at representations of proposed realities on a computer screen?
Architects have to look ahead and create or synthesize a solution to meet disparate
requirements. Each new building is a hypothesis about how to do so. That reality
involves sticking one’s neck out. Using a knowledge-based approach to design reduces
the possibility of having one’s head chopped off.
A Note on the Function of Building Structures
From Vitruvius to the present “fitness for their purpose” of building materials,
construction systems and structural methods has been a major concern of architects and
structural engineers. Knowledge of how these different systems and materials function
and the purposes they serve, although outside the central focus of this book, has been
and is essential to the making of a sound, functionally appropriate built environment.
We do, nevertheless, trade-off the instrumental functionality of materials and of building
systems to achieve other ends such as to be in fashion and to be held in high esteem.
Major References
Florida, Richard 2002. Form and function: a closer look, in The Rise of the Creative Class and how it is
Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 124-7.
Gordon, Douglas and Stephanie Stubbs 1991. How Architecture Works. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold.
Harries, Karsten 1997. The Ethical Function of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zimring, Craig and Sheila Bosch 2008. Building the evidence for evidence-based design. Editors’
Introduction. Environment and Behavior, 40(2), 147-50.
Part III
The Functions of the Built Environment:
Theory and Practice
Tegel Harbor Phase 1 Housing, Berlin, Germany (1988)

Moore Ruble Yudell, architects and planners.
The model of functionalism presented in Part II of this book is complex. The goal of this
part of the book is twofold. Firstly, it is to start looking at the model in greater detail and
also to consider how architects are addressing the resulting issues of concern. Picking
up on the division of human motivations presented in the previous chapter, Part III is
divided into two parts: Basic Functions and Advanced Functions.
Basic Functions
The discussion of the basic functions of architecture begins by looking at how the built
environment affords activities. Its opening chapter, The Accommodation of Activities:
Behavior Settings and Architecture reviews the range of potential behaviors to be housed
in buildings and their cultural relativity. The architecture of globalization may be
universalizing but many people have lives that are rooted in local mores.
The basic function of buildings has long been to shelter activities. Chapter 7: Shelter and
Salubrious Environments describes how the artificial environments that we create function
both in providing shelter and healthy settings for life. Today air-conditioning and built-
in heating systems are ubiquitous in providing for comfort. Can we afford to rely on
these mechanical devices in a future era perhaps not so well endowed with fossil fuels?
Even if those fuels are available what are the side effects of using them? What should
we do? There are alternatives ways of providing for desired comfort levels that are now
being explored in building design.
We strive to be safe and secure in our lives. Physical security comes from us being
safe from physical harm. Psychological security comes from knowing where we are in
space and time and having control of our interrelations with the world—terrestrial and
animate. The events of September 11, 2001 made us look at security concerns anew. Our
increasing knowledge of cultural differences in defining privacy requirements makes us
question how our current international design paradigms deal with our psychological
needs. Chapter 8: Physical and Psychological Safety and Security gives an overview of these
functions of the built environment.
Buildings also represent major capital investments and the people who build and/or
own them expect some monetary benefits to accrue from their investments. They want
to feel financially secure. This function of buildings is covered in Chapter 9: Architecture,
Financial Security, and Profit. At the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, tenure of property
is important; at the higher levels financial rewards are sought. It must be remembered that
many property developers are prima donnas as much as many architects and often getting
their own way is the reward they seek as much as, or more so, than financial profit.
The buildings and neighborhoods, or precincts, of cities that we inhabit also tell us
something about ourselves, our values, and who we are or whom we aspire to be. They
contain “to whom it may concern messages” about our own identities and society’s view
of us. Chapter 10: Identity and Community covers this concern and warns us architects not
to expect too much of the built environment in shaping a sense of community. Chapter 11:
Identity, Individualism, and the Unique deals with the flipside of the coin. Not only are
we members of a variety of communities but we also have our own individualities. The
degree to which individuality is expressed varies from culture to culture. Certainly many,
if not most architects seek a sense of individual identity through their work.
the functions of the built environment 75
Social status is important and we are often prepared to trade-off all kinds of benefits
in order to possess or inhabit high status, fashionable, and even luxurious environments.
Wrapped up with their function in meeting “identity”, “community”, and “individuality”
needs is the way buildings display the status of their owners, occupiers, and creators.
The mechanisms used to display status vary considerably by culture. These differences
and the consequent design issues are covered in Chapter 12: Buildings as Signs and Status
Symbols. Different theories of architecture reflect different ideological positions on what
we should be doing in design.
Advanced Functions
The second section of this part of the book considers the advanced functions of
architecture. While the cognitive and aesthetic functions of built form are important
for everybody, the advanced functions of the built environment deal primarily with
the internalized pleasure of learning for its own sake and with the pleasure derived
from self-consciously examining the environment. Providing for learning opportunities
as a part of everyday life is an important consideration at a planning policy level and
subsequently at an urban design level. The issues are complex. Chapter 13: The Cognitive
Function of Architecture: The Environment as a Source of Learning reviews our knowledge
of the concerns and the design consequences of attempting to design educative
environments for young and old.
Buildings and the settings they contain can also be regarded as objects whose
composition can give us pleasure sub-consciously or through systematic contemplation.
This contemplation can be carried out in a number of ways. The first is simply in terms
of one’s own needs, experiences, and aesthetic tastes. In addition, understanding the
architect’s story, or reasons for making a building the way it is, heightens our intellectual
appreciation of it, positive or negative. The aesthetics of experience arises from the
everyday pleasures that we obtain from contemplating the environment as part of daily
life and not the artistic ideology underlying a self-consciously designed product. The
contrast is discussed in Chapter 14: Experiential Aesthetics and Intellectual Aesthetics.
Looking at the artificial environment and its functions in the way outlined here
heightens our understanding of its potential richness and how it can function to
afford the activities and experiences that make for fulfilling lives. It also provides the
framework required to appreciate the variety of approaches to architectural design that
were discussed in the opening chapter of this book.
Basic Functions
Photograph by Caroline Nute
Trump Tower, New York City, USA (1983)

Der Scutt, design architect; Swanke Hayden Connell, architects.
6
The Accommodation of Activities:

Behavior Settings and Architecture
Our roles change as we go … from one reality … to another reality.

From one setting … to another setting.
Count Girolamo Marcello, Venetian patrician, cited in Berendt (2004: 1)
A basic reason for creating buildings and urban designs is to provide the affordances
for desired and desirable activities to take place. The perception of what is appropriate
depends on the moral order of a society and what is regarded as acceptable within it.
As Figure 6.1 shows, the fulfilling of almost everything that we are motivated to achieve
involves actions. The diagram also shows that designing to accommodate activities to
achieve various ends is a recurring theme in this book.
The built environment, it was argued in Chapter 2, consists of a nested set of behavior
settings. Behavior settings it was said there are of two types: places and links (Figure 6.2).
Places are the sites of localized standing patterns of behavior and links are the channels
of movement that draw them into a system that serves some purpose or set of purposes.
Links often include important places and paths of movement often cross places. Thinking
of the environment in this way frees architects up to think creatively. Many court cases,
for instance, are resolved in meetings in corridors and a well-designed courthouse caters
for such gatherings (Perin 1970).
Activity Systems as the Behavioral Basis for Architectural Design
The behavior settings that a building or urban area needs to accommodate are the basis
for any design unless it is intended to be primarily a sculpture. In that case the activities
it houses have to be adjusted to the affordances of the physical form. Many of our
contemporary designs seem to function in this manner.
Designing Programs (or Briefs) for Design
Providing shelter may be the basic function of built form, but it is shelter for the activities
of life. The designing of the brief, or program, for a new building involves deciding
on what set of standing patterns of behavior and their interrelationships need to be
accommodated. The task also involves deciding on how tight a “fit” is required between
the activities and the form of the building. The decision process needs to be an interactive
one involving the architect, the client, the sponsor, and other stakeholders. Arguments
about possibilities form the core of the discussion.
© Jon Lang; drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 6.1 Designing for activities and the issues involved

There are two ways of working. One is based on adapting standard solutions that
reputedly work well enough to the case at hand. The activity system is implicit in them.
The alternative is to design or identify the activity system explicitly before designing a
building (Rowe 1983). The Rouse Hill Town Centre (see Figure 6.3) is an adaptation of
the first approach. It is a departure from the standard shopping mall design (see Figure
9.10e). Its design is based on the adjustment of different types. The Centre consists of
four “big box” stores at the comers of the site with streets and pedestrian ways lined with
shops linking them (Figure 6.3b). At the center is a square with a library (c). Apartment
buildings provide for potential eyes on the street (c, e). Some parking spaces for cars are
on the streets in a traditional manner (e) but a single underground parking lot covers
the accommodation of activities 81
Drawing by Omar Sharif
a. A conceptual diagram of links and places in

building.
b. A link.
c. A place with links. d. This footpath, on D. Naroji Road, Mumbai,

India is supposed to be link but it is full of places.
e. A place for display used as a link. f. A Place. Paley Park, New York City, USA (1967)
in the 1980s; Zion and Breen, architects.
Figure 6.2 Places and links

the whole site (f). The developer and the design team made assumptions about what
customers would do if the affordances existed based on observations of well-functioning
shopping areas and traditional city centers.
The design of many other building types is based on standard solutions. The clients of
a custom-designed building, however, should be in a position to describe the activities
they wish to be able to carry out. Many activities are however, conducted in such habitual
ways that people are poor at describing them. Architects, nevertheless, have a good
record of designing good milieus (or settings) for clearly worked out activity systems
when they work hand-in-hand with the users of buildings. The second generation of
inhabitants either uses the milieu in the same way or has to adapt to the layout by using
its affordances in new ways for them or they have to alter the layout to accommodate
their desired activities.
A behavior setting approach to program design The standing, or recurrent, patterns of

activities of people can be highly complex. They consist of the anthropological ergonomics
of gross motor skills (that is, movement patterns). They often also include the finer skills
involved in the manipulation of machines and other objects and mental activities such as
problem solving, interpersonal interactions, and emotional responses.
The activities that constitute standing patterns of behaviors serve some purpose usually
governed by a set of norms, or cultural expectations. These norms may be formal (that
is, according to written rules), or informal or communal ones dictated by the norms of
expectations within a culture—familial, commercial, or societal (Gottschalk 1975, Florida
2002). As described later in Chapter 10, non-participants (for example, consultants) can
only design formal systems; communal ones grow from within.
All organizations require formal systems to operate well whether they are the
production lines of factories, the retailing of goods, the operation of a lawyer’s office,
or even families. Within such a system it is possible to specify the role of individuals,
their places within a hierarchy, and the actions expected of them and consequently what
is required of the milieu. Games such as bocce, football, or croquet are examples where
not only the rules of conduct for the standing patterns of behavior are prescribed but so
is the milieu. Most everyday standing patterns of behavior are, however, governed by
the norms of behavior within a culture. Communal systems are important because the
passing of knowledge and certainly the development of many ideas takes place in casual
conversations among different groups within an organization (Perin 1970, Florida 2002).
The informal activity systems required to meet the development needs of any social
organization vary considerably but culturally specific expectations affect these activities.
They cannot be designed but the potential behavioral patterns can be identified and
allowed for in a design.
A standard functional goal of design is to create building interiors that allow activities
to be carried out efficiently and comfortably. Efficiency has generally been defined in terms
of minimizing effort both at the gross motor level (see Figure 3.1b and c) and at the micro
level. Thus the distances between closely linked behavior settings need to be minimized
and micro-activities need to be carried out with the minimum of effort. The rise of the
Internet has reduced the necessity for propinquity among many behavior settings but it
remains important if organizations are to prosper (Allen 1977, Florida 2002).
Collection of Jon Lang Drawing by Omar Sharif
a. Aerial view. b. Conceptual diagram of links and places.
c. The town square. The library is on the right. d. Library interior.
e. Residential apartments, shops, and on-street parking. f. The underground parking.
Figure 6.3 A Neo-Traditional district shopping center—Rouse Hill Town Centre, NSW,
Australia (completed 2008)
CPT Group (Rice Daubney, Allen Jack and Cottier and Group GSA), architects in association with Civitas
Urban Design and Planning Inc.; Cundall Services ESD Consultants.
Identifying the spatial boundaries of standing patterns of behavior correctly is

fundamental to design. A boundary is simply where the behavior stops. Sometimes the
boundary is obvious and sometimes not. The design objective is to prevent one activity
from interfering with another but not to separate those that do not require it. Differing
ideological positions exist on where and what the boundaries should be. Much depends
on culturally determined attitudes towards privacy (see Chapter 8).
Almost all interior designs of buildings are based on assumptions about the standing
patterns of behavior that are supposed to take place within them. In writing a brief a
number of questions arise: Who makes these assumptions? Who designs, or specifies, the
standing patterns of behavior that are required to make an organization function well?
Who decides what activities take precedence? These questions are important because the
brief for any project is based on the answers to them. They are often answered by default.
Generic designs are used.
Designing a carefully considered program is a value-laden daunting task (Sarason 1972,
Moleski 1977, Hershberger 1999, Peña and Marshall 2002). For complex organizations
specialist consultants may well identify/design the major components of the activity
system that will form the basis for the design of a scheme. It is often argued that an exact
specification is unnecessary. Globalization abets this argument by saying that activities
are changing so rapidly that all one needs to do is to create a flexible environment. The
empirical reality is, however, that people are stressed if the environment provides an
uncomfortable fit for what they are doing.
Issues in the Design of Activity Systems
Deciding on the activity system to use as a basis for design can be a volatile process.
Different stakeholders often have opposing and difficult to reconcile positions on what
it should be. Some participants will be knowledgeable and others not. Some will have
experience of alternative systems and others not. Some will be willing to gamble on
new ways of doing things and others will be more cautious. Property developers and
architects will want to do things their own way.
A number of issues will inevitably arise in any discussion about what the brief
for a building or urban area should contain. These concerns include questions of the
appropriate size for institutions, the way one should deal with the requirements of
competing activity systems, the appropriate level of integration and segregation between
and among behavioral settings, and how one should deal with cultural variability. The
degree of fit required between behavior pattern and milieu, how far societies should
go in designing barrier-free environments, and the level of comfort the milieu should
provide are additional concerns. The list could go on.
Organizational Design and Activity Patterns
A factor in deciding on the standing patterns of group behavior to use as basis for design
is the appropriate number of people required to sustain the activities needed to achieve
a specific purpose. In nautical terms, the question is whether the settings are properly
“manned” (Barker and Schoggen 1973, Wicker 1979). Too few people means that those
involved have to work extra hard to sustain the activity; if there are too many people,
some become non-participants. They withdraw or get shoved aside.
In the design of institutions such as schools and religious facilities or even businesses,
large organizations generally offer many different choices, services and specializations;
the smaller ones give fewer choices but more opportunities for participatation. The
reason is simple. Large and small institutions require almost the same minimum number
of settings to make them operational. In a large school the options available to students
can be substantial but the principal is unlikely to know all students. In a small school,
children are “coerced” to participate in a multitude of activities: the school’s sports
teams, debating society, and the school play in order for the school to survive as a lively
educational place. Pupils will also be known by all the teachers and thus held more
accountable for what they do (Barker and Gump 1973).
Institutions have been getting larger to be economically efficient. To reduce the
possibility of participants being side-lined large organizations need to be divided into
smaller units in which all the participants have a role. In many urban environments with
relatively few behavior settings given the size of their populations, many people are
anonymous and others are non-participants in civic life (Barker and Schoggen 1978). The
danger is that they become alienated. One argument for the continued need for dividing
cities into smaller identifiable precincts is to enhance the sense of community and the
ease of access to supportive services (Madanipour 2001; see also Chapter 10)
Human and Competing Activity Systems
We humans use an extraordinary variety of machines in our everyday lives. They range from
modes of transportation and communication to computers and household equipment. Kyoto
Izumi (see Figure 5.2) distinguished among the types of environments where questions of
fulfilling the requirements of human activity patterns may well give way to the demands of
machines. Similarly, the lives of elements of the natural world, in particular the activities of
animals and insects and what is required to sustain them can conflict with human desires.
They require specific ecological niches to survive well. In India and South Africa where the
natural habitat of monkeys and baboons respectively has been substantially eroded in urban
areas, the animals invade houses in the search of food. They become a nuisance to people.
Rats, mosquitoes, and flies carry diseases, moles wreck lawns, monkeys and raccoons
steal food, and ibis raid rubbish bins; pigeons create a mess. They are regarded as
pests. Rats, pigeons, and urban cows are, however, tolerated and indeed venerated in
some places. Monkeys, raccoons, possums, and migrating birds enrich our experiences.
Imagine an urban world without songbirds! (Carson 1965) How do we cater for their
activity patterns and ours simultaneously? By designing with nature in mind (McHarg
1969, Spirn 1989, Hough 2004). Do we care?
The Segregation and Integration of Activities
The integration, overlap or segregation of behavior settings will be discussed a number

of times in this book because they raise issues of safety, privacy, learning, and social
cohesion. There are two inter-related scales of design concern for activity systems per se:
the urban precinct level, and the interior architecture level.
Precinct patterns At the precinct level the generic design types that address the issue are
the superblock, the vertically segregated zone, and the woonerf. In the superblock the
vehicular traffic is kept outside a precinct and the interior is pedestrianized. A similar
solution is to divide pedestrians and vehicles in vertical rather than horizontal space (see
Figure 6.4). The woonerf is different. Pedestrians and vehicles use the same space.
There are many superblock designs. The plan for Fort Worth although never
implemented, has become a generic solution to the possible conflict between people
driving cars and pedestrians in the center of cities (Gruen 1968; see Figure 6.4a). A ring
road with parking garages off it provides access to a pedestrian core. Darling Harbour
in Sydney is similar (Figure 8.1c). The Radburn plan for a residential area (Stein 1957;
see Figure 10.6a) and the pedestrian pocket proposals (Kelbaugh 1989, Calthorpe
1993; see Figure 13.4a to c) have a similar objective. The University of Illinois, Chicago
campus (6.4d) and La Défense outside Paris are designs where the movement of cars and
pedestrians is segregated vertically.
The neighborhood unit concept is based on images of the activities that take place in
a residential area (Perry 1929, Madanipour 2001; see Figure 10.5). In its application at
Radburn there is a partially segregated circulation system. The woonerf design, in contrast,
assumes that playing children and moving vehicles can co-exist. Indeed children playing
in the cul-de-sacs of Radburn (because they perceive the affordances of its hard ground
surfaces for many games) made them into woonerfs before the term was coined. Radburn
has proven to be much loved by its inhabitants. Its patterns afford many activities for
young and old and it has the symbolic aesthetic characteristics that enrich lives (Stein
1957, Birch 1980; see Chapter 10).
In a number of traditional societies the patterns of circulation for men and women
were segregated in time and/or space. In the old city of Ghadāmis, Libya, only women
were allowed to use the streets (Figure 6.5d) in the early morning and early evening.
For the rest of the day the streets were men’s territory for movement and gathering;
women then moved around the town, sometimes somewhat precariously, along the
roof tops (6.5e).
Interior design The issues of circulation systems and the adjacencies of behavior settings
are common in interior design. A number of building types have dual circulation
systems, each being the territory of one set of users. Hotels have one circulation system
for those who operate the hotel and another for guests. Houses for the wealthy have their
front-stair and their back-stair areas. Theaters (for example, Figure 6.5a) have a clear
circulation system in their back stage area and another in the front of stage area. Many
offices dealing with the public have their in-front-of-counter and back-of-counter zones
(6.5b and c).
The degree to which activity patterns should be segregated from each other has long
been a design issue. Frank Lloyd Wright used an open plan in the design of the Larkin
Administration building (see Figure 6.9a and b). Le Corbusier was a strong advocate for
the free plan (Figure 6.6a). In the landscape, or open, plan for offices or schools, behavior
settings are divided by low partitions up to chest height (b and c) not walls. They have
differing links for visual contact and for movement. The design type was promoted to
ease communication between behavior settings and is still widely used. The flow of sound
has long been a concern (Blake 1977). In some places the type has been a success (d).
Source for a and b: Gruen; © 1964, 1992. With permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc.
a. The Fort Worth plan, Texas, USA (1968); Victor

Gruen and Associates, architects.
b. Fort Worth plan, ground floor view.
c. An underpass, Boulder, Colorado.
d. The University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (1963+);

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, architects.
e. Internal mall, Minneapolis, MN, USA; a f. Concourse level, Rockefeller Center, New York, USA,
skyway link to a facing building is in the rear. an underground circulation system.
Figure 6.4 Designing for the efficient (and safe) movement of pedestrians and motorists
© Barton Myers Associate, Inc.
b. The Housing Development Board

offices, Tampines, Singapore (1994);
HDB, architects.
a. The Center for the Performing Arts, Cerritos, CA,

USA (1993); Barton Myers Associates, Inc., architects.
c. The Caixa Forum lobby, Madrid,

Spain (2009); Herzog and de
Meuron, Architekten, architects.
d. A street, Ghadāmis, Libya. e. Roof top circulation “paths”, Ghadāmis, Libya.
Figure 6.5 Dual circulation systems

In others it does not matter (for example, in e). Today with many workers coming and
going in a more casual manner, they have hot seats (f) and no specific offices (see also
Chapter 8 on privacy).
Many social organizations are undergoing change. Roman Catholic churches have
traditionally consisted of a number of basic behavior settings: gathering places, links
for processions and for worshipers moving about the church, congregational places,
choir stalls, altar-table activities, and baptismal rituals. Basilica type churches afford
preaching very well but since the changes instigated by Vatican Council II, group
liturgical worship demands a different configuration. Designing a good setting for both
preaching and for group participation is not easy (Hackett in progress). Congregations
adapt. Changing a Catholic cathedral into a mosque requires even more adaptations
(see Figure 10.13c and d).
Stage in life cycle and the segregation and integration of activities Over the past 50 years a
number of changes in the social and economic organization of societies—the increased
length of childhood, the desire of adults to lead individualistic lives of high mobility—
have led to an increasing segregation of activity patterns and a decreasing amount of
social interaction among people at different stages in their life cycle. Special facilities
are designed to cater to each stage. The elderly (actually only a tiny percentage) move to
retirement communities, the young have specific places of entertainment, and so on. In
houses, children may have their own areas. Since the 1960s a number of observers (for
example, Parr 1969) including psychologists (for example, Sarason 1972) have wondered
if the segregation of activities by age group lies behind many social ills particularly
juvenile delinquency. The correlation between such segregation and social ills certainly
exists but a causal linkage between the two has not been established. Indeed the degree
of segregation of people of various ages may have decreased in countries such as the
United States over the past two decades.
Cultural Variability
The way business is conducted and how daily activities are carried out are all culture
dependent (Altman and Chemers 1980, Cole and Lord 2003, Rapoport 1969, 2004). It is the
residential environments in which the differences matter most but business organizations
have their own cultures embedded within the broader norms of a society.
House form and culture In a pioneering series of studies Amos Rapoport identified six
major aspects of culture that are reflected in the interior layout of dwellings (Rapoport
1969, 1990a, 2004). They are the way basic day-to-day activities that sustain a household
are carried out, the structure of the family (whether extended or not), gender roles,
the processes of social intercourse, attitudes towards privacy, and in parallel, attitudes
towards social status. Today the degree of home centeredness of work and the nature of
new household types are additional concerns. Of particular importance in all societies is
the privacy accorded various activities and, in some cultures, the spiritual significance
associated with them. These themes are developed in later chapters of this book. It will
have to suffice to say here that the roles of women and men, and the image of what a
child is, have considerable impact on activity patterns and thus the layout of houses.
Photograph by Djana Alic © ERG, Philadelphia
a. Interior, Villa Savoye, Poissy, France (1927); b. Proposed interior for ARCO, Philadelphia,
Le Corbusier, architect. PA, USA; Interspace, Inc, interior designers, ERG
programming consultants.
Collection of Jon Lang Photograph by Walter Moleski
c. Modular open-plan office layouts dominate the scene d. The National Humanities Center, North
in the United States. Carolina, USA (1973); Hartman-Cox, architects,
ERG programming consultants.
Photograph by and courtesy of Robyn Twomy
e. Terminal 4, Heathrow Airport, London in 2006. f. “Hot desk” accommodates the coming and
going of workers.
Figure 6.6 Interior landscape, free-plan, campus-plan, or open-plan design

Gender roles are constrained to some degree in all societies. In traditional Indian houses
of both Hindus and Muslims, separate entrances to houses were provided for men and
women. The internal courtyard ameliorated climatic conditions through the creation
of venturi effects, but also served as an outdoor space for women (P. Thomas 1975).
The activities of men and women and senior and junior members of the household
dictated who was allowed to use what space. The fulcrum of the house was the dining
area. Here, in the past men would have eaten first followed by women and children.
Today families tend to eat together (Rapoport and Watson 1972, Lang et al. 2009).
The unfurnished room may be the same as in the past, but it is furnished and used
differently now.
Five twentieth-century house plans in India are shown in Figure 6.7. Three (a, c,
and f) were designed within the social framework of Hinduism. They are houses of
the wealthy; another (e) is for lower income families. The first (a) has a segregation of
people by gender and role; those in (c) and (f) show that these differences have largely
disappeared for the middle class. In these homes there is also no separate entrance for
dalits—“untouchables”—to enter and clean the lavatories. In (e) the bathroom and
lavatory are poorly located for Hindus but at least they are separated from the kitchen.
The rooms including the entrance hall can be used in a number of ways. The British
colonial official’s bungalow (b) was very different but was a fine fit for the highly socially
constrained status-based behavioral patterns of its occupants (King 1995, Lang et al.
2009; see also Chapter 12).
In some societies, individual rooms in a housing unit are allocated to specific activities
but in many countries rooms other than those with fixed features (that is, bathrooms and
kitchens) serve a multiplicity of purposes over the course of a day, a week, and a season.
One room may serve as a daytime living area and then be a sleeping area at night. For
the poor one room dwellings are the norm. Life spills out into the external spaces such
as the street.
One defining cultural difference is whether activities are organized around people
sitting on the floor or at tables (see Figure 6.11c). In one culture business activities
may take place at desks with people seated on chairs; in others, people may be seated
on the floor with desks with no legs in front of them. In traditional homes in places
such as India and Korea many activities take place with people seated on the floor.
In the latter country where winters are cold, artificial heating warms the floor. When
activities take place seated on the floor, windows sills need to be low to enable people
to see out.
The attitude towards the appropriate reception of guests is manifested in the way
houses relate to streets and where entertaining takes place in the house. How far can
guests and other visitors penetrate into the housing unit? Threshold locations vary by
culture (see Figure 6.8a). In unit design, much depends on where cooking takes place
in relationship to guests and what rooms are regarded as private to the family (b). In
middle class homes, is it appropriate for people to enter directly into a living room
from the outside or should there be a welcoming vestibule? Much depends on cultural
attitudes (c).
Some locations in a home have culturally based significances (Zeisel 1974). As a result
the ergonomically most sensible way to carry out an activity is often not the way that
serves householders well. In traditional homes in Europe and North America families
Collection of Jon Lang Source: Bhatia (1994: 37)
b. British officer’s bungalow, New Delhi (c. 1920).
a. A traditional haveli plan.
Source: Bhatia (1994: 47)
d. Sarabhai House: a view from the swimming pool

(above).
c. Sarabhai House, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

(1957); Le Corbusier, architect.
e. Social housing,
New Delhi (1950s). f. A modern house, Chennai (2000).
Figure 6.7 House form and culture: India

entertain friends in the living room while the wife may be working in the kitchen. An
apartment layout for this organization is shown in Figure 6.8b(i). Where men are doing
some of the cooking and women are also part of the social activity the absence of a wall
between the living room, dining room and kitchen works well (see 6.8b(ii)). For families
where entertaining takes places in the kitchen and where the living room is a revered
place for the display of family icons and off-limits to visitors, a better layout would be
that shown in 6.8b(iii).
Architects often find themselves confronted with ways of life that differ significantly
from their own and may seem stupid to them. Social reformers and architects thought
that the seldom used parlor of low-income British families to be a waste of space (Darley
1978). While they have an obligation to bring their clients’ attention to new ways of
carrying out activities, the most efficient way is not necessarily the one most desired. It
does not fit in with preferred ways of life.
In many countries family organizations are undergoing significant change (Franck
and Ahrentzen 1989). There are now many more single-person households than before
in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. In many economically
developing countries the nuclear family is replacing the extended as the norm.
Catering for the frail elderly then becomes a societal not solely a family concern and
housing for the elderly becomes a new building type. At the same time the search
for community has resulted in various co-housing movements (McCamant and Durett
1988; P. Williams 2005).
Groups such as single-person households and cooperative and communal housing
groups have activity patterns that fit neither conventional paradigms of behavior nor unit
types. In practice architects have produced many thoughtful schemes for these groups
provided they have direct contact with them in the programming phase of design. The
Hubertus House in Amsterdam (1973-8) designed by Aldo Van Eyck for single parents
(that is, mothers) and their children is a well-known example (Hertzberger 1982). Not
only families but businesses have been going through substantial changes in the way
they are organized and work is done. These changes have major interior architecture
implications.
Organizational cultures and floor plans Commercial organizations have a variety of

cultures (Steele 1973, Moleski 1986, Abel 2000, Florida 2002). The interaction patterns in
some organizations are highly autocratic and formal, while others are more democratic
and less formal. The interior architecture and room geography of an organization
depend on how it operates and how it presents itself to itself and to the outside world.
The autocratic are seen to be more efficient because they possess a clear hierarchy of
authority. Decisions are made at the top and carried on down the hierarchy in a series of
formal steps. Each person in such a system has a clear set of obligations and thus both
space requirements and the architectural symbols denoting status.
The formal hierarchy of the personnel in the organizations shown in Figure 6.9a, b,
and d is clear. The situation is more ambiguous in (e), a legal firm. This last layout was a
deliberate response to its management wanting people visiting it not to know the level
in the hierarchy of the firm of the lawyer they were meeting. The layout shown in (f) is
also different. It is for a community of scholars with “cells” for individual research and
communal spaces for discussion and socializing (see also Figure 10.3a). Today, in many
Adapted from Rapoport (1977) by Omar Sharif
a. Approximate threshold location of single family homes in three different cultures.
Adapted from Zeisel (1974) by Jon Lang; drawing by Omar Sharif
(i) (ii) (iii)
b. Zones of penetration and apartment layout.
Adapted from Brolin (1976) by Omar Sharif
(i) Danish home. (ii) Anglo-American home.
c. House entrances in two different middle-class cultures.
Figure 6.8 Zones of penetration and residential unit design

offices flexible hours signal an abandonment of the “command and control management
mode” (Alistair Gordon cited in Florida 2002). The layouts of the internal spaces of firms
become more fluid (Florida 2002, Becker 2004; see Figure 6.6f).
Room geography and culture Room geography deals with the nature and layout of
furniture—the internal organization of a behavior setting (see also Chapter 8). The
placement of doors, windows, built-in furniture and the overall proportions of a room—
the fixed features—constrain the organization of the furniture in a room and thus the
way people can relate to each other in it. Humphrey Osmond distinguished between
furniture arrangements where eye contact is easy to establish and those where it is not
(Osmond 1966). He labeled them sociopetal and sociofugal spaces (see Figure 6.10).
Sociopetal layouts are those in which face-to-face contact is easy to maintain and
seating arrangements are at a socio-consultive distance (see Figure 8.11). Sociofugal
layouts are those in which such contacts are easy to avoid. Back-to-back seating
arrangements are an example. Each is appropriate in specific circumstances (Osmond
1966). The serpentine pattern of the seating in Barcelona’s Parc Güell designed by
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet provides park-goers with a choice. The concave arrangement of
the bench affords easy communication among up to six or so people; the convex ones
afford privacy (see Figure 6.10f).
The placement of windows and doors in a room very much affects the furniture
arrangements possible. Windows are a source of illumination; doors serve as threshold,
provide a sense of arrival, and control. For meeting rooms the ideal layout is with the
table perpendicular to the source of light. The light illuminates the faces of people sitting
around the table. The person chairing the meeting can choose whether to have his or
her face exposed to the light or shadowed by it; the latter is the more socially powerful
position. There are many cultural variants. Business conversations between two people,
for instance, in some cultures may take place across desks and in others side-by-side
(Joiner 1971).
Much the same observations apply to plazas and squares for they are really outdoor
rooms. The location and nature of the seating, the direction of and nature of illumination
and breezes all afford specific experiences and opportunities for interaction and aesthetic
appreciation (Whyte 1980, Cooper Marcus and Francis 1990, Carr 1992). Gender,
personality, and cultural differences shape the choices people make as to where to sit.
Precinct level design and culture Implicit in any precinct design are assumptions about
the expected activities of its inhabitants. Current debates focus on such cultural issues
as which groups of people are of central concern and the nature of activities expected to
be carried out at different stages in people’s life cycle by men, women, adolescents, and
children. The diversity of activity options that should be provided, and, more generally,
on what uses and building types the precinct should contain are common issues.
In residential area design the particular focus is often on the activities that afford the
development of a sense of community (see Chapter 10).
The neighborhood unit idea for residential areas has already been mentioned. It
was based on perceptions of nuclear family life for the “motor-age” in the United
States but has been widely applied across the world sometimes adjusted for the norms
of behavior within a society and sometimes not. Similarly, models for the design of
Collection of Jon Lang Collection of Jon Lang
a. Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, NY,

USA (1903-5); Frank Lloyd Wright, architect; plan
above.
© ERG, Philadelphia
c. Proposed interior layout for an oil b. Larkin Administration Building, interior.

company, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1980).
Typical floor Plan; Interspace, Inc.
Interior designers.
© Foster and Partners © Hartman-Cox, architects
d. Hearst Tower, New York, NY, USA

(completed in 2005); Foster and Partners
architects.
© Hartman-Cox, architects
f. The National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park,

North Carolina, USA (1978); Hartman-Cox, architects, ERG
e. Proposed law office building, Washington,

DC, USA; Hartman-Cox, architects. ERG
Figure 6.9 Management organization, activities, and floor plans

b. A sociopetal table arrangement.
a. A sociopetal seating arrangement.
c. Sociofugal space: waiting area, Heathrow Airport,

London, UK.
d. Sociopetal space: 3/1c Christie Street,

Wollstonecraft, NSW, Australia.
e. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1913); f. Serpentine seating, Parc Güell, Barcelona, Spain
Paul Philippe Cret, architect. (1900-12); Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, architect.
Figure 6.10 Room geography, sociopetal, and sociofugal settings

commercial areas have to be adjusted to the modes of transportation that form the basis
of a society. The increasing use of cars as the fundamental mode of individual mobility
is a universalizing tendency.
Compact cities, such as those of Europe and the traditional cities of Asia, provide for
many different activities at an easily walkable distance. In such places access to mass
transit systems is financially easier for governments to provide. While much loved
by some people they are also the types of environments many others wish to escape.
In Sydney Australia only 30 percent of the population seeks such environments. The
remainder seeks free-standing houses on individual plots. Increasing development costs
are leading to increasingly cramped building sites, but the demand remains.
The freedom of movement afforded by the automobile is hugely popular. People want
to drive to the destinations of their individual choice when they so desire. Designers
have yet to fully come to grips with the car. Populist politicians have been closer to
understanding people’s desires. They press for more roads and high-speed highways.
Yet the heavy reliance on the car in many suburban developments makes for traffic jams
and the provision of services very difficult.
Cultural variability, globalization, and activity patterns When observers refer to the
westernization of cultures, they are primarily referring to the modernization of activities.
There has indeed been a general change in activity systems from those that require
the exertion of effort towards modes that are easier. Cars replace the motorcycles that
replace bicycles that replace shank’s mare. Patterns of behavior and aesthetic tastes are
influenced by the international media. Films, television, and the Internet make people
aware of how others live. Magazines specify what are fashionably acceptable activities
and the fashionable settings for them.
In an age of globalization there are also global people although the degree to which they
are “globalized” should not be exaggerated. There are, nevertheless, a noticeable number
of generally wealthy people who are international and expect their environments to be
international (Olds 2001). They want to feel at home everywhere not through having
learnt different behavioral patterns for different circumstances but because they want
the standing patterns of behavior and the milieu to be the same everywhere. Colonists
started the process centuries ago.
A hotel chain boasts that there are no surprises in their hotels; they are the same whether
in New York, Dubai, or Lagos. Lobbies, bedrooms, bathrooms and coffee shops are the same.
Local, vernacular items of furniture or wall decorations may locate the hotel in its geographic
setting. The same observation can be made for residential environments and shopping
centers. Often the universal is accepted as being of high social status (see Chapter 12).
Many societies wish to be both modern and traditional at the same time (Abel 2000,
Lim 2001). There has been considerable interest, for instance, in the resuscitation of
traditional theater and music but in modern air-conditioned settings. In contrast there
is also the desire for such activity patterns to be housed in traditional settings. The
Kalakshestra Theatre in Chennai, India is an example (see Figure 7.5d). It was also, in
opposition to globalizing forces, designed with the Tamil Nadu climate in mind.
The Degree of Fit between Patterns of Behavior and Patterns of the Milieu
Roger Barker wrote about the “synomorphy” between a standing pattern of behavior
and its milieu (Barker 1968). In the design fields we talk about the degree of “fit” that is
required between an activity and the built form designed to house it. How tight should
the fit be? How “barrier-free” should the environment be? How comfortable should the
behavior setting be?
A basic question is: How multi-purpose should a design be? Should a baseball stadium
be able to accommodate football as well? Should a high school hall be a gymnasium as
well as a theater? It is after all more efficient in terms of the frequency of use of a space and
as a financial investment for them to be so. Yet often the multipurpose facility, although it
affords a variety of activity patterns, accommodates none well. There is now a tendency,
as begun at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland (1989-92), to design
more tailored-made facilities. The stadium, designed by HOK Sport for watching baseball
games well, was greeted with “euphoria” (Amy Jinkner-Lloyd cited in Shore 1996: 108).
Some activities require tight fits—built forms and materials being precisely designed
to house specific activities—and others less so. The more precise the activity the tighter
the fit generally required between it and its milieu. Form, in this context, usually applies
to equipment and furniture rather than room dimensions. The cockpits of racing cars
may be designed to the specifications of individual drivers, but in the environmental
design fields such a tight fit is seldom required. We often need to design to accommodate
all and sundry (Kroemer 2005). Loose fits accommodate change but how loose should
loose fits be?
Ergonomics and Anthropometrics
Anthropometrics and ergonomics are the fields of study that deal with human
physiological capabilities and activities, and the requirements of the milieu and of the
furnishings and equipment it contains. Anthropometrics, the study of the dimensions
and capabilities of the human body and ergonomics, the study of work places to
minimize worker fatigue, have provided many data about the relationship of built forms
and human capabilities (Granjean 1973, 1983, Kantowitz and Sorkin 1983, Tillman and
Tillman 1991, Henry Dreyfus Associates 2002, Kroemer 2005).
The data include the specific actions, body postures, and movement patterns of an
individual or people involved in an activity, the levels of illumination needed to see
properly and the comfort levels required for efficient work (see Figures 6.11 and 6.12).
Some of the sources of information on the topic are specific to building and room types
(for example, Alexander Kira on the bathroom, 1976); others are more general. The studies
also bring attention to the wide array of people for whom one has to design: “small and
big persons, disabled and the elderly, expectant mothers and children” (Kroemer 2005) in
various cultures (see Figures 6.11c and d). Some measurements such as the space required
for parking cars are almost universal (e). Ideal designs from an ergonomic viewpoint (for
example g) may not be successful in the market place while some that are not ideal are
widely praised (f). Psychological needs such as that for privacy are often as important as
physiological needs in determining subjective feelings of comfort. It is easy to underestimate
the amount and nature of space required to carry out behaviors comfortably.
Collection of Jon Lang Drawing by Omar Sharif
a. An example of the anthropometric b. A workstation layout.

data available to designers.
Source: Rapoport and Watson (1972);
Source: Rapoport and Watson (1972); courtesy of Amos Rapoprt courtesy of Amos Rapoport
d. Standard European table requirements.
c. Traditional Indian eating patterns.
e. A parking lot, almost anywhere but

this one is in Tripoli, Libya in 2009.
Adapted from Kira (1976)
f. A clash between ergonomic requirements and fashion. g. A squat water closet based on
ergonomic requirements.
Figure 6.11 Anthropometrics and ergonomics

Activities and illumination level For people who are not blind the patterning of light and
lighting serves both physiological and psychological functions (Gropius 1962, Hayward
1974). The illumination requirement in the design of behavior settings is to be able to
see what one does with clarity. Light is needed to see the layout of the environment, the
details of other people’s faces, books and signs at various distances, and colors (or, if
one is color blind, shades). The need is to have enough light to see the environment and
objects within it without ambiguity and without strain. The finer the work we engage in
the higher the level of illumination required but dazzle has to be avoided.
Dazzle arises when the contrast levels of adjacent surfaces or the absolute levels of
light are too high and the reflectance off surfaces is severe. Looking at a person or object
against a bright light, a highly illuminated wall near a dark floor, a dark object on a light
background or highly polished machine parts can subject a person to dazzle (Kroemer
and Grandjean 1997). For a behavior setting to be comfortable light contrasts need to
be low. At the same time we can use difference in levels of light to act as boundaries
of behavior settings. In shops, for instance, light is often used to differentiate among
displays, and channels of movement.
Illumination can come from both natural and artificial sources. The degree and
distance that natural light penetrates the interior of rooms depends on the location of
the sun in the sky (which depends on the latitude of a locale, the season, the weather,
and time of day), the location and nature of skylights and windows, and the patterns of
their reveals. Exterior illumination is much brighter nearer the equator than towards the
poles and the greater the distance from the equator so the greater the variability between
the daily amount of sunlight in summer and winter. The quality of light from the north
differs substantially from the south even in the tropics.
The illumination in Figures 6.12a and c is fine for the activities taking place but is not
sufficient for diamond cutting (b). Small windows provide fine illumination to interiors
in hot-arid climates (d). In Ghadāmis, Libya the shaded parts of the street can be as much
as 20°C cooler than in the sun (e). In addition, the nature, color, and intensity of light,
makes important contributions to the aesthetic effect of a building’s interior (h).
The key edifice of the Rockefeller Center complex in New York, the RCA Building,
was shaped by the assessment that all rentable space in the building had to be within 30
feet (9 meters) of windows (Balfour 1978; see Figure 6.12g). Designing for natural light
remains a major architectural consideration. Nowadays, however, buildings rely more
on artificial sources of illumination than in the past. Floor plans of commercial buildings
thus tend to be much larger than that of the RCA Building.
There is often a clash between providing sufficient light and the impact of glazed areas
on metabolic comfort levels. Large glass windows can act as radiant heaters in summer
and radiant cooling devices in winter. They can also have a number of unanticipated
effects on their surroundings. Curtain wall and reflective glass buildings, for instance,
reflect light and can cause glare. This phenomenon becomes a design issue when the glare
is cast into automobile drivers’ eyes or when it increases the heat loading on adjacent
buildings. The proposed angle of the Gateway Building in Sydney, Australia had to be
changed to avoid anticipated rogue glares from the sun getting into the eyes of drivers
on the adjacent expressway. Although not an issue of rogue glares from glass surfaces, in
2005 the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles ran into similar problems (see Chapter 15).
a. The Australian Center for the Moving Image, b. Lighting for the precision work of diamond cutting.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
c. Night scene, Suwon, Korea. d. Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. e. A street, Ghadāmis, Libya.
Drawing by Thanong Poonteerakul
f. The Ahmedabad Management g. RCA Building, Rockefeller h. Lighting and ambience.

Association Building, Ahmedabad, Center, New York, (1934); The Contemporary Arts
Gujarat, India (1990s); HCP Raymond Hood and others, Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
architects. architects. Zaha Hadid, design architect.
Figure 6.12 Activities and illumination levels

a. People handicapped by stairs. b. A sign showing that the wheelchair entrance is

at the back of the building.
d. A ramp added on to a building to provide

wheelchair access.
c. Space requirements for the

maneuvering of wheelchairs.
e. A good environment for people f. Curbs as a cue for the sight-

in wheelchairs tends to be a good impaired.
environment for all.
Figure 6.13 Barrier-free environments

Barrier-free design Barrier-free environments are those that allow the handicapped the
same accessibility to places and facilities as the able-bodied (Robinette 1985, Goldsmith
2000, Imrie and Hall 2001, Kroemer 2005, Skinner 2008; see Figure 6.13). The position
generally advocated is that all public environments should be accessible, with dignity, to
people in wheel chairs and those with other special needs.
The particular needs of fragile people, the blind, and to a lesser extent the deaf need to
be addressed (Brody 1969, Regnier 2002). We have the knowledge of how to design for a
variety of human conditions. How far should we go in making the whole environment
barrier-free? (Skinner 2008). Often there is clash, sometimes resolvable and sometimes
not, between the needs of people with different impairments (Bates 2008). Sidewalk curbs
are useful indicators of the change in behavior settings for the blind (see Figure 6.13f)
but are well nigh impossible to negotiate for people in wheelchairs (and create difficulty
for people wheeling baby carriages). What groups should get precedence in design? Any
answer to this question is politically charged.
The comfortableness of behavior settings Physical comfort is the feeling of well-being the
occupants of a behavior setting have when the ambient condition is agreeable to them
and they have the ability to carry out their activities without hindrance. People’s comfort
levels result from fulfilling both their psychological and physiological needs. Feelings
of comfort are dynamic and subjective depending on a person’s expectations, past
experiences, the activities being pursued, and his or her tolerance level for discomfort.
Should buildings be challenging to their occupants or should an architect strive to achieve
maximum comfort for them?
Familiar settings tend to contribute to psychological comfort. Settings, activities, and
contexts that are unfamiliar may be experienced as threats to some people while others
may seek out novel settings for the stimulation they offer. Is it within the architect’s
purview to decide whether a building should encourage people to use stairs rather than
an elevator by making the former more accessible? Should the inhabitants of a house
be exposed to the vagaries of the weather? A puritanical view often taken by Modernist
among architects would say “Yes!” Tadao Ando (Pritzger Prize winner in 1995) has done
so in the design of residences.
Activity Systems and Development Functions
The way the built environment affords opportunities for people to fulfill their cognitive
needs is primarily a social issue but then an urban as well as a building design concern (see
Chapter 13). The design requirement is to provide the affordances for the activities that
increase one’s knowledge of and competence in dealing with the world as part of day-to-
day life and not simply as part of formal instruction. Designing for the development (and
maintenance) of abilities is a minor but a typical secondary issue facing policy makers
and architects.
Self-testing is part of growing up and continuing to grow intellectually and physically
(Bronfenbrenner 1979, Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993, Evans 2006; Figure 6.14). Playgrounds
have long provided challenges to children. The older the child the more testing the
equipment needs to be. The fear of litigation has resulted in many playgrounds being
a. Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia. b. Battery Park City, New York City, USA.
Courtesy of Clare Cooper Marcus
d. Pulleys, sand and trapdoors.
c. Meyer Hall, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
e. Easter Sunday, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA, USA f. Fountain, Rittenhouse Square.
in 1987.
Figure 6.14 Playgrounds as challenging environments for children

designed so that if children fall they will incur no injury. Thus once a child is older than
five, there is no challenge in using the equipment (6.14a). Attitudes are changing and
more challenging playgrounds do exist (6.14b, c and d and 13.3b). Children perceive
the affordances for play and self-testing everywhere. Rittenhouse Square makes a fine
playground although it has no play equipment (see Figure 6.14 e and f).
At the other end of one’s stage in life cycle similar questions arise. Here, however,
one is concerned with the maintenance of competencies. Although the concern has been
raised primarily in dealing with institutionalized people, it is a broader societal issue
(Goffman 1961, Brawley 1977, Lawton 1977, Chaudry 2008). As discussed in Chapter 4
competencies can decline to the level demanded of them. Many physiological and mental
capacities decline with age. Does designing for highly comfortable environments lead to
a further decline? It seems so. One simple design response has been to design highly
comfortable environments as part of everyday life and leave the challenging ones to the
wider city and the gymnasium. People can then choose to participate in challenges or
not. In building design the answer is not as easy.
Many simple mechanisms have been developed to support the activities required for
independent living as one ages and becomes more fragile (Regnier 2002). They vary from
notches on handrails to signify that one is coming to the end of a passage, to placing
ovens at waist height, to handrails that make getting into and out of a bath easier. They
enable less agile people to function adequately. Legislation now often requires it.
Activity Patterns and Architectural Theory
Designing to accommodate human activities and actions has long been a central factor
in designing building plans and spatial sequences. There appear to be two positions
that architects take in designing buildings. They can start with a model of the activity
system to be housed, or with a form and then shape/shoehorn the activity system to fit
the form. Horatio Greenough clearly supported the former position. “Instead of forcing
the functions of every sort of building into one general form, without reference to inner
distributions, let us begin from the heart as nucleus and work outward” (Greenough
c. 1850s cited in Loran 1947).
In the discussions about architecture today the way buildings function as signs may
well be regarded as the basic function they serve. Housing activities, nevertheless,
remains fundamental to most practice. In devising activity programs the Rationalists
based their work on what they perceived to be ideal standing patterns of behavior. They
sought efficient circulation systems. The Empiricists relied more on the observation of
what people actually do. People, however, do not necessarily know what they would do
given new opportunities. An expectation of architects is that they bring new possibilities
to their clients’ attentions.
Much of the confusion in architectural criticism arises because what is perceived to be
an issue with the form of a building is really a result of a programming deficiency. The
character of the activity patterns to be housed was neither correctly identified nor was a
proper differentiation made among types and how to deal with them.
Louis I. Kahn differentiated between master and servant spaces (often for mechanical
equipment) (Ronner and Jhaveri 1987). His work combined an aesthetic response with
Figure 6.15 The Richards Memorial Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania (1957)

Louis I. Kahn, architect.
the necessity to differentiate between the affordances of two types of settings. In the
Richards Memorial Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, the
vertical emphasis of the servant spaces and the horizontal of the master spaces are clear
from the formal geometry of the building (see Figure 6.15). It is also clear in photographs
of the building that many of the windows have been partially covered with aluminium
foil to protect work from unwanted light. It is open to conjecture whether this accretion
results from the failure of the client to articulate the light requirements for research or the
architect’s failure to understand the nature of the activities that take place in laboratories
(Gutman and Westergaard 1974).
Human Physiology and Architectural Theory
All architectural theories, explicitly or implicitly, accept some model of the human
physique as the basis for design. Some of the models while intellectually elegant deviate
considerable from human norms. Le Corbusier’s Modulor proportional schema based on
a six-foot (1.828-meter) tall man is an example (Le Corbusier 1968 originally 1951; see
Figure 6.16). Its application gives visual order to the world around us (see Chapter 14),
but it is not ideal from an anthropometric or ergonomic viewpoint.
The designing of barrier-free environments is likely to become even more important
in designing buildings and open spaces than it is now. There have been some notable
examples of buildings (both private houses and institutions) designed specifically
for blind people and there has been much retooling of buildings in countries such as
the United States to make them barrier-free, but the mainstream of architecture and
architectural theory does little to advance such designing. Some architects see barrier-
free design requirements as a barrier to their creative efforts.
© FLC/ADAG, Paris and DACS, London 2010
Architects have long been fascinated by

mathematics and, in particular, by the
Fibonacci series and by the proportions of
the Golden Section (approximately 1:1.618)
or .618 to 1) that are pleasing to the eye
(Tyng 1975). Le Corbusier (1951) sought a
numerical system for dividing buildings into
components based on these numbers. He
started with the male body assuming that
the ideal height of a man is 182.8cm (6 feet in
the imperial system, and the height of good
looking men in British detective novels). He
divided the human body, with an extended
arm into two parts centered on the navel.
The numbers 432, 698, 1130 form a Fibonacci
series. He argued that designing buildings
and their interiors based on this idealized
figure would result in a well functioning
environment, both in terms of the activities
that would take place in it and aesthetically.
Figure 6.16 Le Corbusier’s Modulor based on an image of the human body
Built Form Geometries, Structure, and Activity Systems
Architects and engineers are constantly exploring new building geometries. New structural
systems have been developed to span large distances and enclose space. The use of some
has become standard operating procedures in building design; others are now forgotten
(see Dahinden 1972, Sky and Stone 1976, Mansfield 1990). The assumption behind many
proposals is that activity patterns will follow patterns of built form. It only does so if there
is a predisposition on the part of people to develop new patterns of behavior.
Architectural ideas for restructuring the urban environment abound. In 1941, Louis
Kahn, proposed the complete demolition of central Philadelphia and a new approach
to traffic circulation. His demolition patterns would have destroyed the affordances for
the patterns of life that he himself enjoyed. As was his wont he used an analogy that
captured designers’ attentions to describe vehicular activity flows.
Expressways are like Rivers. These Rivers frame the area to be served. Rivers have Harbors.
Harbors are like municipal parking towers; from Harbors branch Canals that serve the interior;
the Canals are the go Streets; from the Canals branch cul-de-sac Docks; the Docks serve as
entrance halls to buildings. (Louis I. Kahn 1952; cited in Gosling and Maitland 1984)
In the proposal, Kahn separated vehicular and pedestrian movement in horizontal space
to increase the mobility for both.
From the 1950s onwards a number of architects developed proposals for vertically
segregating movement patterns. Among them were designs for the central areas of cities
such as Berlin (1953), Tokyo Bay (1960) and Amsterdam, (1965; see Figure 8.1b). The
Tokyo Bay scheme proposed by Kenzo Tange consisted of a hierarchy of high-speed

roads connected by a ringroad with areas of high-rise buildings at strategic locations.
It was built on piles over the water. Its potential impact on the ecology of the bay was
largely ignored.
Recent examples of the vertical segregation of movement systems include La Défense
(1958-90 but continuing) across the Seine from Paris and its descendent Canary Wharf
(1984-98 but continuing) in London (Lang 2005). They have been built and what they do
and do not afford people can be observed. These two schemes paid much more attention
to the pedestrian than many revolutionary urban proposals. Despite this concern the large
windswept deck of La Défense is not particularly hospitable for people. Way-finding is
not very easy either as the buildings do not generally have a clear street address.
The Modernists’ design goal was to provide efficient circulation systems in cities and
in buildings. Are, however, efficient environments efficient in a multi-variate manner?
Environments messy in terms of overlapping behavior settings may well provide benefits
in the development of the communal activities without which no organization can work
or develop new ideas (Florida 2002).
Conclusion
Analyzing and designing buildings and urban designs as a set of behavior settings
helps bring clarity to designing for the activity systems that usually form the basis of a
design. It also makes the act of designing more complex because it raises many highly
emotional questions. Architects and their clients recognize that the world is changing
and the nature of the behavior settings required to achieve a household’s, a commercial
organization’s, or a communal organization’s goals change. It becomes important to
understand the permanence and ephemerality of behavior setting types and the qualities
of robust environments—ones that survive under change or ones that are highly flexible
or adaptable under changing requirements.
To deal with the complexity of developing programs for buildings, new design-related
professions that establish the design requirements for proposed buildings have arrived
on the scene. Architects are turning to them with greater frequency. Doing so also avoids
having to do what is a demanding task to do well. As Le Corbusier recognized, it is in the
programming phase of architectural design that true creativity occurs.
Major References
Gump, Paul V. 1971. The behavior setting; a promising unit for environmental design. Landscape
Architecture, 61 (January): 130-4.
Imrie, Robert and Peter Hall 2001. Inclusive Design: Designing and Developing Accessible
Environments. London: Spon Press.
Kroemer, K.H.E. 2005. Extra-ordinary Ergonomics: How to Accommodate Small and Big Persons,
Disabled, and the Elderly, Expectant Mothers and Children. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Le Compte, William F. 1974. Behavior settings as data-generating units for the environmental
planner and architect in Designing for Human Behavior: Architecture and the Behavioral Sciences
edited by Jon Lang, Charles Burnette, Walter Moleski, and David Vachon, Stroudsburg, PA:
Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, 183-93.
Rapoport, Amos 1990a. Systems of activities and systems of settings, in Domestic Architecture and
the Use of Space, edited by S. Kent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 9-20.
Schoggen, Phil 1989. Behavior Settings: A Revision and Extension of Roger Barker’s Ecological
Psychology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
7
Shelter and Salubrious Environments
Shelter is of supreme importance to man. It is the prime factor in his constant struggle for
survival.
Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, French theorist, restorer and architect (1876)
Providing shelter and acceptable comfort levels is a fundamental function of buildings

(Greer 1988, Knevitt 1996). Even the simplest of structures is designed to provide them
(Figure 7.1a and b). We demand higher levels of comfort now (c and d). The costs of not
dealing with the climate well can be high. Hunstanton School (e) was hailed as avant-
garde architecture but the poor interior environmental condition made it notorious.
Many building patterns work counter-intuitively. The courtyards at the State University
of New York, Albany (f) were designed to provide protection during the harsh upstate
New York winters but the tall buildings channel freezing wind down into them.
Nowadays, architects are concerned with not only shelter but also with the comfort of
people, the needs of the fauna and flora of the world, and the needs of machines. The focus
in this chapter is on the first. The second needs a story of its own. Dealing with the third
is a major concern in at least three ways: meeting the ambient operating requirements of
machines such as computers, the needs of heating, cooling and ventilating equipment to
operate well, and the requirements for using and housing automobiles and other modes
of transportation. The attention here is directed towards to the human being.
Human Physiological Needs and Buildings’ Functions
In much of the modern world the architectural concern is with creating healthy
environments that are comfortable. In less fortunate regions, particularly in harsh
climates, survival needs remain paramount. In some places people have had little need
for shelter to survive and have consequently built only minimal structures. As, however,
they have perceived opportunities for greater levels of comfort than exposed situations
offer, they have, as Maslow’s model predicts, sought more comfortable habitations.
The sheltering functions required of the built environment vary depending on what
people are accustomed to (their habituation levels), their competence levels, and their
resources. What people are prepared to accept depends on their perceptions of the costs
and rewards of being in a particular situation. Expectations thus vary by situation, socio-
economic status, and by culture. The range of concerns in designing to shelter people and
their possessions vary from protecting them from the extremes of climatic conditions to
sheltering people from the view of others by providing appropriate levels of privacy, to
defending them from attack from outsiders, and to safeguarding their self-images—their
sense of self-worth.
a. A wayside fast-food restaurant, Salt Lake b. A temporary home and bookstore, Stuyvesant
City, Kolkata, India. Square, New York City, USA in 2009.
c. State of Illinois Center (now J.R. d. Union Station, Washington, DC, USA (1901-8);
Thompson Center), Chicago, IL, USA Daniel Burnham with Pierce Anderson, architects;
(1979-83); Murphy Jahn, architects. renovated (1988-92); Benjamin Thompson and
others, developers and architects.
e. Hunstanton School, Norfolk, UK (1954); f. The State University of New York at Albany, NY,
Alison and Peter Smithson, architects. USA (1960+); Edward Durrell Stone, architect.
Figure 7.1 Designing for shelter (and comfort)

shelter and salubrious environments 113
If one extends the meaning of shelter a little further four interrelated additional concerns
can be identified. Buildings need to be designed so that they do not kill or maim their
occupants through failures due to structural and constructional inadequacies. Secondly,
they have to maintain the ambient temperature levels of interior and exterior settings
so that their inhabitants feel at ease. They also, thirdly, need to provide a salubrious
environment without, fourthly, impacting negatively on their surroundings.
The first deals with the soundness of materials and constructional and structural
quality. The second deals with how buildings function internally. The third—the
design of healthy environments—has long been a concern for social reformers, health
administrators and architects in both urban designs and buildings (see, for instance,
Rey et al. 1928). The impact of buildings on their surroundings is being given greater
consideration than in the past as the result of legal actions being instigated against
building owners because of the heat shedding and/or wind turbulence side effects of
their buildings (see Chapter 15).
Structural Soundness and Survival
Vitruvius’s firmitas function of built forms is central to architectural design. We have even
had to take heed of problems such as the decayed portions of a building’s decorations
falling off them. In Venice the concern has been with “falling angels”—sculptures falling
off churches (Berendt 2004). We seek soundness in the structural and constructional
methods used in the creation of shelter in the face of the day-to-day effects of weathering
but also in response to fire spreading through houses and neighborhoods, cataclysmic
natural events such as earthquakes and cyclones, and the hostile efforts of people in
the form of crime and terrorism. We, however, tend to gamble on natural disasters not
occurring (Ripley 2006).
Earthquakes continue to wreak havoc on urban areas across the world. Mesoscale
winds (thunderstorms, tornados, and hurricanes) cause considerable damage. Much can
be done to ameliorate their impact. Yet, year after year, segments of cities around the
world are destroyed by hurricanes resulting in considerable loss of life. Tornados and
tidal waves are well-nigh impossible problems to consider architecturally. City planners
and urban designers have been concerned about where human settlements are located
but the motivation for progress and the wish to build on economically desirable sites has
often resulted in poor locational decisions. In the 1960s Ian McHarg chastised society for
not making such decisions “with nature in mind” (McHarg 1969).
Major destruction of the built environment through natural events is something that
occurs somewhere every year (for example, Figure 7.2a and b). Construction techniques
can provide some defence against earthquakes provided they are actually used. The
mosque with its minaret (a) and some surrounding buildings survived. Others did not.
Civil unrest can result in severe damage (d). Although buildings and urban designs can be
created to reduce the impact of riots, the solutions to social problems have to be social.
More mundane problems have less spectacular losses of life. People need to be
protected from the dangers of faulty wiring, pealing lead-based paints, and from such
things as clashes between pedestrian and automobile movements. How far should we
go in designing to create environments that enable people to survive at all costs in all
Collection of Jon Lang Photograph by Kathy A. Kolnick
a. Golcuk, Turkey after the 1999 earthquake.

b. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, after Katrina, 2005.
c. The Bad Reichenhall Skating Rink, Germany, d. Manchester Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA
January 2006. after the 1992 riots.
e. A collapsed stairway (now repaired), Istanbul, f. Concrete cancer almost anywhere but particularly in
Turkey in 2008. humid climates.
Figure 7.2 The destructive power of nature and people

situations? We often give up on designing to prevent accidents in order to satisfy other

human needs. When one puts into the design equation purposeful human actions that
create disasters the question becomes even more slippery.
The shelter function of buildings has been abrogated by building collapses due to poor
design of structural systems, faulty materials, and poor construction and/or construction
supervision. Sadly, many such failures around the world occur as the result of corruption
in the building industry as much as design failures. Such problems are endemic in the
hands of builder/contractors in many developing countries but major architects have
also run into problems.
The 1968 collapse of a portion of Ronan Towers designed by the Newham Council
architects in London after a minor gas explosion in one corner of the building had a major
impact on subsequent building design. A two square meter panel that fell, fortunately,
onto empty seats closed the Teatro degli Arcimboldi (1998-2000) in Milan, Italy designed
by Vittorio Gregotti in order for all the 120 such panels to be tested (Graves 2002).
Equally fortunately the collapse of Hartford’s civic arena’s roof under a snow load early
in 1978 resulted in no casualties (Feld and Carper 1997). It occurred only shortly after
an ice hockey game had been played and the crowd dissipated. A similar collapse in
Bad Reichenhall, Germany in 2006 had, however, fatal consequences (see Figure 7.2c).
Concrete cancer continues to be a problem in many places (f).
Designing Healthy Environments
Modernist architects were concerned with the penetration of sunlight into habitable
spaces, providing more open space among buildings, the provision of adequate
ventilation, and providing shelter from disease-bearing insects and bacteria (see Sert
and CIAM 1944, Banham 1967, Benevolo 1980, Broadbent 1990). The focus on health
issues during the first half of the twentieth century may seem overzealous now, but
such diseases as tuberculosis and rickets were highly prevalent then. The successful
lobbying by various model housing movements resulted in legislation to ensure that
all habitable rooms receive adequate ventilation and sunlight (Mumford 1961, Gallion
and Eisner 1986). Despite this progress “housing for health” programs are still required
in many parts of the world to improve the living environments of the poor who live in
squalid slums.
Today there is an increasing interest in urban and building configurations that assist
breezes flush pollutants from cities. The topography of some cities (for example, Los
Angeles) makes it difficult to harness breezes effectively. Air sheds created by prevailing
winds and mountain barriers trap the pollutants generated, particularly, by the heavy
reliance on the automobile as the basic mode of transportation. In such areas there are
considerably more than usual respiratory ailments. Areas of low population densities
where the automobile rules are, however, attractive to many people but they make it
impossible to create economically feasible alternative transportation modes in cities.
A Note on the Sick Building Syndrome
During the last decades of the twentieth century, it was noticed that there is a
correlation between the use of particular materials and the absentee rate of workers
complaining of headaches and nausea. The illnesses stem from the toxic gasses emitted
by certain materials, particularly plastics and from buildings having poor ventilation
due to the internal circulation of air in air-conditioning systems. The phenomenon has
been called the sick building syndrome (de Dear 1998, Straus 2004, Clements-Groome
2006). It has become an issue not only because it affects the health of workers but also
business profits.
Modern businesses rely on the cost-effectiveness of their operations to make profits.
They desire to eliminate absenteeism among workers. If for no other reason, architects
may need to specify materials that may be functionally inefficient in catering for wear
and tear in order to avoid the toxins that emanate from more hard-wearing materials.
The same concerns apply to houses.
Comfort Functions
Comfort is a complex variable as described in Chapter 6. At a minimal level it implies a

freedom from pain on all the dimensions of environmental experience. It is a physiological
state that has psychological characteristics and is always related to the nature of the
activity taking place. The variables that affect comfort levels include the ambient and
radiant temperature, the air moisture level, the movement of air, and the absence of
glare. The psychological factors are related to privacy so are dealt with later in this book
(see Chapter 8). A brief comment here will have to suffice. The factors include shelter
from unwanted visual exposure, unwanted sounds, and unwanted odors.
There are considerable individual differences in subjective assessments of comfort.
Much depends on the habituation levels of the people involved, their aspirations, and
their perceptions of the costs and rewards for being in a place. It is difficult to accept
lower standards of comfort than one is used to having. Thus in many buildings designed
to consume less energy than fully artificially heated and cooled buildings, the inhabitants
complain because the levels of comfort they have to accept are lower than they are used
to having.
As expectations for living standards rise there has been an increasing demand for
thermal comfort in houses, work places, and recreational facilities throughout the world.
Enclosed shopping malls, air-conditioned in summer and heated in winter, are now
the norm in continental and temperate climates everywhere (see Figure 7.1c and d).
In tropical environments such places only need to be cooled. Singapore and Las Vegas
among many other cities were made possible as we know them today by air-conditioning.
Indeed, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first Prime Minister after Independence, stated that
air-conditioning was “the best invention of the twentieth century” (Lefaivre 2003).
The high ambient quality of the indoor environment of buildings has led to changes
in the nature of “public” spaces in buildings and cities. Many large interior settings
in building complexes are privately owned but are quasi-public behavior settings (for
example, see Figures 7.4b and d and 9.6e). Rights of admission are restricted. Porches
and verandas, semi-private spaces, were used in pre air-conditioning days for sitting and
relaxing during the summer because they were cooler and caught the breezes more than
the interiors of houses. Such places still have many functions but they are less used now
because the interiors of houses are air-conditioned.
Design guidelines stipulate that each house in Seaside, Florida should have a porch
facing the street. Many have insect screens to avoid the potential discomforts caused by
insects (Katz 1994; see Figure 1.8biii). Residents, however, seldom sit out on the porches
so the social function for which they were designed (that is, to keep eyes on the street and
as a place from which to greet passers-by) has not really been realized.
Climate, Shelter, and Comfort
The way sunlight penetrates windows through the day and during seasons is a major
factor in providing light to the interiors of buildings. It also shapes our psychological
reactions and moods. Its sanitizing power is a significant factor in creating salubrious
environments. In many Asian cities sun angles are the major legislated factor in
determining the spacing of buildings in the urban environment. The spacing is based on
sunlight reaching habitable rooms during specific hours of the day. It does not mean that
all buildings have to line up east-west up facing the sun as often assumed (see Figure
1.2b, d, and e among others in the book).
Much information exists on comfort levels in relation to city forms, the orientation and
skins of buildings, and interior architecture. Closely packed houses with interior courts
that act as mechanisms for drawing air through rooms are characteristic of low energy
consumption dwellings in hot arid climates. Flat roofs provide outdoor living space in the
evenings. The tight shaded streets of Udaipur (Figure 7.3a) provide shelter from the heat
of the sun in a hot, arid climate. Small windows help to keep the interiors of the houses
cool. In an equally hot, but humid climate, the vernacular response is different (b). The
goal is to catch the breezes so that they can waft through neighborhoods and buildings.
The roofs are high pitched to shed the monsoon rains. Similar roofs help to shed the rain
and snow in a more continental climate (c) but can be lower pitched in dryer climates (d).
Interiors can be opened up to the help the breeze move through buildings in hot climates
(e). The flat roof of the building is not, however, ideal for a monsoon climate nor is it used
for outdoor living. It is its architect’s and/or the client’s aesthetic idea. The client in this
case was Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
The information on how to design for climatic zones from the humid tropics to winter
cities where temperatures remain below zero for several months is readily available (for
example, Yeang 1996, Powell 1998, and Bay and Ong 2006 on the tropics, and Gappert
1987, and Mänty and Pressman 1998 on winter cities; see also Givoni 1998, Lefaivre 2003,
Roaf 2004, Smith 2005). It is not always used. In the search for grandeur, the design
requirements appropriate for specific climates are neglected. Although Chandigarh in
India has cool winters, the summer temperatures soar well into the forties (Celsius) for
considerable lengths of time. The spacious design of the capital complex (see Figure 7.3f)
may be appropriate symbolically but the equally spacious City Center complex used on
a daily basis by many people is hardly the place to be on a summer or monsoon day (see
Figure 12.3c). The cognoscenti, nevertheless, hold both spaces in high esteem because of
the aesthetic ideas on which they are based (see Chapter 14).
a. Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. b. Khotachi Wadi, Mumbai, India.
c. Kyoto, Japan. d. Salernes, Var, Provence, France.
e. Konaraka, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India f. The capital complex Chandigarh, India
(c.1919); Suridranath Kar, architect. (1953-62); Le Corbusier, architect.
Source: Powell (1996) Source: Powell (1996)
g. Chinatown, Singapore (1867-1920). h. Goodwood Hill, Singapore (1920s).
Figure 7.3 Climate and urban and building form

There are many reasons climatically inappropriate design patterns have been used. They
are, for instance, taken from one place to another by emigrants. Singapore’s Chinatown
built in the late nineteenth century pays little attention to its tropical environment. It is the
architecture that Chinese immigrants brought with them from the southern provinces of
China. The British colonial powers took “home” with them to Singapore and their other
colonies. In this case the pattern based on the colonial Indian experience works well in
the tropics. The impact of the two architectures on the settlement patterns of Singapore is
easily distinguishable today (Figure 7.3g and h; see Powell 1996).
Metabolic Comfort
The metabolic comfort of people depends on what they are doing, the air temperature, the
radiant temperature from surrounding surfaces, humidity, air movement, and on what
they are wearing (Granjean 1973, 1983, Kantowitz and Sorkin 1983, Givoni 1998). The
degree of control the occupiers have over the ambient qualities of a behavior setting is an
intervening variable in their subjective assessment of comfort (Wyon 2006). Thermostats
give them control over the degree of coolness or warmth they feel in artificially controlled
environments but not usually much over ventilation or moisture levels. It is impossible
to open windows in many buildings being constructed today.
A variety of design mechanisms are available to ameliorate climatic conditions
outdoors. Cloisters and enclosed plazas have the effect of transporting a place 500
kilometers or so closer to the equator by protecting the open space from winds
(Figure 7.4a). Deciduous trees provide shade in summer and when their leaves have
fallen in the winter they allow the sun to penetrate (Figure 14.4c). Colonnades and
canopies shelter pedestrians from the sun, rain, and/or snow (Figure 7.4c). Umbrellas are
used universally as protection from the sun and/or rain (c and e).
The humidity level of the air affects the perceived comfort of temperature levels. Dry
heat is more tolerable than humid. At 40 percent humidity few Americans and Europeans
find temperatures over 28°C (82°F) comfortable. People find relative humidity levels of
40 to 50 percent comfortable in both cool and heated environments (Grandjean 1983,
Wyon 2006). In artificially heated buildings the humidity can fall way below this level
necessitating the artificial humidifying of the air.
Fountains, trees, and other vegetation have long been used with success to increase
humidity levels to what is comfortable in courtyards and other outdoor spaces in hot,
arid climates. Much Moorish architecture in Spain was designed to enhance comfort by
increasing the moisture level and speeding the movement of air (Figure 7.5a and b). To
protect its art works, the Arizona State University Museum (c) is air-conditioned. The
plants outside have been chosen to avoid raising the humidity of the environment, but
the parking lot is blistering hot on a summer day. In the hot, humid climate of Chennai,
open slats allow the movement of air through buildings (d). The mechanism functions
better during the hot summer months than during the monsoon season.
People, nowadays, have often over-used water as a cooling device inadvertently raising
the humidity above comfort levels. Some cities in hot-arid locations such as Phoenix in
Arizona now insist that indigenous plants and not those exotic to the area be used in
people’s gardens. The increase in exotic plant usage was partly due to retirees from the
northeastern cities of America trying to feel at home by recreating the summer (certainly
b. The Winter Garden, World Finance Center, New

a. Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy. York City, USA (1980s); César Pelli, architect.
c. A colonnade and parasols; Circular Quay,

Sydney, Australia.
d. Shopping Mall, Columbia, Maryland, USA.
e. Beijing, P.R. China. f. Kyoto, Japan.
Figure 7.4 Mechanisms for ameliorating climatic conditions

a. Alcázares Reales, Seville, Spain (mainly

after 1248).
b. The Alhambra, Cordoba, Spain (1338-90).
Photograph by John Ballinger
c. Arizona State University Museum of Art, d. Kalakshetra Theatre, Chennai, India (1980-2), C.N.
Tempe, AZ, USA (1989); Antoine Predock, Raghavendran of C.R. Narayan Rao, architect.
architect.
Figure 7.5 Humidity levels and architecture

not the winter) environments with which they were familiar. The plants of home exude
much moisture necessitating heavy watering which further raises humidity levels.
Like humidity, air movement affects the perceived comfort level of temperatures.
Prevailing and local winds have considerable effect on comfort levels in the outdoor
environment. Abrupt changes in the height levels of buildings at the edge of cities increase
the speed of wind passing the buildings leeward of them (Chandler 1976, Hough 2004).
Buildings can also cause downdrafts that affect life on the street. Much can be done to
harness the positive effects of such impacts and ameliorate the negative (see Chapter 15).
Few cities have planning policies to take advantage of breezes.
Capturing breezes to help cool buildings has long been a concern especially in the
hot, arid zones of the world. In Iran the use of wind-scoops to capture breezes and then
passing the moving air over dampened cloths was a traditional cooling device (Givoni
1998). The use of such devices has given way to mechanical air-conditioning units that
achieve a higher degree of comfort.
The sonic environment and comfort An often-overlooked concern in design is the sheltering-
from-noise function of buildings and interiors. Sheltering people from unwanted sounds
is a major contributor to the quality of life. The sounds emitted by buildings and the
penetration of noise from one behavior setting into another are the design concerns.
The effect of the sounds made by a building per se on its surroundings is sometimes a
problem. It has proven to be contentious when it is.
Sonic comfort depends not only on the decibel level of sound, but on its pitch, the
nature of its source and the degree of control people perceive that they and others have
over its origin. People adapt to very high levels of noise (that is, negative sounds) but
from the 1960s people have been complaining about the noise generated by airplanes
and automobile traffic affecting the activities of everyday life (Grandjean 1973). The same
observations have been made about the noise of air-conditioning equipment. When these
levels of noise inhibit easy conversation people tune out aspects of the environment—
positive as well as the negative—around them. Thus how buildings are insulated
against outside noise is important. The same observation can be made about the internal
insulation between units and between rooms.
Quite conversation is impossible to sustain in many fashionable restaurants located in
high-ceilinged, cavernous milieus with timber floors, metallic tables, and much glazing.
Sounds bounce around the surfaces so people speak loudly to be heard across a table. If
the restaurant has an open plan with its bar and kitchens open to view the ambient sound
level is very high. Loud music increases it further. Many diners clearly perceive these
sound levels to be exciting; others do not. Maybe it is the quality of food that attracts.
Olfactory comfort Odors can be the source of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
The everyday environment of cities is full of both. The same odor may be pleasant in one
circumstance and offensive in another. The smell of food may whet the appetite but may
be annoying when one is trying to sleep. People do adapt to pervasive negative odors to
a great extent. They live without apparent discomfort in areas with strong sulphureous
odors whether natural (for example, from the thermal springs in Rotarua, New Zealand)
or as a by-product of a manufacturing process (for example, from the cellulose factory
in Sunila, Finland).
Attitudes towards odors vary culturally and, consequently, the desirable organization
of the interiors of apartments and houses to inhibit their flow. Defecation odors are
universally regarded as unpleasant and thus need to be secluded from the remainder
of buildings. Whether or not pungent cooking odors need to be segregated from the
remainder of a house is a strongly culture- and personality-bound issue (Zeisel 1974).
North Americans and many Europeans have the reputation of seeking a largely odorless
environment. This stereotypical observation needs to be taken with extreme caution.
Designing for Shelter and Architectural Theory
The whole history of the first half of twentieth-century architecture and urban design,
particularly mass housing, was based on designing to meet the need for many units of
shelter in healthy environments. The early models of Rationalist architects such as Le
Corbusier and Ludwig Hilbersheimer and groups such as CIAM [Congrès International
d’Architecture Moderne], and the Bauhaus masters all strove to provide exposure of
building interiors to sunlight and fresh air in their designs. Le Corbusier, for instance,
set his design for the Radiant City in a park with buildings widely spaced to ensure that
each dwelling unit had access to sunlight, air, and greenery (Le Corbusier 1934, Sert
and CIAM 1944, Sharp 1978, Benevelo 1980). The housing model was even clearer in Le
Corbusier’s design for a city made up of his Unités d’ Habitation (Le Corbusier 1953;
see Figure 10.3b). The concept was picked up in much mass housing design during the
twentieth century and now in the twenty-first.
The housing proposals of the Neo-Rationalists such as the architects of the Tendenzia
group in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century focused on the creation of
healthy environments despite their simultaneous preoccupation with the aesthetics of
platonic forms. Their designs emphasized access to sunshine and through ventilation for
all heavily used rooms. The Gallaratese housing development (1967-70; see Figure 7.6)
in Milan, Italy with blocks designed by Carlo Aymonino and one by Aldo Rossi reflects
this need. The design is regarded as an exemplar of the Tendenzia group’s aspirations
(Broadbent 1990).
Source: Broadbent (1990); courtesy of Geoffrey Broadbent; cross-section sketched by Jon Lang
Figure 7.6 The Gallaretese Housing, Milan, Italy (1967-70)

Aldo Rossi, architect.
Access to large open space and sunlight was the design criterion for many of Le Corbusier’s
followers (Figure 7.7a). It is still the major criterion for the spacing of housing blocks in
many parts of the world (7.7aii; see Miao 2003 on Shanghai). The design principles if
applied in Barcelona (Figure 7.7aiii) would have completely changed the character of
a much-loved city in the name of efficiency and environmental health. The proposals
of the Empiricists were also shaped by the desire to create salubrious environments.
The goal guided the Garden City movement. Its designs, like those of the Rationalists,
contained much open park-like space. The spacing of buildings was, however, based on
a different socio-political agenda—one of providing for private property ownership. The
advertisement for Welwyn Garden City (Figure 7.7bi) clearly shows the intention of the
Garden City movement. Radburn, New Jersey with its single family detached housing
(bii) is an early American example of a residential area designed along these lines as were
Bruno Taut’s residential designs in Germany. More recently the design of Seaside (biii)
and many other New Urbanist developments follow suit.
Architectural theories have taken two diametrically opposite positions on designing
for comfort levels as exemplified by debates about how to design in the frigid climates
of northern European countries such as Sweden and Finland and in Northern America
where indoor living can extend to 70 percent of the year. One position is that people
should not be protected much above minimal survival levels and should embrace the frigid
environment; the other is that the world should be kept at 21°C (70°F). Most competent
people can cope (if they are tolerant enough) with the pressures of difficult climates. The
frail, especially the frail elderly, need a more supportive and less pressing environment.
Structural Technology and Shelter
The search for structural designs that provide shelter over large spaces free of columns
housing many behavior settings has been a characteristic of many architectural
explorations (for example, Figures 7.8a). Spanning large spaces made possible the
covering of railway stations (b) and the production of vast galleries for the display of
equipment at international fairs such as the Galerie Internationale at the 1866 Paris
Exhibition. Structural explorations have taken many forms: reinforced concrete (c),
parabolic structures (d), folded surfaces (e), and so on. Buckminster Fuller’s proposed
two-mile diameter glass roof to shelter Manhattan was to be heated by resistance wires (f).
It was also designed to collect rainwater. At the time of its construction, the Millennium
Dome (g) was the largest free spanning room in the world.
Space-frames—three-dimensional trusses for bridging space—enabled large areas of
column free floor space to be covered. These frames come in a variety of forms: pyramidal,
hexagonal, and so on. Not only did the explorations deal with sheltering large areas but
also smaller ones efficiently in terms of the weight of structures and the use of materials.
Buckminster Fuller designed the Dymaxion House (1927) and geodesic domes in order to
maximize performance per gross energy input. Arguably the most innovative engineers
have been Robert Maillart, Pierre Luigi Nervi, and Peter Rice. Santiago Calatrava follows
in this tradition. Nervi designed stadiums with massive cantilevered structures and
a series of exhibition halls sheltering vast interior spaces. Peter Rice is best known for
designing the bioclimatic façades for the National Museum of Science, Technology, and
Industry at La Villette in Paris (1985).
Source: Mansfield (1990);

Collection of Jon Lang originally Punch Summer Number, 1920
ai. Highpoint, London (1933-5); Berthold

Lubetkin and Tecton, architects.
bi. An advertisement for Welwyn Garden City

(1920).
aii. Xianhua Bei, Shenzhen, P.R. China (1990s).
Adapted from Sert and CIAM (1944) bii. Radburn, New Jersey, USA (1928) in 1993; Clarence
Stein, Planner, Henry Wright, architect.
aiii. Barcelona as replanned (1933-5) by José biii. Seaside, Florida, USA (1981 to the present); Duany
Luis Sert and J. Torres, architects. Plater-Zyberk and Co. urban designers.
Figure 7.7 The Rationalists (a), Empiricists (b), and salubrious environments
a. The Crystal Palace, the Great Exhibition of 1851, b. Estación de Madrid Atoche, Spain
Hyde Park, London, UK; Joseph Paxton, designer. (1890); Alberto de Palacio Elissagne
with Gustav Eiffel and Henry St. John
James, designers.
d. Catalano House, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

(1958); Eduard Catalano, architect.
c. Museu de les Ciències Principe e. Palazzetto dello Sport, Rome, Italy (1955-8); Pier
Felipe, Valencia, Spain (2000); Luigi Nervi, engineer/architect.
Courtesy of the estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
f. Proposed dome over Manhattan, New York, USA (c. g. Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London, UK
1960); Buckminster Fuller, designer. (1998-2000); Richard Rogers Partnership, architects.
Figure 7.8 Shelter and the architecture of structural dexterity

Shell structures are thin, self-supporting membranes based on the principle of an

eggshell. The science was developed by Maillart, Nervi, and Eduardo Torroja y Miret.
Sometimes, however, the ability to translate sketches into built forms has proven illusory.
The vaults of the Sydney Opera House (see Figure 1.3b) were perceived to be buildable
as concrete shells but the capability to actually construct them in that manner simply was
not available in the late 1960s.
From time immemorial membrane structures have been used to create shelter.
Natural skins and cloth (see Figure 7.1a) have given way to tensioned fabrics as primary
materials. Frei Otto from the late 1950s onwards was the pioneer (Otto 2005). To be
strictly functional such structures follow the minimal surface principle as displayed in
hyperbolic parabaloids. The modeling processes necessary to aid design are still being
developed. Our present limitations were shown in the building of the Millennium dome
in London. Millions of pounds had to be spent on correcting structural problems.
Ever larger ground coverage can be spanned today. Beijing airport designed by
Norman Foster and Partners will be (for a time anyway) the largest covered structure
ever built although it is not nearly as large as Buckminster Fuller’s proposed transparent
dome over Manhattan. Such spaces are easy to climate control in the search for metabolic
comfort. Are they the future?
Emerging Theories and Comfort
The architecture of globalization depends almost entirely on air-conditioning and

artificial heating systems to provide comfortable living and working environments.
One current theoretical position is that less reliance should be placed on such systems.
Projecting surfaces, screens, vegetation, and other low technology means of maintaining
comfort levels in hot areas or at hot times of the year can be incorporated in designs.
Similarly, it is felt that more attention can be paid to the orientation of buildings and
open spaces. Designing with climate in mind is also regarded by many critics as one of
the mechanisms for creating an architecture of locality. Ken Yeang is one architect who is
seeking to do so for the hot humid tropics (Yeang 1996, 2002).
The recent concern for reducing the environmental impact of buildings is widespread
and has produced a remarkable range of buildings in which a design goal has been to
reduce energy consumption (see also Chapters 1 and 15). The buildings shown in Figure
7.9 are examples. Demands change. The India International Center (e) was carefully
designed to deal with the heat of New Delhi. Comfortable enough at the time of its
construction, the level attained is not what international visitors expect today so the
screens along the access corridors were enclosed and the building air-conditioned.
More recently, the proponents of Neo-Traditional architecture have been particularly
keen on examining how the vernacular has responded to climatic conditions in a
low energy manner. The problem with vernacular patterns is twofold. While good in
providing for survival, they were not all that good in providing high levels of comfort.
Ways of life have also evolved and in many circumstances building complexes now have
to be accessible by cars thus changing the spatial arrangement of buildings in relationship
to each other and the sun. Much can, nevertheless, be learned from the unselfconscious
designs that evolved over time to deal with local circumstances (Rudofksy 1964,
Alexander et al. 1977, Oliver 1969, 1980).
Photograph by and used courtesy of Glenn Murcutt
b. Magney House, Bingie Point, Moruya, New

South Wales, Australia (1982-4); Glenn Murcutt,
architect.
a. Menara Mesiniaga, Subang Jaya, Selangor,

Malaysia (1995); T.R. Hamzah and Yeang,
architects.
Courtesy of Shirish Beri

c. Newington (formerly, Olympic Games 2000
Village), New South Wales, Australia in 2005.
d. Hirvai, Nadawade, Maharashtra, India (1980-3); e. The India International Center, New Delhi
Shirish Beri, architect. (1959-62); Joseph Allen Stein, architect.
Figure 7.9 Energy conserving, comfortable buildings in a variety of climatic zones

People, as Maslow would have observed, do not concentrate on demanding higher and
higher levels of shelter until their needs are totally satiated before they are motivated to
consider the other functions that built forms can fulfill for them. They turn their attention
to meeting other needs. Meeting everybody’s comfort needs perfectly is a conceptually
impossible task anyway.
Major References
Givoni, Baruch 1998. Climate Considerations in Building and Urban Design. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold.
Greer, Norma Richter 1988. The Creation of Shelter. Washington, DC: American Institute of
Architects.
Knevitt, Charles 1996. Shelter: Human Habitats from around the World. San Francisco: Pomegranate
Artbooks.
Levy, Mattys and Mario Salvadori 2002. Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail. New York:
W.W. Norton.
Mänty, Jorma and Norman Pressman, eds 1998. Cities Designed for Winter. Helsinki: Building Book.
Rudofsky, Bernard 1964. Architecture without Architects: an Introduction to Non-Pedigreed

Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Yeomans, David 2009. How Structures Work. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

8
Physical and Psychological Safety and Security
Safety doesn’t happen by accident.

Author unknown
Many sources of insecurity have little to do with how the built world functions. Fear of
losing one’s job, of nuclear disasters or fears for one’s children’s futures have little direct
effect on architecture. Security, or perceived security, of land tenure affects the investment
decisions that people make in their built environment (see Chapter 9). Security against
harmful bacteria has led to vast improvements in sanitation changing the location,
fenestration patterns, and the interior layout of buildings. Designing to deal with natural
forces, such as earthquakes, has an effect on building design but is seldom a criterion
against which the quality of a building is measured until a disaster actually occurs.
For architectural design purposes it is possible to distinguish between physiological,
and psychological security. The distinction is often blurred. Spiritual security is a third
category that is important to many people but it is not as universal a need as are the other
two although its manifestation in building design can be as strong.
Physiological Security
All people, with only highly deviant exceptions, have a need to feel secure from bodily
harm. Many of the design issues are those associated with the provision of shelter,
as argued in Chapter 7, because shelter and survival go hand-in-hand. There are,
nevertheless, a number of specific topics of concern which have to do with people’s
motivations to feel and be safe and secure. They include the soundness of structural
and constructional systems and materials, safety from the clash of movement systems,
particularly pedestrian and vehicular, ease of egress from buildings under life-
threatening conditions, and protection from terrorism and crime. The first of these
concerns was considered in the previous chapter so will only be mentioned in passing
here to place it in a different context. Other concerns were introduced in Chapter 6 and
will be developed here.
Structural and Constructional Systems
The structural and constructional patterns and materials of the built environment that
function to make the milieu safe are well known (Levy and Salvadori 2002, Yeomans 2009).
To summarize the discussion in the previous chapters the concern is twofold: for elements
of the built environment to be structurally sound and for the layout of buildings to afford
desired standing patterns of behavior safely. The former is a concern for survival but the
latter is really a concern for safety although survival may sometimes be the issue. (Many
household fatalities result from slipping in bathrooms.) Fire prevention has long been a
design concern. Legislation exists that prohibits combustible sheathing in buildings and
requires that sprinklers and smoke detectors be installed. Other concerns are more recent.
As a result of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York it is now
suggested that fire- and crush-proof safe havens be provided in tall buildings and that
buildings should be designed to implode rather than explode when subject to the impacts
of both natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Many design principles are available to
guide us. Do we want to be guided? Everywhere? Building codes in some cities have been
recently revised to require the hardening and widening of stairways in tall buildings and
structural systems that are designed to prevent buildings collapsing. The open-webbed
trusses (more correctly, joists) used in the World Trade Center towers’ design are also
now prohibited in a number of places.
Movement Systems
While there are many issues of concern in designing for the movement of people, two seem
fundamental in providing for safety. The first is egress from buildings in emergencies,
and the second the segregation of potentially conflicting movement systems. Egress
from buildings under threatening conditions is a universal design concern. Movement
systems take place in channels of various types: railway lines, corridors of buildings, and
so on. Each has its own requirements to be safe.
Egress from buildings Building codes almost everywhere specify the construction and
material requirements for safety from fire. These codes specify the nature of corridor
widths and the signage required to point people to exits. They also specify the nature,
location, and frequency of exits themselves. Despite these requirements there have been
disasters.
In a number of incidences, particularly in theaters and nightclubs where there have
been major losses of life; exit doors were locked to prevent gatecrashers from entering.
In factories it has been done to stop workers from having a break. Fire sprinkler systems
were not functioning in some cases and in others prohibited inflammable materials were
used in construction. The most notorious example of the blocking and poor marking of
routes to exits was the Cocoanut Grove Supper Club, Boston fire in 1942 where 492 people
died. A recent example of the use of easily ignitable building materials (accompanied by
a pyrotechnic display) was the Station Nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island
where 100 people died and many were injured in 2003. Over 60 people died in similar
occurrences in Bangkok, Thailand on the first day of 2009 and others died in Russia
towards the end of the year.
The segregation of conflicting movement systems Movement systems are segregated for
many reasons: efficiency, safety, and security as well as for privacy and territorial control
(see Chapter 6). The segregation has taken place in either the vertical or horizontal plane.
In horizontal space the standard way has been to design streets with raised sidewalks for
people and the roadbed for cars (see Figure 8.1a), while the superblock is a model that has
been widely used in the design of precincts of cities such as residential neighborhoods (for
example, the Radburn plan, Figure 10.6a), universities, and proposals for town centers
physical and psychological safety and security 133
Source: Benevolo (1980)
a. Street scene, San Francisco, USA. b. The Amsterdam East proposal (1965); Bakema and van
den Broek, architects.
Drawing by Thanong Ponteerakul
c. Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia in 2004.
d. Street scene with sky bridge, Portland, Oregon, USA. e. A sky bridge, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Figure 8.1 The segregation of movement systems for safety, efficiency, and comfort
(see the Fort Worth plan; Figure 6.4a). In vertical space there have been the skyway
systems of cities such as Minneapolis (Figure 8.1e), and the underground network of
pedestrian paths as in Rochester, Minnesota and in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The examples in Figure 8.1b, d, and e are of separation in vertical space. Darling Harbour
is a superblock with separation in both horizontal and vertical space (c). The woonerf stands
in contrast to these examples. It is a residential street type in which pedestrians, children
playing, and cars mingle; each expects the other to be there and thus drivers, pedestrians,
and children act with caution. Many cul-de-sacs function in the same manner.
People strive for safety but also for interesting paths along which to travel, especially
when they are on foot. For this reason they often eschew the safe and efficient route
for the bustle of a city’s sidewalks as they have done in the Charles Center in Baltimore
(Lang 2005) or they choose the most direct route (see 8.2f).
Safe streets The level of safety required for the diverse users of streets varies considerably
by their situation and purpose. In many cities children’s journeys on foot or by bicycle
to school, to local institutions such as libraries, and to places of recreation is increasingly
difficult (Kyttä 2004; see also Chapter 13). Channels of movement need to be organized in
a hierarchy of levels from footpaths to bicycle ways to expressways each dimensionally
and materially appropriate for its purpose. The tendency has been to think of each level
in terms of a single purpose. Neighborhood streets serve a multiplicity of functions and
need to be designed as a set of behavior settings. They are both links and places.
Streets are channels for vehicular and pedestrian movement, the places from which the
world around us is seen and appreciated, the seams for community life, and, often, close-
to-home playgrounds for children. They need to be designed for the safety of drivers and
safety from drivers and their vehicles for pedestrians. Different activities need to have
their own territories although in streets with low traffic volumes, such as many cul-de-
sacs and certainly woonerfs, they can overlap and be nested within each other.
War, Terrorism, and Crime
In the mid-twentieth century, E.B. White, with the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
still fresh in mind, noted that New York could be devastated in a single nuclear attack
carried out by one aircraft (White 1949). Do architects have to worry about such concerns?
Historically architects designed fortifications for cities (see Figure 8.2a). The boulevards
of Paris (Figure 12.3a) were designed, in part, to aid the suppression of civil unrest
(Sutcliffe 1970, Benevolo 1980, Jordan 1995). Buildings can be designed to be fortresses
by presenting solid walls to the exterior (8.2b). Many places around the world have gated
communities where guards control who enter (g). They are, however, created as much
for prestige as for security (Blakely and Snyder 1997, Low 2003). Walls serve to add
safety (or the perception of safety) from the intrusion of outsiders to the people who live
or work behind them (8.2c). The Berlin wall (d), in contrast, was built to prevent insiders
from leaving. How far should one go in making a building secure? The United States
Embassy in Berlin (Figure 8.2e) is said to send out the wrong message about the country
to the world (Campbell 2008). Housing is often designed less obviously to turn its back
to the street by opening up to the interior (g). Such designs also provide for defense from
visual intrusion.
b. St. Martin’s Garrison Church,

Delhi, India (1928-31); Arthur
Shoosmith, architect.
a. Plan for Palmanova, Italy (1593); possibly
designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, architect.
d. The wall dividing East and

West Berlin in 1989.
c. The British Consulate-General, Istanbul e. The Embassy of the United States, Berlin,
in 2008. Germany (completed 2008); Moore Ruble
Yudell, architects.
f. A gated residential precinct, San Juan g. Houses, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Capistrano, California, USA.
Figure 8.2 Designing for defence—walls and gates

Until recently designing buildings to withstand terrorist attacks was not an issue. The
conflicts in the Levant, the Irish Republican Army bombing campaign of the 1980s
and 1990s, the Madrid attacks in 2004, and the July 2005 explosions on the London
underground made Europeans increasing aware of the potential destructive impacts of
terrorist activities. In the US, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City in 1995, the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, and
its destruction in 2001 (Figure 8.3a) had a similar impact.
The immediate response to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, in particular, was
the ad hoc incorporation of obstacles in front of buildings to prevent bombers reaching
targets. They include raised concrete planter-boxes, street lamps in potential paths of
movement, benches, and reinforced concrete drinking fountains. Buildings that have
significant political associations appear to be particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
The US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, which at 1,017 feet (about 310 meters) in height is the
tallest building on the west coast of the United States is perceived by some to be a potential
target. In early 2002, barriers to reduce the affordances for such an attack were installed
to surround it (see Figure 8.3c). There are many such examples (for example, 8.3d).
Ha-has are subtler (b) but difficult to incorporate in urban areas. It is now suggested that
buildings have different configurations based on evidence of the effects of bomb blasts
(e and f; FEMA 2004; see also Atlas 2008).
In Washington, DC, it is proposed that important buildings have special entrance
lobbies to enable people to be screened before they are admitted (Flint 2005). The
American Planning Association gave its Current Topics 2004 award to the National
Capital Urban Design and Security Plan. The plan proposed that traditional furnishings
of the public realm such as benches, light poles, plinth walls, and “decorative fences”
be used to provide security. Artificial devices are being used to reduce opportunities for
criminal activities. They include higher levels of street illumination, the use of guards
along with gated communities, and the use of surveillance cameras to scan the public
realm of cities.
Civil libertarians worry about the intrusion on public life of the surveillance cameras
widely used on transit systems, freeways, and in city squares and streets. The devices
have not been very successful in preventing incidents but they do help document attacks
so that they can be more thoroughly investigated. Cameras are also being used to monitor
behavior in the interior of buildings ranging from the corridors of apartment buildings to
the behavior of employees in commercial facilities, docks, and airports
None of these approaches get at the heart of the factors that lead to terrorist or
criminal activity. Architecture can only attempt to treat the symptoms. Buildings can
be designed to be fortresses. Ground floors can be designed to have no windows and
minimal entrances providing largely blank walls (boring for pedestrians) to the streets.
The American Embassy in Pariser Platz in Berlin is set back from the property line for
defensive reasons. It would be a pity if in order for buildings to be easily defended
against terrorism and crime they were made into fortresses. It can be argued that
fortress buildings can be aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps Arthur Shoosmith succeeded
in achieving this end in his design of St Martin’s Garrison Church (Figure 8.2b) in the
cantonment of New Delhi. Its openings were, however, designed primarily to cope with
Delhi’s stifling summer heat.
© http;//www.wtc-terrorattack.com/CBS-News/cbs000.jpg Source: Wikimedia Commons
a. The crash of Flight 1754 into the South Tower of

the World Trade Center, New York, USA.
b. A ha-ha—an unobtrusive barrier.
c. US Bank Tower, Los Angeles, California, USA. d. SwissRe Building, London, UK.
Adapted from Federal Emergency Management Association [FEMA] (2004) by Omar Sharif
e. Critical distances and bomb blast damage. f. Shapes that concentrate bomb blasts (above)
and shapes that dissipate air blasts (below).
Figure 8.3 Designing to counteract terrorism and its effects

Buildings can certainly be designed to mitigate the effects of exploding vehicles (see
Figure 8.3e and f). The setbacks of at least 50 feet and sometime considerably more tend
to reduce adjacent pedestrian activity. Retail shops, underground parking garages, and
buildings with numerous entrances are now discouraged near important buildings.
These elements are, however, also what make for lively, walkable environments. The
advocates of such measures are thus suggesting that quality of life be traded for the
more basic need for safety. In some cases, such as the Empire State Plaza in Albany,
New York and the capitol complex in Chandigarh, India, pedestrian traffic is simply not
allowed. Some corporations are using the security-scare simply to keep people out of
their buildings. It makes life easier for them (Flint 2005).
How far should security measures be taken? The American Embassy in Berlin (opened
July 4, 2008) designed by Moore Ruble Yudell in 1995 went through so many design
changes that it has ended up being “a lonely fortress withdrawn from the city behind
wide swaths of what I can only call no-man’s-land … filled at times with a hideous forest
of black bollards, at other times, it’s hidden behind a fence of tall steel palings” (Campbell
2008). No effort to deal with crime through physical design can treat the underlying
social malaise. Design efforts in changing patterns of the physical environment to reduce
opportunities for criminal behavior are important but if unaccompanied by social
programs they will achieve little (Judd and Samuels 2005).
Crime and the built environment: The nature of defensible space Crime levels in countries as
diverse as South Africa, the People’s Republic of China, and Venezuela have turned many
middle-class precincts of cities into veritable fortresses of gated precincts; the poor have to
live with crime. A plethora of books on the topic demonstrates the depth of concern about
crime and design (for example, Stollard 1991, Zelinka and Brenner 2001, Colquhoun 2004,
Nadel 2004). Based on his research Oscar Newman developed the concept of defensible
space (Newman 1972). The efficacy of its design principles has been questioned (see
Hillier 1973, Cozens et al. 2001, Katyal 2002) but the concept has endured.
A defensible space is one that is easily controlled by the people who live or work there.
It is one in which there is a clear hierarchy of territories from public to semi-public to
semi-private to private. It affords ease of surveillance of what is going on in a building
or its exterior because doors and windows are positioned to provide the casual watching
opportunities that occur as part of daily life (Figure 8.4e). In addition a building’s
forms and materials—their symbolic meanings—do not suggest that its inhabitants are
vulnerable (Newman 1972). A fourth criterion may seem tautological. If buildings are
located in low crime areas they are unlikely to be targets of criminal activity.
A territory is a space that is bounded and controlled by an individual or a group. In
many cases it is also personalized by markings and possessions belonging to the people
exerting control over it. In the United States, at least, territories occur in a four level
hierarchy relating to the levels of control people have over a space. Public territories
are those to which all people have the right of admission. Semi-public are those which
outsiders can enter but are perceived to be under the observation and control of a local
group. Whether an area is perceived to be semi-public depends on the amount of traffic
on a street as well as the building-street relationship (f). If there is heavy traffic, the claim
over the exterior space is substantially reduced (see Newman 1975 and Appleyard and
Lintell 1981 on the United States and Mahdjoubi 2009 on Britain). Semi-private are those
Source: Newman (1975);

courtesy of Kopper Newman Source: Newman (1975); courtesy of Kopper Newman
a. A typical territorial hierarchy in a b. Typical territorial control in a row house

single family detached house. neighborhood.

Source: Newman (1975); courtesy of Kopper Newman
courtesy of Kopper Newman
c A. typical territorial hierarchy in a Modernist apartment d. A typical territorial hierarchy in a

building complex. suburban walk up apartment building.
Adapted from Appleyard and Lintell (1981) by Jon Lang
e. Natural surveillance and territorial control; eyes on f. Traffic volumes and territorial
the cameraman from house and sidewalk. hierarchies on neighborhood streets.
Figure 8.4 Building types and territorial hierarchies

into which outsiders may be able to see and hear what is going on but they have no right
of admission, while private territories are those under the total day-to-day control of the
people who inhabit or use them.
Oscar Newman suggested that territories, clearly defined by either symbolic or real
barriers, be organized into this hierarchy of behavior settings (Newman 1972, 1975).
It is relatively easy to achieve such a clear territorial hierarchy from public to private
space in suburban areas of single-family detached homes (Figure 8.4a) and row house
neighborhoods (b). In multi-unit housing a clear gradation of territories is more difficult
to achieve while in areas of standard apartment buildings it is seldom achieved (c). It can
be! The goal is for individuals and groups to take control over their settings because they
have a “claim” over them. This process is further supported when people can see into the
settings as part of their daily activities.
Architects, landscape architects, and the lay public within many but not all cultures
have generally believed that any open space around buildings is automatically good.
Such spaces, however, are frequently no-person’s territory and open to abuse. It is not
the open space per se but how it is designed (or, rather, not designed) that can be the
problem. Newman advocated that all open space associated with buildings be allocated
to specific uses and thus claimed by specific groups of people; they need to be thought of
as behavior settings and “owned” by those involved (see Figure 8.5d).
An early example of the application of Newman’s ideas was at Clason Point Gardens in
the Bronx, New York (1980) where a standard low rise public housing development was
substantially upgraded by clearly defining territories and enhancing its imagery through
simple devices such as allocating symbolically marked, open spaces to units, improving
the lighting, changing the gable ends of roofs to hipped ends and differentiating between
one unit and another by façade treatments (Cherulnik 1993; see Figure 8.6e, f, and g). More
recently (1997+), the Diggs area of Norfolk, Virginia was treated in the same manner with
considerable enhancement of the residents’ involvement in the life of community (Bothwell
et al. 1998). The Richard Allen houses in Philadelphia have gone through a similar
transformation (h). The superblock was turned into a standard grid iron street pattern.
Sometimes the issue is simpler. A maze of dark corners, obscuring walls and vegetation,
and deteriorating building quality afford opportunities for anti-social behavior to take
place with impunity. Lawrence Halprin’s design for Freeway Park over route I-5 in Seattle
is an urban oasis (see Figure 8.6). It is a delight as a garden but it also makes criminal
activity difficult to detect. Sadly, the number of people who have availed themselves of
the affordances for anti-social behavior earned the park a notorious reputation (Mudede
2002). The problem is a social one but the design gets implicated.
In terms of safety from crime, streets need to be designed with high levels of illumination
and few obscure paths for criminals to use to perpetrate anti-social behavior, or to escape
afterwards. Windows of actively used spaces should face the street in order for it to be
under the casual surveillance of the people inside (J. Jacobs 1961, Newman 1972).
The application of these principles also has negative effects. High levels of illumination
consume more energy than low and eyes-on-the-street can intrude on privacy
requirements. Short cuts are useful for pedestrians in moving around neighborhoods.
Obscure paths and places to hide make fine playgrounds for children. The alternative is
to place streets under artificial surveillance. It is, after all, easy and cost-effective to do
but what are the consequences?
Source: Newman (1972); courtesy of Kopper Newman Source: Newman (1972); courtesy of Kopper Newman
a. The required territorial hierarchy on the b. The required territorial hierarchy in

horizontal plane. high-rise buildings.
courtesy of Kopper Newman Source: Newman (1975); courtesy of Kopper Newman
c. Natural surveillance requirements.
d. Retrofitting high-rise housing: an

Photograph by Paul D. Cherulnik
illustration.
e. Clason Point Gardens, New York, f. Clason Point Gardens after

before rehabilitation. rehabilitation.
h. Richard Allen Homes, Philadelphia after

rehabilitation in 1998-2002; Wallace Roberts and
g. The new playground at Clason Point. Todd, architects, Walter Moleski, consultant.
Figure 8.5 Designing for defensible space

Photograph by Joel Mabel; Source: Wikimedia Commons
Figure 8.6 Freeway Park, Seattle, Washington, USA (1976)

Lawrence Halprin, landscape architect; Angela Danadjieva, project architect.
The research on defensible space continues. Physical design can only provide the
affordances for people to take responsibility over their neighborhoods by giving them
the symbols of ownership and authority over space. It cannot solve social problems.
The concerns now are with giving potential criminals opportunities to engage in
life. The economics of commerce and globalization forces, however, result in larger
agglomerations of services out of reach of many. Adolescents in particular may turn to
anti-social behavior in their search for something to do (Ladd 1978).
Psychological Security
Psychological security is complex. Having a control over one’s surroundings, physical and
social, and knowing where one fits happily into a society gives an individual a sense of
security. Such control is also related to a sense of self-worth and esteem (see Chapter 12).
Many people around the world, however, feel that they are living in increasingly
anonymous societies where one’s life is directed by forces beyond one’s control. The way
one designs only has a small effect on reducing such anxieties.
There are two major factors associated with the psychological security that can have
design implications. They are having a sense of where one is in space—a sense of orientation
and the ability to negotiate the built world successfully—control over the information given
out to others about the behavior in which one or one’s group is engaged, and/or control
over unwanted intrusion of information into the behavior setting from outside of it.
Orientation in Space
The way cities, neighborhoods, and buildings are structured very much affects the ease
with which people find their way around them. Many people have a “sense of anxiety
and even terror when they are lost” (Lynch 1960: 4; see also D. Gibson 2009). Labyrinths
are designed for pleasure but labyrinthine designs that make it difficult to find one’s way
around cities and buildings is seldom a design goal. In the past, however, intricate maze-
like urban patterns may have been used to deter intrusion by outsiders (for example,
Venice, Italy).
a. A maze, Budapest, Hungary. b. Central Venice.
Figure 8.7 Layouts that make way-finding difficult
In some buildings, particularly those that have grown piece-by-piece over time, way-
finding is notoriously difficult (Pocock and Hudson 1978, Passini 1984, Arthur and Passini
1990). Hospitals seem to be particularly susceptible to this phenomenon. Architect Rem
Koolhaas has coined the term junk space for places where paths do not form part of a
comprehensible pattern that promotes orientation (Koolhaas 2002). People who work in
maze-like buildings or live in such environments, nevertheless, soon work out how to
find their way around however contorted the layouts are. For visitors it is different (Thiel
1961, 1997).
People vary considerably in their tolerance for difficulties in finding their way around
buildings. Much depends on what they are doing and their motivations. Tourists
armed with maps may find it enjoyable to learn their way around the maze of streets
that constitute central London or the pathways of Venice. In emergencies such as when
there is a fire, however, finding one’s way rapidly and easily to safety can be a matter of
survival.
Spatial imageability and legibility and environmental design The most widely known
study of the imageability (the ease of forming a cognitive map) and legibility (the
ease of finding one’s way) of the environment was conducted by Kevin Lynch at the
city and neighborhood level (Lynch 1960). Cognitive mapping is the process whereby
people acquire, code, store, and recall information about the layout of the environment
(Downs and Stea 1973). The ability of people to develop cognitive maps is a prerequisite
for human survival but today it is more a security or intellectual development concern
except in emergencies when it really can make the difference between life and death.
Lynch’s findings are transferable to building interiors (Passini 1984, Arthur and Passini
1990; see Figure 8.8). The research has shown that signs to aid way-finding are often
essential (D. Gibson 2009), but a number of characteristics enhance the imageability and
legibility of building interiors. Clarity in the way the paths, corridors, are laid out and
come together at well-defined nodes, clear sub-areas (the districts within a building), and
the location of significant objects, landmarks, give people a clue as to where they are.
Lynch also identified edges or defining boundaries as elements of people’s cognitive maps
but they seem to be less important except when they are exceptionally bold (Pocock and
Hudson 1978).
URBAN FORM BUILDING FORM
Paths
Edges
Landmarks
Districts
Nodes
Figure 8.8 The elements of cognitive maps in urban areas and in buildings
Architects have become more concerned about way-finding issues as buildings,

particularly public buildings that are heavily used by strangers, become more complex.
For instance, in a design competition for the extensions to the Brooklyn Museum in
New York City, way-finding was a criterion used in evaluating the submissions. The
winning scheme was deemed to make way finding easy while simultaneously making
the circulation path through the museum interesting.
Certain buildings in the urban environment act as landmarks because they have a form
easily distinguishable from others (Appleyard 1969). The pyramid-shaped TransAmerica
building in San Francisco is one such example. Many cities have towers or strategically
located buildings that serve in much the same way. The Eiffel Tower in Paris and Canada
Place at Canary Wharf, London are examples. In Battery Park City the World Finance
Center designed by César Pelli clearly stands out as a landmark against a backdrop of
other buildings unified through the application of strong design controls (Barnett 1987,
Gordon 1997, Lang 2005). These buildings act as figures standing out against a background
of other buildings. Today with each new building seeking to make its presence felt, all
buildings, however startling their geometries, merge into a background.
Competence level and way finding Not everybody finds way-finding easy. Young children
do not have particularly realistic images of their surroundings in their heads nor do people
whose lives are circumscribed, or those with intellectual impairments. Newcomers to
cities and/or buildings tend see them in terms of paths. As they become more experienced
they develop more spatial cognitive maps (G. Moore 1976). For people with dementia the
legibility of their homes and of local areas is of importance in helping them to locate
themselves in space and to identify which way to go (Passini et al. 1998, Mitchell et al.
2004, Chaudry 2008, Karpf 2008). These concerns are seldom addressed except in the
design of institutions specifically for people suffering from dementia (Brawley 1997).
The variables of importance in enabling people with dementia to function well in
buildings and their local worlds are essentially the same in character as for people with
unimpaired faculties. The features do, however, need to be more pronounced. For interior
layouts a number of design patterns seem to be of particular importance (see Passini
et al. 1998, Mitchell et al. 2004, and more generally, Karpf 2008). Buildings with simple
layouts of short, straight corridors with no dead-ends; corridors of different architectural
character (for example, each with its own door style and color), and landmarks such as
potted plants and clocks at decision points in the corridors all help.
In terms of neighborhood design, Lynne Mitchell and her colleagues have found a
number of design features to be particularly helpful (see Mitchell et al. 2004). They are
short-blocks (giving many corners), and narrow and gently winding streets rather than
long, wide ones, a clear hierarchy of streets with T-junctions and/or forks, and perimeter
block patterns with a variety of building forms, and mixed land uses. Landmarks, not
only ones of distinctive physical features but places of activity such as squares and
playgrounds, places of personal significance, and useful features such as benches, a bus
shelter, and a post-box help. A variety of natural elements such as trees and flowers, and
distinctive, minimal-content signs placed strategically so they are easy to see and read
are added features that assist way-finding. Such design principles are seldom applied
because society regards them as unimportant and because they are superseded by other
design considerations.
Privacy, Personal Space, and Territorial Control
Every behavior in which we engage has a level of privacy appropriate for it. This level is
obtained when the information flow out of and into a behavior setting is satisfactory to
the people within and outside it. Defining the privacy required of a behavior setting is
not as straightforward as it might seem. To be productive people require some awareness
of what is happening beyond the behavior setting in which they are engaged. Too much
privacy can result in the social isolation; it may lead to the sensory deprivation that
hinders development (Vesely 2004). Too little privacy results in feeling crowded (Altman
1975: see Figure 8.9). Defining crowding by a lack of a sense of privacy and by the over-
mannedness of behavior settings is a more powerful way than any statistic of number of
people per unit of occupied area.
Adapted from Altman (1975) by Jon Lang; drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 8.9 A dynamic model of privacy
The desired level of privacy for a behavior setting can be attained in a number of ways.
Some of the mechanisms are behavioral but others have to do with how a behavior setting
is bounded. Behavioral mechanisms include reserve (that is, not engaging with others)
and turning one’s back to avoid giving out information about what is going on, or having
outside information intrude on what one is doing. Architectural mechanisms include
distancing one setting from others or, more typically, the use of physical elements—
floors, ceilings, walls, screens—to control information flows.
Distancing may provide sonic privacy and make it difficult to see details but people
can see a long way. We rely on barriers. The physical elements bounding a setting may
be opaque, translucent, or transparent. As noted in Chapter 7 they can be symbolic or
real. The former does not prevent intrusion physically but simply marks the boundaries
while the latter physically prevents intrusion. Symbolic boundaries may be as simple
as changes in levels of illumination or in the level, color, and/or texture of materials of
a floor, and/or low boundary walls with open entrances. Such boundaries function well
in polite societies where people recognize the role of the markers and obey them; they
are less successful in societies that are culturally diverse and characterized by assertive,
if not aggressive, behavior.
Real boundaries involve the use of solid features that bar entry such as walls, doors
or gates, and/or having guards at the entrances. Insulating uses (for example, placing
commercial activities between retail and residential in a three-story building) is another
technique. The way the boundaries are used depends on their purpose. In open-plan, or
landscape-plan, spaces, the boundaries restrict movement between settings to specific
paths (see Figure 6.6c). They also strive, not always successfully, to exclude the penetration
of extraneous sounds above a certain decibel level while allowing visual contact between
people in different settings.
Attitudes towards the privacy levels associated with different activities change over
time. In Bali, Indonesia, for instance, the traditional massive walls around houses that
entirely screen off the outside world are giving way to modified transparent screens
providing overlapping views between indoor and outdoor spaces (Dewi-Jayanti 2003).
This change also reflects the change in the social structure and the role of display in
showing social status within Balinese society.
Personal space, Proxemic Theory, and room geography Personal space can be regarded as
a portable territory. It refers to the bubble around oneself defining the distance that one
keeps other people (Sommer 1969, 1974a). It extends farther in front of a person than
behind because the details of the face are important aspects of one’s being. Its dimensions,
within a culture, are important to understand because they tell us something about room
geographies—the layout and design of different patterns of furniture.
An understanding of personal space led to the creation of Proxemic Theory by
Edward. T. Hall (1969). Hall’s anthropology of manners forms the basis for relating
the desired qualities of interactions to the distance people keep apart from each other.
The distance depends on the nature of the relationship between them and the nature
of the activity that is taking place (Figure 8.10). Hall identified a number of distances
for Anglo-American people. Intimate space is the distance where people are either
physically touching or within touching distance. Personal space is the distance that
people keep themselves apart in friendly conversation. Social space is the distance at
which more formal interactions take place, and Public space is the distance at which
people keep themselves from others when addressing them or performing in public.
As the distance between people increases so the amount of visual information that
they impart to each other decreases but voices have to rise to maintain contact. Oral
communication becomes more public.
The concepts of sociopetal and sociofugal space have already been introduced
(see Figure 6.10). Furniture is arranged based on behavioral expectations (Figure
8.11b). The expectations vary by culture because the degree of eye contact and the
loudness of voices desired and/or tolerated vary considerably. We structure space with
barriers of various types to control the flow of information we give out about what
we are doing and to inhibit unwanted information from penetrating to where we are.
Performance zones (8.11f) tend to be at a distance from an audience. The information
given out is more public than at more private levels of interaction. Structuring the built
environment can help or hinder such communication. How one organizes furniture
layouts is culture bound.
Figure 8.10 The interplay of distance and the formality of the behavioral loop between people
according to Hall’s Proxemic Theory (Hall 1969)
b. The lobby, Ramada Hotel, Suwon, Korea.
Collection of Walter Moleski
a. Spacing and the intimacy of relationships.
d. Personal distance.
c. Intimate distance.
e. Social (socio-consultative) distance. f. Public distance, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago.
Figure 8.11 Proxemic Theory and room geography

The invasion of privacy The privacy of the people in a behavior setting is violated by
their belief that too much information about the pattern of behavior is extending beyond
the boundaries of the setting or, alternatively, too much information from the outside
is penetrating the setting. The violation can be on any dimension of human perception
from visual to olfactory.
Two visual invasions occur in urban areas with some frequency. The first is where
activities are overlooked from adjacent points, and the second is where the adjacency
of people within and outside a behavior setting is too close or the screening between
them is insufficient. The first tends to occur where flats are built adjacent to single-family
homes or when people can see from second story windows into adjacent backyards (see
Figure 8.12). This problem becomes acute in places where much of life spills out onto the
roofs of dwellings as in hot, arid areas of the world and family activities can be watched
from nearby taller buildings (Negarestan 1996).
a. Overlooking, Seoul, Korea.
Photograph by Socrates Cappas
b. Overlooking, San Francisco, c. Overlooked, Randwick, Australia.

CA, USA.
Figure 8.12 The visual invasion of privacy
As noted in Chapter 7, sonic invasions occur when unwanted sounds penetrate from
one space into adjacent ones. The problem often exists in apartment buildings where the
footsteps of people living above can be heard on the floor below and/or where sounds,
particularly bathroom sounds, such as the flushing of toilets can be heard in adjacent
rooms and apartments. Sonic problems also result from the noise of passing vehicular and
airplane traffic and from equipment such as air conditioners and household appliances.
Some of these problems can be avoided through care in designing the plans of units
and the use of high levels of insulations between settings. Having to close windows to
insulate outside noise reduces ventilation.
In some cities noisy events such as frequently held religious celebrations cause
problems. In New Delhi, the number of such events generated by specific temples is
restricted. The voices of imams calling worshippers to prayer and or church bells can be
intrusive. They tend to be tolerated but not always.
Invasions of privacy can have unpleasant effects. Too much noise leads to people
tuning-out the environment around them so important information as well as the
unwanted gets lost. People may also withdraw into themselves and/or simply disregard
their neighbors leading to a loss of concern for each other and, often, the loss of a sense of
community. The side-effects can be as severe as the inhibition of learning by children and
lack of caring for their surroundings by their elders. The invasion of odors/smells can be
a problem in much the same way. Unwanted smells from the outside world and from
internal sources such as lavatories and kitchens can cause considerable stress. Pungent
cooking smells can be particularly intrusive (Zeisel 1974).
Encroachment on one’s privacy results in a feeling of insecurity. These feelings get
more and more aroused and intense as unwanted penetration into intimate levels of
personal space occurs. The feeling of insecurity may result in aggressive behavior, verbal
or physical, towards the intruder. Even if there is no observable stress, invasion heightens
skin conductance levels. Designing for privacy helps to avoid such stresses.
Sacred Geometries and Design Principles
Two interrelated areas of concern in using sacred geometries in design are of importance
to functional theory. One is where spiritual needs are reflected in the geometry of the
built environment, particularly in religious and sacred buildings such as churches
and mosques. The other, while couched in spiritual terms is, arguably, concerned with
health requirements. Both rely on canonical texts specifying how buildings should be
laid out.
Canonical Texts and Design
A number of societies possess canonical texts prescribing the layout of the built
environment that is required to bring prosperity and good health to its inhabitants while
keeping them from harm. To many people in those societies, failure to comply with the
canons places them in a stressful position. Other people may not regard the same canons
as factual but wish to inhabit buildings that comply with them because the patterns give
them a sense of identity in a globalizing world. The rules are ours. Yet other people,
including many architects, dismiss the canons as historic superstitions but wish to have
their buildings comply with the rules “just in case.”
There are a variety of canonical texts. Indians have the Shilpa Shastras and many other
texts; Feng Shui is important to many ethnic Chinese throughout the world. Many of
these texts have a religious basis (see Bramble 2003 amongst a plethora of books on Feng
Shui). The mythological origins of the strictures in India’s Shilpa Shastras, for instance, lie
in the Vastu-Purusha mandala (see Figure 8.13a). The square, representing the absolute, is
the mandala’s unequivocal geometric form. Its orientation to the cardinal points relates
it to cosmic space. The square can be subdivided in a number of ways. One method is
to divide it into nine sub-squares with the central one reserved for the god Brahma. The
spirit of the site is said to be pressed prone to the ground with its limbs indicating where
different parts of a building should be located.
Collection of Jon Lang Courtesy of the architect
a. The Vastu-Purusha mandala. b. The Vidhan Bhavan, Bhopal,

India (1993); Charles Correa
Associates, architects.
Courtesy of the architect
c. The Vidhan Bhavan.
Courtesy of the architect Courtesy of the architect
d. Methodist Center, Mumbai, India, plan and view; Darshan Bubbar, architect.
Figure 8.13 Sacred geometries and architectural design

The Shilpa Shastras consist of 64 treatises specifying the layout for different types of cities,
villages, houses, and palaces. They specify the requirements for 48 building types and the
details of column widths, doors, windows, and other building details. There are edicts
for the allocation of activities to specific parts of the site: kitchens should be on the eastern
side, dining areas in the east or southeast, and sleeping areas in the southwest or west.
According to one text, failure to meet these requirements will result in election defeats,
the failure of couples to have sons, electrocution or death by fire, and other negative
consequences (Reddy 1994). At the same time there are a number of highly detailed texts
that argue logically that the canons have a strong empirical basis and demonstrate how
to apply their design principles (Bubbar 2005).
The application of the Vastu-Purusha mandala and canonical texts in India takes
many forms and serves many functions. Some designs (for example, Figure 8.13d) are
purer than others (for example, b). Charles Correa took considerable poetic license in
applying the mandala in the Vidhan Bhavan. Instead of an open space at the center there
is a hall (Correa 1996). Security stemming from knowing that the principles have been
incorporated in a design is, nevertheless, a major reason for applying the design canons.
Feng Shui with its strong spiritual base also has proponents who argue that it is
empirically founded. Buildings following the principles reflect the activities they house,
ritual meanings, and cosmic values. They are protective. For many people buildings
function deterministically in shaping life for good if the principles of Feng Shui are
followed and for the bad if they are not. The design edicts survive in a modern world
because many people believe in them.
Security Functions and Architectural Theory
Designing for security has been addressed in architecture and urban design since the first
buildings were erected. Providing for privacy has also been a central concern in architectural
practice. Neither has been a major topic of interest in architectural theory. There are exceptions.
Tony Garnier’s Une Cité Industrielle assumed that the design of ideal physical systems
predicated on ideal social systems would eliminate worries about such anti-social behaviors
as crime (Garnier 1917). Such explorations are an important part of architectural theory
because they open up new avenues for thought. At the same time, empirical reality intrudes
when one tries to apply those ideas in societies different to that envisaged by Garnier.
Most architects think of privacy in terms of seclusion not in terms of the transferance of
multi-modal information about a standing patterns of behavior from inside a setting to the
outside and vice versa. When the writings of Edward T. Hall (1969) and Robert Sommer (1969,
1974a) were first published architects were intrigued. It was not, however, until the development
of the concept of defensible space by Oscar Newman that the concept of territorial behavior
and its implications became part of a number of architects’ explicit knowledge base.
The response to the need for security has often been to create gated and guarded
compounds of buildings (Blakely and Snyder 1997, Low 2003). This response is evident
in many countries. Not only is there an obvious physical barrier separating people but
also a third party, a gatekeeper, is used to control admission. The gated housing area has
become the standard unit for middle-income people in the People’s Republic of China and
India today. It is used in many other countries such as the United States to attain a sense of
security. In South Africa many formerly open neighborhoods have been walled and gated
as a deterrent to criminal activity within them. Is the gated community an ideal?
The concern for way finding and built form mechanisms to aid it became part of
the knowledge base of architects soon after the release of Lynch’s book in 1960. Its
popularity continues because the research findings are easily translatable into design
principles in much the same manner that Newman’s studies of defensible space have
proven to be. Architects’ attitudes towards easy way finding differ. Some have sought
to establish a sense of unease. They have achieved this end by distorting perspective
and/or by creating labyrinths. In the design of the Cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena
(1971), Italy, Aldo Rossi deliberately took this tactic to represent, symbolically, a timeless
journey (Broadbent 1990). He reduced the ease of way finding to give people a sense
of insecurity. Much the same end is achieved in the Jewish Museum in Berlin (1999)
designed by Daniel Libeskind (see Figure 14.17). The canonical treatises on the other
hand seek to have sthaptis (mason/contractors) design in specific ways in order to allay
householders’ insecurity and provide them with peace of mind.
The canonical treatises by Chinese and Indian scholars are the architectural theory texts of
traditional builders in those countries. In an age when international architects are working
in China and to a lesser extent in India, it behooves them to be cognizant of these texts if
for no other reason than applying the principles advocated gives a sense of both security to
people who believe in them and a sense of locality to the buildings so designed.
Societies change. Perhaps one day police forces will not be necessary; citizens will all be
law abiding as Garnier fantasized. This end will not, however, be attained simply through
good urban design and architecture although they may help. In the meantime, providing
for safety and security continues to be a central function of the built environment that
designers have to consider (Nadel 2004).
Major References
Altman, Irwin 1975. Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Territory, Crowding.
Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Arthur, Paul and Romedi Passini 1990. Wayfinding: People, Signs, and Architecture. New York:
McGraw Hill.
Committee for the Oversight and Assessment of Blast Effects and Related Research, National
Research Council 2001. Protecting People and Buildings from Terrorism: Technology Transfer for
Blast-Effects Mitigation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Lynch, Kevin 1960. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nadel, Barbara, ed. 2004. Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Newman, Oscar 1972. Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urban Design. New York:
Macmillan, www.defensiblespace.com.
9
Architecture, Financial Security, and Profit
Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This make you
look smart.
Scott Adams, cartoonist
“Form follows finance” declares Carol Willis (1998). The design of any building is
shaped by the cost of its site, its own cost, and the cost of the money required to build it
(Clarke 2004). Often, the basic function of a building is to create an investment yielding
profit to its developers, those who are funding it, and its architects. To gain a profit all
these players may be prepared to forgo design quality on some aspect of the building
they are proposing. The cost of a building is generally seen as a constraint on how much
space can be provided, and on the quality of built-in furnishings and the materials used.
The limitation of funds to pay capital costs is often also a limitation on achieving long
term benefits.
Any city for (example, New York in Figure 9.1a) consists of a mixture of conservative
and speculative investments by property developers. The types and character of the
developments depends on what is regarded as a safe investment in an era. The commercial
building in (b), the offices and apartments in (d), and the houses in (c) reflect what the
contemporary market was demanding. Centre Point in London (see Figure 1.4a) and
Muang Thong Thani (9.1e) were un- or under-occupied for over a decade after they were
erected. Centre Point has proven to have been a safe investment in the long run and
Muang Thong Thani may be too, but we shall have to wait to see.
Capital, Maintenance, and Operating Costs
For any building development, three basic financial concerns almost inevitably shape
its design: capital costs, maintenance costs, and operating costs. Capital costs refer to
the sum of money required to design and construct a building and maintenance costs to
keeping it in a satisfactory enough condition for it be inhabited. Operating costs are those
expended for heating, cooling, and other running expenses.
The capital investments costs required are often the critical factor in making a decision
of whether to build or not. To reduce capital costs in order to make short-term profits,
long-term maintenance costs are often ignored. When a property developer hands over a
building to an owner on its completion, the maintenance and operating costs are passed
on too. As a result there is little pressure on developers or architects to worry about them.
Over the lifetime of a building those costs can be extraordinarily high. Many buildings
and public places such as city squares and memorials that were outstanding works when
constructed are now in an advanced state of disrepair because maintenance costs have
proven to be prohibitive.
Photograph by Alix Verge
a. New York City, USA.
b. The architecture of commercial

pragmatism. Pacific Bell Company, San
Diego, CA, USA.
c. Newbury Estate, NSW, Australia.
d. Multi-use building, North e. Muang Thong Thani, Bangkok, Thailand

Sydney, NSW, Australia (2007). (1992+); Nation Fender, architects.
Figure 9.1 Developers and the financial security of their investments

architecture, financial security, and profit 157
Designing to minimize maintenance and operating costs is particularly important in

those countries in which high quality maintenance is not part of the cultural ethos. In
such countries the rapid deterioration of the newly built environment is often accepted
as the norm, a fact of life, until something serious such as a building collapse happens. In
countries where corruption in the building industry and local governments is endemic,
shortcuts may well be taken in the specification of materials and the way structural systems
are implemented. The consequence can be dire not only when natural catastrophes such
as earthquakes occur but in the day-to-day operational life of a building.
Most property developers are under pressure to build at as low a cost as they can
and, naturally, for what they perceive the market place will accept. The result is that
minimum legal standards for such building characteristics as ceiling heights become the
norm, while what architectural purists would regard as frippery (for example, fountains
in the lobby) that connotes high-status in many nouveau-riche minds are incorporated in
designs. The result of such impacts is a continuation of the architectures of commercial
pragmatism and flamboyant Post-Modernism.
With the recognition of the impact of investment processes on the demand for high
quality environments has come the recognition that such environments have to be
maintained well (Petrovic-Lazarevic 2000). The earth’s resources are finite and new ways
of operating buildings that are energy efficient need to be discovered and implemented.
The initial capital cost of constructing such buildings is often higher than for “ordinary”
buildings but the operating costs are lower and their impact on the environment is less.
As energy costs rise so does the demand for a reduction in the cost of operating
buildings. All five of the buildings shown in Figure 9.2 attempt to do that. The comfort
level obtained is not always what users expect and the goal to attain a LEED [Leader in
Energy and Environmental Design] silver rating is not always matched by performance
(for example, in c; Mulady 2005). In countries where financial resources are limited
operating cost reduction is crucial. The advocacies of Ken Yeang and their application
in design (for example, b) are well known. The designs in (d) and (e) are in the India but
in different climatic zones. They use different climatically sensitive design patterns to
reduce cooling costs.
Key Investors and their Attitudes
Architects and developers working together is an essential part of the construction

industry. It is easy to think of developers as the only people who have a financial stake
in buildings but the picture is more complex. The set of people who have an investment
interest in a building is much larger than standard images suggest. The stereotypes
held of the values that different people have in the investments they make are also often
simplistic. The major players involved in the design of a building include its owners,
property developers, sponsors who provide the financing, architects and other designers,
and the public interest. Each has its own set of concerns. What they have in common is
a desire for financial security in what they do and almost always a pride in the results of
their work.
© T.R. Hamzah and Yeang Sdn. Bhd
a. The Red Centre, University of New South Wales, b. Elephant and Castle, London proposal (2000);
Sydney, Australia (1999); MGT, architects. T.R. Hamzah and Yeang, architects.
c. Seattle City Hall, Seattle, Washington, USA (2002);

BCJ in association with Bassetti, architects.
e. The Torrent Research Centre, Ahmedabad,

India (1997-2000); Abhikram, architects with
Brian Ford Associates, consultants.
d. Club house, Le Olive, Mysore, India (1999); B.S.

Bhoosan, architect.
Figure 9.2 Operating costs and ecological design

Owners
In capitalist societies real estate prices tend to have a firm place in the back of people’s
minds. Investors generally want to be sure that their money yields financial and emotional
profits. Owners come in a variety of forms: private individuals, private corporations, and
public bodies. They have much in common although public organizations can, ostensibly,
take greater risks because financial losses can be recuperated through future tax income
provided a country or a municipality is economically viable.
The financial resources of potential owners of buildings and their degree of optimism
about the future affect their investment decisions. Deciding to build depends on some
confidence that the future is financially sound. Often it is assumed that demands for
land and buildings will continue. In areas of the world where property prices have risen
significantly over the past 30, 20, or even 10 years, people talk in self-congratulatory
tones about the rise in the value of their properties. They talk about their houses as
investments not homes. Such thinking makes considerations of environmental quality
and what might be in the public interest difficult to raise. When prices fall, the economic
and emotional consequences can be shattering. Stress levels soar.
The public sector has sources of finance that are unavailable to the private sector. As
a result projects that are deemed to be in the public interest but financially not viable (or
risky) in the private market place can be undertaken by governments acting as property
developers. However extensive the resources of the public sector might be (and often
they are limited) a desire exists to minimize the costs of development. Greenway, a public
housing development with glorious views (Figure 9.3a) has considerably less invested in
it than the Sydney Opera House (b) either in thought or deed. It serves a different client
group, public interest, and purpose.
a. Greenway Flats, Kirribilli, Australia (1948-53); b. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia (1957-
Morrow and Gordon, architects. 73); Jørn Utzon, architect. Completed by Peter
Hall, architect.
Figure 9.3 The public sector as property developer
Outside academia, few architectural decisions are made assuming there is an infinitely
elastic money supply although another lottery was held for the Sydney Opera House
whenever more money was needed for construction. Costs burgeoned out from a
predicted ten million to a hundred and ten million Australian dollars. The government
was the developer and was fulfilling a perceived public interest goal. As a community
asset it has proven to be financially worth it, indirectly if not directly (Murray 2004).
Much of the world is not as well off as middle-class America or Europe. Security of
tenure of a site is important in slum upgrading as a comparison between two such areas
in Hyderabad, India shows (see Figure 9.4). The inhabitants of the two have similar
incomes and similar caste backgrounds but the investment each has made in its buildings
is vastly different. In Nirankainagar people believe they have tenure (although they do
not legally) while in Indiranagar, they know they do not (Rao 2000, Lang 2002).
a. Nirankainagar, Hyderabad, India in 2000. b. Indiranagar, Hyderabad, India in 2000.
Figure 9.4 Security of tenure and investment decisions
Property Developers
The term property developer covers a variety of types of people and organizations. Some
may be individuals or private sector companies while others are agencies of public bodies.
They vary from get-rich-quickly entrepreneurs who build what novelist Salman Rushdie
calls “cash-on-deliveri towers” (Rushdie 1996), to highly conservative property trusts.
Some developers are individuals, some are private syndicates and small companies, and
others are multi-national corporations. In only rare instances for other than their own
homes are they architects.
The return sought on financial investments has generally been higher for private
than public developers. In cities such as Bilbao, Spain and Glendale, California, USA
public investment was the catalyst for private development (Vidarte 2002, Lang 2005). At
the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, government bodies were the
developers of new towns, urban renewal schemes, and mass housing projects in many
countries. Their goal, particularly in the supply of mass housing was to provide a large
number of units at a minimal cost. The results show it.
The use of public sector investments as a catalyst to create a secure financial
environment for private investors has a long history (Attoe and Logan 1985). The
investment in the building of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Figure 9.5a) by the
Basque administration has not only yielded tourist revenue but has been the basis for
the development of adjacent Abandoibarra (b and c). The plan and other government
investments have encouraged further private development such as the Sheraton Hotel
(d) in the area. The public investment in the Guggenheim and other projects (for example,
e and f) created a sense of security for private investors to develop property in the city.
The role of public developers in large-scale urban design projects has now often been
taken over by private companies. For instance, in Germany, after the reunification of East
and West Berlin, private investors such as Sony and Daimler Benz AG hired architects
to play what is generally regarded as a public sector role in designing plans for the
Potsdamer Platz precinct of Berlin. What has been built (Figure 9.6d) meets the needs
of financial security for the developers better than the designs originally envisaged
probably would have (a and b).
The reasons for private companies taking on traditional public sector roles are
diverse but have to do primarily with attracting other private investors to participate in
large developments. Investors have to feel secure in their investments. A well-planned
development relying on what sells easily creates a sense of confidence that financial
returns will make any investor’s contribution worthwhile. The types of environment
sought owe either a considerable debt to Modernist architectural theory where each
building is seen as an object in space with its own identity, or follow New Urbanist design
principles, or some combination of the two. In the first case the quality of the street has
little to do with how a project functions for pedestrians and much to do with what it
looks like in the foreground of a photograph. The efficiency of vehicular traffic flow is the
urban design goal and a flamboyant architecture is often the building design goal. The
second approach is more recent and the architecture generally appears anonymous.
Two opposing forces that affect architectural practice appear to be working in the
development market today. One is pushing developers to minimal standards in building
and the other, in contrast, is for them to seek high quality buildings designed by major
architects. In the first case, as mentioned above, there is a push to erect buildings of
minimum standards with the addition of what are regarded as prestige items. The
purpose is simply to sell a building or a unit within it as a product. In the second,
associating a famous name with a design is a selling-point.
A note on the globalized investment industry The growth of foreign direct investment flows
in an era of globalization and the types of divisions of labor that now exist in the world
of commerce have led to a concentration of service/commercial buildings in what are
perceived to be the world cities: London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, and Frankfurt
and, increasingly, the rising Asian cities (Olds 2001, Marshall 2003). It has led to a further
heightening of demand for certain building and aesthetic types—commercial, industrial,
and housing—that appeal to global decision makers.
Investments involve risk. Property developers focus on segments of the market that
are likely to prove safe and they stick to building types and styles with which they are
familiar. They are risk averse. They seek secure investments and safe havens for their
money. Many invest internationally. Their architects work internationally too. Many
developments in Vancouver (for example, Figure 9.7a) are financed by Hong Kong
interests and the building forms are derived from the Hong Kong experience. The
housing in San Diego shown in (d) was developed by Canadian interests.
Photograph by Musa Al Farid Drawing by Munir Vahanvati corrected by César Pelli Associates
a. The Guggenheim Museum, (1997); Frank O. b. The proposed Plaza Euskadi, Abandoibarra,
Gehry and Associates, LLP, architects. featuring the Government of Viscaya Building
(2004+); César Pelli and Associates, architects.
c. Development in progress, Abandoibarra, Spain d. Sheraton Hotel, Abandoibarra (2004); Legorreta

in 2006. and Legorreta, architects.
© Arcspace: Courtesy of Kirsten Kiser
e. Sondika Airport (2000); Santiago Calatrava f. Metro entrance; Foster and Partners architects.
Valls, architect.
Figure 9.5 Public investment as a basis for creating a sense of financial security for private
investors—the case of Bilbao, Spain
Drawing adapted from various sources by Thanong Poonterakul Drawing adapted from various sources
by Thanong Poonterakul
b. The Hilmer and Sattler competition

winning scheme (1991).
a. The Richard Rogers Partnership competition

winning scheme (1990).
Drawing by Thanong Poonteerakul
c. The Sony Center (2000); Murphy/Jahn,

architects.
d. The Potsdamer Platz precinct as built (2002). e. The Sony Center atrium.
Figure 9.6 Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany—property developers and urban design
Photograph by George Turnbull
a. Mixed use, predominantly housing, False Creek,

Vancouver, Canada in 2004.
b. Commercial buildings, Lujiazui, Pudong,

Shanghai, People’s Republic of China in 2004.
c. DZ Bank Headquarters, Frankfurt am Main, d. Housing, San Diego, California, USA in 2002.
Germany (1997); Kohn Pedersen Fox, architects.
Figure 9.7 The architecture of the international money markets

Public buildings when provided by private operators are shaped by the obligations they
have to their shareholders as well as to the people who use their services. It might be
thought that it is only when a private operator of a public service seeks a building that
return on investment is a critical factor but governments too are increasingly looking at
their investments in the same way. In addition, competition between architects for work
means that they are cutting their fees and thus putting less thought and effort into the
design of new buildings. They end up being copyists. Standard plans are used for new
buildings but the wrapping is designed to bring attention. The buildings serve as signs
and as advertisements.
Developers and signature buildings Conscious of the financial benefits that can be reaped
by high-style design, developers and home owners have long hired renowned architects
to design buildings and/or their interiors. The Tiene brothers in the sixteenth century hired
Palladio to design prestigious palaces that were a “calculated investment in the family’s
future”. The desire may even be stronger today (Postrel 2003, Clarke 2004, Madanipour
2005, Lislieri 2009). The architects involved are called, sometimes pejoratively, starchitects
and the buildings signature buildings.
The Prada Store in New York (2002) owned by Miuccia Prada and designed by Rem
Koolhaas, is an object of conspicuous consumption and display. Another New York
shop is the La Maison Unique Longchamp designed by Thomas Heatherwick. Having
a design created by a world-renowned architect ensures that it is in the public eye and
that it increases the value of an organization’s assets and by so doing safeguards them.
Businesses (Figure 9.8a, b, c, and d), institutions (e) and universities have found that
enhancing their prestige through prestigious designs is a worthwhile investment.
Superior quality enables developers and realtors to produce buildings for which
purchasers or renters are prepared to pay a higher than standard price. The same
observation applies to showcase building such as museums. They attract more visitors
if they are highly publicized buildings in their own right. Well-known examples are the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Developers,
public or private, also get “symbolic capital” through their association with famous
architects.
A small group of architects considered by their peers and critics to be the elite of the
profession design much of the work that attracts attention. A much larger group produces
the everyday commercial architecture required by clients, public and private. The work
of the former constitutes the foreground buildings of cities while the latter provides the
background. The elite architectural firms can be divided into two groups (Olds 2001).
One consists of those who operate on the world scene—the major architectural firms—
and the other those of the individual superstars. The two often overlap. The first group
consists primarily of the largely faceless firms such as Skidmore, Owings and Merrill,
Kohn Pedersen Fox, and RTKL Associates. At the beginning of the twenty-first century
the second consists of architectural luminaries such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Jean
Nouvel, Richard Rogers, and Santiago Calatrava. What differentiates architects such as
B.V. Doshi and Charles Correa working in India from those architects operating at the
international level is that they are very much concerned with context, working within
local symbolic norms, and often within tight budgets.
Photograph by Tom Lee
b. Torre Agbar, Barcelona, Spain

(2005); Ateliers Jean Nouvel,
architects.
a. The SwissRe Building, London, UK

(2003); Foster and Partners, architects.
c. Lloyds Building, London,

UK (1979-84); Richard Rogers
Partnership, architects.
d. The World Financial Center, Battery Park e. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los
City, New York, USA (1992); César Pelli and Angeles, CA, USA (2003); Frank O. Gehry
Associates, architects. and Associates, architects.
Figure 9.8 Signature buildings

The more commercial firms produce the types of buildings that are seldom regarded
by the cognoscenti as works of art. The firms pride themselves in producing competent
work that may not raise the spirits of the architectural fraternity, but it generally provides
comfortable working and/or living environments on budget and on time.
Architects as developers Other than for their own homes, few architects are developers of
the buildings they design. While designing for themselves gives architects an opportunity
to express their own ideas, their homes also serve as advertisements for their work. A
number of individual architects make their living buying properties, renovating them
and then selling them at profit but few are developers at a larger scale. John C. Portman
III is an exception.
Portman is chairman of Portman Holdings and chief executive officer for John Portman
and Associates, architects. Portman, as property developer and architect, pioneered the
design of hotels with atrium interiors (Figure 9.9a and b). He has been the developer/
architect of major building complexes such as Renaissance Center in Detroit and a
variety of Hyatt hotels. His corporations have developed a wide range of buildings that
have responded to the needs of the market place well. Being a developer has shaped his
buildings. The time spent on their design is kept to a minimum (see Portman 1976, 2003).
Arcosanti (e), in contrast, proceeds to be built on a shoestring. It is not driven by market
forces but by Paolo Soleri’s dreams and his desire to turn a concept into a reality.
Sponsors
Sponsors are the ones who hold the purse strings. Sometimes they are the individuals
who are building for themselves and have the cash on hand to do so. More often they are
banks and other lending institutions in the private sector and governments in the public
sector. Private sector lending institutions tend to be conservative in nature. In boom times
they seem to be lavish with their loan policies but at other times they are very cautious.
Borrowing money costs money in the form of the interest paid on capital. In the course
of paying off a 30-year mortgage the total interest paid is considerable. The rise and fall
of interest rates thus very much affects the willingness of developers to borrow money
and sponsors to loan it.
Public agencies often have a dual role as the sponsors of projects. They provide
the funding for buildings and they act as a surrogate for their future users. In the first
capacity they have generally tended to be frugal in the demands they place on building
quality except when they are sponsoring major government buildings. The low quality
of much public housing around the world and the lack of attention to the quality of the
space between buildings show that the concern has focused on the number of units built
rather than their quality. This attitude is changing as the cost of demolishing cheaply
built projects and building anew in their stead becomes public knowledge.
In their second role the agencies are specifying what the users’ needs are that have to
be met within the budget available. They tend to see users in organismic terms and the
built environment as a provider of shelter. Provision is made only for a minimal range of
activity patterns. This attitude shows in the design program that agencies hand architects
and consequently in the buildings erected (Zeisel 1974, 2006).
Photograph by Charles Rice Photograph by Charles Rice
b. Hyatt Regency, interior.
a. Hyatt Regency (1967), Atlanta, Georgia, USA in

2009; John Portman and Associates, architects.
d. Renaissance Center, interior.
c. Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan, USA e. Arcosanti, Arizona, USA (1969-2030); Paolo
(1973-7); John Portman and Associates, architects. Soleri, architect.
Figure 9.9 The architect as developer

Architects
One of the functions of architectural practice is to provide a living for architects. All
architectural firms are businesses that have to meet a payroll on a regular basis. The
majority of architectural practices are small. It is not the most lucrative of professions
except for those architects who run large firms with substantial fees coming in on a regular
basis. Small or large, architectural firms have to meet budgets and deadlines (Linn 2007).
The design of any building is an open-ended process and there is no stopping rule for
telling an architect when to cease trying to create something better. It is a deadline that
brings the search for the ideal to an end. Architects may regard themselves as highly
creative people, but the opportunities of departing from standard norms are hampered
by financial constraints.
The architects of the globalized world, being astute business people, maintain contacts
with the power elite. They keep a high profile within the industry by speaking at
conferences and teaching at prestigious universities (often at low rates of pay) in order to
bolster their reputations. They create images for themselves. Le Corbusier was a master
of this aspect of life (Turner 1977, Brooks 1997). Architects seek publicity and rewards
for their work. The stars amongst them participate in competitions as entrants (often
by invitation) or as jurors. They remain in the spotlight by attracting attention through
creating designs that startle. Behind the star is a veritable host of supportive players,
many of whom are demanding greater recognition for the ideas they produce.
Historically architects’ fees for a project have been based on a percentage of the total
cost of a building. Expensive high quality buildings yield greater profits. With costs and
return on investment being more and more a major factor in the development of new
buildings, the irony is that the harder architects work to bring down costs, the lower
the fees they get. The way of charging fees has thus been changing during the past 20
years. They are increasingly the subject of negotiation and competitive bidding amongst
architectural firms. The outcome is that much designing and specifying is done in
a hurry with architects relying on precedents and generic forms as the basis for their
design explorations (see Rapoport 1991 and Veseley 2004). They hope those designs will
function at least well enough for people to adapt to them.
The Public Interest
The public interest is represented by zoning ordinances, legal codes, and building by-
laws. Their function is to ensure that designs function well enough at a minimal level.
There is general agreement that the laws should ensure public health and safety and
certainly that they should deal with survival issues. Beyond this level of public interest
concern architects argue about what the laws should cover.
Laws affect design costs to the extent that they shape the bulk of buildings, building
setbacks, requirements for safety from fire, and, increasingly, from earthquake damage.
They also often specify parking requirements. Meeting all these requirements does
increase the cost of buildings but these costs are usually passed on to the consumer.
Without legal constraints developers and their architects would be tempted to cut many
safety corners.
The field of urban design has developed over the past 50 years as architects and the
public recognize that individual buildings however well-designed do not necessarily
constitute a fine urban environment. Design guidelines for precincts of cities are
developed to ensure that the public realm of new developments functions well (Barnett
1982, 1987, Lang 1994, 2005). Architects of individual buildings in such precincts often
feel that the guidelines limit their creativity. Investors worry about profits. Debates about
the utility of guidelines continue but their imposition has resulted in some fine new
precincts of cities.
Finances and Architectural Theory
The relationship between developers and architects is central to design. Without a profit
motive there would be little building. Yet the financing of projects and how it shapes
buildings has fallen outside the domain of architectural theory. The cost of buildings and
the impact of cost on design has not been a major topic of discussion in the architectural
literature. It is only from the last decade of the twentieth century that there have been
important awards of architectural prizes for design excellence with building costs in
mind. Architectural theory has been primarily concerned with dealing with works that
are clearly expensive or mass housing. This situation is unfortunate because the function
of buildings as investments shapes them in many ways. The study of building types
clearly illustrates this point.
Many, if not most, building designs are based on standard types, or generic solutions
to recurring requirements. Their layouts are efficient and meet the needs of the market
place well. The generic hotel type in Figure 9.10a is reflected in the hotel in (b). Many
office buildings have the plan shown in (c) and neighborhood supermarkets have layouts
as shown in (d). Changes occur. Malls such as that in (e) are giving way to types such as
in (f) and the commercial building layout in (c) is giving way to the cores being attached
on the outside. Many hotels are certainly significantly departures from the standard type
(Watson 2005).
Very little attention has been paid to commercial architecture by architectural theorists.
Yet, it is the mundane everyday architecture that gives cities their character however
many buildings seen as works of art they contain. Low building budget design requires
considerable skill and improvisation. Many low cost materials have a stigma attached to
them. Doing simple things like using low cost materials (for example, concrete blocks) in
new ways (such as block on end) changes the usual associations one has with low budget
buildings.
On the periphery of architectural theory has been a concern for vernacular architecture
in which the developer, architect, and builder is the same person (Rudofsky 1964, Oliver
1969). The reason is that there is ironically a strong admiration for what can be achieved
with a minimum of resources. This observation is particularly true for those architectures
whose forms show the plasticity of materials favored by the architectural cognoscenti.
Drawings by Omar Sharif © Erhard Pfeiffer 2010
a. A generic city hotel layout. b. The Westin Charlotte (2003),

Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; John
Portman and Associates, architects.
c. A generic office building d. A generic neighborhood

floor plan. supermarket site plan.
e. Typical shopping mall, New jersey, USA (c. 1970). f. Rouse Hill Town Centre, NSW, Australia (2008).
Figure 9.10 Generic building forms

Major References
Clarke, Paul Walter 2004. The economic currency of architectural aesthetics, in Designing Cities:
Critical Readings in Urban Design, edited by Alexander Cuthbert. Oxford: Blackwell, 28-45.
Madanipour, Ali 2005. Value of Place, in Physical Capital: How Great Places Boost Public Value, edited
by The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. London: The editor, 48-71.
Olds, Kris 2001. Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture and Pacific Rim Projects. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Portman, John 1976. The Architect as Developer. New York: McGraw Hill.
Willis, Carol 1998. Form Follows Finance. Skyscrapers in New York and Chicago. New York: Princeton
University Press.
10
Identity and Community
The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right
to belong … it should be a place where each one of us can find the satisfaction and warmth
which comes from being a member of the community of man.
Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States of America
Identity is a multi-valent word. It deals with the distinguishing characteristics of an

individual, a group, or a community to which a person belongs. It is this last topic that is
of interest in this chapter. It is closely related to the issues of territorial control covered in
earlier chapters and the status of groups and individuals within a society considered in
the next two chapters. Implicit in much architectural theory is that designing to develop
a sense of identity is a function of architecture.
Architects have long been fascinated by the role that buildings and precinct design
plays in promoting a sense of community. The design goal has been to provide people
with a sense of belonging to a society located in a geographical context, a culture, and/
or an era. Much of the rhetoric of the modern movements assumed that the layouts
of precincts and buildings and their aesthetic qualities are the important variables in
creating a sense of community. We are much more cautious about making any such
claim today. The role that building and neighborhood layouts can play in affording the
development of a sense of community or identity should be neither exaggerated nor
lightly dismissed (Langdon 1997, Madanipour 2001).
Sociological and Psychological Communities
Sociological communities are those based on interaction patterns among their members,
and psychological with a sense that people have something in common with each other.
For functional theory the concern is for understanding the role in community formation
of the affordances of different patterns of behavior settings, their aesthetic characteristics,
and the qualities of the milieu. The activity patterns of a population (whether it be the
members of a commercial organization or a residential area) and the aesthetic values
they hold or may come to hold, are key variables in designing for the development of
a sense of identity with a community. The difficulty is that activity patterns can only be
designed for formal organizations not communal ones (Gottschalk 1975). Communal ones
can, however, be identified.
Formal and Communal Organizations
The members of formal organization are held together by contract. The contract may
extend to covering dress codes and uniforms that act as signs to distinguish between
those who belong to an organization and those who do not. Communal organizations
are held together by sets of generally understood obligations based on behavioral norms
within a culture or sub-culture. These norms cover both interaction patterns and elements
of an organization’s material culture including its architecture.
Table 10.1 Formal and communal organizations

Adapted from Gottschalk (1975) by Jon Lang, courtesy of Joe Schenkman
Some Similarities between Formal and Communal Organizations
1. Both are solidarity interactional systems

2. Both are relatively highly institutionalized in that they possess a developed normative
structure, a high level of consensus, and patterned reciprocal expectations
3. Both may include sub-systems of their own as well as of the opposite type
4. Sentimental collectivity orientations (loyalty, commitment) are a variable
Differences between Formal and Communal Organizations
Each of the dimensions may be considered to be representing a continuum
Formal Organizations Communal Organizations
1. Oriented towards a specific defining goal Not oriented towards such a goal
2. Functional collectivity orientation No functional collectivity organization
3. Linked by contract Linked by generalized cooperation
4. Mechanistic interaction Structured freewheeling
5. A formal hierarchy of roles A variety of roles but no formal hierarchy
6. Normative, utilitarian, and coercive forms Only normative power is legitimate
of power are legitimate
7. Can be created externally or by its elements Can only be created by its elements
8. The inclusive system defines the roles of The inclusive system is defined by its
the subsystems subsystems
The behavioral norms of both formal and communal organizations specify the roles and
activities of individuals that are necessary for an organization to function, the nature of
privacy associated with their activities, and their status within the organization. More
broadly, a society may explicitly (that is, formally) or implicitly (that is, communally)
specify the roles of men and women, the elderly and children, and full members and
hangers-on. It will also specify the degree of tolerance that it has for its members’
departures from accepted norms of behavior.
Most commercial firms and institutions have formal structures dictating interaction
patterns but even within highly organized systems of management it is often the informal
networks that keep the organization alive (Gottschalk 1979, Florida 2002). The systems of
management themselves vary considerably. Some are dominated by formal organizations;
others allow the communal to dictate much. The same observation can also be made about
families and kinship systems. Designing well-fitting environments for formal organizations
(even though they may be continually evolving) is easier than for communal ones.
identity and community 175
Spatial and Aspatial Communities
People are members of common interest and kinship communities that are not necessarily
locally based (that is, at the building or neighborhood level). There are many formal
organizations (clubs, professional societies, trade unions, charities, and so on) whose
members may live at a considerable distance from each other. Similarly, the relatives,
friends, and work colleagues of those people whose lives are socially and spatially
mobile may well be widespread. Contact and communications are maintained by letter,
telephone and, since 1994, with the introduction of the Internet, e-mail. Many people
are members of global communities whose members may seldom or never meet face-
to-face.
In commercial, educational, and other formal organizations, the interactions among
their members take place within a designated set of behavior settings. Even here the
organization itself, as well as its members, will be part of communities outside the walls
of a building or boundaries of a neighborhood. The architectural concern, nevertheless,
remains with the identification and design of the behavior settings required to maintain
the functioning of the formal organization and, with greater difficulty, the communal
organizations within it that grease its wheels. It is, however, foolish to think that one
can design complete—“compleat” in Marcia Pelly Effrat’s terms (1974)—territorial
communities.
Table 10.2 Spatial and aspatial communities

Adapted from the studies of Suttles (1972) and Effrat (1974) by Jon Lang
Territorial Number of Functions Provided by a Community

Grounding Many Few
Complete territorial communities Communities of limited liability
Historically villages, small Small neighborhoods and neighboring
Necessary
towns, even cities Urban precincts
Social areas
Community as society Personal communities
Minority groups (ethnic, deviant, Communal institutions
Unnecessary sexual) Voluntary organization, membership
Common interest groups Social networks
(occupational, professional, lifestyle)
A complete territorial community is one in which almost all the activities of a group occur
within a specific bounded and defended area (see Table 10.2). Few such communities exist
today. Those that do are located in extremely remote areas. Some current neighborhoods
may approach being complete territorial communities. The pols of Ahmedabad (Figure
10.1a and b) have clan and caste groups linked by both formal and communal norms
of behavior in gated territories. Ethnically homogenous, territorially defined face-block
neighborhoods (for example, c) have a high degree of social cohesion. People living
in kibbutzim in Israel and co-housing developments (for example, d) share many
a. A traditional neighborhood, or pol, b. Interior view of a pol.

in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India in 1984.
Source: McCamant and Durrett (1988); courtesy

of Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durett
c. South Philadelphia, PA, USA in 1993. d. Trudeslund, Denmark (1978-81);

Vankustein, architects.
Collection of Jon Lang Courtesy of David Bray
e. Gang turfs, Mantua, Philadelphia in 1970. f. Wenxinyuan, Baibuting, Hankou,

People’s Republic of China.
Figure 10.1 Complete territorial communities—do they exist?

common bonds. Gang turfs (for example, e) apply only to teenage youths. The gated
xiaoqu (for example, f) is a common walled unit of residential development in China today.
The formal (governance) organization exists first at the xiaoqu level and then within it at
the block and then at the building level. The result is considerable social cohesion (Bray
2006). None of these examples is however, a complete territorial community. Generally,
people today can be said to live in neighborhoods of “limited liability” (Suttles 1972,
Effrat 1973). They have a few but, possibly, major commitments to their neighbors.
The nature of socio-physical communities The complete territorial neighborhood is one

type of socio-physical community. There are others. Shimon Gottschalk (1975) identifies
four of them based on the links a precinct has with the world outside it, the links between
sub-components of the unit, and the nature of the relationship, formal or communal,
among its members (see Table 10.3)
Table 10.3 A classification of community types

Adapted from Gottschalk (1975) by Jon Lang, courtesy of Joe Schenkman
Communities
Link Type
Planned communities Historical communities
Administered Communities Intentional Communities
Level I high Level I low
Level II high Level II high
Level II high
Level III low Level III high
With level I and II in partnership With level I and III in partnership
(e.g., the company town) (e.g., Oneida, Shakers)
Designed communities Cresive communities
Level I high Level I low
Level II low Level II low
Level II low
Level III high Level III low
With all three levels in partnership (e.g., the folk village)
(e.g., Levittown, Reston)
Key: Level I = external level; Level II = community level; Level III = family level; High = formal organization;
Low = communal organization.
Within this framework the cresive community is essentially a complete territorial unit that
has developed over time in an unselfconscious manner. In it all three types of links are
communal ones. The pol, particularly as it existed in the past, and the folk communities are
the best examples. Their populations share a common heritage. The unity of built form of
their neighborhoods is maintained by unwritten rules about what people can and cannot
do. As they become modernized and social bonds weaken so the understandings are
turned into encoded legal regulations. Jaisalmer is one such community, Mykonos another
(see Figure 10.2). The administered community may have communal organizations at the
family level but the other two links are formal ones. The company town is an example.
There are many such towns around the world (Bucci 1998). The designed community is one
in which families have a high goal orientation and the links to the outside are formal but
the local relationships are communal. They are communities of limited liability. Many
suburban developments are of this type. The intentional community has low links to the
a. Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India in 1985. b. Mykonos, Greece in 1963.
Figure 10.2 Cresive communities
outside world but formal ones at the local and family levels. Historically, religion-based
settlements such as the Shaker and Oneida villages were of this type. Israeli kibbutzim
fall into this category as do, perhaps, more loosely, present day co-housing settlements
(for example, Trudeslund, see Figure 10.1d; McCamant and Durett 1988, Lang 2005,
J. Williams 2005). Gottschalk also identifies four anti-community types (such as George
Orwell’s 1984) but they fall outside the scope of concern here.
The Function of the Built Environment in Community Creation and Maintenance
Buildings through their interior architecture can contribute to people’s sense of

membership in a formal organization. The management style and the nature of the
rewards, financial and psychological, that one receives for being a participant are,
however, usually more important than the architecture. The layout of working and
living environments can, nevertheless, increase the opportunities for interactions and
give people a feeling of pride in being a member of an organization.
Building Layout and Interaction Patterns
To forge a sense of community at the building level it is necessary to create settings where
the standing patterns of behavior of the formal organization can take place easily, but also
incidental settings such as nodes where corridors/paths cross so that accidental meetings
can occur. Incidental settings often require a catalyst (such as a vending machine) to
spark conversation. Plan layouts with these characteristics afford the development of a
sense of a community but they do not cause it to happen.
Where the above criteria have been applied there is evidence of success but only when
the people involved are predisposed to be part of a community. The National Humanities
Center (see Figure 10.3a) was designed to be a refuge for academics to carry out research
independently but also to be a place for them to exchange ideas with scholars in other
disciplines. The physical design supports the intention. The “cells” provide individual
study areas. Setbacks in corridors, lounges that serve as places for seminars and sherry
hours in the evening, and the dining area all provide places for scholars to converse. One
of the formal rules in the dining area is that individuals cannot sit at an empty table if a
seat is available at a partially occupied table.
All kinds of institutions follow a similar line of thinking. Examples are university
dormitories, psychiatric hospitals, homes for the frail elderly and juvenile detention
centers. In recent years, a community-oriented approach has been used in their designs.
Facilities are smaller in size than in the past so that they are not over-manned and have
been designed to be as home-like as possible. A living room with the attributes of home
is often the core communal area/node of such facilities. The residential clusters are also
broken down into small units to establish a community of only a few members. It is this
identification of the activities and spaces that can bring people together that is common
to all efforts to design for a sense of community but it is shared interests that can make
it happen.
In the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles Le Corbusier sought to develop a residential
neighborhood and community within a single building (see Figure 10.3b; Le Corbusier
1953, Jencks 1993). The Unité was proposed to have both formal and communal
organizations. It has a formal organization in its residents’ committee. The building
has shops (now largely closed due to the lack of clientele) and facilities that afford
opportunities for its residents’ paths to cross while conducting day-to-day activities. In
Marseilles, the residents of the Unité have at least partially availed themselves of the
affordances provided. Its residents constitute a community of limited liability. Such
a sense of community has not been characteristic of the other buildings based on the
Unité’s design but they have been only pale copies of Le Corbusier’s communal design
principles (Marmot 1982). That in Berlin also designed by Le Corbusier is simply a free-
standing apartment building with only a post office as a communal facility. The search
for community in a building continues with buildings such as the Mirador in which
subareas are shown on the façade and a communal plaza exits in the sky but there are
few other attributes that would contribute to community formation (Figure 10.3c).
In Singapore, the ground floor of apartment blocks—the undercroft—is left open for
communal events to be held in the shade or out of the rain. A semi-private corridor
space for six to eight units acts as a courtyard in the sky. There is a strong preference
among householders for such space (Yuen 1995). Ethnic minority Indian and Malaysian
populations use the undercrofts more than the ethnic Chinese who prefer hotels and
restaurants for celebrations.
A recent example in Singapore is Bedok Court (see Figure 10.4; Bay 2000; Bay and Ong
2006). Its architect, Cheng Jian Fenn, recognized that privacy and community go hand in
hand (see also Chermayeff and Alexander 1966). The principles of traditional Malaysian
kampongs translated into a multi-floor building and Jane Jacobs’s observations about
street life and territorial control (J. Jacobs 1961) guided the design. In Bedok Court the
paths of movement cross and it is possible to see into the open spaces associated with
other units.
The residents feel that they have a high degree of security, a sense of belonging, and
ownership. There is a loss of privacy because of the high degree of natural surveillance.
Courtesy of Hartman Cox Architects Source: J. Richards (1962). © Yale University Press
ai. Ground floor plan. bi. Cross-section.
Photograph by Walter Moleski
aii. View of the dining area. bii. Exterior view in 1961.
Photograph by Walter Moleski

Photograph by Bu Jinbo
aiii. A corridor with recessed c. Mirador, Sanchinarro, Madrid, Spain

entrances to offices and a lounge (2005), a neighborhood in a building.
below.
The National Humanities Center, North Carolina (1976-8); Hartman Cox Architects, ERG programming
consultants (a), The Unité d’Habitation (1947-52); Le Corbusier, architect (b), and the Mirador designed
by Blanca Lleó, architect (c).
Figure 10.3 Building design and community formation

Collection of Jon Lang Photograph by Victor Lee
a. Bedok Court, view.
Photograph by Victor Lee b. Typical “streets” of open terraces

or courtyards with low fences.
Photograph by Victor Lee
c. Typical sky veranda and outdoor d. Overviewing of activities.

living area.

e. Views down to balconies. f. A garden in the sky.
Figure 10.4 Designing for a sense of community—the case of Bedok Court, Singapore (1985)
Cheng Jiang Fenn of Architects Associated Group, architect.
A small percentage welcome it and the majority do not mind. The high visibility of the
activities taking place in the courtyards creates many affordances for residents to become
familiar with what is going on and thus with the other people living in the complex. The
children act as a catalyst for contacts among adults as they are the major users of the
communal swimming pool (Bay 2000). In such buildings, as in modern neighborhoods,
the residents have limited obligations to each other and have limited amounts of intense
interaction. The affordances exist. No more can really be expected of a design. It must be
remembered that, as in the Unité, its residents have chosen to live there. Although deemed
a success by its residents, designs such as Bedok Court are no longer possible in Singapore;
they contravene too many building safety codes (Bay 2000, Bay and Ong 2006).
Urban Design and Community
At the urban level, the concern among architects has been with enhancing the identification
its residents have with its districts (Lynch 1960). These precincts vary from central business
districts [CBDs], to sub-centers, to residential neighborhoods. During the second half
of the twentieth century a standard paradigm for the design of new towns and the
retooling of cities was strongly advocated by city planners. A city should be subdivided
into districts, often miscalled communities, which were in turn subdivided into smaller
areas called neighborhoods. Each would have a central node. In an era dominated by
automobile transport and now by the ease of communication across space any striving
to create such locally based communities may seem unnecessary. The design model has,
however, remained extraordinarily resilient (Madanipour 2001). It is the basis for much
New Urbanist thinking (see Katz 1994, Kelbaugh 1997, Jivén and Larkham 2005).
Imageable precincts have four characteristics a strong core, or nodal area (in Gertrude
Stein’s terms, “a there there”), a clear boundary (natural or artificial), an architectural
unity, and a name (see Lynch 1960). Often there is a fifth unifying characteristic: the same
type of activities and the same or dominant building use type (for example, a garment or
a theater district). The neighborhood unit model has these characteristics. Whether they
are communities depends on the homogeneity of the interests of the people living in or
using them and/or whether they are unified by a common cause.
The concept has proven to be enduring because it provides a simple but powerful
generic solution for designers to follow (see Figure 10.5a; Perry 1929). The unit as
envisaged by Clarence Perry, a sociologist, consists of an area bounded by major streets
that give a sense of enclosure. It has strong core, or heart, of communal facilities located
within a 400 meter (1/4 mile) radius from all the homes. The streets internal to the
neighborhood are supposed to be as narrow as possible. In the original concept the shops
and apartments were to be located at the outside corners linking one unit to others. Three
such units would provide for a high school where they overlap. An updated version (b),
recognizing streets are the seams for community life, has the common facilities located
along an internal main street. The unit concept is a two-dimensional idea. What needs to
be considered in urban design is always the third dimension.
The most influential instance of a residential area design based on the neighborhood
unit is Radburn, New Jersey, USA (Stein 1957; see Figure 10.6a). Although not fully
completed because of the Depression of the 1930s, the inhabitants of Radburn have a
strong sense of community. The plan (ai) has a set of communal facilities within easy
Source: Perry (1929) Drawing adapted from various sources by Omar Sharif
The neighborhood unit of Clarence Perry (1929) (a) and the neighborhood unit of Duany Plater-
Zyberk (1994) (b).
Figure 10.5 The neighborhood unit concept
walking distance of the homes (that is, less than 400 meters). The success of Radburn
is, however, based on its three-dimensional qualities. The cul-de-sac (aii) shows how
natural surveillance of shared spaces can aid the development of a sense of belonging.
The cul-de-sac is where people come and go; it is also a natural playground for children.
It is the basic face-block neighborhood. Underpasses make the neighborhood safe for the
independent movement of young children to school.
Developers, urban designers, and architects continue to devise residential
“communities.” The developers of Millennium Village in Greenwich, London say it is
to be “a secure, high quality modern community with the traditional values of village
life” (cited in Madanipour 2001; see Figure 10.6b). Such wording can be seen in almost
any newspaper advertising new residential areas throughout the English-speaking
world. Millennium Village is presented as a development for the working and residing
“lifestyles” of the twenty-first century. (Radburn was “for the motor age”; Stein 1957,
Birch 1980). The village consists of residential areas “grouped in communities around a
large village green” (10.6bi). The patterns afford the development of a sense of community
but whether a sense of community develops will depend on the predispositions of the
people living there. The design will not cause it to happen.
Many designs based on similar principles actually predate the neighborhood unit
formulation. Idealistic, communal, social experiments, often associated with religious
organizations and zeal, have their physical expression in the design of settlements. Many
were built during the nineteenth century (Hayden 1976). One of the major successes of
such zeal is, however, a product of the first half of the twentieth century in what is now
Israel. The kibbutzim were self-contained and self-supporting, primarily agricultural-
based, collective settlements that Jewish settlers built in Palestine from 1909 onwards.
Their Zionist creators, conservative in many ways, nevertheless, sought a modern
architecture for their settlements because it was seen as a neutral unifying mechanism for
drawing people from different backgrounds together.
Adapted from Romero (2010) and Stein (1957) Courtesy of Erskine and Tovatt, architects and planners
ai. The plan. bi. Site plan for the Greenwich peninsula.
Courtesy of Erskine and Tovatt, architects and planners
aii. A cul-de-sac in 1994.

bii. Conceptual design for a superblock.
aiii. The central park looking towards the school. biii. Faraday Lodge from across the adjacent wetlands.
Radburn, Fairlawn, New Jersey, USA (1929); Clarence Stein, planner, Henry Wright architect; Marjorie
Sewell Cautley, landscape architect (a) and Greenwich Millennium Village, London, UK (1990+); Erskine
and Tovatt, architects and planners (b).
Figure 10.6 Neighborhoods and communities

The Nahlal settlement (1921) designed by a German architect, Richard Kauffmann, was
built in the western Jezreel Valley. Forced by necessity into a cooperative communal
life, the Kibbutzim were based on both socialist and Zionist principles. As designed by
Kauffmann, the public buildings of Nahlal are at the center of a concentric circle. The
homesteads are in the inner circle, the farm buildings in the next circle and the gardens
and fields beyond. It is governed by a well-developed set of formal organizations. It is
an intentional community but for a number of its members who live their lives within its
confines, it is a complete territorial community.
The creation of social and physical communities, particularly at the child-rearing stage
of life, continues with the co-housing settlements (J. Williams 2005). Mainly Scandinavian
in origin, they exist in a number of countries. They have been designed specifically to
afford the activity patterns associated with, at least, a partial communal life. They are
based on formal organizations with rules for sharing obligations. There is usually a
shared kitchen/dining room and childcare facilities. In addition, other requirements such
as laundry facilities are in central block and each set of residential units has a playground.
These common facilities are the catalyst for people getting together informally and
forming communal ties. (For an example see Trudeslund in McCamant and Durrett
(1988) or Lang (2005); see also Figure 10.1d.)
From the success and failures of Modernist designs we have learnt that streets are
the seams for neighborhood life. During the early twentieth century Raymond Unwin
introduced the cul-de-sac as a mechanism that would promote neighborliness. The goal
was to develop a sense of a local street block community. Cul-de-sacs have been widely
used in North America, Australia, and in the United Kingdom. The pattern is, however,
now often dismissed by architects as “old-fashioned”. Service personnel and police
do not like them. The evidence on the functioning of cul-de-sacs in the development
of a sense of community is mixed. They are certainly much loved by many residents
(Thompson 2006) and function well on many dimensions of human life in Radburn and
elsewhere.
Most residential areas being built today are culturally diverse. People tend to be linked
by a similarity in income level. Battery Park City in New York, a new-town-in-town in
1970s terms, is clearly a district and its residents certainly identify with the area as a
whole but many overlapping communities exist within the bounded area of the precinct.
It also houses communities consisting of people who are not resident in the area but
work there. It is a social community for only a few.
The true neighborhoodites Much of the research on neighboring behavior has focused
on adults and found them increasingly metropolitan rather than parochial people. It is
those who have restricted mobility for whom the local area is important. They are the
poor, children and their mothers, and the frail elderly. Fear of traffic and of “stranger
dangers” has made many neighborhoods less congenial for children, in particular, than
in the past. Suburban environments with their low traffic volumes enable children to
have considerable freedom to roam on bicycles. Sadly many lack the variety of features
that make for truly educational environments (see Chapter 13). For many women they
are a trap (Popenoe 1977, P. Williams 2009) although the development of “edge cities”
and the opportunities they afford has made them less so than in the past.
Aesthetic Qualities and Group Identity
Clothes serve many purposes. They protect people from the weather, and from the gaze
of others. They also identify people as members of a group and often their social status.
The same holds true for buildings. Issues of status are addressed in Chapter 12. The
concern here is with the achievement of a sense of belonging through a unity in design.
Aesthetic Unity, Identity, and Precinct Design
Visually unified precincts of cities suggest that their residents share common values. In
them the buildings are uniform in massing, materials, style, and color. Five of the six
examples shown in Figure 10.7 are predominantly housing districts but contain a variety
of uses. The sixth is a business district. They possess a cohesive street pattern and building
massing and style. The buildings of the Back Bay Reclamation area of Mumbai are of
uniform height and Art Deco in character. The area is clearly bounded by the Arabian
Sea on the west and by open space on the north and east and by high-rise buildings on
the south. It says little about its location in India other than that the Art Deco captured
the hearts of many British colonial and Indian architects working in the city during the
1930s (Lang et al. 1997, Lang 2002).
New Urbanist schemes from Battery Park City (see Figure 10.8a and b) to Seaside (c
and d) to those currently being designed follow the fundamental design principles of the
neighborhood unit. The buildings tend to follow some standard pattern. In three of the
cases (a, c, and e) past local building patterns have been followed. Cambridge Housing
(f) is different. It does not follow the Philadelphia row-house tradition but rather an
image of an architecturally unified suburb. It is much loved by its low-income residents.
It achieves a unity through similarity in design but the houses are also seen as a higher
status type than row-housing even though Philadelphia has high-income row-house
neighborhoods.
The case of Battery Park City in New York is instructive. Its urban design and
architectural goal was to create a precinct with a foreground core that was international
and the other components “New York” in character so that it would be seen as belonging to
the city (Barnett 1987, Gordon 1997). Its core, the World Finance Center, is an international
signature building designed by César Pelli. The background buildings have an aesthetic
character modeled on the buildings of the residential areas of the city much loved by New
Yorkers such as Gramercy Park and Morningside Heights. The architectural variables of
concern—the way the buildings meet the street line, their massing, the nature of the bases
and cornices, the material used on the façades, the location of string courses, and the
ratio of solid to window space on the façades—are similar to the buildings in those areas
(Barnett 1987, Lang 2005). Whether the model chosen is truly New York is debateable
because there are many New Yorks. The essential variables to consider if this approach is
chosen to locate buildings in a particular geographical niche are, nevertheless, the above
variables plus the traditional use of decoration.
Ethnicity and urban design in multi-cultural countries Ethnic neighborhoods in cities

take on the patina of their residents over time. They can often by distinguished by the
changes people have made piece-by-piece to standard building types. The changes
a. Backbay Reclamation, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (c. 1920s to 1970s). The erstwhile Bombay
Municipal Corporation, planners.
b. Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset, UK c. Mass housing, Bilbao, Spain

(1990s); Leon Krier, urban designer. (1970s).
d. Bahçeşehir, Turkey in 2008. e. Proposed Beijing CBD, P.R. China in 2002.
Figure 10.7 Districts

a. Battery Park City, New b. Battery Park City housing.

York City, USA (1979-2000).
Drawing adapted from a number of sources by Alix Verge Photograph by Ruth Durack
c. Seaside, Florida, USA, Plan (1981+); Duany d. Seaside: a view from the
Plater-Zyberk and Company, urban designers. northeast looking west.
e. Poundbury, Dorset, UK (1993+); Leon Krier, urban f. Cambridge Housing, Philadelphia, PA

designer. USA (1999-2001); WRT, architects.
Figure 10.8 The aesthetics of community and the New Urbanism

to the public façades of buildings address the nature of entrance steps, cornice lines,
and window types, and what is displayed in the windows for passers-by to see. Irish
and Italian communities have, for instance, very differently personalized Philadelphia
rowhouses (Figure 10.9a and b). In the Irish neighborhoods each house tends to
have been personalized in the same manner while in the Italian ones, although each
householder is using essentially the same kit of parts (front steps oriented to the side,
bay or bow windows replacing standard ones, awnings over south-facing windows,
and emboldened cornice lines), each has been personalized in a unique manner. With
some notable exceptions (for example, in Singapore; see Figure 10.9e) Chinatowns
across the world have been developed in existing city precincts. These precincts vary
considerably in building forms but they are easy to recognize as Chinatowns by the
personalization of building details (see Figure 10.9c).
Some migrants want to fit into their new surroundings and adopt the house styles
that they believe are local types. Their perception of what constitutes a local type may
well deviate from those that locals perceive to be typical. Thus a migrant to Australia
may build a classical revival house in the belief that it is what is Australian rather than a
Federation style house that might be regarded as more typical.
Building appearances and identity In heterogeneous cities, people may continue to use
the elements of traditional houses when building new ones, even though the elements
are no longer used for activities. The patterns act as a sign of identity. For example
Hindu houses in Srinagar’s Muslim areas retain traditional verandas and in Bali, Hindu
houses may keep the traditional courtyard complex even if all modern activities take
place under one roof (Dewi-Jayanti 2003). Much the same can be said for the porches in
Seaside, Florida. They are relics of the past that belong to a specific region. A continuity
of style is chosen to give identity to it. Also associated with particular communities are
places where historical events occurred. In the latter case the nature of the architecture is
incidental to the meanings embedded in a building.
Some critics feel that using past forms anew fails to locate a building in an era so argue
for the application of abstractions of those forms in new buildings but will anybody who
has not been instructed recognize the abstractions or if they do not recognize them will
they subconsciously feel a sense of the pattern being part of their cultures? The research
indicates not (Groat and Canter 1979). The approach is something for the appreciation
of the cognoscenti. Neo-vernacularism does more. It draws on historical spatial patterns
but is rooted in designing for today. It falls between the abstract symbolism of Venturi
and the literal localism of historical revivalism (Perera 2005; see also Figure 1.8). Much
such work is, however, simply a collage of spatial types and images. Revivalism takes
two forms. The first is the direct copying of past forms, and the second the direct use
of past design principles especially those embodied in religious or quasi-religious texts
such as Feng Shui and the Shilpa Shastras.
As discussed in Chapter 8 the canonical texts have usually been used literally in a
revivalist manner. The principles can, however, be followed in a modern manner to give
a building’s inhabitants, it is claimed, a sense of who they are not through the appearance
of a building or neighborhood but because of the magnetic forces of their spatial qualities
(Bubbar 2005; see Figure 8.13). One feels their qualities, it is said, subconsciously. Some
architects take liberties with many of the canons. For instance, in his use of the nine
a. Southwest Center City, Philadelphia in 1993.
b. Pemberton Street, Bella Vista, Philadelphia

in 1993.
c. Chinatown, Chicago in 1993.
d. Entrance to Little Village, an Hispanic area in Chicago e. Shophouses, Singapore.

in 1993.
Figure 10.9 Neighborhood personalization and ethnic identity

square mandala in the plan of the Jawahar Kala Kendra (1986-92) in Jaipur, India, and in
the design of the Vidhan Bhavan (1980-2000) in Bhopal, Charles Correa departed from
the pure mandala form. In the former case, following the precedent set in the plan of
Jaipur itself, one square is dislocated from the others. In the latter case, the mandala
has been turned into a circle and the center square instead of being open to the sky is
the central hall of the assembly building (Lang 2002; see Figure 8.13b and c). Less of a
departure is the Mahindra United World College in Pune, India designed by Christopher
Benninger (Figure 10.14d).
Public Art and Community Identity
Sculptures and murals are often used simply to enliven a dull space. Over time they may
become associated with a community, a source of pride, and serve as territorial markers
(Hall and Robertson 2001; see Figure 10.10). There is no mistaking the ethnic identity
of the area of the mural shown in (a). The meaning of the statues in (b), (c), (d), and (e)
requires some special knowledge. The Picasso work shown in (b) is now very much
symbolically identified with Chicago. Portlandia (e) could do the same for Portland but
Michael Graves, its designer and copyright holder, fears it would become a symbol on
tacky trinkets.
City administrations use modern art objects (as well as prestigious buildings) to
boost their city’s status in the eyes of the outside world and, in some cases, to change
its identity in the world’s eye from being “gritty cities” to places of culture. Pittsburgh
in the USA, Bilbao in Spain, and Bristol in the United Kingdom have done so. Many
of the Ruhr Valley cities are attempting to do so now (Hough 2004). Such a process
is often called “re-branding” (Van Gelder and Allan 2006). In contrast, public art can
be used to reflect local histories and so enhance people’s esteem and sense of who
they are especially if they are of minority or under-privileged populations (Hayden
1989). Avant-garde art is more successful in supporting the establishment of cultural
enclaves in cities.
Memorials are reminders of past events and people of significance. Memorials
can give a sense of identity and pride to a people. There are many memorial arches
around the world (for example, Figure 10.11a and b). The design of memorials can
be controversial. The Vietnam War memorials in Washington, DC give a sense of a
common bond to the American troops involved in the Vietnam War (or American
War to the Vietnamese). The first memorial (c and d) was not aimed at arousing the
self-esteem of the people involved. It reminds the viewer of the supreme sacrifice
that individuals made. People familiar with the list of names on European memorials
to the World War One and Two dead were not surprised by the emotional impact of
the design. The second memorial (e) created because the first was perceived to be too
abstract, draws less attention despite it being a literal representation of American
service personnel.
a. A San Francisco neighborhood.
b. Unnamed sculpture, Daley Plaza, Chicago,

Illinois, USA (1965); Pablo Picasso, sculptor.
c. Sproule Plaza, University of California at Berkeley.
d. Monument to Miguel de Cervantes, Madrid, Spain e. Portlandia, Portland, Oregon, USA (1980); Michael
(1925-30, 1956-7); Lorenzo Coullaut Vallera, sculptor. Graves, architect.
Figure 10.10 Public art and identity

a. The Arch of Septimus Severus, Leptis Magna,

Libya (c. 200).
b. Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, Grand Army

Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, USA (1870 and 1892); Frederick
Law Olmsted and Charles Vaux, architects.
c. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington,

DC, USA (1982); Maya Ying Lin, architect.
d. A close-up view of the wall with the names of e. The Three Servicemen Memorial, Washington, DC
the American war dead. (1984); Frederick Hart, sculptor.
Figure 10.11 Memorials, shared histories, and a sense of community

Dealing with Cultural Diversity
The perception of shared values is a prerequisite for the formation of a sense of community.
The people living in Radburn, in the Unité d’Habitation, and Bedok Court chose to live
there based on such a perception. Dealing with cultural diversity is difficult. The social
policy to mix diverse populations to create, perhaps, a melting pot of values has a long
history. It was the goal of social reformers in the nineteenth century in Europe and North
America and of many of the new towns of Europe and countries of immigrants such as
Israel in the twentieth (Talen 2006). The desire was to break down social barriers among
groups of differing origins and/or status through building a diversity of residential unit
types, unit sizes, and activity and streets types in a locale. The diversity of types does
afford the possibility for people at various stages in life cycle and cultural backgrounds
to live in close proximity; it does not cause it to happen. How does one really successfully
integrate a diversity of people, buildings and uses into a unit with an identity?
Herbert Gans (1972) suggested that building types should be grouped into homogenous
units on the micro scale adding up to an integrated area at a macro scale. The individual
components should have easy access to the integrating elements (such as a school and
shops). The neighborhoods in the new town of Qiryat Gat in Israel (1990+) were designed
in this way. The neighborhoods were divided into sub-neighborhoods each with about
200 families. The populations of the sub-neighborhoods were designed to be ethnically
homogeneous based on immigrant background. The whole neighborhood of about a
thousand families would thus be of six major cultural backgrounds. The data on the
functioning of such neighborhoods are contradictory and long term outcomes difficult
to assess.
Symbolic Aesthetics and Cultural Diversity
Many cities are inhabited by diverse groups of people. Each group wants to be
acknowledged—some more so than others. While architectural symbols may be low on
the totem pole of mechanisms that give an identity to a people they are, nevertheless,
potent carriers of messages. The design goal has been to have squares, buildings, and
memorials that carry meaning for each group without being seen as an insult to others.
There are two basic ways of achieving this end. One is by having individual buildings
and other design features that independently represent each group. The other is by
incorporating symbols of each group in buildings of significance to the whole. Whichever
route is chosen, architects may have to rely on narratives that explain to people what the
patterns of a building represent. The alternative is to rely on international Modernism
to provide a neutral aesthetic as was done in the design of Nahlal Kibuttzim and in
Brasília.
Attempting to integrate the symbols of different groups into a single composition is
difficult. Colonial authorities often attempted to do so. Indo-Saracenic architecture is such
a type (Figure 10.12a and b). It was contemporary British with predominantly Islamic
details. After independence, the Gandhi Memorial (c) encompasses Hindu, Muslim, and
Christian symbols to reflect Gandhi’s vision of a unified India. The Alliance Francaise
building (d) attempts to reflect France and India. Those not aware of the sign system have
to be told about it before recognizing it. The same would have been true of Parliament
Photograph by Gryffindor; Source Wikimedia Commons
b. Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, Malaysia

(1910); Arthur Benison Hubback, architect.
a. The Senate House, University of Madras,

Chennai, India (1879); Robert Fellows
Chisholm, architect. A 1936 addition is in
the background.
c. Gandhi Memorial, Barrackpur, West d. Alliance Francaise de Delhi, New Delhi,

Bengal, India (1948); Habib Rahman, India (2007); Stephanie Paumier and ABRD
architect. Architects.
Source: Grabrijan and Neidhardt (1957); Source: Grabrijan and Neidhardt (1957);
courtesy of Dijana Alic courtesy of Dijana Alic
e. The proposed Parliament House, Sarajevo, f. The components of the proposed building.
Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina)
(1955); Juraj Neidhardt, architect.
Figure 10.12 Symbolism and cultural diversity

House, Sarejevo (10.12e). Here the Tower (Sahat Kula) was to represent Christianity, the
Ljuske (shell) a mosque and the Doksa (bay-window) and Trijem (verandah) the Islamic
domestic architecture of Sarajevo (f) (Grabrijan and Niedhart 1957, Alic 2010).
It is not easy to maintain an alliance between culturally heterogeneous people as the
disintegration of countries such as Yugoslavia attests. Belgium has been divided into
two. India has seen states sub-divided and re-sub-divided on cultural and/or linguistic
lines. Such geographic divisions make the celebration of group identities in a bounded
locale easier. The danger is that the overall sense of union gets minimized.
Destroying Identities
The potency of buildings as symbols of identity can be seen in places where the
populations of areas of a city have changed from one ethnic and/or religious group to
another. Existing buildings can be adopted by the new group as their own by adding or
deleting components. They can also be destroyed as a means of obliterating the memory
of a previous population. Much depends on the relationship between the old and new
groups. Many Indo-Saracenic buildings in countries such as India, Pakistan, and Malaysia
have simply become part of the new urban scene in the post colonial era and probably
only the cognoscenti recognize them as buildings designed by British architects. Hagia
Sofia, a Byzantine basilica, had minarets added to it to Islamicize it (see Figure 4.4b). The
same solution was applied to the Gothic cathedral, St Nicholas in Famagusta, Cyprus
after the partitioning of the island into Turkish and Greek zones in 1974. Symbols were
added to Tripoli’s Catholic cathedral to turn it into a mosque (Figure 10.13c). Worshipers
now face towards Mecca as the lines of the carpet indicate and not down the nave (d).
The mihrab is on the western wall and not where the altar was. The headquarters of the
Japanese government in Korea, a fine neo-classical building (10.13a) destroyed Korean
geomancy rules. After much debate it was demolished in 1995 and the Gyeongbok Palace
rebuilt (b) (Chung 1998).
The situation becomes more complex when one ethnic group totally replaces another
as in areas of New York such as the Bronx where Jewish immigrant groups have long since
given way others. What happens to the old synagogues? In Cochin, Kolkata, and Pune
in India the synagogues stand as unscathed, if aging, architectural memories to minority
populations that have moved on. In the same country during the 1990s, however, Hindu
fundamentalists tore down the Babri Masjid in Ayodyha that had been built on the site
of a Hindu temple by Islamic invaders/settlers during the Mughal era centuries ago.
Central Johannesburg has been largely destroyed in the post-apartheid era. Sadly such
events have occurred regularly in history.
A number of infamous events took place during the twentieth century. In November
1938 Reichskristallnacht saw the state-sanctioned destruction of Jewish properties in
Germany. Sri Lanka had its own such night during the 1980s when Buddhist priests
ransacked Tamil owned properties. In Bosnia the situation was similar between 1992
and 1996. The destruction of Islamic buildings by the Serb-Christian population was
intentional and systematic and part of the process of ethnic cleansing (Alic 2004). Over
90 percent of the mosques were heavily damaged or destroyed (Riedelmayer 2002). In
Sarajevo, the Islamicized Town Hall stood as a symbol of unity although the city had a
a. The Japanese General Administration Building,

Seoul, Korea (1926, demolished 1995); George de
b. Gyeongbok Palace, Seoul (reconstructed late
Lande, architect.
1990s).
d. Interior; Majeed Jamal Abdul

Nassar.
Photograph by Dijana Alic

c. The Catholic Cathedral, Tripoli Libya (1928);
now the Majeed Jamal Abdul Nassar (1970-2003).
Courtesy of Dijana Alic
e. Sarajevo City Hall, Bosnia and Herzegovina f. The City Hall after the shelling in
(1894) in 1912; Alexander Wittek and Ćiril Metod 1993.
Iveković, architects.
Figure 10.13 Changing/destroying the identity of a building and a place

60 percent Christian population. It stood as a symbol of the unity of the town’s diversity.
Serbian forces shelled it heavily in 1992 (Figure 10.13e). Sculptures also stand as powerful
symbols of identity. The leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar,
ordered the destruction of 1,500-year old figures of Buddha in the name of God and the
Koran. The names of Moses, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and the myriad Hindu gods have all
been evoked to justify such destructive acts.
Identity and Architectural Theory
Architects have long recognized that both the layouts of the environments they design
and the symbols that they use are powerful communicators of identity. Architectural
theory has been concerned with how architecture can elevate the spirit, with issues of
national and regional identity, and with how architects might be grouped into schools
of common identity. What this chapter has shown is that one of the central functions of
architecture is, indeed, its communication and symbolic function.
The mid-twentieth-century Rationalists who addressed issues of community included
people such as José Sert and organizations such as MARS [Modern Architectural Research
Society] in London. The Empiricists included Clarence Stein and Henry Wright as well
as Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the latter group that has persisted with the search for an
understanding of community formation. Today it is the New Urbanists exemplified by
Francis Duany and Elizabeth Platter-Zyberk and by Peter Calthorpe who continue the
search for community through design (Katz 1994, Kelbaugh 1997). Many unsung firms
also grapple with the same issues.
One of the key Rationalist aspirations was to create housing designs, particularly mass
housing designs, that obliterated both class and individual distinctions. A good example
of this desire is the mass housing in Brasília (Figures 1.11d and 11.2g). Another is the 23
de enero housing in Caracas. In contrast, the individual custom house design gave an
identity to its owners as part of the intellectual avant-garde. The Villa Savoye (1929-31;
see Figure 11.2a) clearly identified its owners as part of the aesthetic elite (Eaton 1969).
This attitude is even clearer in the houses architects design for themselves.
Empiricists have relied more heavily on the associative meanings carried by precedents.
Like the Rationalists they have recognized the important function of symbols in denoting
both class and individual identity. Both Rationalists and Empiricists over-emphasize the
power of the built environment to shape the nature of organizations. They have probably
been closer to the mark in recognizing the importance of the symbolic functioning of
architecture in giving an identity to groups of people.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century there seem to be five architectural approaches
being used by designers in their efforts to establish a sense of belonging to a place. As
introduced in Chapter 1 they are the International Modernist, a Neo-Modernist approach
that includes a focus on the local context (see Figure 10.14e and f), a Post-Modernism (in
a variety of mixed forms ranging from buildings as sculpture and high art to a type
of Las Vegas Modern), Revivalism, and fifthly Neo-Vernacularism and New Urbanism.
The first three are being used to show that one is looking ahead and that one identifies
with the community of international architectural ideas. The fourth is used to establish
a sense of locality and a way of life while the fifth is used to say “this is who we are”.
Drawing by Munir Vahanvati
a. The 23 de enero (originally 2 de diciembre)

housing, Caracas, Venezuela; Carlos Raúl
Villanueva, architect. b. A view of a housing block, 23 de enero housing.
Photograph by Mark L. Brack Courtesy of the architect
d. Mahindra United World College, Pune, India

(1995-8); Christopher Benninger, architect.
c. The “glass house”, New Canaan, Connecticut,
USA; Philip Johnson, architect.
e. Plan, Quinta da Malagueria housing, Évora, f. View, housing, Quinta da Malagueria (see also
Portugal (1977-92); Álvaro Siza Vieira, architect. Figure 1.6e).
Figure 10.14 Modernist and Neo-Modernist approaches to the creation of a sense of place
In countries such as the United States and those of Western Europe, the Neo-Modernist
and Neo-Vernacularist attitudes are most prominent but in many Asian countries all
five attitudes can be seen displayed in recent designs. The mass housing projects of the
Modernists sought an international identity. Attitudes now vary from the international
as an individual expression (10.14c) to a conscious concern with designing for locality
(d). Some Neo-Modernists have explicitly striven for an identification with a local place
in their work rather than being international (for example, e and f).
Many city administrations are striving to make their cities part of the modern
international community of world cities. They desire to compete effectively in attracting
international corporations to locate in them. The exhibition of this type of “modern”
follows one of two patterns that go under the rubric of Post-Modernism. The first approach
is for buildings to be fabricated with shiny materials—marble, steel, and glass—with a
variety of novel geometric forms. The second is to use elements of classical architecture—
pediments and columns of various types mixed with local referents (see Figure 1.6cii). It
must be recognized that the architects working in these modes and their clients seek to
belong, not to a local community but an international community of business executives.
The results fit the desire well.
The search for visual novelty has bored a number of property developers and architects,
major and minor. Some have been reviving sacred geometries in new architectures, and
yet others have abstracted what they perceive to be the essence of past traditions. Drawing
on traditional patterns is one way of establishing a sense of a building belonging to a
people. Sometimes it is part of an overall form that is used (for example, the roof form in
Figure 10.15f) and at others it is a whole style.
The buildings, particularly mosques, designed by Abdel Wahed El-Wakil follow
traditional patterns (Holod 1983, Al-Asad 1992). Many Christian churches are also in
traditional if not revivalist forms. The Vidhana Soudah (1952-7; Figure 10.15a) in Bengaluru
(formerly Bangalore), the capital building of the Indian state of Karnataka, is essentially
a British building (its chief architect was educated at the Architectural Association in
London). Being built shortly after independence it is clothed in Dravadian garb as the chief
minister of the state decreed. Prior to its erection a Russian delegation had asked him why
there were no Indian buildings in the city (Lang, Desai, and Desai 1997, Lang 2002). The
Vidhana Soudah was his response. Many such examples can be identified (Figure 10.15).
The split gate, candi bentar, traditionally demarcating the entrances to temples but
also common buildings in Bali, Indonesia is now employed in a variety of contexts to
show tourists that they are on the island. It has also been widely used elsewhere in the
archipelago to represent the uniqueness of Indonesia. It, for example, flanks the entrance
to the Jakarta International Airport. In using the gates in this way the religious and social
meanings are lost as they are in the Dravidian symbolism of the Vidhana Soudah.
A Comment on Designing for Sense of Place
All places have a “sense of place”. Architectural critics have looked at vernacular
housing for inspiration in creating a sense of place but learning from the everyday
modern world seems to have been neglected. The strip shopping area, as an example,
is clearly a phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century (see Figure 10.16).
Architects and landscape architects generally neither like them nor the architecture of
a. The Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru, India (1956); Mysore b. M.S. Ramaiah Institute, Bengaluru, India
(now Karnataka) Public Works Department, architects. (1996+).
d. Breakwater Theater, Abu Dhabi (2005), UAE;

AREX, architects.
c. Riverside, Richmond upon Thames, England (1984-7);

Quinlan Terry, architect.
e. The Court House, Ajman, United Arab Emirates (2006). f. Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China (2002).
Figure 10.15 Revivalism as a technique for establishing a sense of regional identity

Figure 10.16 Route 7 in Rutland, Vermont and Harrisburg Pike in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
their individual buildings. They are said to be “placeless” (Hough 1990). What is meant
by this observation is that they are not localized into a particular geographical context.
They can, however, be identified with a time in history—the automobile era—and the
USA in particular.
When phenomenologists talk about a sense of place they usually mean the relationship
of a building or urban design to its immediate geographical locale (Norberg-Schulz 1965,
1980, 1988, Hough 1990, Jivén and Larkham 2003). A sense of place, given this meaning,
emerges from the topography and climate of a place and the responses to them. Adding
to these factors are the people, the way they display themselves through the clothes they
wear and their activities. A sense of place thus depends on the qualities of the behavior
settings that exist in a locale, and the way the milieu is constructed in response to local
conditions and traditions. The associations that a pattern of the milieu has with people,
events and myths are less tangible and less immediately obvious to the uninformed.
Creating a new architecture that represents the sense of a place is fraught with
difficulties. An “invented traditionalism” has been one approach. Perhaps, Frank
Gehry succeeded in his early work through using cheap materials—exposed plywood,
corrugated metals, and chain link fences—in his own house (1977-8; see Figure 1.10b)
in Santa Monica and others in the vicinity. “The unfinished look of the style seemed
right for Los Angeles—a sort of critical regionalism as advocated by Kenneth Frampton”
(Foster 2001). It is a highly intellectual approach and few lay people would say the Gehry
House is particularly representative of its era in Los Angeles.
The effort to invent a new architectural type that locates itself securely in the modern
world is exemplified in the high-rise buildings designed and proposed by Ken Yeang
in Malaysia. His designs strive to deal with the climatic conditions of the tropics, the
need for ventilation through the creation of voids and terraces, and the use of abundant
vegetation to provide cooling and to reduce heat island effects. He employs what might
be called Neo-Modernist formal patterns (Yeang 1996; see Figures 1.9d and 9.2b).
When one is thinking of building in context and the relationship of new buildings to
the existing, one is inevitably concerned with the public policy aspects of architecture.
Historically, as noted earlier in this chapter, in tight-knit communities, such as in the
Aegean Islands, the North-African Islamic city, or the pols and mohallas of northern India
cities, there were sets of understood rules about what could be built where and how.
Deviation from the rules let to the ostracism of the people involved (Hakim 1986). One
clearly gets a sense of a locale in such places.
Conclusion
We understand much about the nature of communities and about how architecture can
to some extent provide people with a sense of whom they are and might be if their
aspirations are met. Opposing Revivalist and Modernist ideas about how to achieve a
sense of place were boldly stated during the last quarter of the twentieth century. In some
situations Modernist ideas have been abandoned in favor of Revivalist but often it has
been the other way around. People have wanted to appear up-to-date. The proponents
of both ways of thinking about appropriate architectures have considered themselves to
be solving contemporary problems.
Being identified with the up-to-date and international world rather than local is
important to many individuals and corporations. Often the architectural choices they
make may not seem sensible. Reinforced concrete was seen as the up-to-date material
in the 1930s and was used even when it was not the best choice structurally. Metal
fabrics, desirable or not, have now become a symbol of up-to-dateness and can be seen
in a number of recent buildings—for instance, in the Sony Center in Berlin designed by
Helmut Jahn. The American Folk Museum (completed 2001) in New York designed by
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien is another building where the metal cladding of tombasil
(an alloy of copper, zinc, manganese, and nickel used for boat propellers) spells up-to-
dateness. Internally the building is a more a Modernist design of interpenetrating spaces.
Herzog and de Muron used Corten (pre-rusted steel) in the Caixa Forum in Madrid
(completed 2009; see Figure 15.3f) and Frank Gehry uses titanium and stainless steel
cladding. They are materials that one associates with the early twenty-first century!
More sensibly, perhaps, reduced energy consumption buildings are being identified
with the up-to-date world particularly in European countries such as Germany and
Switzerland where operable windows and cross ventilation is required by building
regulations. Architects have pushed the boundaries of our present knowledge of how to
design such buildings and have developed some startlingly new building forms. New
building forms shock!
Many new forms that were a shock when they were first introduced are often later
taken up and embraced. The Gramercy Park area of New York was a departure from the
norm when it was built. It is now a model for a number of the Neo-Traditional buildings
in New York. Le Corbusier’s architecture was a shock to India but has been taken up
in Chandigarh even by low-income groups and is known as Chandigarh Architecture.
Not noticed buildings can later become classic. The best know of such buildings is
arguably Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion for the Barcelona Exhibition (1928;
rebuilt 1992; Figure 10.17). A small building originally regarded as unremarkable, it
has with its own plan and precious materials become a revered landmark in the history
of modern architecture.
Photograph by Tom Lee
Figure 10.17 The German Pavilion (1928), Barcelona, Spain

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect; “Morning” by George Kolbe.
Major References
Abel, Chris 2000. Architecture and Identity: Response to Cultural and Technological Change. 2nd
edition. Oxford: Architectural Press.
Bentley, Ian and Georgia Butina-Watson 2003. Identity by Design. London: Architectural Press.
Jivén, Gunila and Peter J. Larkham 2003. Sense of place, authenticity and character: a commentary.
Journal of Urban Design, 8 (1): 67-81.
Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis 2003. Critical Regionalism: Architecture and Identity in a
Globalized World. Munich: Prestel.
Norberg-Shulz, Christian 1980. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York:
Rizzoli.
Rapoport, Amos 1982. Identity and environment: a cross-cultural perspective, in Housing and
Identity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives edited by James S. Duncan. New York: Holmes and Meier,
6-35.
11
Identity, Individualism, and the Unique
It’s pretty damned hard to bring your uniqueness into actual being if you’re always doing
the same things as other people.
Brendan Francis, author
Accompanying the motivation to belong to a group is the need to have an individual

identity (Mathews 2000). The early twenty-first century, it seems, is a period when the
individual is the focus of attention. Consequently the desire for unique expressions
whether in clothing, tattoos, or buildings is an important current cultural phenomenon
in many places. Each building or interior that is self-consciously designed exhibits the
values of its owners and designers (Figure 11.1). All the buildings shown in Figure 11.2
carry the signature of their developers and/or designers. They are also representations in
built form of their owners’ values (Cooper 1974).
Figure 11.1 Environments as expressions of self
Clients, Architects, and Individual Expressions
Some people are highly extravert and seek individual displays; others are introvert and
seek anonymity. They wish to merge into the background. Individual bespoken houses
(Figure 11.2a, b, and c), and institutions (e) reflect the identity sought by their clients. The
Universidad Central de Venezuela and/or its architect wanted it to be seen as an avant-
garde seat of culture and learning linked to French Rationalism. Property developers often
have a fine sense of the images of life people imagine for themselves and create what they
think will sell easily (d and f). Brasília (g) was different; its meanings were imposed by its
creators (Holston 1989, del Rio and Gallo 2000). The sponsor, the Brazilian government,
acceded to it. The housing was designed in order to blur individual differences but the
Photograph by Dijana Alic
a. Villa Savoye, Poissy, France (1929); Le

Corbusier and Jeanneret, architects.
b. Peter A. Beachy House, Oak Park, Illinois, USA (1906);
c. The Sadruddin Daya House, Versova,

Mumbai, India (c. 1990); Nari Gandhi, architect.
d. Springfield, Queensland, Australia.
e. Universidad Central de Venezuela (1954);

Carlos Raúl Villanueva, architect. Mural by Courtesy of Silvio Macedo
Fernand Léger.
f. Villa design for a luxurious community, g. The residential superquadras, Brasília (1954); Oscar
People’s Republic of China (2003); Lei Niemeyer, architect.
Gangrong, architect.
Figure 11.2 Buildings as images of self

identity, individualism, and the unique 207
city is unique and a memorial to its client, President Juscelino Kubitschek, its planner,
Luis Costa, and its architect, Oscar Niemeyer.
Almost all architects work within an identifiable style. Each focuses on certain
functions of buildings more than others. Each bases his or her work on the repetitive use
of certain materials and geometric patterns. Clients select architects because of the kind
of work they produce and the assumption that their values are congruent. The clients of
the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago wanted a Gehry product. They got it. While unique
it is clearly part of Gehry’s oeuvre and identified with him.
Clients have been important in shaping the careers and supporting the work of
architects. Those for the early work of modern architecture on the European continent
(for example, the Art Nouveau designs of Henry Van de Velde) were the educated
aristocratic elite. The patrons for Le Corbusier’s houses (for example, the Villa Savoye,
a country weekend home for a mother and her adult son) were “mostly eccentrics, art
collectors, and various other kinds of avant-gardists” (Eaton 1969). What they expected
of a house differed considerably from the clients of Frank Lloyd Wright. Few of Wright’s
clients had inherited wealth. (The Beachy family was one that may have had. See Figure
11.2b for the Beachy House.) They were almost entirely self-made people. The clients of
social housing are different.
In much mass housing the user clients are faceless. They are represented by agencies.
Both the social and administrative gap between the users and architects can be vast
(Zeisel 1974). The architects are thus left to deal with the agency and its needs. They
base their designs on a model of the human being that is often removed from reality. In
the Pessac housing, however, Le Corbusier’s design principles, worked well in low-rise
buildings for families. The buildings stand on pilotis—reinforced concrete stilts—with
free not structural façades. The windows were originally in strips and/or large enough
to allow for views. The floor plans were open, not divided into rooms, and the houses
had roof terraces. These patterns allowed for much adaptation of the units and they
were considerably personalized by their inhabitants in different ways as an expression,
conscious or not, of their own needs and individuality (Boudon 1972). The buildings
have been restored to Le Corbusier’s original design. They are now regarded as works of
art—museum pieces not “lived-in architecture”.
The clients of much of the modern international corporate world also seek an individual
identity. They want their buildings to stand out against a background of others. In the
new mega-projects of the Pacific Rim such as Lujiazui in Shanghai, while the buildings
are visually unique, the individual statement made by each gets lost except when it is
considered in isolation (see Figure 9.7b).
Architects and their own Individual Identities
The work of individual architects is recognizable by their repetitive use of a specific set
of geometrical patterns, spatial sequences, materials, and structural systems. The work is
in its architect’s style. Architectural practices seek a niche in the market place for services.
This search can be lengthy as an architect strives to convince potential clients and public
authorities of the utility of his or her ideas.
Le Corbusier’s work was for a long time guided by the principles that formed the basis
for the Pessac housing; Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Architecture followed a specific set of
recognizable patterns, while Nari Gandhi (a disciple of Wright) followed a specific design
method working hand-in-hand with his craftsmen (Lang 2002). Carlos Raúl Villanueva’s
design for the Universidad Central de Venezuela is a highly personal statement yet he in
the 23 de enero housing (Villanueva 2000; see Figure 10.14a and b), and Oscar Niemeyer,
in Brasília (Figure 11.2g) were seduced by the Modernist mass housing paradigm shared
by many architects around the world.
Some architects establish an identity through the use of specific materials and the
structural techniques. A number have explored the plasticity of concrete. Ulrich Franzen
used brick in highly creative ways in almost all his works. Louis Kahn too had a
predilection for brickwork. Domique Perrault, winner of the competition to design the
Bibliothéque Nationale (1989) in Paris, has since developed the use of woven stainless
steel as a façade material. Metals are the material of choice of a number of leading
architects in the early twenty-first century.
The buildings designed by our contemporary architects of international renown all
have the stamp of their author’s work. Each of the buildings portrayed in Figure 11.3
attracts attention because it has a unique form (or, at least, it did have when it was created).
Each building is memorable. All five designs are indentified with their creators and give
each of the architectural firms an identity in both the market place and among their peers.
One recognizes each architect’s typical way of handling building forms, materials, and
interior spaces. Over the course of their careers architects develop new ways of handling
specific design problems. They also change their attitudes towards what the most
important functions of built form and the way to fulfill them are, so the design patterns
they use evolve. The career of Frank Gehry can already, like many before him, be divided
into a number of phases (see Figure 1.10). The observations here have focused on major
architects; they apply to minor architects and architectural firms as well.
Folk Architects
There are a surprising number of unique projects carried out around the world by
individuals seeking their own ends through creative acts. Their work functions as a
vehicle for their own expressions. Four are illustrated in Figure 11.4. Originally dismissed
as peculiar junkyards, three of them (a, b, and c) are now tourist attractions and are
featured in publicity brochures. Their designs have several features in common. Each
is an individual act of love and perseverance and made out of salvaged junk. The Watts
Towers in Los Angeles (a), the Rock Garden in Chandigarh (b) and Bottle Village in Simi
Valley (c) were built by their creators piece-by-piece over a long period of time. The work
(d) of Isiah Zaqar is in a somewhat different class. The façades of buildings in South
Philadelphia are his canvas.
It is difficult to specify what motivated individuals such as these four other than a
desire for self-expression. Their work certainly establishes a clear individual identity of
who they were or are in people’s minds and, presumably, in their own. Much the same
motivation must be driving Paolo Soleri in designing and then building Arcosanti (Figure
9.9e). The difference between Soleri and Chand, Rhoda, and Prisbrey is that at the outset he
had a final design in his mind, although it has changed along the way. He is an architect.
b. The de Young Museum [Nancy B. and Jake L.

Hamon Education Tower], Golden Gate Park,
San Francisco, CA, USA (2005); Herzog and de
Meuron Architekten, architects.
a. Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois, USA;

Gehry and Partners, LLP, architects.
c. Puerta de Europa, Madrid, Spain (1996); Pedro

Seneteri, Johnson/Burgee, architects.
d. The SwissRe Building, London, UK (2003); e. Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for the
Foster and Partners, architects. Arts, Cincinnati, OH, USA (2001-3); Zaha
Hadid, design architect.
Figure 11.3 Uniqueness in design

Photograph by Kathy Kolnick
b. Rock Garden, Chandigarh, India (1958-65+);

Nek Chand Saini, creator.
a. Nuestro Pueblo (Watts Towers), Los Angeles, CA, USA

(1921-54); Sabato (Simon) Rodia, creator.
c. Bottle Village, Simi Valley, California, USA (1956-72); d. Community Center, South Street, Philadelphia,
Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey, creator. PA, USA (2006); Isaiah Zagar, artist.
Figure 11.4 Naïve works of architecture and display?

Conclusion
Buildings clearly can portray the individual identity of a person, family, or corporation
as well as their membership in a group of like-minded people. Architects are often hired
to create a unique image for buildings as well as to have them function well on the other
dimensions of performance. Individual architects and architectural firms also have their
own identities that are clearly revealed in the buildings they design. Their work functions
as a billboard advertising their skill. Indeed the function of architecture as a sign is an
important one often overriding other considerations.
Major References
Cooper (Marcus) Clare 1974. House as symbol of self, in Designing for Human Behavior: Architecture
and the Behavioral Sciences, edited by Jon Lang, Charles Burnette, Walter Moleski, and David
Vachon. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, 130-46.
Eaton, Leonard K. 1969. Two Chicago Architects and their Clients. Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van
Doren Shaw. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mathews, Gordon 2000. Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for a Home in the Cultural
Supermarket. London: Routledge.
Olds, Kris 2001. Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture and the Pacific Rim Mega-Projects.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12
Buildings as Signs and Status Symbols
The kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own
self-esteem.
Samuel Johnson, English author
Almost all people have a need for self-respect, or self-esteem. The need is to hold oneself in
high esteem and secondly to be held in high esteem by others. The former has to do with
self-perceptions and the latter with external rewards—the receiving of praise or prizes. Both
involve having control over one’s own life. Control is related to dignity and hopes. Dignity
has to do with being able to function well in one’s own terms and in the view of others.
The desire for esteem motivates us in a number of ways. Most have little to do with
architecture. The buildings and cities that we inhabit, nevertheless, act as signs of social
status in much the same way that they are an indicator of the groups of which we are
a member or to whose membership we aspire. Displays of status take on very different
forms depending on one’s culture, one’s stage in life cycle, one’s personality, and one’s
own needs. Some people have a high need for recognition and others not. Much the
same is true of societies. Newly politically or economically independent societies often
wish to demonstrate their new status through architectural bombast. Much of the design
commissioned by the nouveau riche is similar.
Within all cultures the status of people is related to their possessions. It is not necessarily
the amount but the type and the manner in which the possessions are displayed that is
important. Advertisers play on this reality, create it, and reinforce it. Specific brands of
cars, for instance, have almost universal high status connotations; buildings vary more.
The perceived relationship between buildings and the status of their occupiers is based
on the association between types of people and types of environments. We develop these
associations through the prejudices picked up during our everyday experience and by what
we are exposed to in the media. People predict the status and personalities of those who own
and/or inhabit buildings based on these linkages with some consistency within a culture.
In a controlled study conducted during the 1980s, Jack Nasar showed that people make
“affective judgments … and infer social meanings … from building styles” (Nasar 1988a;
see Figure 12.1). Shared meanings were widely held. Nasar found that the general public
in the United States associate the farmhouse type in his study with friendly people. The
relationship was as in (a). The lay public associated the contemporary type, that is, the
symbol in (b) with less friendly people (the referent) and they had a negative attitude
towards the type (or vice versa). Nasar’s study also showed that there was a major gap
between the public’s tastes and architects’ tastes when it comes to house design. Architects
preferred the contemporary house type while the public preferred the Tudor. The gap
in tastes still exists. One must be cautious of over-generalizing these results but, sadly
for those of us wanting to be widely loved and who live in contemporary dwellings, the
attitudes seem to be broadly held. We are judged as people by our tastes.
Diagrams drawn by Omar Sharif Adapted from Nasar (1988a) by Jon Lang
Figure 12.1 The taste cultures of architects and of lay people
Competence and Self-esteem
To be able to function well in the everyday environment is important for everybody. It is

important, for instance, for children with disabilities to be able play alongside those who
are more physically competent. Their self-esteem is boosted when they are participants
in everyday life. It is easy to encode messages in design that people are held in low
esteem through the implicit display in built form of the low expectations that others have
of them. While individuals may get a sense of self-esteem in overcoming obstacles, if the
obstacles are imposed by other people they will read a message into the environment
that those others do not care about them. Do tastes function in the same manner?
buildings as signs and status symbols 215
“Good taste” and self-esteem What one regards as being in good taste is bound up with one’s
self-esteem. The cognoscenti of high art have a sense of higher competence when compared
with those who prefer popular art forms. This sense of superiority is closely linked to a sense
of one’s status in society (Gans 1975, Mann 1979, Bourdier 1984, Gadamer 2004). Buildings
that are perceived to be prestigious by lay people and by the noveau riche may seem to be in
poor taste to the architectural cognoscenti. The cognoscenti may get a sense of superiority by
distancing themselves from the enjoyment that many people get from the florid architecture
being built today. Hans-Georg Gadamer (2004) notes: “Valuative (moral or artistic) judgments
are quite properly ‘prejudices’”. Our tastes help to define our perceptions of who we are.
“Taste classifies and it classifies the classifier” (Bourdier 1984). Herbert Gans, a
sociologist, postulated that, in the United States, at least, people could be divided
into five overlapping groups based on shared attitudes that reflect their preferences
and the types of products they purchase (Gans 1975). He identifies a high taste culture
whose concerns are intellectual, academic and avant-garde, an upper-middle taste
culture whose concerns are self-conscious about current fashions, a lower-middle
taste culture whose concerns are eclectic, democratic, and popular and tend towards
the traditional, a lower taste culture, whose concerns are largely unselfconscious and
anonymous, and quasi-folk taste cultures whose concerns are communal and ad hoc.
Each group tends to hold itself in high-esteem and be dismissive of the others.
Dennis Mann (1979) took Gans’s model and considered its architectural implications
as shown in Table 12.1. We have added the terms “academic, self-conscious, popularist,
and unselfconscious” to Mann’s table. The academics are the cognoscenti. They tend
to seek thought provoking buildings that are unique rather than in a particular style.
The group that Gans labeled “low taste culture” at the other end of the taste spectrum
are unselfconscious in their choices. They like what they like.
The architectural style chosen by people depends on what they see as appropriate for
their aspirations and what they believe represents those aspirations. Norman Van Doren
Shaw’s clients, drawn from the social elite, preferred the traditional. They differed from
those of Frank Lloyd Wright. Each set of clients’ tastes showed in their choices (see Figure
12.2a and b). The former had inherited money; the latter were self made people (Eaton
1969). The Mullick family aspired to demonstrate that they were part of the modern
Indian elite during the colonial era (c). To the cognoscenti their mansion’s eclecticism is
in poor taste. The Riggs Bank, a classical design (d), has had a mixed reception among the
cognoscenti. The Grande Arche (e) is seen as avant-garde architecture by many people
as are the buildings in Lujiazui, Shanghai (f) which are closer to popular tastes than
the tastes of the cognoscenti. People readily understand the styles of buildings that are
prestigious and which ones are not within their own cultural frames.
The Built Environment Variables of Concern
Architects have long attempted to uplift people’s spirits by designing high-status buildings
for individuals and organizations. The issues are similar whether one is concerned with
urban design (particularly street design) or building design. The variables that carry
meaning seem to be relatively constant over time; their specific natures and what they
signify may vary considerably as time passes.
Table 12.1 Taste cultures, aesthetic standards, and architectural patterns
Adapted from Mann (1979) by Jon Lang
Taste Publics Architecture Contextural

Focus Aesthetic Standards
(Gans, 1975) Form Content Composition Relationship
Heroic,
intellectual
Academic High abstract and idealistic implicit and symbolic canonic and coherent original,
and academic
and monumental
avant-garde theoretical unified unique
self-conscious sophisticated
Self-Conscious Upper Middle conceptual classical refined foreground
current cosmopolitan
fashionable associative ambiguous pretentious
manneristic
eclectic homogeneous
informal additive stylistic contradictory
Popularist Lower Middle democratic eccentric
and arbitrary referential: and complex
popular ubiquitous
tudor. Californian, etc.
traditional pragmatic ordinary repetitive uniform
Unselfconscious Low anonymous concrete austere obscure

unselfcoscious logical explicit open-ended background
Folk communal adhocist direct picturesque chaotic quaint
a. Frank E. Ross House, Oak Park, Illinois b. Frank W. Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois
(1909); Norman Van Doren Shaw, architect. (1901); Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
c. Mullick House, “Marble Palace”,

Kolkata, India (1835); built for Raja
Rajendra Mullick Bahadur.
d. Riggs Bank, Washington,
DC, USA (c. 1985); John
Blatteau Associates,
architects.
Photograph by Tata Soemardi
e. The Grande Arche, La Défense, f. Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, P.R. China

Haut-de- Seine, France (1983-9); in 2004.
Johan Otto von Spreckelsen,
architect.
Figure 12.2 Taste cultures

Urban Designs and Prestige
Most cities have areas of prestigious residential neighborhoods, business districts, and/or
street addresses. Rents vary by it. For directors of companies seeking to be leaders being
located in a prestigious precinct is important. The use of widely spaced monumental
buildings perched on hills with sweeping vistas signifies the power and importance
of cities and of institutions (Rapoport 1993, Laswell 1979, Dovey 1999). In consciously
planned capital cities this pattern has often been prevalent. Washington, in the United
States, New Delhi and Chandigarh in India, and Abuja in Nigeria are examples.
Paris as designed by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann and constructed between the
1850s and 1870s is the exemplar of a prestigious urban environment. It has been emulated
in other cities whose administrators were striving for prestige. Paris has long, straight,
and grand boulevards meeting at rond-points (see Figure 12.3a). The goal was to establish
vistas towards prestigious monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe and buildings such
as the Opéra as well as to meet the more basic functions of a design such as improved
sanitation and efficient links between railway stations (Benevolo 1980, Jordan 1995).
The striving for status through the consumption of space and the construction of
boulevards with long vistas can be seen in a variety of plans from that of the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exhibition in Chicago to the City Beautiful plans for that city’s core, in many
colonial city plans such as that for New Delhi (1913) and those for Chinese cities under
the Japanese in the 1930s (Rowe and Kuan 2002). It also appears in the desires of dictators
to have prestigious cities. Berlin under Hitler as proposed by Albert Speer, the design of
central Pyongyang for Kim-Il Sung, and for Bucharest under President Nicolai Ceausescu
are three examples. In Bucharest, the Avenue of the Victory of Socialism (1977-89; see
Figure 12.3b) is a monumental boulevard terminated by the mammoth Casa Republicii.
The avenue at 3.5 kilometers is purposefully longer than Paris’s Champs Elysees and
is lined with monumental buildings. The objective was to obtain “something grand,
something very grand” (Ceausescu cited in Cavalcanti 1997). It is grand but lifeless.
Detailing of the environment is also important. The public realm of Battery Park City
(d) was purposefully designed to set a high standard for the developers and architects
of building to follow. Striving for prestige can conflict with designing for comfort (c).
Summers in Chandigarh are hot.
Equally important has been the effort by cities to obtain prestigious buildings designed
by renowned architects. During the late twentieth century Paris was also a trend-setter.
The Grands Travaux (great works) program under President François Mitterrand although
primarily concerned with the preservation of monuments also helped finance such major
new works as the Cité des Sciences, the La Défense Arche, and a number of institutional
buildings. It is almost de rigeur today for a major city to have a television tower and
skyscrapers, a museum of modern art, a science museum, and other major institutions
such as internationally known universities.
In many places now the placing of governmental buildings and the lack of care with
which they are designed signifies changing attitudes towards governmental institutions.
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, the capital of the State of New York
(see Figure 14.5a), clearly signifies the importance and power of the state government but
in municipality after municipality, government buildings are being built in a Utilitarian
Modernist manner. Cities are instead obtaining their prestige through having many tall
Photograph by Mahmoodreza Vahidi Photograph by Ruth Durack
b. Avenue of the Victory of Socialism. Bucharest,

Romania (1977-89+); Anca Petrescu, architect.
a. Ave de la Grande Armée; Haussmann’s Paris

(1860s) viewed from the Arc d’Triomphe. La
Défense is in the background.
c. The City Center, Chandigarh, India (1955); Le d. The Esplanade, Battery Park City, New York, USA
Corbusier, architect. (1980+); Hanna/Olin, Ltd., landscape architects.
Figure 12.3 Prestigious urban landscapes

commercial buildings. Lujiazui in Pudong, Shanghai is the present day model although
it had La Défense on the outskirts of Paris, that city’s new central business district, as a
precedent. Ho Chi Minh City follows.
Many public officials and citizens of cities regard bold, tall buildings silhouetted against
the sky as seen in panoramic views as prestigious. They aspire to have tall buildings and
a skyline that much surpasses that of Manhattan, New York (Figure 12.4a). Frankfurt
has a distinctive skyline (b). Such skylines are a mark of the economic value of land but
also a symbol of being modern. Lujiazui has already acquired a bold new skyline that
is the pride of Shanghai’s citizens (c). Sydney (d) lags. Skylines do not have to consist of
skyscrapers to be distinctive (e) but many city governments think so (f).
Panoramic views from balconies, terraces, and/or windows are prestigious objects to
own. They inflate the price of properties. In cities such as Sydney, Hong Kong, and San
Francisco, a view of the harbor is an important selling point for offices and residential
units. In Switzerland it is the Alps; in Boulder, Colorado it is the Rockies. Views of cities
from buildings located on hillsides are equally prestigious. In many places seascapes,
particularly if there are also foreground elements, make the sites from which they can be
viewed expensive.
The Wall Street area (Figure 12.4a) is a highly prestigious location for major businesses.
Cities, such as Shanghai seek to be “Manhattanized”. Now other cities are striving to be
Shanghaied. It is an “international power style” (Laswell 1979, Dovey 1999). Shanghai’s
government is still pressing for tall buildings and a bolder skyline. In Philadelphia there
was a general understanding that no building would be taller than the eye-level of the
statue of William Penn atop City Hall (that is, 150 meters; 491 feet). The “gentlemen’s
agreement” was abandoned in 1984. The substantially taller new buildings in the city’s
core have boosted the city’s self-image and do enable the central business district to be
seen from afar. Many such tall building environments, however, end up “great from afar,
but far from great” because the street level environment is unpleasant for pedestrians
(Ghirado 1989). Somewhat perversely, but recognizing this by-product of building tall,
some cities seek prestige by not having tall buildings. The term Manhattanization is now
often used derogatively. Paris has dismissed tall buildings to its periphery. La Défense
lies outside Paris proper. Paris’s administration is, however, now wondering if the city is
being left behind in a world where glossy high-rise buildings are prestigious.
The quality of streets The nature of their streets differentiates one city from another,
one neighborhood from another, and the prestige of one from another (A. Jacobs 1993).
The qualities of streets depend on their cross sections including the buildings or trees
that line them, the ground floor uses adjacent to them, the nature of their sidewalks/
footpaths, the number of moving traffic lanes and the speed of traffic, whether there is
curbside parking or not, and the surface materials used for automobile traffic lanes and
sidewalks. High quality street furnishings—lamp posts, benches, rubbish bins, manhole
covers, and kiosks—add to the level of prestige.
The sequential experience of spaces is fundamental to the aesthetic appreciation of
cities (Lukashok and Lynch 1956, Halprin 1963, Appleyard and Lintell 1981, A. Jacobs
1993, S. Marshall 2005, Burton 2006; see Chapter 14). The character of what one sees as
one drives along the streets of precincts affects their market value. In much of the world,
tree-lined streets flanked by unified buildings built to the property line have high value.
a. Lower Manhattan skyline, New York, USA

in 2001.
b. Frankfurt, Germany in 2002.
c. Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, P.R. China in 2004.
Photograph by Aykut Karaman
d. Sydney, Australia in 2009.
e. Galata, Istanbul, Turkey in 2007. f. The proposed Dubai skyline.
Figure 12.4 Skylines and prestige

Paris is often the model. Wide boulevards, as in Paris, are seen as highly prestigious in
the central areas of cities and for streets along waterfronts. Streets that are tree-lined and
without overhead wires are considered to be more prestigious than those that are tree-
less and contain a profusion of wires. Many cities in hot-arid areas seek treed avenues
because they are prestigious rather than more climatically appropriate designs.
City governments have become increasingly self-conscious about the appearances of
sidewalks and street furniture. They are now upgrading the quality of their city’s streets.
The character of streets contributes to the perception of the quality of a locale in much the
same way that the nature of rooms contributes to perceptions of the quality of a building.
Buildings
Consciously displaying one’s prestige in built form has a long history. The Thiene family
in Vicenza, Italy sought a palace in which the “main function … was to impress”. Palladio
delivered the Palazzo Thiene (1546) to them. The major prestige-related variables of
buildings seem to be their overall configuration, the degree of structural dexterity they
display, the materials of their fabrication, the way they are decorated, their colors, the
way they are illuminated by day and by night, and the location of buildings on their sites.
The uniqueness of a design pattern can make it prestigious. Other variables are the nature
and size of the signs, their style of type face and their color. Many highly prestigious
buildings have discrete nametags. They are more likely to belong to corporations of long
standing than younger ones seeking attention.
Cities around the world (particularly in Asia) vie to have the tallest building although
after September 11, 2001 the idea of reaching up one hundred stories into the sky lost
some appeal. Indeed, the very concept of “ego buildings” is being rethought. Striving to
build the tallest building in the world, nevertheless, continues. The Woolworth (1911-3),
Chrysler (1928-30), the Empire State Building (1936), Sears Tower (1974-6), Petronas
Towers (1998), Taipei 101 Tower (2003), and the Shanghai World Financial Center (2004)
have been surpassed. The Burj Khalifa (2010), originally known as Burj Dubai, is another
step along the way. A kilometer tall building will top it. And then?
In the Americas, Europe, Japan, and in many colonized nations, the European Classical
style was used well into the second half of twentieth century for banks, universities,
museums, and many other institutions to indicate their solidity and importance. The
domes of the proposed Germania (1940s) and of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace
(purposefully larger than St. Peter’s Rome) were designed to add to the prestige of
dictators and their countries (see Figures 12.5a and b). During the 1930s in Mysore, India,
Otto Köenigsberger, fresh from dealing with the Modernism of the Bauhaus, found that
local elites saw domes on buildings as a hallmark of status and Modernism. To them it
was an indicator of cosmopolitanism, which, in turn, was associated with India’s cultural
elite. Today geometries deviant from the orthogonal bring much attention to specific
buildings. Buildings with curved roofs, which architect Bruce Judd calls “armadillo
buildings,” seem to be prestigious. They stick out from their surroundings and are seen
as works of art. In Australia, the Sydney Opera House has been a significant prestigious
building because of its type, its sculptural qualities, and the association with its architect.
In response Sydney’s rival Melbourne recently acquired Federation Square (see Figure
14.1) as its prestigious, aesthetically up-to-date building complex.
a. Germania proposal for Berlin, Germany

(1940); Albert Speer, architect.
b. The Basilica of Notre Dame del la Paix,

Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast (1985-9); Pierre Fakhoury,
architect.
c. The Empire State Building, New

York, USA (1930-1); Gregory Johnson
of Shreve, Lamb and Johnson,
architect.
Photograph by Tsai Chi-Cheng
d. Taipei 101 Tower, Taipei, ROC (2003); C.Y. e. The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Lee and Partners, architects. (1998); César Pelli and Associates, architects.
Figure 12.5 Building size, height, and prestige

In traditional societies architectural features may well be correlated with status according
to accepted prescriptions. In Bali with its Hindu background, caste establishes status.
Gates for houses of Sudras, priests, and noblemen differ. As life becomes modernized,
a person’s income becomes more important than caste in establishing social status.
Interpretations change. Ornamentation on the façade of buildings was once only allowed
for higher castes. Now, very often the intelligentsia on the Island prefer something simple;
ornamentation is a characteristic of the homes of lower castes who see it as prestigious
(Dewi-Jayanti 2003).
The sheer size of buildings can be a source of pride—national and individual. King
Leopold II attempted to show Belgium’s new-found economic status (based on the cruel
exploitation of the Congo Basin) through the erection of large buildings. Antwerp’s
cyclopean Palace of Justice (1880s) designed by Joseph Poelaert and Brussel-Centraal
(1900), designed by Louis Delacenserie exemplify the attitude. Nikolai Ceausescu
certainly thought that large buildings were prestigious in his brief for the Casa
Republicii in Bucharest (Figure 12.3b; Cavalcanti 1997). Earlier, Hitler sought edifices
of a megalomaniac scale in his unrealized plans for Berlin (Broadbent 1990). Félix
Houphouët-Boigny, first president of the Ivory Coast after independence, sought prestige
through bombast. Although the dome of the basilica (without its cross) in Yamoussoukro
is slightly lower than that of St. Peter’s in Rome, it is a larger building. Not only were all
these buildings large but they were composed of expensive materials.
What are regarded as modern, prestigious materials change with the vagaries of
fashion but also availability. Materials that are rare are held in prestige. The use of marble
and other expensive materials has long signified the importance of buildings and the
people who inhabit them. Large expanses of plate glass are now often associated with
high status. These materials may well be chosen for their technical attributes, but the
way they function to denote status often overwhelms the more appropriate qualities of
common place materials. In many cases natural materials are held in higher esteem than
artificial. As a result many artificial materials are made to look natural.
Colors serve many functions from raising the reflected light level in rooms to hiding
dirt to changing the apparent size of rooms, to indicating status. In some cultures, such
as in India and China, buildings were historically color coded for status. Nowadays, the
colors that are considered to be in good taste and denote high status vary. At times pastel
colors may be associated with high status while at others it may be bright colors. Tastes
also vary with cultures. Often it seems that it is not the color itself that carries meaning
but the way in which it deviates from habituation levels. To be in fashion means to lead
trends.
Throughout the world, where one lives and the type of residence one has is an indicator
of who one is and one’s status in society. In Bali the courtyard house was once the norm but
because of the space it requires it is now the symbol of status—the larger the courtyard the
higher the status (Dewi-Jayanti 2003). The degree of control of space and its size through
territorial marking is positively correlated with status in many suburban residential areas
in Britain and the USA. Although seldom used for activities front yards remain important
to many people in the United States and in some places enclosing fences are important.
Many of the variables denoting status seem to be universal as a study in Jordan shows (Al-
Homoud and Al-Oun 2002). Outsiders to India would have little difficulty in identifying
the status of the inhabitants of the four places shown in Figure 12.6.
a. Three-storey walk-up units, Hyderabad (2000). b. Artistes Village, Navi Mumbai (1986); Charles
Correa, architect.
c. Greater Kailash, Delhi in 1990. d. Kothari House, Ahmedabad (1985-6); Kulbushan

and Minakshi Jain, architects.
Figure 12.6 House form and social status in India

The relative status of people working inside a building is often legible on its façade. In
commenting on Le Corbusier’s Secretariat building in Chandigarh one of his colleagues,
Maxwell Fry (1961), noted:
One can see the preferential treatment given to the higher ranks of government breaking into the
regular façade by way of [the] recessed balcony and larger windows.
That the building was designed by Le Corbusier gives them added prestige.
Signature buildings and the architecture of status Some building types are more
prestigious than others. It is clear that heroic projects with a “wow” factor carry
greater prestige than other types. Commercial buildings, as a type (Figure 12.7a),
impressive though individual examples may be, are seldom held in as high an esteem
as museums (b, d, and e), capital buildings (c), and other high value-added buildings.
During the last decade of the twentieth century, with cities vying for a place in the
international spotlight, museums and cultural centers became important statements of
the importance of a place. With its Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (2000-7), Valencia
in Spain has both high-value-added and signature buildings. They were designed
primarily by Santiago Calatrava but also by Felix Candela. In the first decade of
the twenty-first century, cities in the United Arab Emirates erected major museums
designed by internationally renowned architects such as I.M. Pei and Zhaha Hadid.
An advertisement for the Hesperia Tower Hotel in Barcelona notes: “designed by
the prestigious architects Richard Rogers and Alonso-Bulgier” before describing any
attributes of the hotel (Voyager, July 2006).
Civic leaders around the world are aware of the impact of the Guggenheim Museum
on the redevelopment and rebranding of Bilbao, Spain and they also recognize that the
museum’s radical architecture immediately placed the city in the international spotlight
as did the Opera house for Sydney in the 1970s. In the twentieth century Le Corbusier
was hired to design Chandigarh (1950s) and Louis I. Kahn to design the Indian Institute
of Management in Ahmedabad (1960s) to give immediate status to a place. Not many
people outside India have heard of Bhubaneswar, a new state capital contemporaneous
to Chandigarh, designed by Otto Koenigsberger with buildings by Mumbai architect,
Julius Vaz (Kalia 1994, Lang et al. 1997, Lang 2002). Reputedly, it is a more liveable city
but that does not give its inhabitants the international status that Chandigarh gives its
citizens.
Buildings highly rational in nature but also full of symbolism, have earned Sir Norman
Foster an international reputation and a knighthood (1990). Foster’s designs of office
buildings have been innovative. The Willis-Faber-Dumas building (1970-5) in Ipswich,
England, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters (1970-86), the Commerzbank
(1994-7) in Frankfurt am Main, the SwissRe building, London (2004), and the Deutsche
Bank Building in Sydney (2005) all bring added prestige to their owners and to the cities
in which they are located.
b. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA,

USA (1916-28); Horace Trumbauer and Zantzinger,
Borie and Medary, architects.
a. Park Avenue South, New York City, USA

in 2009.
c. New Parliament House, Canberra, d. Leeum Samsung Museum. Seoul, Korea (2005).
Australia (1981-8); Mitchell, Guirgola and Buildings by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaaas
Thorp, architects. and the OMA, and Mario Botta.
e. Interior, Whitney Museum of American f. Burke brise-soleil and Quadracci Pavilion,

Art, New York, USA (1960-3); Marcel Breuer, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI, USA
architect. (2001); Santiago Calatrava, architect.
Figure 12.7 Prestigious building types

Building Interiors
Interiors, like buildings, are often designed to be prestigious as the design of many avant-
garde shops selling highly fashionable products attest. The exemplar, as introduced
in Chapter 9, may be the interior of Prada (2001) designed by Rem Koolhaas in New
York. The central feature is a giant slope where a zebrawood floor reaches down to the
basement in a series of steps. Looking back, it houses a stage. A series of eye-catching
exhibits—stairs morphing into shelves and, at one time, mannequins standing in a
platoon—captured attention (Bernstein 2002). With its magic mirrors, plasma displays
and computer controlled change-rooms, the shop cost US$76 million. The architecture is
an advertisement for the shop and for the architect. Typical shopping malls (Figure 12.8a)
and the Country Road Store (b) seek prestige at a lesser level. What is seen as prestigious
depends on tastes (c, d, and e). The opulent interior (c) differs considerably from that in
(d) which has been almost universally the taste of young architects for over 50 years.
The nature and sequence of spaces when a person moves through a building have status
connotations. The sheer number of spaces and the movement from small to large spaces,
and the visual unfolding of rooms indicate prestige. The Château de Versailles (1661-82+)
may be the referent. A grand entrance hall with large staircases leading to upper floors is
an indication of the high status of a building’s inhabitants. Many building types follow
this pattern: opera houses, opulent hotels, and the private homes of the wealthy.
The zones of penetration by people of different status into a building are often
correlated with its layout. In the British colonial bungalow in India (see Figure 6.7b) there
were a whole set of behavioral expectations related to status. Higher status visitors were,
for instance, accompanied by their hosts to their vehicles on their departure; servants
saw out the low. Houses had separate entrances and circulation routes for the family and
servants (King 1995, Bhatia 1994, Lang et al. 2009). There was no mistaking the qualities
of one for the other.
What constitutes a high status interior varies depending on what is fashionable in the
market place at a time. Large spaces as a mark of status have had a continuous place in
the marking of prestige. The new entrance to the Morgan Library and Museum in New
York is an example (see Figure 12.8e). Sumptuous, highly visible entrances to buildings
signify prestige (for an example see Figure 12.11f). Within buildings people of higher
status inhabit larger physical settings and are afforded a high degree of privacy. In
looking at the plans of the large commercial firms shown in Figure 6.9 the location of
the high status people is clear. The differentiation is not so obvious in 6.9e because the
managers of the firm deliberately sought to obscure the status level of its employees
within the organization.
The indicators of high status in interior design are often the provision of settings
larger in size than that required for the activities taking place in them and views out of
the windows that are either panoramas or of natural vegetation. The illumination level
and the types of light fittings used in a room are correlated with status. Less expensive
restaurants and cafeterias with a continuous turnover of clientele, for instance, may have
high levels of illumination from overhead fluorescent lighting while the more exclusive
tend to have much lower levels of illumination from incandescent light fittings on tables
and/or walls. Candles may add to the allure.
a. Shopping mall, Columbia, MD, USA (1970s).
b. Country Road Store, Queen Victoria Building,

Sydney, NSW, Australia.
c. The opulent style attributed to political

dictators.
d. Apartment interior, Madrid, Spain e. Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, New
in 2009; Ignacio Bistal and Elisa Pérez, York City, USA (2000-04); Renzo Piano Building
architects. Workshop, architects.
Figure 12.8 Interior architecture, symbolism, and status

a. A courtroom, Marin County Civic Center, b. Kandalama Hotel, Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
CA, USA (1958); Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. (1991); Geoffrey Bawa, architect.
d. Lobby, Caixa Forum, Madrid, Spain (2009);

Herzog and de Meuron, architects.
c. QueenVictoria Building, Sydney,

NSW, Australia; Restored (1984-6);
Stephenson, Turner and Rice.
e. Concourse, Canary Wharf, London, UK (1999); f. Metzker House,

Foster and Partners, architects. Philadelphia, PA, USA (2004);
Walter Moleski, architect.
Furnishing by the client.
Figure 12.9 Taste cultures and interior architecture

High prestige office interiors today seem to come in two forms: traditional or even
neo-classical such as in Figures 12.2d or even 12.9c or in a highly glossy form. It is an
interior architecture of lavishness. Marble and gold leaf clad decorations in reception
areas are adorned with silver writing on signs. A “factory chic” type of interior design
was fashionable during the first decade of the twenty-first century. It was full of hard
materials and angular forms (Figure 12.9d and e).
In the USA, at least, two types of furniture and furnishings are used to create a sense of
luxury. One consists of fashionable and up-to-date highly sought after “designer” artifacts
and contemporary art works. The other, in contrast, has antique furniture and paintings by
the classical masters. The belief is that new money goes for the former and old for the latter
but this assertion has never been carefully demonstrated. A sense of luxury is created in a
number of other ways. Having plush surroundings is one of them. Plush means behavior
settings with furniture and furnishing of expensive materials with a deep pile, a decadent
atmosphere, and with elaborately designed furnishing that gives the air of great comfort.
They all contribute to provide a sense of importance and high esteem to those in the setting.
Figure 12.8c shows the style attributed to political dictators in the public’s eye. A reaction to the
lavishness of interiors has led to a simultaneous demand for “no-frills” designs that reduce
the cost of buildings from hotels (Watson 2005) to, despite the Prada store in Manhattan, shoe
shops. Their interiors are frugal but well executed in detail. The entrance hall to the Morgan
Museum is an example. Its Neo-Modernist austerity represents a restrained taste culture.
Many commercial firms clearly show the status of their employees through the
furniture they have. Innovative office systems, in which the rectangular work stations
have given way to walls set at various angles, substitute for those of the past. With the
computer age has come demands for new office furniture as designs have to afford new
and varied activities and actions. Work is now displayed vertically not horizontally and
desks are smaller. Such items as the size and materials of desks, nevertheless, still carry
messages; the higher up in the hierarchy of an employee in an organization, the larger
the desks and the more natural the materials employed.
The new angular styles that are prestigious today may seem to be a radical departure
from the past but conceptually they are not. Office furniture has long been a high art
form, often exhibited in museums of modern art. Mies van de Rohe’s Barcelona chairs
(in the foreground in Figure 10.17) and the Eames’ chairs, symbols of high status, were
exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1960s. They were a radical
departure from the norm. It is the departure from the norm that attracts. Comfort often
gives way to fashion (see Figure 6.11f).
Doors and windows Doors are more than means of ingress to and egress from enclosed
spaces; windows function in more ways than to control levels of illumination and to open
interiors to views and/or being viewed. They also have referential meanings. They act as
signs of tastes and status. The variables of importance in shaping our interpretations of
the prestige levels of doors are their size, the materials of which they are made, the way
their architraves, rails and stiles are handled, and the nature of their panelling. Thus
one’s attitudes towards doors depend on the associated meanings that one has with
the patterns in view (see Figure 12.10). The buildings in Figure 12.11e exist in the same
geographical location and are commercial buildings. They also serve as a sign of the
status of the firms within them and as sign of their era of construction.
Adapted from Hershberger (1970) and Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 12.10 A mediational theory of environmental meanings applied to doors
The size of door openings may be related to the size of the elements that enter them (for
example, those for elephants are larger than those required for people) but often they
are oversized to signify the high status of people within and/or passing through them.
In retail stores, hotels and factories, the entrances for workers are often substantially less
grand than for clients. The program for the proposed new orchestra hall for Philadelphia
prepared by the Environmental Research Group during the 1980s noted that the
musicians desired to have the entrance to the back-stage area be as substantial as those
for the concertgoers. They felt that the back-door appearance of musicians’ entrances in
most concert halls suggested that musicians were low in social status.
Specific door and window designs also acquire prestige through their association
with significant architects. Sometimes they are named after the architect who exploited
them. A door type that swivels on pins a quarter of the door’s width from its jamb is often
known as a Le Corbusier door (Figure 12.12). It is the association with Le Corbusier that
gives such doors as a type their prestige provided one knows of the association.
Windows also carry meanings. The way the reveals are handled and the nature of
the glazing very much shapes the filtering of light. In many prestigious settings, light
coming through openings is employed symbolically as a compositional element. The
general principle is reflected in Walter Gropius’s comment:
Imagine the surprise and animation experienced when a sunbeam shining through the stained
glass window in a cathedral wanders slowly through the twilight of a nave and suddenly hits the
altar piece. (Gropius 1962)
Many buildings held in high esteem by architects are known for the subtlety with which
light enters them. Among twentieth-century Modernists Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier
accrued prestige through their use of natural light as an aesthetic device (see Figure
1.3d(iii)) for an internal view of the Notre Dame du Haut).
The Landscape
Artificial landscapes can be classified in many ways. The artificial refers to the self-conscious
designs of farmers, landscape architects, and gardeners that shape the natural world into
agricultural land, gardens, and cityscapes that serve various functions. The two major
landscape architecture design paradigms have been the classical and the picturesque. The
first is associated with continental Europe and in a somewhat different vein the Mughal
a. Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain (1920s);

Antoni Gaudí and others, architects.
b. British Council Building, New Delhi,

India (1987-92); Charles Correa Associates,
architects.
c. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao Spain d. The entrance, Caixa Forum, Madrid,

(1997); Gehry Partners LLP, architects. Spain (2009); Herzog and de Meuron
Architekten, architects.
e. Commercial buildings, Park Avenue New York, f. Private home, New York
USA. City, USA.
Figure 12.11 Doors and windows

Photograph by John Gamble
a. Entrance, Fundación c. The entrance, Assembly Hall, b. The main door, Notre Dame
Metropóli, Alcobendas, Spain Chandigarh, India (1953-4). Le du Haut, Ronchamp, France
(2004); Ángel de Diego, architect. Corbusier, architect. (1950-5); Le Corbusier, architect.
Figure 12.12 Le Corbusier doors
Empire in which Cartesian geometrical patterns rule. In the picturesque the rural aspects
of nature are romantically replicated. The classical garden is exemplified by the gardens
of Versailles and the picturesque by any number of English landscape designs associated
with country houses in Britain and in parks around the world. Allied with the latter
and, possibly its antecedents are the Chinese and Japanese gardens that are designed
to be settings to contemplate. Today, there are also the landscape designs of abstract art
forms associated with people such as Martha Schwartz, and the landscape architecture of
sustainable environments.
The hallmarks of the status of the owners of gardens vary. Those who seek art forms
see themselves as part of the intellectual art world and those people who seek sustainable
environments see themselves as husbanders of the land. Each has its own followers who
see themselves superior intellectually and, possibly, morally to the other.
Maintenance Levels and Status
The use of greenery and large open spaces in urban developments is seen as prestigious
but such spaces do require much maintenance (Figure 12.13a). As we move through urban
areas, squares, gardens, and through buildings, the quality of maintenance conveys to-
whom-it-may concern messages about the attitudes of those in control towards life and
towards people. Well-kept areas (b, c, and d) are associated with high status. Poorly
maintained areas (except wild landscapes) seldom convey a sense of prestige (e). Derelict
areas are worse (f). Areas of cities require constant maintenance due to the effects of the
weather and wear and tear.
The quality of maintenance of owner-occupied spaces reflects their owners’ attitudes but of
rented spaces generally, but by no means always, the values of the landlords. Well-maintained
areas demonstrate that people care about their surroundings enough to do something about
them. In Brasília the residential supercuadras that were all the same in appearance when built
now reflect status differences based on the degree of care taken in maintaining them.
a. Bahçeşhur, Istanbul, Turkey.
b. Alcázar, Seville, Spain.
c. Eleven East 86th Street, New York City, USA. d. Lambert St. Louis International
Airport.
e. Avenue A, New York City, USA. f. An inner city neighborhood, Chicago

Illinois, USA in 1995.
Figure 12.13 Design characteristics, maintenance levels, and the perceptions of status
The status of residential neighborhoods in any city is read as much by the level of
maintenance accorded them as the nature of their streets and adjacent buildings. Capitol
complexes of countries are especially well looked after. In Singapore the public agencies
responsible for developing the city-state—the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the
Housing Development Board—pay special attention to the maintenance of the public
realm. The maintenance levels are extraordinarily high by almost any standard. Singapore
markets itself as “a tropical city of excellence”. Many cities around the world, in contrast,
are good at building prestigious facilities but in a few years they look derelict.
The Broken Window Hypothesis
It is believed that well maintained areas (that is, ones without graffiti and litter, or ones
where broken windows and acts of vandalism get immediately repaired), lead to people
caring about their surroundings (Kelling and Coles 1997, Yong 2008; see also Chapter 8).
The hypothesis is that broken windows left unrepaired lead to more broken windows;
littered areas attract more litter. The belief is that rapidly removing graffiti leads to
less graffiti in the long run. The argument is also that such maintenance leads to less
crime. Certainly, well cared for areas reflect public attitudes and the demands of people
living in particular precincts. Whether or not high levels of maintenance have further
consequences is open to considerable debate.
Participation and a Sense of Esteem
Various levels of participation in the design process can be identified. They vary from
clients and users being told what is going to be designed to a genuine sharing of ideas
(Healy 1997). The evocation of the “art defence”, that buildings are the vehicles for
their creators’ self-expression, has often created tensions between designers and clients.
Although architects tend to be hired by their clients because of shared values, problems
arise when there is both a social and an administrative gap between professionals and
users (Zeisel 1974).
Participation in the programming, design, and evaluation of design proposals as they
are being developed gives a feeling of importance to those participating in the process
as well as providing valuable information for designers to use. It gives the people who
are going to be affected by a design a sense that their voices are important. Listening to
potential users of buildings occurs easily when architects are designing bespoke houses
for individual clients. In public housing the public is often seen as a hindrance to the
work of public agencies and designers, not an asset.
The self-esteem of architects is often challenged when their clients and/or the public
question their views. If, however, designers do not heed the opinions of their clients,
particularly community groups, the designs they create may generate a level of animosity
that can lead to the vandalizing of buildings in retaliation. The groups do not feel a pride
in possessing the designs but rather that the designs are imposed on them.
Status Considerations in Architectural Theory
All architectural theories of the twentieth century addressed issues of status. For much
of the century the generic design proposals, particularly the mass housing designs, of
the leading architects, especially those of the Rationalist school of Modernists sought
to obscure status differences. Little in the design of the residential areas or commercial
precincts in the proposals of Tony Garnier (Une Cité Industrielle), Richard Neutra (Rush
City) or Le Corbusier (La Ville Radieuse) differentiates people by social status. The
same is true of Brasília designed by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa. The design of
the residential superquadras was the same for all socio-economic groups. The really high
status areas, however, consisted of single-family homes across the lake from the totally
designed city (Evenson 1973, Holston 1989). Chandigarh was based on a different view
(Nilsson 1973, Kalia 1987).
A clear social differentiation by status of housing exists in the design of the different
sectors of Chandigarh. The city design (although Le Corbusier may not have liked it)
recognized the cultural realties of India. Distance from the capital complex, the size
of housing and the space allocated to people are immediate cues of the status of the
residents of different sectors. The transference of Rationalist design principles from
Europe to the United States in the 1960s resulted in a situation where patterns of built
form that denoted high status for office complexes denoted low for housing estates.
In much Post-Modernist design in the United States, in Europe, and in the cities of
modernizing Asia, the concern has been with fulfilling the esteem needs and rising
expectations of the middle class and corporations. Les Echelles du Baroque (1979-85;
Figure 12.14), a housing project in Montparnasse in the heart of Paris and Les Arcades
du Lac (1972-5) in St. Quentin en Yvelines, both designed by Ricardo Bofill and the Taller,
incorporate classical orders and large scale elements of built form to establish a greater
sense of prestige than Modernist social housing managed to offer. The complexes are
seen as more prestigious because they are monumental and because they are the work of
an internationally important architect. Corporations seek a different aesthetic.
Being modern (up-to-date) has been closely associated with status. The Modernists
promoted themselves successfully and claimed a high intellectual and moral status for
themselves. They won the 1930s and 1940s battle among architects for stylistic hegemony
(Larsen 1993). Being modern has, however, had a variety of images depending on when
and where one is. In Shanghai today it is an architecture that breaks from rectilinear
shapes that is seen as prestigious.
Architectural theoreticians have had great difficulty in coming to terms with the
consumer economy of the late twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries. They have
largely failed to meet the challenges of what economists call “positional goods”—those
that give a corporation, an institution, or an individual, a sense of being held in high
esteem (Baudrillard 1998). This observation is particularly true when it comes to houses
for other than the elite. Architects design comparatively few of the total production of
houses and have yet to deal effectively with the status culture of the mass consumer
market. While the design of large commercial and institutional buildings certainly does
fall within the purview of professional work, the architectural principles of popular taste
have largely fallen outside the domain of interest of theoreticians.
Photograph by Mark L. Brack
Figure 12.14 Les Echelles du Baroque, Montparnasse, Paris (1979-85)

Ricardo Bofill, architect.
Today most articulated architectural theories advocate prestigious modern up-to-date

environments whose location in place and time can be identified (Hays 1998, Jencks and
Kropf 2006). The architecture of international capitalism is, however, bold and brash.
In contrast, some critics call for a more discrete architecture as in Barcelona, Spain in the
immediate years following the demise of General Claudio Franco’s dictatorship in 1975
but it has been little heeded.
A Note on Discrete Architecture
Discrete architecture is remarkable because it is not immediately remarkable. It does not

consist of buildings endeavoring to catch the eye. On closer examination the buildings
have often been extremely well executed in providing for the basic functions of life, in
their use of materials and in their detailing. To those who really understand buildings
they often carry very high status connotations. They, however, fail to attract attention of
the uneducated eye.
In Spain, many of the buildings designed by Jaime Bach and Gabriel Mora, Esteve
Bonell Costa, and Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz are discrete (Hays 1998). In many
ways, the work reflects a more widespread concern about the character of cities. In the
United States the concern for regionalism and the concern for architecture that fits into its
background is reflected, as has already been noted in Battery Park City, in Mission Bay,
San Francisco, and in much of the work of the New Urbanists. While practicing architects
have led such ideological thrusts (see de Solà Morales 1989, Buchanan 1990, Katz 1994),
it has been primarily those architects concerned with quality of urban precincts and
with challenging the long-held anti-urbanism implicit and often explicit in architectural
writings and ideology (see White and White 1964) that have led the way.
Architects, Architecture, and Status within the Profession
The arrogance, socio-political aspirations and the employment of the “Art” defence by its
leaders to argue for their ideas brought the profession of Architecture into some disrepute
during the 1970s and 1980s (Gold 2007, Dalrymple 2009). Led by its superstars the
situation has changed (Hare 2009). We live in a different era. The Modernists developed
their ideas in an era of radical technological and social change beset by two world wars
and the depression. We live in a consumer, business-friendly society not one of austerity
although this may change as the result of the global financial crisis.
One of the functions of buildings is to give recognition to their architect’s. Receiving
accolades from one’s peers has had an important role in shaping architects’ careers,
reputations, and the types of buildings they are selected to design. Critical and sometimes
damning post-occupancy evaluations conducted by social scientists are generally held in
low esteem and dismissed as irrelevant by the elite of the architectural world (Vesely
2004). This attitude prevails because of the differences in foci of concern of social scientists
and designers. Social scientists consider a wide array of built environment variables in
their studies while the architectural cognoscenti focus primarily on the visual character
of the architectural object, the spaces it contains, and the architectural ideas behind them
(Belgasem 1987, Johnson 1994, Rowshan-Bahsh 1998).
The most prestigious architects among architects tend to be those aligning themselves
with the artistic tradition of self-expression. This tradition goes back to Michelangelo
Buonarotti and Antoni Gaudí y Cornet among many others. Michelangelo’s work was
classical; Gaudí’s was eccentric. Gaudi’s buildings such as the Temple de la Segrada
Familia (begun 1883 but still under construction), nevertheless, have a sense of mastery
and dignity. Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Daniel Libeskind follow in this great tradition
and are equally esteemed for it. Other architects who are held in high esteem are those
whose work shows considerable structural dexterity and innovation.
The sculpturally molded concrete construction work of Santiago Calatrava
established his international reputation. This reputation led to Calatrava being selected
by the Port Authority of New York in 2004 to design the PATH terminal at the World
Trade Center site development. The proposed design consisted of soaring wings and a
cathedral like space representing both architecture as high art and the architecture of
structural dexterity.
Those architects deemed to have high status when identified by architectural
theoreticians may differ from those identified by the business community and from
those seen by architectural students in one architectural school versus another. His
professional peers never held Robin Seifert, the most prolific architect in central London
during the 1960s and 1970s, in high esteem (Pawley 2001). He clearly had a following
among business people. In addition, some architects seek recognition while others shy
away from anything more than that necessary to maintain a practice. The former submit
their work for the winning of awards; the latter are less likely to do so. The architects
of note are those who set the pace, who write about themselves and their work or have
critics write about it.
Receiving a Pritzker Prize, an Aga Khan award, a gold medal offered by an Institute of
Architects, and winning an architectural competition all add to an architect’s status. Some
architects have a high international profile because of their work’s radical appearance.
A number of the winners of the Pritzker Prize, such as Zaha Hadid fall into this category.
Glen Murcutt is a very different winner of the award. His small-scale buildings advocate
the adaptation of the Australian vernacular to modern conditions. The Aga Kahn awards
have been won by high style architects on one hand and to those concerned with self-
help housing schemes on the other. Professional bodies may, in contrast, be concerned
more with the architects who have made a substantive and lengthy contribution to the
promotion of the practice of architecture and to the profession.
It is clear that heroic projects with a “wow” factor carry greater prestige than many
other types. Being selected to design a museum or a concert hall is regarded as a sign
of success among architects. Sadly, attempting to come to grips with the everyday
environment of cities does not attract the same attention. It is, nevertheless, the type
of urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture that changes the world on a
large scale.
The Architectural Counterculture
A number of architects and critics might be regarded as belonging to a counterculture.

They are advocates for various ends: for sustainable environments, for environments
that enhance the opportunities for children’s explorations on a day-to-day basis, for
pedestrians, or for people such as those suffering from dementia. While they may know
of each other and hold each other in high esteem, they are not generally highly regarded
in the mainstream of architectural opinion. They are seldom working on an international
scale, their investigations are at a small scale, and many have not produced much work.
Major References
Dovey, Kim 1999. Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form. London: Routledge.
Gans, Herbert J. 1975. Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of the Culture of
Taste. New York: Basic Books.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1979. The Signature of Power: Buildings, Communications and Policy. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
Mann, Dennis Alan 1979. Architecture, aesthetics and pluralism. Theories of taste as a
determinant of architectural standards. Studies in Art Education, 20(3): 701-19.
Advanced Functions
Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe, Valencia, Spain (2000)

13
The Cognitive Function of Architecture:

The Environment as a Source of Learning
The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-
appropriated learning—truth that has been assimilated in experiences.
Carl Rogers, clinical and educational psychologist
People have four interrelated sets of cognitive needs: those necessary for acquiring
knowledge about the functioning of the world around them, those necessary for achieving
instrumental ends (for example, doing a job), those concerned with learning for its own
sake, and those involving expressive actions. This chapter focuses on how the everyday
environment rather than the formal environment of schools and other institutional
settings provides opportunities for continual learning. The concern is with learning for
the pleasure of learning and for opportunities to express what is learnt.
Within many cultural contexts, the freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression
are prerequisites for people to live fulfilling lives. Learning about the world and what
it does and does not afford us is part of the process that shapes our motivations that, in
turn, shape what we pay attention to and what we do. Learning is necessary for survival
but it is also necessary to satisfy our curiosity. The level of curiosity about the world
that people possess varies from culture to culture, stage in life cycle, and by individual
personality. Although it is said that curiosity killed the cat, few children believe it. For
them the world is full of wonder (Santrock 1989).
In early childhood the world of children is restricted to the ambit of the home and its
immediate surroundings and, depending on their parents’ mobility, some outlying areas.
In middle childhood (Shakespeare’s second age of man in As you Like It, II, ii), a child
is competent enough to move around and explore a wider world. This exploration, in
turn, increases the child’s competence and knowledge. All environments afford learning
experiences for adults and children alike but some offer more than others. There tends
to be a significant difference in attitudes towards the allowable mobility of children in
different societies and for boys and girls everywhere (Bronfenbrenner 1979).
The Modernist housing environments of the second half of the twentieth century and
that are still being built today provide children and adolescents with few opportunities for
exploration and few opportunities for legitimate adventure. More important than the character
of buildings and their settings, however, is a person’s social environment. In childhood parents
and other adults are important but later in life it is the peer group that becomes important in
the day-to-day interactions that are a major source of learning. At the same time all behavior
does occur in a milieu and the milieu itself and the relationship of one behavior setting to
another affords opportunities for learning about the functioning of the world around us.
Some of these settings occur as the result of the affordances of the natural world. Others have
been self-consciously designed to enhance learning through vicarious experiences.
Through participation in the various settings we inhabit, as much as through formal

education, we develop our competencies—physiological and mental. The former involves
the development of motor skills, strength and endurance. The latter deals with the
acquisition of knowledge, the divergent and convergent production of ideas (the bases
for creative thought), and the recall and use of knowledge in order to seize opportunities
and resolve problems.
Formal and Informal Learning
Learning takes place in many settings. Some are organized specifically for being taught
(for example, Figure 13.1a); others simply provide opportunities for learning. Formal
learning and formal testing take place through direct instruction in classrooms or, if the
subject is something like rock-climbing, on location. Learning can be mediated through
radio, television, or the Internet or it can be self-instructional. The point is that formal
educational processes like formal organizations can be designed and the appropriate
settings in which they can best take place can also be designed. It must be remembered
that in formal settings such as schools learning also occurs in the communal settings of
corridors and playgrounds.
Much learning takes place in semi-formal settings. Places such as libraries, museums
(Figure 13.1b), and the Internet have a potential educational mission but do not usually
instruct people directly. Libraries provide resources for entertainment, education,
and the exploration of ideas in general. What people glean is up to them. In the past,
such institutions provided education by looking and pondering, but more and more
it is education through doing and indirectly through entertainment that is important.
Theater and film offer learning through the vicarious participation in the lives of others
in situations in which the audience is not directly involved.
We learn from seeing what other people are doing within the household and in the
outside world. Seeing the passing world, shopping, and simply playing develop both
knowledge and skills. The types of environment that best meet cognitive needs are the
participatory environments of everyday life (for example, 13.1c and d). Participatory
settings “invite” us into them to explore and to act. They do not, however, coerce us to
get involved. Much learning also takes place while playing games (e). How do policy
makers and designers create the affordances for rich learning experiences as part of day-
to-day life without the world becoming chaotic?
The Built World as a Learning Environment
Cities and their precincts vary in the richness of affordances they possess for incidental
learning in participatory settings (Figure 13.2a, b, c, and d). In their search for high status
design, many urban design projects at the beginning of the twenty-first century omit
such places. They may have museums that offer semi-formal learning opportunities (for
example, e). Signs such as that in (f) can enrich a citizen’s knowledge. They do require
being read!
the cognitive function of architecture 245
Photograph by Bruce Judd
a. A classroom. b. Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA;

renovated in 2004, Yoshio Tunuguchi, architect.
c. The Town Centre, Runcorn, UK in 2004.
d. 41st Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. e. Netball, Heffron Park, Sydney, NSW,
Australia.
Figure 13.1 Formal, semi-formal, and informal opportunities for learning

a. Chinatown, San Francisco in the early 1990s.

b. Autumn leaves.
Photograph by Steve King
d. Wollman Rink, Central Park, New

York City, USA.
c. Ira C. Keller Fountain, Portland, Oregon, USA (1970);

Lawrence Halprin, landscape architect.
e. USS Constellation (1854), Baltimore Inner Harbor, f. Historic site marker, Detroit,
Maryland, USA. Michigan, USA.
Figure 13.2 Educative urban environments

Many observers decry the increasing homogenization of new urban designs due to the
reliance on the automobile as the primary mode of transport, changes in the economic
scale of activities such as retailing, but also as a result of segregationist zoning ordinances.
The decline over the course of the twentieth century in the ease with which ten-year-old
children can negotiate their way independently to school, to play outside their houses, to
go shopping, and to entertainment facilities has been widely noted (Parr 1969, Ladd 1978,
Brookes-Gunn et al. 1993). The reasons are diverse: vehicular traffic volumes have made
bicycling unsafe and perceptions of dangers from strangers have made parents afraid to
allow children to roam. Nowadays, the image of good middle-class parents is often one
of people whose obligation it is to chauffer their children around the city to engage in
various organized activities. Children certainly enjoy the security and comfort of being
driven (Romero 2010). Increasingly education takes place in formal environments and
play takes place indoors as computer games and mediated learning through the Internet
hold sway. Children, nevertheless, also play everywhere with what is at hand (Figure
13.3a and d).
Playgrounds offer children the opportunity to test their skills (b) ideally in safety (see
also Figure 6.14). The observation that children like to play in dirt and rubble resulted
in the development of the adventure playground in post-World War Two Europe. In
adventure playgrounds children manipulate junk materials, build structures, make
fires, and play games under the supervision of adults (Allen 1968). Similarly, standard
playgrounds can be designed to present children with challenges and yet be robust
enough to survive with little maintenance (Dattner 1969, Rouard and Simon 1977,
Cohen et al. 1978, Eriksen 1985, Cooper Marcus and Francis 1990). The fear of litigation
is, however, making municipal authorities and schools install play equipment that is
unchallenging. Safety is the prime consideration.
Incidental play areas such as building sites and fountains (for example, Figures 4.8f,
6.14f and 13.3d) and sculptures (Figure 6.14e) afford many opportunities for self-testing as
part of the playing that enriches a child’s experiences. The city itself is less of a playground
than in the past. Opportunities for children to explore their worlds independently tend
to be more easily found in the countryside and small towns than in large cities (Cooper
Marcus 1978). Many older cities do possess a fine-grained texture of behavior settings
and thus experiences that provide a rich set of opportunities for children to explore.
Robert Roberts (1971) describes the richness of settings at the disposal of an active and
intelligent young boy in the slums of Salford near Manchester in England during the
early years of the twentieth century. Girls were seldom allowed to participate fully in
such settings at least not independently (Ward 1990). In socially degraded environments
children soon learn much about drug dealing, prostitution, and how to live on the street.
For many it is a harbinger of their future lives.
In today’s residential suburbs a diversity of places is often only accessible to children
via adults. The use of the automobile for transportation means that the distances between
suburban amenities have increased. The opportunities to reach desired destinations by
bicycle exist but are severely limited except in those places, such as The Netherlands,
where bicycle transportation is specifically catered for. A whole new world of vicarious
learning has indeed opened up via the Internet but the hypothesis is that if the world
outside the home was more hospitable to children they would be outside exploring it
independently much more than they do today (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993).
a. A kitchen as a playground.
b. A spider web rope climber, Coogee, New South

Wales, Australia.
c. The Adventure Playground, Berkeley

Marina, Berkeley, California, USA.
d. Philadelphia Museum of Art. e. A spider web rope climber, the Adventure

Playground, Berkeley.
Figure 13.3 Playgrounds as formal settings for informal learning

Many, if not most, of the places that afford a rich set of experiences have changed as the
result of market forces acting on the world of adults. Many older houses and neighborhoods
are full of nooks and crannies available for imaginative play. Neighborhoods containing
shops and places where children are exposed to the adult world certainly exist. Today
they tend to be under the jurisdiction of strangers. Unmanicured places rich in behavioral
opportunities have been neatened in the search for prestigious environments (R. Moore
1991). House designs are more functional only in terms of providing a sense of prestige
in efficient spaces not in terms of providing corners for play.
Adolescents
How can the built environment function to meet the cognitive needs of adolescents? This
concern is relatively new because until the 1920s most children entered the work force
at adolescence. In many places the poor still do. Adolescence today is a difficult period
in many people’s lives. While the home environment is still important, the influence of
peer-groups becomes significant. For a minority of teenagers the home environment is so
destructive that they set out on their own to face uncertain futures.
Some places because of their natural settings (for example, having local surf-beaches)
afford much for adolescents. The social and physical environments of many new urban
and suburban areas, however, afford few amenities for informal learning or learning
through entertainment. For those without access to transportation (their own cars or public
transport), the opportunities to engage in a variety of everyday educative environments
outside school are few. Suburban attractions for teenagers, such as shopping malls, are
widely dispersed. In addition, the managers of shopping malls dislike the hanging-out
behavior of teenagers even though adolescents often have significant purchasing power.
This situation does not prevail universally.
More and more teenagers work during out-of-school hours. What were once deemed
to be luxury goods are now regarded as a necessity. In some countries, such as Korea
and Japan, middle class children are under enormous pressure to study hard and spend
much of their “spare” time taking curriculum reinforcing studies. Teenagers are pulled
in many directions by their peer group, by parents and by marketers.
Those adolescents whose lives are school-centered do not feel deprived of places
to engage in life (Popenoe 1977). Unfortunately some schools have large enrolments
without a commensurate number of behavior settings per capita (Barker and Schoggen
1973, Bechtel 1977). The settings become overcrowded and many students become non-
participants in the life that a school can offer. It is easy to see a correlation between this
non-participation and anti-social behavior but drawing conclusions from correlations
is dangerous. The situation is abetted by the often increasing segregation of the
population by stage in life cycle, and consequently the decrease in active participation
of generations in each other’s lives (Sarason 1972). Many adults and adolescents seem
to desire it that way.
High-density environments rich in behavior settings that afford opportunities to
participate in life still seem to offer the most for adolescents. Town centers tend to be the
most accessible place by public transportation for children and adolescents. In many cities
the central areas are, however, in semi-decay because of population shifts, competition
from cheaper far-flung locations, and the lack of insight and foresight on the part of
local governments. Cities, such as Vancouver and many in Europe still have vibrant city
centers. To be attractive such centers need to have mixed uses, to be safe and appear
to be safe, to be clean and well-maintained, to have water features (also particularly
attractive to young children), to have good places to sit and hang-out, to have scheduled
events—particularly free ones—catering to both the general public and adolescents, and
to have clean, easy-to-access toilets (Woolley et al. 1999). Town centers and other nodal
points that possess these properties would be attractive to all ages.
What, however, are the types of informal settings that would provide teenagers with
opportunities to self-test themselves without harming others? The characteristics of good
environments described by Jane Jacobs almost 50 years ago would, if used as a basis for
design, help fulfill many teenagers’ cognitive needs (J. Jacobs 1961). Good schools with a
range of uncrowded behavior settings would too!
Educative Environments and Urban Design
Drawing these strands of thought and research together, an educative environment that
affords a variety of behavioral opportunities, the vicarious participation in the lives of
others, and the opportunity for expressive acts would have a number of characteristics.
Such areas would have a variety of housing types to meet the housing needs of populations
at all stages of life, perhaps clustered into small homogenous groups to avoid potential
conflicts among different groups (Gans 1972, Alexander et al. 1977, Ritzdorf 1987). They
would consist of a variety of building types of mixed uses in close juxtaposition with each
other (J. Jacobs 1961, Parr 1969, Alexander et al. 1977). The street blocks would be short.
The traffic circulation patterns would have to make walking to shops and schools safe
(Kyttä 2004, McMillan 2005). There would be a richness of formal institutions—schools,
libraries, museums—accessible to children independently (Evans 2006) and such areas
would contain accessible unmanicured open space, both within built up environments
and in adjacent natural areas (Hart 1979, Olwig 1986, Nohl 1991). The sidewalks would
be broad and streets largely untrafficked so that children could play games in them
(for example, the European woonerf) (J. Jacobs 1961, Ward 1990). There would also be
formal places for playing games that provide self-testing opportunities (for example,
playgrounds including adventure playgrounds) (Allen 1968, Dattner 1969, Wilkinson
1980, Cooper Marcus and Francis 1990). A wide variety of sensory experiences, positive
and negative, natural (for example, the scents of blossoms) and artificial (the smell of
freshly-baked bread) would be enriching. Deciduous trees in temperate climates would
illustrate the changing seasons. There would be places to watch neighborhood activities
in safety (Cranz 1987). Posters and plaques would explain sites of important events and
buildings from the past (Hayden 1989) and the area would have sites for occasional
events such as fairs. Existing areas should have buildings of different eras that both give
a sense of history and illustrate the variety of ways of achieving architectural ends.
These generic characteristics must be seen within specific geographical and cultural
locales. Some places are fortunate in having broken terrains, access to water bodies, and a
variety of vegetation that afford many experiences. Other places are flat and featureless.
There is much to learn there too but in them designers require considerable creative
thought to achieve truly educative environments.
The Environment and Adulthood
A good world for children is a good world for all (Lynch 1984). The same attributes
of a good environment for children and adolescents apply to adults. Most adults have
the advantage of being mobile and so can seek out opportunities for informal learning
and recreation throughout the urban fabric. They are not neighborhood-bound unless by
poverty and/or frailty.
Many people seek to lead routine lives without being challenged. They are content
and interested primarily in maintaining their own security—their own place in society.
Other people choose places to live that are diverse and abound in opportunities for
vicarious learning. Even so, the need for doing so in safety and with a sense of security is
paramount. Thus the migrations of the middle class in the United States from the inner
city to suburbs and back into the city have been responses to the need to feel safe. Any
consideration for the socio-physical design of educative environments must therefore go
hand-in-hand with ensuring that the mechanisms that create secure environments are
also in place.
As life expectancies and accompanying health levels increase so many elderly seek
new experiences. They wish to be exposed to diverse settings but not necessarily to be
active participants in them (Cranz 1987). Many of the elderly avoid having to deal with
young children although they may enjoy watching them. They also need to be challenged
if they are to maintain their competencies (Goffman 1961, Lawton 1977). It is difficult
to argue for designing challenging everyday environments except when dealing with
institutionalized populations. How easy or pleasant should the environment be? Stress
is motivating!
Opportunities for Expression
People express themselves in many ways: verbally, through drawings, and through
physical actions including body language. Some actions, such as the drawing of graffiti
on a wall, may serve territorial and self-esteem functions as well as being expressive acts.
Some blank walls afford graffiti writing very well as evidenced in many cities around
the world and the graffiti can be attractive and add interest to a blank wall if artistic.
Much is not. Graffiti writing/drawing, however, is not generally regarded as socially
acceptable by society although it might be by the perpetrator’s peers and some social
critics. Drawing a picture or making a sandcastle on a beach only for it to be washed
away by the incoming tide is a true expressive act that harms no one and might give
pleasure to passers-by.
Much art work and dance, or even running for the joy of it, are acts of expression. It is
difficult to design for such acts; they can be carried out anywhere. Kicking fallen leaves to
see them fly or hear them crunch underfoot is an act of expression that requires autumn
leaves (see Figure 13.2b). Highly manicured easy-to-maintain environments tend to deny
opportunities for many simple expressive acts. Adventure playgrounds and sandpits,
especially those with water, give children opportunities for expressive acts in a socially
acceptable manner. Such places do, however, need to be well maintained to be acceptable
to the broader community.
Cognitive Functions and Architectural Theory
The architects and urbanists concerned with consciously designing for the cognitive
needs of people are primarily those who have specifically been advocates for children’s
needs (de Monchaux 1981, R. Moore 1991, Woolley et al. 1999, Romero 2010). They are
conscious of the potential impact of different patterns of the built environment on the
lives of children. Mainstream architectural theories, in contrast, have focused on creating
forms that fulfill the intellectual aesthetics needs of the architectural cognoscenti (see
Chapter 14).
The safety and pleasantness of the walk to school and access to open park space
have been a significant concern in the urban design models produced by the architects
of the Empiricist school. The neighborhood unit concept as implemented at Radburn
provided a safe walk to school using a superblock design and underpasses to cross the
more heavily trafficked streets. Such schemes give parents an ease of mind in allowing
young children to travel on their own (Romero 2010). They encourage independence but
segregate children from many aspects of everyday life.
During the last 30 years, the desire to design more “responsive environments” has
been displayed primarily by the Neo-Empiricists. Building on many of the observations
of Jane Jacobs (1961) they advocate, small scale, intricate environments of walkable
distances (Alexander at el. 1977, Bentley et. al. 1985). The designs of places such as
Seaside and Poundbury display these characteristics although in highly manicured
environments. Paralleling these efforts has been the development of generic designs,
such as the pedestrian pocket, that afford easy mobility for pedestrians (Calthorpe 1993,
Kelbaugh 1989, 1997; see Figure 13.4a, b, and c). Much is learnt from observing the
activities of people in existing public places (e and f).
Rationalist urban design theories have focused on providing environments that
promote physical health. Proposals in the 1920s such as Le Corbusier’s City for Three
Million through its provision of active recreational facilities were concerned with the
development of the human body and so providing opportunities for self-testing that are
fundamental to cognitive development. Yet the nature of educative environments is not
a topic that Rationalists have addressed.
Conclusion
The design professions have focused on the creation of ordered worlds. This goal is
worthwhile where there is a need for the display of organizational and civic status.
Museums, plazas, and well-ordered streets are essential parts of cities but so are unkempt
spaces. Places are also required for expressive acts where “children and adults can leave
their marks without guilt” (Nohl 1988). Designing for undesigned places is difficult!
In striving to create educative environments, we have to avoid being trapped by
nostalgia for the past and what we perceive to have been better worlds—the Empiricist
pitfall. The opportunities afforded by the use of cars, refrigeration, and the Internet in
enhancing lives are vast. Their use, however, also affords the segregation of people’s living
environments into homogeneous units. This segregation has been embraced by many
people; they like it. It simplifies life and reduces its challenges. Educative environments,
Plan by Peter Calthorpe; source: Kelbaugh (1989) Drawing by Mark Mack; source: Kelbaugh (1989)
b. Pedestrian Pocket; a bird’s eye view.
Drawing by Mark Mack; source: Kelbaugh (1989)
c. Pedestrian pocket; a ground level view.
a. A pedestrian pocket plan (1990); Peter Calthorpe,

architect.
e. Faneuil Hall Market Place, Boston, Mass., USA.

d. A lane, Poundbury, Dorset, UK (1985); Leon Krier, f. Nelson A. Rockfeller Park, Battery Park City,
urban designer. New York City, USA (late 1990s).
Figure 13.4 Architectural theory and the cognitive functions of the built environment
at the beginning of the twenty-first century
in contrast, can be stressful. They require a tolerance for the quirks of people. Most
people in the western world prefer to live in low- to medium-density environments
with a homogeneous character in people and building types. Such environments are
psychologically safer, less challenging, and less stressful than diverse ones. The task
today is to consider ways in which such worlds can be made to provide more experiential
learning opportunities.
Major References
Bronfenbrenner, Urie 1979. The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
de Monchaux, Suzanne 1981. Planning with children in mind: A notebook for local planners and
policy makers on children in the city environment. Sydney: New South Wales Department of
Environment and Planning.
Hart, Roger A. 1979. Children’s Experience of Place: a Development Study. New York: Irvington.
Kolb, David A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as a Source of Learning and Development.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Moore, Robin 1991. Childhood’s Domain: Play and Place in Child Development. Berkeley, CA: MIG
Communications.
Santrock, John W. 1989. Life Span Development (3rd edition). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown.
Ward, Colin 1990. The Child in the City (revised edition). London: Bedford Square.
Woolley, Helen, Christopher Spencer, Jessica Dunn, and Gwyn Rowley 1999. The child as citizen:
experiences of British town and city centres. Journal of Urban Design, 4(3): 255-82.
14
Experiential Aesthetics
and Intellectual Aesthetics
It is the province of aesthetics to tell you (if you did not know already) that the taste and
color of a peach are pleasant; and to ascertain (if it is ascertainable, and you have the
curiosity to know) why they are so.
John Ruskin, architectural critic and essayist
The nature of aesthetics and aesthetic experiences often seem clouded in mystery.
Insisting that it remain so enhances the self-image of people who see themselves as
possessing the “the right stuff”—intuitive abilities and innate good taste (Orwell 1961,
Wolfe 1981). Despite much that awaits understanding our present knowledge of the
aesthetic experience can enhance the quality of functional theory in architecture. One
of the potential functions of the geometry of the built environment is to arouse interest;
another is to give pleasure subconsciously or as an intellectual exercise.
Harking back to Chapter 5 it is important to recognize three modes of paying attention
to the world around us: the experiencing of the everyday world as an environment,
examining the milieu as an object, and thirdly, as an object carrying an architect’s ideas.
Designs can be seen as objects or environments. For instance, Federation Square can be
seen as an object from above (Figure 14.1a) or from a station point at the ground level (b),
or as an environment of behavior settings (c and d). Interiors too can also be examined as
objects but, more typically, they are perceived as part of a behavior setting (e and f). As
an object or as part of a behavior setting, the milieu can be the source of pleasure per se
and/or when examined self-consciously in terms of an architect’s intentions. The latter is
an intellectual endeavor. The way we examine and respond to built forms is very much
in terms of our taste cultures.
People can examine cityscapes, building, and interiors, as if they were outside them
but their liking or disliking of places tends to be as participants in behavior settings.
Their aesthetic experience of a place thus depends on their attitudes towards the people
there and their activities, as well as the qualities of the milieu. This chapter is about the
qualities of the milieu that may give us pleasure.
Aesthetic Theory
Two bodies of theory describing and explaining our appreciation of the appearance of
the milieu are important for designers: experiential aesthetics and intellectual aesthetics.
Dealing with our every day subconscious appreciation of the milieu is the subject of
experiential aesthetics; dealing with conscious associational meanings and with design
ideas expressed in built form is the subject of intellectual aesthetics. The intellectual
a. Aerial sketch of Federation square as an object.
© David B. Simmonds/theurbanimage.com b. Federation square seen as an object in space.
c. The square as a set of behavior settings. d. The square as a different set of behavior settings.
e. Interior view as an object or a behavior setting. f. Interior view of the Australian Center for the
Moving Image as a set of behavior settings.
Figure 14.1 Federation Square, Melbourne observed as an object, set of objects,

and as a set of behavior settings
Lab Architecture Studio with Bates Smart Architecture, architects.
experiential aesthetics and intellectual aesthetics 257
Figure 14.2 Aesthetic theory and the domains of functional and architectural theory
aesthetic function of buildings deals with the stories that an architect wants to express in
built form. Buildings function in this manner primarily for the intellectual interpretation
by other architects and for the elite of the art world (Johnson 1994). Such experiences
result in “the activation of rewarding centers in the brain” (Leder et al. 2004).
Many people will recognize the cathedral in Figure 14.3 as a Neo-Gothic building. The
church is a major tourist destination for people living in the Mysore region of India. To
low-income Indian tourists it is probably simply a grand building. Intellectually their
response will depend on the associations they have with Christianity, colonialism, the
Neo-Gothic, and to other linked variables. Whether they are Christians (a tiny minority in
India) or not will shape their views. They are extremely unlikely to know of the architect
or his intentions.
Figure 14.3 The Cathedral of St Joseph and St Philomena, Mysore, India

(1931-1933; consecrated in 1959); Reverend Rene Feuge, architect.
The appreciation of buildings and, more generally, the built environment as a set of
objects is important because it helps to fulfill the cognitive and aesthetic needs of many
people. They get pleasure from contemplating and understanding it for its own sake and
not simply to enhance their social status.
Experiential Aesthetics and Functional Theory
Our present understanding of the aesthetic experience comes from philosophical

speculations (Eagleton 1990) and from systematic psychological research (for example,
Berlyne 1974, Weber 1995, Leder et al. 2004). Drawing on the two strands enables us to
draw a reasonable picture of how we examine the world in both a subconscious manner
as part of everyday life and in a self-conscious manner as an analyst of its beauty. As
beauty is a difficult concept to grasp, we talk instead about what gives us pleasure.
Over a hundred years ago George Santayana (1896), borrowing from the contemporary
psychological research of Hugo Munsterberg and William James at Harvard (Senkevitch
1974, Heft 2001) and his own introspective analyses, suggested that there are three aspects
to the immediate aesthetic experience. For buildings, the responses to the sensations
evoked by the environment (sensory aesthetics), the experiencing of the geometry of
buildings (formal aesthetics), and responses to associated meanings (symbolic aesthetics) are
the key dimensions. His categorization has stood up to scrutiny over time even though
the model of perception on which it was based has been found wanting. His sensation-
based Empiricist theory gave way to those that explain more: Gestalt theory during the
1930s and 1940s (Arnheim 1977) and to information based theories during the second
half of the twentieth century (Gibson 1979, Reed 1996, Heft 2001).
Sensory Aesthetics
Sensory experiences arise from the arousal of any of our perceptual systems: visual,
auditory, olfactory, or haptic (Pallasmaa 2005). Whether in the countryside (Figure 14.4a)
or city (b, c, and d) we are bombarded by the colors, sounds, smells, humidity, and
warmth of the world around us. We respond, positively or negatively to the sensations
that impinge on us. Consider the pleasure derived from the thermal and illumination
transitions between light and shade as one moves under trees on a hot summer day (c)
(provided the sequence is not so fast to cause a flicker effect that makes us feel nauseous) or
the feelings aroused by the moisture in the air and the sound of nearby water (a, d, and f).
We can stop and pay attention to the sensations that we experience as an intellectual
exercise but usually we just respond to the experience. We can also see designs in terms
of their architect’s oeuvre (e, f) and the range of sensory experiences they evoke.
It is difficult to pay attention to buildings as patches of color and light or to contemplate
sounds without thinking about their sources. It is, perhaps, easier to pay attention to
haptic experiences—the sensations of the wind on our faces and arms, or the tensions in
our muscles as we walk across surfaces of different textures.
a. Sabratha, Libya. b. West 14th Street, New York City, USA.
Courtesy of Ford, Powell and Carson, architects
d. Riverwalk, San Antonio, Texas, USA (1929-

present); Robert Hugman, architect, initiator.
c. Pioneer Square area, Seattle, Washington, USA.
e. Detail, Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France f. Falling Water (Edward J. Kaufmann
(1950-4); Le Corbusier, architect. Residence), Mill Run, Pennsylvania, USA (1934,
1938, 1948) Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
Figure 14.4 Sensory aesthetics

As I walk down the streets of St. Petersburg I feel a cold northern breeze play on my cheeks which
braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? (Mary Shelley in a
letter to Mrs. Seville (17- -). (Shelley 2002, originally 1818)
We, however, seldom pay attention to such experiences unless they make us feel
uncomfortable or challenge our abilities. We pay attention to the nature of odors but we
think as much about their sources. Generally we only become aware of sensations when
they deviate from the norm (Helson 1964, Goto et al. 2006). Consciously or subconsciously,
some of these deviations are pleasant and some unpleasant.
Formal Aesthetics
Although we obtain information about the environment via all our perceptual systems,
the visual is arguably the most important. For the blind the world is different (Brody 1969,
Southworth 1969, Bates 2008). Perhaps we architects should be concerned more about the
organization of sonic, tactile, and olfactory experiences but the visual experience seems
so dominant that the focus on the visual is understandable. Formal aesthetics deals with
the immediate pleasure derived from experiencing the geometric qualities of the milieu.
One can look at a building complex (for example Figure 14.5a), a single building (b
or d), building plan (c), or building interior (e) as an object in order to examine and
contemplate it as a set of geometries/shapes/forms. It is possible to examine them in terms
of the designer’s ideas and/or following one’s own geometric analysis. Such analyses are
self-conscious and intellectual. Do the shapes also strike an immediate aesthetic cord with
us without such an analysis because of their characteristics per se? Or do our responses
depend on learnt associations?
Historically, it was assumed that certain compositional patterns were more pleasurable
than others. It was, however, an academic, intellectual exercise (for example, H. Robertson
1924, Iengar 1996). Some canons were regarded as better than others. Today, the way it
is assumed that we appreciate the geometry of built form is much influenced by the
beliefs of the Bauhaus masters, Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten, and Paul Klee during
the 1920s and 1930s and the parallel research in Germany of the Gestalt psychologists,
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. The psychologists identified a set
of laws of visual organization that provided the theoretical basis for the Basic Design
course (see Figure 14.6; Wingler 1969). Our understanding has been advanced by the
studies of experimental psychologists Rudolph Arnheim, Daniel Berlyne, and Helmut
Leder among others who seek a neurological basis for aesthetic responses.
At the Bauhaus the basic element of composition was a dot that when linked together
with other dots formed lines that, when grouped, formed planes that can be organized to
form volumes (Kepes 1944, de Sausmarez 1964, Itten 1965). Certainly a drawing consists
of these elements. They are used to represent the three-dimensional world. The Gestalt
theory laws of visual organization were used to suggest what forms in two-dimensional
representations (that is, drawings) are most easily seen as figures against a background
(Hochberg 1964). There is considerable empirical evidence to support the observation
that simple regular forms are the easiest to see. A number of architects have turned this
descriptive statement into a normative one: good architecture is one of simple forms. This
statement is, however, ideological not empirical. Robert Venturi in his book Complexity
and Contradiction in Modern Architecture (1966) rebelled against this dictum. He suggested
a. Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, USA (1969) in 1993;
Harrison and Abramowitz, architects.
Drawn by Omar Sharif from various sources
b. Villa Rotunda, Vicenza, Italy (1566-71) in 1961; Andrea c. Villa Rotunda, plan.
Palladio, architect. Completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi.
Photograph by Peter Kohane
d. Ray and Maria Stata Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA e. Cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena,
(2004); Gehry Partners LLP, architects. Italy (1971-85); Aldo Rossi, architect.
Figure 14.5 Formal aesthetics

Adapted from Hochberg (1964) and Lang (1987); drawn by Omar Sharif
A form is that which stands out against a
ground. Gestalt psychologists compiled a list
of principles that shape the seeing of forms.
They are the laws of proximity, similarity,
closure, good continuance, and closedness,
area, and symmetry.
Proximity is the simplest. Elements that
are close to each other are seen as a unit
more readily than those that are farther
apart. In a(i) neither the rows nor columns
predominate, but in a(ii) one sees the pattern
to be consisting of three rows.
Proximity yields to other factors of
organization. Elements that have similar
qualities—size, texture, color, and so on—
tend to be seen as single units as in b(i) rather
than b(ii). In c a conflict arises. Architects
say there is tension between competing
organizational principles.
The law of closure states that optical units
tend to be shaped into closed wholes. Thus
d(i) is seen as a circle and d(ii) as a triangle.
The openings are seen as insignificant or
highly significant depending on one’s focus
of attention.
The law of good continuance states that
continuous elements are seen as units. In
e(i) we see two lines crossing rather than
four lines meeting at a point. We perceive a
sine wave in (ii) and in (iii) we see the two
dimensional representation of a surface
extending behind two others.
The law of area says that the smaller the
area the more it is seen as a unit; symmetrical
areas tend to be seen as units. The law of
closedness states that shapes with closed
contours are seen as units rather than the
gaps between them. Thus in f(i) we tend to
see the closed areas as units while we see (ii)
as a frame and in (iii) as a window.
These laws are explained in terms
of isomorphism—a parallelism between
neurological processes and the form of
perceptual experience, and field forces. Field
forces are said to have an area of application,
direction, and magnitude. These forces are
governed by the principle of pragnanz—
we see the most stable pattern in the
circumstances.
Figure 14.6 The Gestalt theory of perception’s laws of visual organization

that “less is a bore.” Psychological research shows that complex forms do indeed arouse
greater interest than simple ones (Berlyne 1971). Interestingness and liking are closely
related. They are also closely related to the interpretation of particular compositions as
static and others as dynamic.
Despite George Orwell (1961) stating that the word is meaningless because it is used in
so many different ways, “dynamic” here refers to the perception of apparent instability
in a visual composition. Architectural compositions can be regarded as static or dynamic
based on the Gestalt theory of field forces. These forces are analogous to concepts of
equilibrium in mechanics. The more static compositions are simpler; the more dynamic
are more complex and are said to arouse greater interest in the observer than static forms.
Here again it is difficult to claim that the perception is via our natural inheritance or via
a learnt language.
Expression or association? One of the debates among perception psychologists concerns

the relationship between patterns of form and emotional responses. According to Gestalt
theory there is a direct emotional response to forms such as those shown in Figures 14.7
and 14.8 (Isaac 1971) because they resonate with patterns in the brain. The alternative
explanation is that people associate patterns with feelings based on what they have
learned. The pattern in Figure 14.7a1 is said to be seen as a happy scene, a2 is said to be
full of tension, the pattern in a3(a) to be associated with femininity, a3(b) with activity,
a3(c) with confusion, a3(d) with effort and optimism, a3(e) with danger and doubt, 3(f)
with directness and uncompromisingness, a(3g) with definiteness, a3(h) with roughness,
and a(3i) with flamboyance. Do responses to such two-dimensional patterns apply to
three- or four-dimensional forms? Is our response to geometrical patterns of the buildings
in (b) innate or learnt? The answers are open to debate.
For functional theory in architecture the debate may seem irrelevant. What is important
is only that line and form do communicate (Kepes 1944, Levi 1974, Arnhem 1977). The
idea of line and form expressing meaning does, however, need to be taken with caution.
The Gestalt idea of isomorphism, the analogy between brain forces and field forces in
the environment dictating meaning, is challengeable. We seem to be dealing with learnt
associations obtained either through formal education (such as being taught the Bauhaus
Basic Design system), or through the every day linking of forms with feelings. Gravity is,
however, universally experienced. The horizontal plane acts as the basis for the vertical
axis. A symmetrical scheme is seen as a static one. Other compositions are seen to be of
increasing dynamic quality the more they depart from the basic static pattern (see Figure
14.8; Bachelard 1969). The tie between the degree of departure from the static and the
aesthetic appreciation by whom of a pattern has yet to be determined.
Order and complexity Concepts of order and of complexity shape the compositional
design of buildings in plan and in three dimensions. Order is often taken to mean
simplicity but any level of complexity can have an order to it. A complex (rather than a
chaotic) form is one in which many ordering principles are used simultaneously. The best
known of the organizing systems has historically been based on proportional schema
(Padovan 1999; see Figure 14.9). Proportional systems are used to give some visual order
to the façades and interiors of buildings.
Adapted from Isaac (1971: 67)
a. The emotional response to line and form?
b. Building form and emotional response?
Figure 14.7 Expression through line and form

Adapted from Kepes (1944) and Lang (1987)
Mechanical equilibrium The two-dimensional field The three-dimensional field
Figure 14.8 The dynamics of visual form

Adapted from de Sausmarez (1964), Issac (1971), and Lang (1987)
Figure 14.9 Proportional systems

Unit fractions are the basis for the proportional systems that relate parts of compositions
to wholes. The relationship of parts of the body to the whole is the basis of the imperial
(inch-foot-yard) measuring system and also the modular system that Le Corbusier
applied to some of his buildings (Le Corbusier 1968; see Figures 6.16 and 14.9). His basic
unit is based on an ideal. The division of the height into subsections is based on the
Golden Section ratio (a system that approximates the relationship between parts of the
human anatomy).
The Golden Section, in which the “ratio between the bigger and smaller quantities is
equal to the ratio between the sum of the two and the bigger one,” was an established
canon of nineteenth-century architectural theory (de Sausmarez 1964, Isaac 1971). There
is considerable empirical support for the observation. In Europe, at least, buildings (and
bulls, for that matter) whose proportions are based on the Golden Section are said to be
regarded as more visually pleasing than those that are not.
The preferred proportional systems at different times in history are said to reflect the
values of the contemporary culture (for example, England in Figure 14.10a). The use of
common proportions for the buildings in a district can also give it a unified character
despite the buildings being in different styles (b). The argument that this perception of
order is an innate process rather than a learnt one is difficult to substantiate or disprove
as the widespread use of ordering systems suggests that we feel psychologically
comfortable with the familiar (Helson 1964). We can certainly analyze buildings in terms
of their proportional systems. There have been many such dissections (for example, see
Rowe 1982 on Andrea Palladio).
Some compositions are simple, others are complex. Complexity has many meanings:
the number of elements in a system, their novelty, the variety of their texture patterns,
and the nature of their illumination. Complex forms are held by people to be more
interesting. Interestingness is positively correlated with pleasure except at high levels of
complexity. At high levels the patterns are seen as chaotic. If there is a perceived order to
high levels of complexity, the pattern may be perceived to be pleasing by the cognoscenti
(Berlyne 1970, 1974; see also Weber 1995). The evidence appears to show that people, and
societies, like simple well-ordered patterns until they get bored with them and seek more
complex ones. They then get bored with those and seek yet more complex until they
approach chaos. Preferences then revert back to simple forms in an endless cycle (Tyng
1975; see Figure 14.11c). The values of individuals and the societies of which they are a
part are not necessarily the same.
In some places in the world, the appearance of new buildings and precincts is
approaching the chaotic (14.11diii). When ordering systems do not exist or are
unintelligible buildings are seen as ugly. Although Melbournians are proud of Federation
Square, the complex is reputedly regarded as ugly by many. Perhaps this is why post-
modern, neo-classical buildings have appeal in many countries. They have some order
to them; they have bases, tops, and in-betweens!
Complexity and simplicity in sequential experiencing The research conclusions described

above are almost entirely based on responses to two-dimensional patterns on paper.
The slightest movement of the head, however, transforms the optic array. As a person
moves through the built environment what was occluded comes into view and what was
previously open to view becomes occluded. A number of architects have been interested
Source: Fletcher (1953; 377)
a. An analysis of proportional system employed in English religious buildings in comparison to the Italian.
Source: Oxford Historic and Architectural Preservation Guidelines (undated)
b. An analysis of the Kyger building, Oxford, England.
Figure 14.10 Proportional systems and building design

a. The relationships among environmental complexity, b. The relationships among personality, levels
interestingness and pleasantness. of environmental stimulation and pleasantness.
Adapted from Tyng (1975); drawn by Omar Sharif
c. The changing relationship between complexity and pleasingness over time.
(i) A simple form. (ii) A complex form. (iii) Too complex? Chaotic? Ugly?
d. Complexity in three and four-dimensional forms?
Figure 14.11 The relationships between visual complexity and pleasure

in the role in environmental aesthetics of people’s movement around objects and through
spatial sequences. At the beginning of the twentieth century it was Camillo Sitte (1889;
see Hegemann and Peets 1922); at mid-century it was Philip Thiel (1961, 1997), Gordon
Cullen (1961) and Lawrence Halprin (1965) among others. The support for their work can
be found in the research of perception psychologists dealing with the four-dimensional,
ecological world (Gibson 1979, Reed 1996, Heft 2001). With the development of animated
computer graphics the four-dimensional qualities of the environment have proven easier
to model than when using past graphic techniques.
Gordon Cullen (1961), using sketches, explored the aesthetic qualities of sequential
experience in places as diverse as village England, medieval Europe, and the ceremonial
axis in New Delhi. He argued for the centrality of motion in understanding the aesthetic
qualities of the world around us. He differentiated between the visual transformations
that result from movement through a sequence of spaces as in Figure 14.12 and that
which occurs as one moves around a building. In the former case the built world is seen
as a set of environments and in the second as an object. In some cases the transformation
is minimal and results in the perception that the visual world is dull. If, however, the
connections between vistas become too rapid—too complex—the resulting profusion of
transformations of the optic array becomes confusing.
The speed of movement and thus the rapidity with which the optic array changes
affects perceptions of what is complex. It is considerably more rapid for a driver than
for a pedestrian. Some of the greatest urban experiences are those obtained through
the window of a car while driving. In a city new vistas unfold when elevated freeways
are constructed. Vast panoramic views never open to view before are made available to
drivers and passengers (Appleyard, Lynch, and Myer 1964).
The focus on the sequential experience of pedestrians is associated with the townscape
school of urban design. An example is the university city of Louvain-la- Neuve (1970s+;
see Figure 14.13). Both tourists and habitués can enjoy a variety of experiences walking
from one part of the university to another along the main spine. The vistas change as
the spine narrows, opens up, and turns. Those cognoscenti who know the idea behind
the plan of Louvain-la-Neuve can also appreciate the design as an intellectual aesthetic
gesture of its designers.
Interiors of buildings too can provide a sequence of vistas. Doors mark transitions,
volumes of rooms change, and windows give distance glimpses as well as panoramic
views that one sees from a sequence of station points as one moves. Frank Lloyd Wright
understood this factor in his design for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. While the
building is certainly perceived to be a sculptural object from the outside, the interior with
its spiral ramp provides visitors with ever changing vistas as they ascend or descend it.
A series of intervening variables may affect the appreciation of such sequences. The
sonic and olfactory qualities of the environment can change the pleasure obtained from
the visual sequence (Southworth 1969). If one considers the elements of the sequence
as behavior settings then the nature of the behaviors taking place in each setting may
intervene in our subjective evaluations of the milieu.
The motion of objects in the visual field The world is full of moving objects—the coming
and going of people, birds flying, the movement of cars and other vehicles, flashing
lights, and the fluttering of flags. They all contribute to the aesthetic effect of a setting.
Source: Cullen (1961: 17)
Figure 14.12 Serial vision/sequential experience as analyzed by Gordon Cullen
Whether one is within or outside buildings, the movement of elements in our field of
view can positively add to the scene and the attractiveness of a place, or it can simply
make it chaotic. At night the effect of stroboscopic and advertising lights can add to the
excitement of an urban scene or, if piled one on top of the other, detract from it. Individual
responses will vary depending on what a person is doing and his or her enjoyment or
tolerance of complexity. As important as the visual experience of such moving elements
is the sound they make and, often, the odors they emit and/or trail.
Source: Lang (1994)
b. A model of the town. The university buildings are

shown in a dark shade.
a. The plan of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
(1970s+) showing the major pedestrian route
through the city.
c. A view along the spine.
d. The pedestrian spine through the city. e. The western termination of the spine at the university
library.
Figure 14.13 Sequential experience in the design of the university city of Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium (1972+)
Michel Woitrin and Raymond Lemaire, urban designers.
Individual and cultural variability in the desire for simplicity and complexity The research
during the twentieth century seems to indicate that delight in complexity varies from
society to society. For a time the contradictions in responses to complex patterns found in
experimental research conducted at different periods during the century seemed to be a
function of experimental errors. Anne Tyng’s alternative hypothesis has been mentioned
already (Tyng 1975). Tastes change.
Introverted personalities apparently prefer simple forms to more complex ones while
extroverts prefer the opposite—the complex (Eysenck 1973). Such observations while
they have an empirical basis are still highly speculative. Many findings are controversial.
For instance, contented and dependable people are said to prefer round shapes; ovals are
preferred by the creative and organized and squares by the clear headed. The accuracy
and, if accurate, the universality of these observations and their cultural transferability
are open to question.
The consistent finding is that people seem to prefer deviations from the norm provided
the deviations are not too large (Helson 1964, Leder 2001). Thus people’s perceptions are
very much affected by the environments they use or in which they currently live—the
familiar. Presumably people who live in complex environments prefer simpler ones in
order to get a sense of relief and vice versa. Mood differences seem to intrude on the
research findings. When people are contented they look at the environment holistically;
when they are not, they are more analytical (Forgas 1995). Sometimes individuals
seek comfortable environments and sometimes more challenging depending on their
knowledge and their competence in dealing with the everyday world. Hard and fast
principles for meeting design ends are impossible to draw from the research. It does,
however, provide the basis for discussions of the issues.
A Summary An observer’s appreciation of the geometric structure of the surfaces of the

milieu seems to arise in four ways. The first is intellectually through the recognition that
its structure is in accordance with some canon or the principles of an architect’s design as
discussed below. The second arises from the perception that the structure fulfils specific
basic functions well (that is, the aesthetics of use). The third is that the level of complexity
or simplicity is congruent with the habituation level of the viewers or is one to which
they can adapt. The fourth is that patterns that maintain a viewer’s attention are seen as
pleasurable; they tend to be those that deviate from the norm. What is important is that
the aesthetic nature of the geometry of the built world depends on its four dimensional
qualities and on its associational meanings—its symbolism.
Symbolic Aesthetics
Buildings, as described in Chapters 10, 11, and 12, function as signs and symbols. Symbolic
aesthetics in architecture is concerned with the pleasure derived from the meanings
one attaches to or associates with patterns of the built environment. The patterns of
buildings—the heights, ratio of windows to wall, materials, string courses, materials, and
colors—all potentially carry meanings depending on the associations that they evoke in
the eye of the beholder. The signifier (that is, the building) is seen in positive, neutral,
or negative light depending on whether the attitude (belief plus value) to the associated
item is positive or negative. The association is often not intellectual but intuitive and even
subconscious. The thoughts about Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (see Figure 4.6) of the hero in
Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt were expressed in the following words:
We stood dutifully in the center of Santa Sophia—it looked like a huge drab waiting-hall of a
railway station out of peak hours … I’d forgotten how hideous it was. (Greene 1969)
Many historians and certainly many Turks regard Hagia Sophia as the greatest of
Byzantine churches (see Figure 4.4b). They do not associate the interior with a waiting
room at a station but with its place in history.
Similarly, observers’ attitudes towards the World Trade Center towers as objects (Figure
14.14a) depended on their attitudes towards specific characteristics of the buildings.
These attributes could be their geometry, certainly, but also the values attributed to the
various associations that a person had with the buildings. It may have been positive in
terms of the towers’ heights, geometric simplicity (14.14bi) or their structural system but
negative in terms of their meanings as symbols of capitalism (bii). Most people in the
United States saw the towers’ destruction as an attack on American values that they hold
in high esteem; for a minority it was a matter for rejoicing. Their response was to the
buildings’ representation of values it despised.
Religious buildings can be full of often highly emotional associational meanings. The
interpretation depends on one’s understanding of the symbolism. Christ, bloodied and
hanging on a crucifix, is deeply spiritual to many Christians but must appear to be a gory
sight to the uninitiated. The two groups use different associational constructs in looking at
the crucifix. Knowing the history of Hagia Sophia in context can provide an understanding
of its architecture and thus the intellectual basis for an aesthetic appreciation of it.
Collection of Jon Lang Drawn by Omar Sharif
a. The World Trade Center, New York b. Two possible attitudes towards the towers.
City, USA (1966-77, destroyed 2001);
Minoru Yamaski, with Emery Roth
and Sons, architects.
Figure 14.14 Attitudes towards the destruction of the World Trade Center towers as explained
by Balance Theory
Intellectual Aesthetics and Functional Theory
Extrapolating from the research of Gordon Allport (1954), two groups of architectural
cognoscenti can be distinguished by the nature of their commitment to architecture as
an intellectual art form. The extrinsic are concerned with architects’ ideas for the sake
of developing their own careers or the need to be seen with the “right” people; it is
the social norm that is of concern to them. The intrinsic cognoscenti have, in contrast,
a commitment to promote the field rather than themselves. They are more concerned
about the pleasure they get from understanding a building than the status that any such
understanding gives them.
In the intellectual analysis of the work of architects and particularly their individual
buildings, the focus is on the geometric structure and its meanings. The vehicle for
studying the geometric structure is often the parti. A parti consists of the central
organizing patterns of an architectural composition—its fundamental design principles
that give the composition its structure. These principles display the logic of the scheme
and its functions (Johnson 1994). Buildings thus function as objects for the contemplative
analysis of observers. The study (Figure 14.15) by Patel Bhrugesh of the Bianchi House
on Luganer Lake, Riva San Vitale Ticino, Switzerland designed by Mario Botta divides
the building into parti, structure, services and open-enclosed spaces.
Intellectual Aesthetics and Architects’ Stories
None of the form generating ideas behind the buildings in Figure 14.16 is obvious. One
has to be told about them. The Vana Venturi house (a) is both a duck and a decorated shed
(see below and Figure 14.18). Understanding what is meant by a duck and by a decorated
shed enriches an observer’s contemplation of the house. Understanding the location of
the Gehry House in Frank Gehry’s career enhances one’s understanding of his goals.
The layout of the Mahindra World College (c) may be obvious from the air and anybody
understanding the nature of the mandala in Indian spiritual circles can understand it.
From the ground level it is not as obvious. One might see the Imax in Valencia as a blinking
eye (d). Federation Square is open to a variety of interpretations (e). In the Hollywood
and Highland Redevelopment, Babylon Court (f) with its kneeling elephants, trunks
aloft, atop columns, refers to scenes in D.W. Griffith’s 1912 film Intolerance. Very few
visitors indeed will know of the movie or have even heard of Griffith but they probably
recognize the film-set fantasy image. The meaning is explained to them inscribed on
plaques in the courtyard if they have the patience to read the history. If they do they will
understand the architects’ intentions.
The stories explaining architectural designs are often stated in metaphorical terms.
A building might represent, for instance the struggle between life and death or a lotus
flower signifying the opening up of life as in Delhi’s Baha’i House of Worship (Figure
1.5bi); the grid of a city might express egalitarian democracy. Michelangelo’s Sistine
Chapel ceiling is reputedly full of hidden subversive messages undetected by a long
sequence of popes (Blech and Doliner 2008). Le Corbusier’s interior design of the chapel
at Ronchamp reflects, as a Calvinist, his ambiguous feelings about Catholicism and
sexuality (Samuel 1999). In discussing his own designs Mario Botta notes:
Analysis by Patel Bhrugesh; drawn by Omar Sharif
Parti Structure Services Open-enclosed

diagram spaces
a. Analysis.
Wikimedia Commons Model by Patel Bhrugesh
b. Photograph. c. Model.
Figure 14.15 A contemplative analysis of the Bianchi House, Riva San Vitale, Switzerland
(1971-3)
Mario Botta, architect.
Photograph by Peter Kohane
a. Vana Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, PA, USA b. Gehry House Los Angeles, CA, USA (1972); Frank
(1962); Robert Venturi, architect. Gehry, architect.
Courtesy of Christopher Benninger
c. Mahindra United World College, Pune, India d. L’hermisfèric, Imax Theatre, Valencia, Spain
(1997); Christopher Benninger, architect. (2004-6); Santiago Calatrava, architect.
e. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia f. The Hollywood and Hyland redevelopment,

(1997-2004); Lab Architecture Studio with Los Angeles, CA, USA (2202); Ehrenkrantz Ekstut
Bates Smart Architecture, architects. Kahn, architects.
Figure 14.16 The architectural idea and aesthetic appreciation

I frequently use cylindrical forms that are like a defense mechanism against the forces of nature.
Obliquely sliced, fragile glass roofs of these cylindrical extensions reaching out to the sky
symbolically join earth and heaven. Solid, symmetrical blocks and striation add harmony …
sometimes the building itself, like MOMA in San Francisco [see Figure 1.5ai] glowing in the dark
symbolizes the city. (Botta cited in Gani 2008)
The Jewish Museum (see opposite) is full of allegories. We may get captured by their
astuteness if they are consistent and perceived to be valid. For observers who understand
the system it adds to the intellectual richness of their lives.
Intellectual Aesthetics and Architectural Theory
In studying aesthetics, many people differentiate between those buildings that are
simply buildings and those that are works of architecture, of art. To many architects and
architectural philosophers, the intellectual aesthetic function of buildings is the major, if
not the only function that falls within the domain of architectural theory. It is “architalk”
(Johnson 1994).
Early in the twentieth century a number of architectural ideas were allied with cubism
in the art world. An understanding of cubism is necessary to understand them. Later
came attempts to represent in built forms a variety of other ideas about how best to
express contemporary and, often competing, views of the nature of life. They include
International Modernism—an effort to create a global architecture, a variety of Post-
Modernist theories including Deconstruction and in opposition to it, Discrete Architecture
as noted in Chapter 1.
Sometimes, the architect’s stated intentions and the experience that other people
have of a building are similar. Daniel Libeskind set out to create a disturbing experience
for the visitors to the Jewish Museum in Berlin (see Figure 14.17). The powerfulness
and disorienting nature of the building—way finding is not easy—is experienced by
most visitors. Libeskind’s discourse on the design is, however, highly intellectual; the
experience of most visitors is immediate and subconscious.
Libeskind called his original design for the museum design “Between the Lines”.
The proposed main body of the museum comprised two broad sloping walls broken
to represent a piece of the Star of David. It was not obvious to critics that they did so.
The patterns did not follow the Gestalt laws of order so viewers did not subconsciously
organize the parts of the design into a whole composition. Its sloping walls meant that
the building could not serve as a museum so Libeskind created the zigzag form we now
see. Where a straight corridor cuts through the zigzag it forms six inaccessible spaces
or “voids”. Libeskind created a seventh void that he says represents Berlin’s loss of its
Jewish heritage. A labyrinthine corridor in the basement connects the museum to the
fragmented volumes of another exhibition space, the Holocaust Tower and the Garden of
Exile and Remembrance. The latter is named after the poet E.T.A. Hoffman. Libeskind’s
design is full of allusions to Walter Benjamin, Arnold Schoenberg, and to Hoffman
(Edelmann 2001). Only the intellectual elite can understand this discourse.
In a very different cultural context, a similar observation can be made about the
Oberoi Hotel in Bhubaneswar, Orissa in India designed by Satish Grover. Grover
replicated in the abstract the movement pattern from the mandapa to the garbha griha that
b. Exterior view from the street.
a. Aerial view.
c. Exterior view. d. Exterior view.
Photograph by John Gamble Photograph by John Gamble
e. Interior view. f. Interior view.
Figure 14.17 The Jewish Museum, Berlin (1999)

Daniel Libeskind, architect.
structures the organization of the Hindu temple. In the hotel the sequence culminates in
a large courtyard facing the guest rooms. A Buddhist vihara is the precedent. The logic
is again highly intellectual. The visitor experiences an interesting sequence of spaces.
The sequence may resonate subconsciously with Hindus because of their own religious
experiences (Lang 2002).
Ducks and Decorated Sheds
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (2004, 1977 with Steven Izenour) argue that the
function of architecture is as much about communication as about space. In Learning
from Las Vegas, they identified two contrasting types of buildings in terms of the way they
communicate meaning: ducks and decorated sheds. The form of ducks portends the activity
taking place within them. Decorated sheds, in contrast, consist of generic building forms
where the façade is visually enriched to communicate a meaning. The shopping mall in
Figure 14.8aii is really a large shed but has a decorated appearance. The same comment
can be made less obviously about the office towers in (ai). They are obviously office
buildings with decorated façades. On the other hand the Pritzker Pavilion (bi) and the
Minakshi Temple (bii) are ducks. The Paris hotel (ci) is ambiguous while in the Barcelona
Port entrance (cii) the office building is a decorated shed and the fish a duck!
Venturi and Scott Brown now argue that architects should recognize that we live in
mannerist times. Mannerism refers to a mode of communication in which motifs are
used in opposition to their original meaning or context. They argue that “architecture
for [today] should recognize that we have gone from a time of static tesserae to changing
pixels for a complex multicultural age that engages both vulgar communication and vital
mannerisms” (Venturi and Scott Brown 2004). If one understands Venturi’s argument
one understands the communication function of his architecture provided one examines
it in his way. Whether one appreciates it or not depends on one’s attitude towards the
argument.
Much of the architecture of globalism can be said to consist of decorated sheds although
it is not simply the exterior façade that carries messages but the entrance lobbies. Frank
Gehry, in his design for the Barcelona Port Entrance, conspicuously brought ducks and
decorated sheds together. In contrast, his design for the Guggenheim Museum (see
Figure 9.5a) privileges shape and skin over plan; it is clearly a duck. The Las Vegas of the
1960s that Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour (1977) described no longer exists according
to Paul Goldberger (2000). It was replete with decorated sheds but with the increase in
the size of the hotels and casinos, the buildings are now largely ducks. Maybe that is true
of many office buildings. They no longer hide behind signs; they are signs.
Composition and Abstract Expression in Architecture
Until the development of the Basic Design course at the Bauhaus, architectural theory
focused on different methods of composing parts into wholes consisting of proportionally
related units (H. Robertson 1924; see also Padovan 1999). Today meaning and order are
often sought through abstract forms and associational meanings.
The ideas of the Bauhaus masters are increasingly seen as an ingenious invention
of a way to look at, or read, the world provided you have learnt the language. It is an
ai. Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, P.R. China. aii. Shopping Mall, Dubai, UAE.
bi. Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, USA (1999-

2004); Frank Gehry, architect. bii. Minakshi Temple, Bengaluru, India
(1993); Stapathi Perumal, designer.
Photograph by Abdelaziz Kraba
ci. Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA cii. Port entrance, Barcelona, Spain (1992);
(1999); Leidenfrost/Horowitz and others, Frank Gehry, architect.
architects.
Figure 14.18 Decorated sheds (a), ducks (b), and a duck in the foreground and a decorated shed
in the background (c)?
intellectual aesthetic system. With the formalization of architectural education in the

early twentieth century and the flight of many Bauhaus intellectuals from Germany
with the coming of Nazism, the Basic Design course replaced existing compositional
paradigms in the architectural schools of many countries whose intellectual traditions
are very different from that of 1930s Germany (Wingler 1969). A number of architects
resent what they see as the victory of basic design and the debasing of traditional design
principles that form good architecture (for example, Iengar 1996 on architecture in India).
Such protests have been dismissed as retrogressive thinking. Perhaps, however, it is now
time to come back to thinking of the two systems as two ways of looking at the world,
each having utility in certain circumstances for certain people.
Some architects have experimented with both composition and expression in design.
Le Corbusier used his proportional modular system to give a visual order to buildings
such as Unité d’Habitation at Marseilles (Figure 10.3bii) and the Dominican Friary at la
Tourette near Lyons (Figure 14.19a). His design for the pilgrimage chapel in Ronchamp is
a more free-flowing expressive work (14.19b). Understanding his intentions in each case
forms the basis of any intellectual aesthetic appreciation of each building and his career.
a. The Monastery of Sainte-Marie de la Tourette, b. The chapel of Notre Dame Du Haut at Ronchamp,
Eveux-sur-l’Abresle, France (1953). France (1950-4).
Figure 14.19 Compositional and abstract design as mechanisms for visual expression in the
work of Le Corbusier
Intellectual Aesthetics and Technological Innovation
The development of new architectural forms has often resulted from technological
innovations in structural systems and materials. An understanding of the functioning
of structural systems enhances one’s experiencing of architecture. Knowing the
constructional nature of Gothic arches and the structural understanding required to
conceive them elevates one’s appreciation of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe.
Engineers explore new structural forms not only in order to discover innovative ways
of solving problems but for the pleasure it gives them. In collaboration with architects
they have sought new aesthetic configurations that amaze; they have the “wow” factor.
They are seen as works of fine arts as much as engineering. Many of the structures
completed for the Beijing Olympics are eye-stopping in this way.
Structural purity and intellectual aesthetics Structures are often the decorative elements
of designs and/or the vehicle for carrying metaphoric associations. The Spartan nature,
simplicity and visual elegance of furniture designed by such groups as the Shakers in the
United States has had a profound effect on thinking about functionalism and structural
design since the middle of the nineteenth century (Giedion 1969, Semper 1989). The
Shakers believed that embellishment was a distraction. Simplicity they believed is the
embodiment of purity and unity; beauty rests in the utility of an object (Becksvoort 2000).
The view reflects that of the Bauhaus masters.
During the first half of the twentieth century Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier both
argued for a built environment based on the functional purity of engineering products
such as airplanes, ships, and grain silos. They sought a machine aesthetic. In a different
vein, honesty in structural expression led to the New Brutalist Movement in the United
Kingdom. Pipes were left exposed; formwork was shown on concrete walls, beams, and
columns. Structural purity (or honesty) and visual elegance do not always go hand-in-
hand. Much honest design can be chunky in appearance especially if ease of construction
is a concern. Not all structural design is visually honest. Hollow steel pipes used for the
cantilevered roofs of sports stadia, for instance, are filled with concrete to inhibit the
uplift effect of winds. It is a clever device.
The use of pre-fabricated iron components used for the Crystal Palace in London is still
much admired. The architects and engineers of the twentieth century who explored the
nature of structures have played an important role in shaping the work of other architects
and engineers. In the 1960s Robert Maillart, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Felix Candella were an
inspiration to architects across the world and popularized the articulation of forces as an
integral part of intellectual aesthetic analyses. Santiago Calatrava Valls continues in this
tradition. His railroad stations at Lucerne (1989), Zürich (1990) and Lyons-Satolas (1994)
and his Museu de les Ciències in Valencia (1999-2001; see Figure 1.5bii and p. 241) are
sculpturally molded concrete constructions. Frei Otto pioneered and is still exploring the
use of tensile structures (Otto 2005). Knowledge of the theory of structures affects one’s
intellectual appreciation of the forms. Understanding virtuoso technical displays can be
rewarding.
Attitudinal Variability and the Intellectual Aesthetic Content of Buildings
Balance Theory explains much. A person’s attitude towards a specific intellectual aesthetic
message carried by a building as espoused by its creator depends on one’s attitudes
towards its creator. Alternatively, one’s attitude towards the intellectual message will
shape one’s attitude towards the creator. In one of his James Bond books novelist Ian
Fleming named his villain, Goldfinger, after architect Ernö Goldfinger whose house—
now a museum—in Hampstead, London he thoroughly disliked.
If one does not know the intellectual aesthetic argument for a building, one interprets
its message in one’s own way. This observation can hold true even if one does understand
the argument. Although many architectural critics knew Libeskind’s story they saw the
zigzags of the Jewish Museum in Berlin as the image of a bolt of lightning rather than
a Star of David. They saw the lightning as representing the history of Jews (Edelmann
2001). Whether one relates the shafts of light that penetrate the museum from the slits of
windows to the work of Le Corbusier in the pilgrimage chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at
Ronchamp (see Figure 1.3diii) depends on one’s architectural knowledge. Certainly one
interprets buildings in terms of one’s own history. Frank Gehry who lost 37 relatives in
the Holocaust finds spiritual sustenance in the Jewish Museum.
Most buildings are open to a variety of interpretations. Jörn Utzon’s source of
inspiration for the Sydney Opera House was an image of waves. For lay people (and
many architects) the forms reflect the sails of boats that abound in the harbor around it.
To the less awestruck and more bawdy it is said to resemble turtles copulating! Much
is interpreted based on one’s preconceptions about what a building should be—what a
house should look like, for instance—or what being modern means. These preconceptions
are based on what is familiar to one. Leading architects strive to create new expressions,
new forms and new interpretations in their work. The new can shock (Hughes 1980,
Larsen 1993). Sometimes the new gets absorbed into our cultural frames, and at other
times not.
Many once heavily criticized buildings such as the McGraw Hill Building (1931) and
the Chrysler Building (1928-30) and even Centre Point (1967) in London are now admired.
The world is also full of examples of buildings that were never intellectually absorbed
into either professional or lay cultures. Will the SwissRe Building in London (completed
in 2003) now seen by some as an “erotic gherkin” and as an unbridled search for the
exotic be seen in the future as a major intellectual breakthrough? Will the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina (1989-2002) in Alexandria (see Figure 14.20c and page 321) be seen as an
arrogant architectural intrusion into a unified Moderne cityscape or as masterpiece of
design? Time will tell. Many buildings that have won architectural awards are now
regarded as functioning poorly (Blake 1977). This change reflects critics’ changing
concepts of the function of buildings as much as anything else (Belgasem 1989, Rowshan
Bakhsh 1998, Weaver 2006).
Cultural differences Cultures establish the rules, implicit or explicit, of how we examine
the world. Our personal histories and the geographic environments in which we establish
a sense of who we are affect the way we examine the environment. Thus, for example,
examining the built forms around one in terms of the strictures of Feng Shui or the Shilpa
Shastras or in terms of the Bauhaus basic design course principles will result in very
different interpretations of the same building.
The contemplative attitude of Japanese and many other East Asian peoples in
examining the world differs from how many Europeans are educated to contemplate
the world around them. In must be admitted that when one looks at buildings being
designed around the world today, the differences seem to be not in terms of styles of
contemplation but simply in levels of tolerances for deviations from the norm and
clutter. The intellectual gulf between the traditional Japanese garden as an art form and
the environment in Shibuya in Tokyo is enormous (see Figure 14.21). The two worlds
function well for the activities that take place in each.
Buildings as Works of Art
While all objects carry meanings those that are purposefully designed to function as
communicators of aesthetic ideas and raise emotions can be said to be works of art. They
can provide pleasure as objects to be contemplated. Since the 1880s many architects have
b. McGraw Hill building, New York, USA (1931); Raymond

Hood, Godley, and Fouilhoux, architects.
a. Chrysler Building, New York, c. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt (1989-2002);

USA (1928-32); William Van Alen, Snøhetta Hamza Consortium, architects.
architect.
Figure 14.20 Habituation level and aesthetic preferences

Photograph by Realrich Sjarief
a. Imperial Palace Gardens, Tokyo. b. Shibuya, Tokyo.
Figure 14.21 The traditional Japanese garden and Shibuya—aesthetic expressions in two very
different behavior settings
regarded themselves as artists and buildings, particularly high value-added buildings, as

works of art. Many clients have encouraged this self-image. They have seen themselves
as and have been patrons. What, however, about objects not purposefully designed to be
art objects and never considered by their creators to be such?
Some objects (for example, utilitarian vernacular chairs) acquire the role of art objects
in connoisseurs’ eyes even though they were never designed as items for contemplation.
Many of what were perceived to be purely utilitarian structures such as factories that were
regarded during their working lives simply as buildings accommodating dirty activities
are now raised to the level of objects of art. The reason is that perceptions of the message
communicated have changed and/or the values associated with message have changed.
People read unintended messages into the object or they look at it in a new way.
To many architects and the cognoscenti seeing buildings as works of art is enormously
important. The intellectual aesthetic function of buildings is certainly important but not
to many people. The vast majority regard intellectual aesthetic concerns as irrelevant.
They focus more on a building’s functions at a more basic level. They are concerned with
how buildings provide them with shelter and security and give them a sense of pride.
As long as intellectual aesthetic ideas do not detract significantly from the fulfillment of
these more basic human needs, they enrich human experiences. The tricky word in the
prior sentence is significantly. Its interpretation is open to debate. That is why architectural
design and interpreting architectural works will always be argumentative processes.
Major References
Arnheim, Rudolf 1977. The Dynamics of Architectural Form. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press.
Cullen, Gordon 1961. Townscape. London: Architectural Press.
Kepes, Gyorgy 1944. The Language of Vision. Chicago: Paul Theobold.

Leder, Helmut, Benno Belke, Andries Oeberst, and Dorothee Augustin 2004. A model of aesthetic
appreciation and aesthetic judgments. British Journal of Psychology, 95, 489-508.
Santayana, George 1896. The Sense of Beauty. Reprinted in 1955. New York: Dover.
Thiel, Philip 1997. People, Paths, and Purposes: Notation for a Participatory Envirotecture. Seattle and
London: University of Washington Press.
Weber, Ralf 1995. On the Aesthetics of Architecture: a Psychological Approach to the Structure and Order
of Perceived Spaces and Forms. Aldershot: Avebury.
Part IV
Externalities: Buildings in Context
Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA in 2006 with the Walt Disney Concert Hall (1987;
opened 2003)
Frank O. Gehry and Partners, architects.
Buildings exist in a cultural and geographical setting. They can be designed to merge into
their contexts, purposefully change their surroundings, or disregard them. Whatever a
building is and however, as architect Glen Murcett advocates, lightly it touches the earth,
a new building inevitably changes its economic, social, and geographic environment.
A proposed building affects its surroundings from the moment its conception is
known. Real estate speculators will consider its likely impact on adjacent property
values. Developers will scan its neighborhood for the investment opportunities it may
open up. Neighbors are likely to protest; they will fear that anything new will change
their lives negatively (although once the building is erected they may well be proud
of it). Transportation planners will be worrying about the building’s impact on the
speed of traffic flows. Politicians will wet their fingers to see which way the winds of
public opinion are blowing and, in some societies, whether there is a possibility of a
financial gain in it for them. When it is completed it will have many consequences.
Chapter 15: The Function of the New as a Shaper of its Environment, the sole one in this
section of the book, focuses on buildings as economic catalysts, the way they shape the
micro-climate of their contexts, their potential physical impacts, and their aesthetic effect
with reference to a “sense of place”. Architects worry about the effect of its surroundings
on the building being developed and designed. They, however, seldom worry about
the impact that their building will have on its surroundings. Those impacts are seen as
public interest concerns that are safeguarded by zoning ordinances and building codes
and beyond the further concerns of architects and their clients.
Many architects enjoy working in those countries where the environmental protection
laws are lax. It gives them the freedom to create a building that they could not in
Europe, North America, or Australia. Municipal governments in those places are often
preoccupied with striving for prestige and an increase in their city’s tax base that a new
structure will bring them rather than its broader impact on the ecology of the natural
environment and the quality of life of people living or working in its surroundings.
Apart from the creation of a sense of place, these topics seldom arouse the interest
of architectural theoreticians. They are not considered to be functions of a building.
Architectural journals reluctantly show a building photographed in its context. It is only
when architects work as urban designers that they deal with issues of how buildings
affect their surroundings with any seriousness. Life is, however, changing. The fear of
litigation is making property developers and their architects increasingly concerned
about the impacts of a new building on what is adjacent to them.
15
The Function of the New as a Shaper

of its Environment
Change is not made without inconvenience.

Samuel Johnson, English lexicographer
Architects act to maximize their fee-paying clients’ interests and to enhance their own
careers. A variety of public agencies are charged with protecting the public interest but
in a globalizing world twin tugs pull on public officials controlling the development
process. They need to provide the type of opportunities that international developers
and entrepreneurs seek but they are also learning from the experience of the last two
decades that a series of new buildings serving the interests of individual clients fails to
add up to a well-functioning urban environment, either aesthetically or in terms of the
activities of people.
An increasingly important concern in a litigious world is the impact of buildings on
their surroundings—on their multiplier and side effects. Multiplier effects generally
refer to the positive impacts of new buildings on their surroundings; side effects
generally refer to the negative. Our understanding of how buildings function in context
is largely anecdotal but our empirical knowledge is increasing. It suffices as the basis for
understanding the issues of concern.
The discussion of these concerns is divided into six parts in this chapter: the catalytic
economic effect of buildings, their social impact, their climatic impact, their impact on
safety, the aesthetic effect of the new in shaping a sense of place, and the way buildings
affect the health of the biogenic environment. The concerns are neither mutually exclusive
nor independent.
The Catalytic Economic Effect of New Buildings on their Surroundings
A reason for many public policy decisions in urban design has been to enhance the quality
of the environment by changing property developers’ investment decisions (Attoe and
Logan 1989). While private investors are generally concerned with the profitability of
their own investments, sometimes both public and private interests are served by private
clients. John D. Rockefeller’s plans for Radio City (now part of Rockefeller Center) in
1930 were based on his desire to upgrade the neighborhood around his own home
(Balfour 1978). That was a private investment decision. Most conscious decisions about
the catalytic effect of buildings have, however, been public policy ones.
Museums, libraries, schools, parking garages, and new well-located retail space can all
spur urban development. Robert Moses, head of New York’s City Planning Commission
promoted the development of Lincoln Center (Figure 15.1a) during the 1950s in order to
eliminate the slums north of Columbus Circle. Moses’s goal was to build a “glittering new
cultural center” to change the character of the whole west side of New York (Caro 1974).
The development displaced 7,000 people who had to make new lives for themselves,
supposedly in the broader public interest, without much assistance.
The building of the World Trade Center (1970-4) in Lower Manhattan had similar
ends (Ruchelman 1977). The Grands Travaux of French president, François Mitterand and
the Chinese government’s investment in urban renewal (particularly in Beijing for the
development of the 2008 Olympic Games) served the same purposes. The Los Angeles
administration hopes that the Walt Disney Concert Hall (completed in 2003) will have a
positive impact on Grand Avenue in that city in the same way that Frank Gehry’s design
for the Guggenheim Museum (Figure 15.1c; completed in 1997) in Bilbao has had on
the Abandoibarra district adjacent to it (d) and on the whole city. Early in this century
the International Convention Centre (1991) is acting as a catalyst for development in
Birmingham, England.
The Guggenheim Museum drew 4.5 million visitors between 1997 and 2001. They
spent money on accommodation and meals that, in turn, has had a multiplier impact
on the city’s whole commercial sector. It is estimated that the museum has added an
additional €660 million to the city’s gross domestic product and €117 million to the
city’s tax base. Over 4,000 jobs have been directly attributed to the development of the
museum (Vidarte 2002). Analyses of the catalytic effect of the museum should be taken
with caution because a whole series of other such investments in the city have combined
with it to have an economic impact and what is attributable to what is open to question
(see Figure 9.5). Not all such public investment decisions have been as successful.
The financing of the landscape design of public squares and the pedestrianization
of streets has had mixed results. However thoughtful their designs might have been,
they have not always had the intended impact on their environments. The Plaza d’Italia
(1979) in New Orleans designed by Charles Moore with the Urban Innovations Group
and the Water Garden (1974; Figure 15.1e) in Fort Worth have had little positive effect on
their neighborhoods. Any number of street closures accompanied by fine new landscape
designs (for example, Oak Park Center Mall in Illinois; Figure 15.1f) had disappointing
positive effects on the economic viability of their surroundings and were reconverted to
vehicular traffic (Lang 2005). We have learnt much from such cases.
New buildings seldom have only positive impacts on their surroundings. Horton Plaza
in San Diego and One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, financially successful in themselves,
put many adjacent shops and restaurants into bankruptcy. Do the positive impacts of
private interests outweigh the negative in terms of the various publics’ interests? This
question is politically charged but will be one that developers and architects will have
to face, directly or indirectly, as cities worry about their competitive edge in a world
economy.
Gentrification
Gentrification is a process sparked by investments that result in the substantial upgrading

of a precinct of a city, particularly one that has seen abandonment and disinvestment.
Sometimes the process is purposefully instigated by public investments in infrastructure
or the erection of a key new building. At other times a number of pioneering middle-
the function of the new as a shaper of its environment 293
a. Lincoln Center, New York, USA (1960s); Wallace K.

Harrison, master planner.
b. Society Hill, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
c. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (1997); Gehry d. The Abandoibarra district, Bilbao, Spain (2006);
Partners LLP, architects. César Pelli and Associates, master planners.
e. The Water Garden Fort Worth. Texas, USA (1975); f. Oak Park Center Mall, Illinois, USA (1967+);
Philip Johnson, architect. Joe Karr and Associates, landscape architects.
Returned to vehicular traffic in 1989.
Figure 15.1 Investment decisions and their catalytic effect

class families move into a deteriorated district because property prices are low. They
then substantially upgrade the quality of their houses and generate a demand for local
improvements and services. Other families follow.
Many cities have areas that have been gentrified: Society Hill in Philadelphia (Figure
15.1b), the Meatpackers’ District in New York, Camden Town, Islington, and, more
recently, Shoreditch in London, Moseley in Birmingham, Paddington and Balmain in
Sydney, and Venice Beach in Los Angeles. Harlem in New York is seeing the process
happening now. The gentrification of all these places has resulted in what are generally
regarded as attractive areas. Property prices and rents have soared as areas become
revitalized. The tax increment to municipal coffers has been substantial. It is deemed
that they are worth whatever negative social impacts, such as the displacement of low
income families, that they may have (Ley 1994).
Social Impacts
New developments change the patterns of life around them. They often create air and noise
pollution from increased traffic volumes and from other machines. In addition, there are
the impacts of specific architectural patterns such as blank ground floor façades and tall
buildings that intrude on their surroundings. Some new uses are regarded as noxious.
Traffic Generation
New buildings change traffic flows. These flows can enhance, or disrupt the functioning
of surrounding areas. In some circumstances they can lead to the mal-functioning of a
precinct. Much depends on the type of buildings—the larger a building the more people
that are likely to be working there. Workers and visitors generate pedestrian and vehicular
traffic. Buildings housing equipment rather than people may, reduce the amount of
traffic. Shopping malls and hospitals generate more vehicular traffic movements than
residential buildings. Problems arise when the new is out-of-scale in terms of traffic
generation with its surroundings.
Adapted from Newman (1975) courtesy of Kopper Newman and Skogan (1990); drawn by Omar Sharif
a. The impact of out-of-scale buildings b. The neighborhood deterioration

phenomenon. phenomenon.
Figure 15.2 The potential effect of out-of-scale developments on neighborhood space

When a building type that generates much vehicular traffic is placed in a precinct with
relatively low traffic volumes, the increased traffic can lead to streets becoming channels
for vehicular movement rather than seams of urban life. This situation can be exacerbated
when streets are changed to one-way channels of high-speed traffic movement. When
that happens control over a street by locals becomes lost (see Figure 8.4f). The chain
of consequences that ensues may lead to disinvestments in surrounding areas. Oscar
Newman (1975) suggests that it can, in some circumstances, lead to a rise in crime rates
(see Figure 15.2; Skogan 1990).
In high density areas such as the traditional centers of cities, much parking is placed in
the basements of buildings. It eliminates the need for a sea of surface parking. The entrances
to underground parking garages, however, often disrupt the flow of pedestrians on the
sidewalks. The placement of entrances also has the consequence of slowing down passing
traffic by requiring oncoming cars to switch lanes. Changing pedestrian traffic patterns and
breaking the ground floor continuity of retail outlets can, however, lead to disinvestments
in retail shops. It can be argued that such interruptions are simply a part of urban life but
the careful location of entrances to parking garages can mitigate the problem.
Noise Pollution
Noise pollution is a problem in many cities. It results from the engine and tire noise of
automobiles and trucks, loud radios, and machinery of various types. Exhaust fans and
air-conditioning units are an increasing presence in cities. Increasing traffic flows as a
result of new developments in an area can be the sources of major sonic annoyances,
particularly in residential areas. Buildings themselves can generate noise especially
louvered buildings during high winds.
An unusual problem arose during the early 1990s with the Cityspire Center in New
York (1987). Its owners were faced with daily fines because the wind through louvres
on the dome of the 220 meters tall building created a high-pitched whistle that annoyed
neighbors. Design changes ensued; every second louvre was removed widening the
channels through which wind blew in order to eliminate the whistling.
Noxious Facilities
Many cities have legislation that addresses the negative effects of noxious facilities. The
primary concern is for the health of people but other worries are economic and aesthetic.
Often historic images of noxiousness stay in the public mind long after the nature of a
facility has changed. Once unpleasant factories are now often highly hygienic but still
regarded as polluting. They still carry the image of the sooty, “coke towns” of the nineteenth
century (Mumford 1961, Benevolo 1980). Some industries are still like that but today many
generate little in the way of pollution. Yet the attitude towards them is still much like that
portrayed in the advertisements for Welwyn Garden City (see Figure 7.7bi).
The definition of noxious facilities varies from country to country and even city to city.
Butchers’ shops are regarded as noxious facilities in Kolkata, India but form (or used
to form) part of many high streets in the United Kingdom. Sewage treatment plants,
however odourless, clean and brightly painted and well maintained, are not regarded as
ideal neighbors. Their symbolic qualities are unacceptable.
Blank Façades
The public realm of cities is seen primarily from a human-eye level above the ground.
The activities and/or machines that a building houses often require buildings with
windowless façades. Blank walls at the ground level have primarily an aesthetic effect
but they can have an economic impact if they deter the flow of pedestrians. They do not
enrich the experience of either pedestrians or drivers moving down the street; they are
boring (see Figure 15.3a and b; note also the effort to stop people sitting on the ledge in b).
Blank walls also function well as potential surfaces for graffiti so much so that they can
be said to “invite” it (c).
Graffiti has its staunch defenders as an exhibition of individual artistic expressions.
In some cases it clearly is. Most graffiti is seen as an invasion and a disfigurement of the
environment. As such it leads to perceptions that neighborhoods are undesirable, poorly
maintained, and inhabited by potentially hostile people (see Figure 12.13e). The economic
effects can be severe. In some cities legislation disallows blank walls at the ground level.
Bellevue in the state of Washington requires blank walls to have murals or relief sculptures
to give interest to them. In other places showcase windows serve the same purpose. The goal
is to provide pedestrians with a continuously interesting façade to look at as they pass by.
A number of buildings around the world are blank above the ground floor, either
literally or they function as such because they have mirror glass façades (Figure 15.4).
In either case they show no signs of life within them. In 15.3e the whole windowless
building is one large trompe d’oiel; in (d) it is the blank façade of a library. The “green”
wall in (f), while an increasingly frequent solution, is still unusual.
Glass façades reflect surrounding buildings and/or the sky (Figure 14.5). The life inside
the building is invisible. Often the reflections amuse but they can cause confusion when
it is not clear what is the mirror view and what not (for example in (c)). Mirror glass
façades were fashionable in the 1970s and were regarded as creative designs. They are
still being built although they are now banned in many cities not so much because they
are lifeless but because their reflectance causes problems in their surroundings.
Overlooking
High-rise buildings let people look down on adjacent open areas, streets, and the roofs
of lower buildings. For the viewer this surveillance simultaneously affords enjoyment
of the passing scene, vicarious pleasure in the lives of others, and looking out for and,
possibly, deterring anti-social behaviors. It also creates a loss of privacy for the people
over-looked (see Figure 8.12). The first enriches the lives of the viewers. The second is a
requirement for defensible space (Newman 1972, 1980, 1996, Colquhoun 2004).
Jane Jacobs (1961) pointed out that the loss of a degree of privacy is the price we have
to pay as part of retaining some strands of a communal public life. The loss of privacy
is, however, an acute problem in hot-arid areas where the roofs of buildings are flat and
used as living space especially during the evening. A level of privacy is indeed obtained
through the distance between viewers and the observed. This mechanism may suffice
but overlooking can be a serious problem in countries where privacy is highly valued.
Prohibition of overlooking was an unwritten code in the design of residential areas in the
Arabic Islamic cities of North Africa (Hakim 1986).
a. A blank façade, Philadelphia, PA, USA. b. A blank façade, London, UK.
d. Mural, Stanton Library wall, North Sydney,

NSW, Australia.
c. Plaza de Armas, Seville, Spain.
e. A totally blank-walled warehouse, Chicago, IL, USA. f. Muro vegetal de Caixa Forum, Paseo del Prado,
Madrid, Spain (2009); Patrick Blanc, botanist. The
Caixa Forum designed by Herzog and de Meuron
Architekten is in the background.
Figure 15.3 Dealing with blank façades

b. Caixa Forum, Madrid, Spain (2009); Herzog

and de Meuron Architekten, architects.
a. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Building, Pittsburgh, PA,

USA (1984); Johnson and Burgee, architects.
c. Restaurant interior 3rd Avenue at 13th Street,

New York City, USA.
d. Buildings reflecting buildings and the sky. e. Self-portrait, Jon Lang, London, 2006.
Figure 15.4 Reflections and glass façaded buildings

Where overlooking occurs from new high-rise buildings built adjacent to low-rise
buildings, the status of the low-rise areas becomes tainted (Negarestan 1996). Anecdotal
evidence suggests that this tainting has a negative effect on property values but this claim
has yet to be clearly demonstrated because the low-rise areas often become potential
development sites as a result of the adjacent investments.
The Impact of Buildings on the Biogenic Environment
The biogenic environment is an ever-evolving system. It consists of two interrelated

components: the edaphic environment and the biotic environment. The former is
concerned with the geology, topography, and climate of a place; the latter with its fauna
and flora. A well-functioning biogenic environment is self-correcting, self-sustaining,
unpolluted, and unpolluting. All new urban designs and buildings change landforms,
the hydrology of places, and its flora and fauna. They change the runoff of rain patterns
and, if as in a number of cities (for example, Jakarta, Indonesia), they draw their water
supply from the ground, they change the nature of aquifers. Simultaneously, hard
surfaces reduce the replenishment of underground water supplies. These changes affect
the niches inhabited by different species. New species replace old and others are driven
out of cities. Pigeons and crows replace songbirds. Squirrels may thrive but monkeys
are displaced.
Historically, people had to be cognizant of the natural processes of the world because
they had little control over them (Rudofsky 1964). Changes in the biogenic environment
were largely due to natural processes. Nowadays, the situation is different. Considerably
more people inhabit the earth and we desire high levels of comfort, labor saving devices,
and other consumer products. Their impact has been substantial.
Buildings and Microclimates
Buildings have many effects on the micro-climatic conditions around them. The term
“micro-climate” is used here to describe the immediate surroundings of a building. High-
rise buildings in particular alter the movement of air and cast shadows on streets, squares,
and parks. They can be the source of glare and may shed heat onto their surroundings.
As a group they can create heat islands and turmoil in the air moving over them. The
cumulative effects of these impacts can be substantial.
Air movement through cities ventilates them, lowers temperatures, and flushes out
pollutants (Hough 2004). Handling the effect of winds on the sway and/or rotation of
tall buildings and the impact of winds driving rain are major considerations in structural
and façade engineering. The way buildings distort the flow of air is a recent concern.
Litigation has drawn attention to the issue. In the mid-1980s the owners of 22 Cortland
Street in Lower Manhattan, New York filed a lawsuit against the owners of the World
Trade Center towers on the grounds that the winds created by the twin towers caused
their building to move in an “abnormal rotating fashion.”
The configuration of buildings and open spaces can cause three-quarters of the
wind striking a building to pour down its façade where it creates a rolling motion and
causes high local winds. This effect arises from the air pressure differences between
the windward and the leeward sides of buildings (Figure 15.5a and b). In addition, tall
buildings around the edges of urban development increase wind speeds in the open
areas windward of them. They prevent the flushing out of pollutants. We also understand
much about the mechanisms that can ameliorate the negative effects of winds on the
comfort of pedestrians walking or sitting at the street level (c).

a. Pressure connections.
b. Vortex effects. c. Wind mitigating elements in a public plaza.
Figure 15.5 Building design and wind movement
The problems can be addressed by creating height zone transitions in the centers of blocks
rather than on streets used by pedestrians. Buildings need to be spaced far enough apart
for sunlight to reach the ground and yet close enough to avoid downwash effects (Tong
1990). These ends are not necessarily easy to achieve. The taller the building and the
higher the speed of prevailing winds the greater the impact on wind patterns at its base.
Pedestrians are particularly affected by wind speeds.
Breezes can be pleasant but when the movement of air rises above 5 meters per
second pedestrians complain; if it is above 3.5 meters per second seated people feel
uncomfortable (Durgin 1989). Wind speeds of 23 meters per second (50 miles per hour)
can bowl a person over. All urbanites are aware of wind corridors in their cities and which
buildings channel breezes down on to the street. In cities such as Tokyo ropes acting as
handrails have to be strung across certain streets to prevent people being blown off their
feet once wind speeds rise. Amusing for some people, it can be frightening, for many.
Buildings under six stories in height cause fewer negative wind effects but land prices
in economically viable cities make such an empirical observation largely impossible to
translate into practice.
Urban development creates heat islands and turbulence in air movements (Chandler
1976, Hough 1984; see also Jenner 2003). Cities consist of hard surfaces that absorb and
reflect heat and raise temperatures substantially (that is, as much as 10°C higher than in
adjacent rural areas; see Figure 15.6a and c). The effect can be reduced by placing parks
adjacent to highly developed, high density areas and planting trees to provide a canopy
(f). An aerodynamically rough urban surface can be created by varying building heights
and masses. Other mechanism include having street patterns that channel prevailing
Sources: Chandler (1970 and Hough (1984); courtesy of the World Meteorological Association
b. The urban heat island.
Sources: Chandler (1976) and Hough (1984)
a. Heat exchange in rural and urban areas.

c. Typical wind profiles over built up and urban
fringe areas.
Photograph by Aykut Karaman
d. Meydan Retail complex, Ümraniye, Turkey

(2008); FOA [Foreign Office Architects],
architects.
e. Roofs, Potsdamer Platz district, Berlin, Germany

in 2002.
f. A canopy of trees, Central Park, New York g. Copacabana beach front, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in
City, USA in 1985. 1989; promenade design (1970) by Roberto Burle Marx.
Figure 15.6 Urban patterns and climate impacts

winds as in Stuttgart, Germany, building with materials that have a high albedo, low
thermal capacity and low thermal conductivity, and by planting roofs with vegetation
(d and e). In coastal areas high buildings along beachfronts should be avoided to allow
breezes to flow inland (for example, in Haifa, Israel). High buildings on the waterfront
in Rio de Janeiro (g) affect the flow of winds into the interior of the city. None have
been added to the two shown in the photograph. Similar measures help to avoid wind
turbulence over cities (b). Such turbulence often has the negative effect of returning
pollutants from the downwind side of cities back over them (Jenner 2003).
Overshadowing Buildings cast shadows. Tall buildings cast long ones especially in
winter at the higher latitudes where the sun is very low in the sky. Overshadowing may
be desirable in the tropics and in hot arid areas but undesirable in temperate climates
and in any climatic zone when it impedes the growth of vegetation. Maybe the lack of
penetration of sunlight into the service alleys of cities (Figure 15.7a) does not matter
very much but it does for the places people inhabit (b and c). Zoning laws can be used to
shape buildings to ensure sunlight reaches streets and plazas at important times of the
day (d and e). The objective is then to maintain a pleasant environment for pedestrians.
Yet often, as in New York’s Theater District, incentives that increase allowable building
heights are granted to entrepreneurs in order to get them to include low- or non-profitable
facilities—in this case theaters—in new developments (Barnett 1982). Such trade-offs
between desired facilities and ambient street level qualities are deemed to be in the
public interest. The shadowing of rooftops by taller buildings eliminating the possibility
of harnessing solar energy for heating and cooling in adjacent areas is a recent issue.
Reflections onto adjacent buildings The impacts of reflections from the glossy surfaces
of a building were mentioned earlier in the book so they will only be mentioned in
passing here to place them in context. Reflections from buildings can raise heat levels
on those adjacent, cause rogue glares in the eyes of pedestrians and motorists, and can
disorientate people. As mentioned above, they can also make a building seem “dead”; no
glimpses of life can be seen in it. The reflections from a number of important buildings
have caused increased glare and heat loads on adjacent buildings. The metal skin of the
Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, for instance, had to be dulled to reduce both
the glare and the increased heat it loaded on to adjacent buildings due to the sunlight
reflected from it.
Safety Impacts
Safety impacts can refer to many effects. Here the concern is simply with the structural
and constructional nature of buildings and what happens to their neighbors when
buildings fail. Buildings can be fire hazards or not structurally safe; pieces can fall off
them due to constructional deterioration or the impact of earthquakes and other such
natural events (as described in Chapters 6 and 8). Legislation on behalf of the public good
through zoning ordinances and building codes addresses many problems associated
with the impact of buildings on the safety of people in their surroundings. A possible
safety concern arises from the failure to predict the simple consequences of a design
Photograph by Jusuck Koh
a. A service alley, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
b. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1913); c. De Resident, The Hague, The Netherlands (1998-
Paul Philippe Cret, architect. 2002); Rob Krier and Christopher Kohl, urban
designers.
Drawing by Omar Sharif Drawing by Omar Sharif
d. Solar cut-off angles in dense environments. e. Solar Fans.
Figure 15.7 Overshadowing

pattern. For instance, the curving roof of the Peter B. Lewis building at Case Western
University (1999-2000) designed by Frank Gehry, reputedly, sheds snow and ice on to
passers-by during the winter (CNN.com./U.S. 2003).
Fire Hazards
The destruction or damage to existing buildings, streets and other open spaces by fire
spreading from building to building through a precinct can be substantial. Fire has long
been a concern with large segments of London (1666) and Chicago (1871) among many
others being destroyed by conflagrations. Since the mid-nineteenth century the public
policy concern has been for the reduction of the risk of fire moving from one building to
another and, more recently, stopping the spread of fire when catastrophic events such as
earthquakes occur.
The destruction of San Francisco (1906) by fire occurred as the result of ruptures
in gas lines following a massive earthquake. Today low-income areas and squatter
settlements—bustees, flavellas, barrios—around the world remain potential disaster areas.
The potential is, sadly, too often realized. In Jakarta they are attributed to electric short
circuits but cynics wonder whether property developers are involved.
Inadequate Structural and Constructional Design
Shoddy construction is responsible for many deaths around the world each year. Recently
erected buildings or parts of them have collapsed and/or pieces have fallen off them for a
variety of reasons (see Chapter 7). During the construction of the John Hancock Tower in
Boston (1970s; designed by I.M. Pei and Partners) the double-layer mirror glass windows
prescribed for insulation purposes kept on popping out of their aluminum frames and so
had to be replaced by single-layer glass. The building, nevertheless, proved to be energy
efficient in the long run winning a United States Environmental Protection Agency star
rating in 2006.
Under specific weather conditions problems often arise. Cyclones, for instance, cause
substantial damage not only from structural failure but through flying debris generated
from parts of buildings breaking loose. Failure to consider such natural occurrences is
based on either a lack of knowledge or the perception that they are inevitable (Ripley
2006). The serious concern for what happens to the surroundings of buildings when they
are swept by high winds or subjected to other natural events is comparatively recent.
The Function of the New in Creating a Sense of Place
As noted a number of times already, all designs have a sense of place whether they
are reinforcing existing patterns (Figure 15.8a, b, and c) or being departures from the
norm. Lujiazui (d), as a precinct, is clearly developing a new image for Shanghai. Recent
housing developments are creating a new image for Korean cities (e).
Is a new work to reinforce the local character, sense of place, or break away from it
or destroy it? Le Corbusier successfully argued that the Carpenter Center as a school of
fine arts should depart from the geometric, stylistic, and siting norms of the architecture
b. Rector Place, Battery Park City, New

York, USA.
a. Battery Park City, New York, USA. Cooper and

Ekstut, urban designers.
c. Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
d. Lujiazui, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. e. Housing, Suwon, Korea.
Figure 15.8 New buildings and a sense of place

of Harvard Yard (Figure 15.9a and b). As new buildings get added to Harvard with each
seeking to be an architectural statement so the Carpenter Center becomes part of a new
norm. The Guggenheim Museum (c) is a foreground building against a backdrop of
build-to-the-property-line buildings. The apartment building in (d) is likewise deviant
from its surroundings. Should it be?
Much urban and building design represents an effort to deliberately break away from
what are seen to be “the shackles of the past” to create a new identity. Internationally
renowned architects are hired to achieve this end. It was Le Corbusier’s role in
Chandigarh and Ahmedabad in India in the 1950s and 1960s. Louis Kahn had a similar
role in Bangladesh a decade later. The works of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid around
the world are current examples. At present, many, if not all, architects and developers
of large buildings think their work should be in the foreground. New buildings thus vie
for attention.
One way of maintaining a sense of locale is by designing with the climate in mind,
and using native rather than exotic species of plants or no plants in desert areas. It is also
possible to follow Kevin Lynch’s design principles to achieve a sense of place in new
precincts by providing them with a central node with identifying landmarks such as
statues and/or memorials, distinct boundaries and buildings that have a similar texture to
each other in massing, height, and pattern of street frontages. The character of buildings
should also be similar. Creating building design guidelines and having them accepted
in legislation may result in new buildings functioning as part of a system of foreground
and background elements and built-on and open space as in New York’s Battery Park
City or Canary Wharf, London (Lang 2005). Both developments have a clear identity.
Controlling what developers and architects do, however, is controversial. It is seen as an
infringement of their rights.
Externalities and Architectural Theory
Architectural theoreticians have shown more interest in the impact of a building’s

surroundings on it rather than the other way around. In considering the external effects
of buildings, theorists in the design fields have, nevertheless, been concerned with how to
design for a sense of place, and, more recently, how to deal with the impact of buildings
on the biogenic environment.
Architectural Theory and a Sense of Place
The localization of architecture—the consideration, as Christian Norberg Schulz

(1980) referred to it, of the “genius loci”—was mentioned in Chapter 10 and above.
Although practicing architects seldom clearly articulate their ideological positions on
the relationship of their buildings to their surroundings, there appear to be three such
views. The first is that new buildings should respect what is around them. The second is
that new buildings should deviate from their surroundings in order to be up-to-date and
meet the aspirations of their clients, and the third is that new buildings should create a
new sense of place appropriate for the future.
a. Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA, USA. b. Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard
University (1963); Le Corbusier, architect.
c. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, USA (1959); Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
d. Back Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 2009.
Figure 15.9 New buildings and their contexts

By “respect” is meant that the buildings have the same visual texture—overall height, floor
heights, window-to-surface ratio, color, and relationship to the street—as surrounding
buildings. It involves designing with a sense of decorum (Kohane and Hill 2001). Gaudí’s
dramatic designs in Barcelona nevertheless comply with the guidelines of Ildefonso
Cerdá’s master plan. Recent developments such as Seaside in Florida, Battery Park City in
New York City (Figure 15.8a and b), and Poundbury in Dorset, England have picked up
on local building patterns: Seaside the rural housing types of the American south, Battery
Park City areas much-loved by New Yorkers and Poundbury on the village patterns of
Dorset. The second and third positions represent the purposeful creation of differences
on key variables. The governments of the United Arab Emirates, the People’s Republic
of China, and Korea have generally rejected designs based on local building types and
have set out to create modern identities (Figure 15.8d and e). Ajman has sought a local
character for its public buildings (Figure 10.15e). The focus in all these places has been on
what the building looks like not on the character of local behavior settings. Battery Park
City in appearance may be like traditional New York but it does not afford the activities
that make New York street life New York.
Historically, in tight-knit communities, such as in the Aegean Islands, the North African
Islamic cities (Hakim 1986), or the pols and mohallas of northern India cities, there were
sets of understood rules about what could be built where and how. Deviation from the
rules let to the ostracism of the people involved. Grecian islands such as Mykonos (see
Figure 10.2b) attract large numbers of tourists and Modernist architects of the early
twentieth century admired such environments for their simplicity and unity of character.
They have what architects generally regard as an appropriate sense of geographic and
cultural place.
The Biogenic Environment
Landscape architecture underwent a major paradigmatic shift during the second

half of the twentieth century. The shift was from an anthropocentric view of human
dominance over nature to a form of “ecological integration between human systems and
environment” (Corner 1991). Only recently have architects seen buildings as having a
significant impact on the biogenic world. There is now a greater architectural concern
for reducing the impact of buildings on the biogenic world through the creation of
“sustainable” buildings. It seems likely that architectural theory and practice during the
first half of the twenty-first century will make an even greater shift in this direction.
There are strong advocates for them doing so (Walker 2006).
Fitting buildings to their context—organic architecture The whole concern with organic
architecture, the architecture of natural forms, has been with visually fitting a building
into its surroundings. It has been primarily an intellectual aesthetic concern. Frank
Lloyd Wright’s posthumously completed design of the Marin County Civic Center (see
Figure 15.10) north of San Francisco exemplifies his desire to reduce the impacts of
urbanization by integrating the landscape of cities and buildings into a unified whole.
He treated three hillocks as architectural features. The building was designed to flow
between and act as a link between the rises. Foliage and fountain pools were used to
further integrate nature and the building. The complex is, however, surrounded by a
large, hard surface, parking lot. Examples of such an architectural attitude abound. It is
particularly deeply embedded in the Anglo-American culture. The locational decision
does minimize the impact of the building on the land but its design was dictated
primarily by an aesthetic position.
Figure 15.10 Marin County Civic Center, California, USA (1958-72)

It is at this level that architectural theory has traditionally been involved with organic,
ecological design. Many examples of buildings that are based on a concern for the biogenic
world also exist but the number is miniscule in comparison to the total production of
buildings. In self-conscious design the assumptions on which a design is based and the
ideological attitude behind it are still on the periphery of architectural theory.
Sustainable buildings As indicated in Chapter 1, a number of architects have broadened

their concerns beyond fitting buildings to the landscape to encompass the impact of
buildings on the biogenic world. It is in the low building density environment that
architects have been most successful in developing ideas about integrating buildings
and natural settings into sustainable systems. Cities have proven to be more difficult
although designs such as Hammarby Sjörstad in Stockholm lead the way.
The recent ecologically sensitive house designs (for example, Hervai; Figure 15.11d)
have a set of characteristics in common. They are built of local materials and are
surrounded by the vegetation of the region in which they are located. Sometimes the
grounds of the building have orchards and vegetable gardens that provide food for the
residents. Animal and human waste may be digested in a biogas plant to provide gas for
cooking; effluent is used as a fertilizer. The architecture itself is climatically appropriate.
In some climatic zones the roof may simply be covered with vegetation or be used as a
garden to reduce the heat generating effect of the building and in doing so it helps to
prevent a settlement creating a heat island.
Theorizing and designing sustainable buildings on a substantial basis has focused
on reducing the embodied energy in building materials and the energy consumed in
operating buildings (Smith 2005). A number of architects have been interested in recycling
materials in order to reduce, or even eliminate, the energy consumed in producing them.
Achieving a sense of a regional place is a by-product. In India, B.S. Bhoosan pioneered

the use of discarded wood from fallen coconut trees as well as salvaged materials in
building construction. Scavenging trees, once a free activity, has become an industry as
entrepreneurs have recognized its potential profitability. Bhoosan’s major concern has
not, however, been with profitability but rather with reducing the embodied energy in
building materials and designing with climate in mind.
A growing number of architects are concerned with climate conscious design whether
in a low-technology (Figure 15.11) or high technology manner as in much of the work of
Ken Yeang (Figures 1.9d and 9.2b). The Olympic Games development for Sydney 2000
and the Torrent Research Centre outside Ahmedabad in India (Figure 9.2e) are other
high-technology examples of attempts to reduce the impact of a large development on
the environment.
Although the Torrent Research Centre has central air-conditioning for laboratories,
towering ventilation shafts enable a downdraft evaporation system to be used for cooling
the rest of the building. Simple devices such as cavity walls and the lack of openings on
the east and west façades enhance the ambient temperature quality within the building.
At the same time between six and nine air changes per hour are obtained. In terms of
embodied energy, the attempt was made to use both local and natural materials rather
than synthetics, and local construction methods rather than high technology ones
(Patel 2000). The Surry Hills Community Centre in Sydney uses down drafts filtered by
vegetation to ventilate the building (15.11c).
The concern in designs for an ecologically appropriate architecture has generally been
with the location of building cores, the orientation of the main façades and windows, the
ratio of solid wall to glazing on the façades, the selection of materials and energy sources,
and the management of wastes (Church and Gale 2000). The same concerns shaped a
number of buildings created during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The Pearl
River Tower in Guangzhou (2005-10) and the design for Gazprom in St. Petersburg (2007)
are among those for which major claims are being made.
The true innovation of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney was in turning
environmental concerns into action. The concern reflects a broader interest in Australia
about the country’s fragile environment. The Olympic site was a gray field one—one
heavily contaminated by industrial wastes—so remedial action had to be taken before
construction could commence. This necessity set the tone for subsequent design efforts.
The focus of environmental concern was on three matters: reducing waste, conserving
water, and saving energy. Recycled materials were heavily used to reduce the embodied
energy consumed, and great attention was paid to the orientation of buildings. Solar
powered lighting and water heating was used throughout the site. Sunshades, light
colored exterior finishes, cross-ventilators all helped and still help to reduce energy costs.
The solar panels on the Superdome (the large indoor arena) supply surplus power to
Sydney’s grid. The former Olympic Village uses 75 percent less grid electricity than a
comparable standard Australian suburb. The retention of storm water and the recycling
of wastewater meet water needs (other than drinking) on the site. It demonstrated that
contemporary knowledge can be applied with success.
Photograph by and used courtesy of Glenn Murcutt
b. Marika-Alderton House, Yirrkala Community,

Australia (1991-94); Glen Murcutt, architect.
a. Dar Ghadames Hotel, Ghadāmis, Libya (2005); Libyan

Car Club, developer.
Courtesy of Shirish Beri
c. Vegetated ventilation chimney,

Surry Hills Community Centre,
NSW, Australia, FJMT architects.
Courtesy of the Estate of Malcolm Wells
d. The architect’s “farm house,” Hirvai, Nadawade, e. Cape Cod house, Massachusetts, USA;
India (1980-3); Shirish Beri, architect. Malcolm Wells, architect.
Figure 15.11 Low environmental impact buildings

Conclusion
Buildings function in a geographic, social, and political setting. It is clear that the political
economy shapes cities and the buildings they contain (Clarke 2004). Buildings also have
impacts on their contexts. These impacts are becoming a major concern in creating
the urban development and design policies that will have an impact on the design of
buildings. The functioning of buildings in context involves a two-way interaction.
The concern for these issues has arisen from the growing world-wide concern for the
ecology of the environment and also fear of litigation. It is certainly shaping the nature
of architecture. More and more young architects are aware of the measures required to
achieve a more ecologically sound built environment, but the dictates of the economy
and currently fashionable architectural ideologies seldom allow them to explore the
issues in design. As the superstars of the architecture firmament become concerned so
the lesser luminaries will follow, or will it be vice versa?
Major References
Reinhold.
Hough, Michael 2004. Cities and Natural Processes: A Basis for Sustainability. Oxford: Routledge.
Jenner, Lynn, ed. 2003. Are cities changing local and global climates? http://www.nasa.gov/
centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1211urban.html [accessed: July 23, 2008].
McHarg, Ian 1969. Design with Nature. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press.
Norberg Schulz, Christian 1980. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York:
Rizzoli.
Smith, Peter F. 2005. Architecture in a Climate of Change: A Guide to Sustainable Design. Oxford:
Elsevier/Architectural Press.
Part V
Conclusion
Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California, USA (1981)

Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum [now HOK], architects.
Two distinct, although interrelated, bodies of architectural knowledge exist. In addition to

the traditional concern of architectural theory with describing and explaining architects’
ideological positions and their design consequences there is a body of knowledge about
the functioning of the built, or artificial, environment. It is available for architects to use
as they desire to achieve their own and their clients’ goals without being detrimental to
the broader needs of the social and biological environments. This book has been about
this body of knowledge as it now exists. It has been presented here as a framework for
programming in practice and as a foundation for further research. The objective of this
last chapter is to put this updated functional theory into perspective.
Although it has been outside the scope of this book, an allied body of knowledge is
available to architects. It consists of our current understanding of the designing process.
It goes under the rubric of design methodology—the study of the structure of how we
design buildings and the various methods and techniques we use. It is being developed
within the academic discipline of cognitive psychology and a number of applied problem
solving fields. Very little research has actually been done on architectural designing, but
there is little about the process that is unique. It is, after all, one of a large number of
similar decision-making processes. Functional theory feeds into the designing process
and learns from its results.
Rather than making the designing process easier the advances in structural and
constructional technology are making it more complex. The reason is that they open
up a great range of design options available to the architect. The same problems can
be addressed in many ways. What is important is that the significant issues be clearly
identified. That is where functional theory comes in. It potentially makes designing
more difficult too because it illuminates the variety of issues with which architects have
to contend simultaneously. It would be easier not to know about them. Designs would
function well enough. People are after all highly adaptable, but the designs would
continue to incur opportunity costs. An explicit theory of functions enables architects to
ask good questions about the tasks they face by informing them of the range of functions
the built environment can and cannot serve.
The world is too complex and the time available too short for an architect to deal
with every variable that might possibly be of concern. It has always been this way
and always will be. Moreover, designs are for the future and the future is unknown
although short term futures are predictable with some degree of accuracy. Luckily, the
world is changing considerably less rapidly than our contemporary conceit admits.
Dramatic changes may, however, be in the offing. They will raise new questions and
require new architectural responses.
16
Architectural Theory, Functional Theory,

and Design Methodology
It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work,
but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give … But I do not think this is so.
Jane Jacobs, urbanist, author, social critic in Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)
Architectural theory describes and explains an individual architect’s or a school of

architectural thought’s intentions—their goals and objectives, the design principles they
use, and the designs that result. Architectural theory is thus fundamentally and openly
ideological. The architectural literature abounds with monographs describing the work
of individual architects. Certain giants of twentieth-century intellectual leadership in
the profession stand out because they were highly articulate about their beliefs about
what the concerns of architecture should be. Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le
Corbusier, Robert Venturi, and Coop Hemelb(l)au, among others have stirred opinions.
A number of architects have emerged as leaders in the field in the early twenty-first
century: Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid among others. The results of their
explorations have taught us much about how buildings function. So has the systematic
research on the functioning of the built environment.
The goal of this book has been to structure and synthesize past research so that we can
have an updated model of the functions of built form. It is biased by the view that we
should be explicit about what we know and that designs should be based on evidence
rather than what we believe or hope to be true. Understanding both functional theory
and its underlying biases shapes an architect’s own ideology. An architect’s ideological
position—architectural theory—is based on a view of what the domain of architecture is
and what the obligations of architects are.
Functional Theory, Design Methodology, and Professional Practice
Functional Theory as it has been revisited in this book is the positive basis for architectural
design in the sense that it consists of empirical assertions, or hypotheses, about reality.
As the current research around the world on the affordances of architectural patterns
continues, so functional theory will be enriched and will explain more. Much today
remains based on anecdotal evidence and introspective analysis rather than on scientific
or, at least quasi-scientific, empirical research.
The development of functional theory, even if not recognized as such, since the 1960s
has been in response to the perceived gap between what architects say they are trying to
achieve and the performance of the environments they create (see Gold 2007, for example,
on the gap). Intuitive thinking is powerful but what is intuitively obvious and just common
sense is often simply incorrect. It is based on one’s own experiences and hopes. To the
extent that the worlds of architects and their clients—sponsors and users of building—are
the same, few problems arise. Frequently there is a social, economic, cultural, and an
administrative gap between users and architects. As a result, architects need to be able to
ask important questions about the tasks they face instead of designing by habit using the
same patterns in their repertoire time and again. Functional theory brings attention to the
range of potential purposes a proposed building or urban design might serve.
The structure and content of functional theory are not static. An improved model of
human motivations will offer a better structure. Professional experience and applied
research will enhance the content. New technologies and new fashions will emerge
and hold the attention of the avant-garde for a while at least. Architects will invent new
patterns of form to meet new needs or discover new ways of addressing current problems.
Some ways will evolve into traditions; others will fail to capture the imagination of other
architects, their clients, the cognoscenti and/or the lay public and be forgotten until,
possibly, being resurrected as times change. Understanding what works and what does
not is important so functional theory cannot be frozen in time.
A few architects may take the view, more often than not implicitly rather than explicitly
expressed these days, that a well-developed body of functional theory gets in the way
of their creative efforts. They want to rely on their own experiences and beliefs. The
development of functional theory is of little interest to them. The irony is that functional
theory should be able to assist them to ask questions about their work in a way that will
help them achieve their own goals without being detrimental to the goals of society.
Functional Theory and Design Methodology
Design methodology represents of our understanding of the nature of designing. The goal
is to understand the impact on buildings and urban designs of conducting the process
in one manner rather than another. It is also concerned with questions of morality and
ethics (Harries 1997). Design methodology is procedural architectural theory as explained
in Chapter 2. The design processes used by architects share much in common with
decision-making in other fields particularly engineering. This commonality extends to
fields such as business and medicine that may seem remote from architecture. Indeed,
our understanding of the nature of creative thinking borrows heavily from theories of
method in other disciplines and from the theories developed in cognitive psychology
(Lawson 2006).
The decision making process begins by asking (or, rather, designing) what the problem
is that needs to be addressed. It then goes on to the generation of possible solutions,
predicting how each would work if implemented, evaluating them, implementing
one (if any are worthy) and then evaluating the solution when it is in place. It can be
described in a number of steps: intelligence, design, choice, implementation, operation,
and post-implementation evaluation. Architectural designing follows the same steps:
program (or brief) design, sketch designs, the prediction of how possible designs will
work if built, the evaluation of the possibilities, the selection of one, the implementation
of the design, and finally, ideally, the systematic evaluation of the completed design in
operation. The last step should evaluate not only how the design functions but how its
environment functions with the new development in place.
architectural theory, functional theory, and design methodology 317
Adapted from Lang (1987, 1994); drawn by Omar Sharif
Figure 16.1 Functional theory, procedural theory, and the design process
Design methodology is concerned with understanding the processes that are used
repetitively throughout the design process. They include the techniques of analysis,
divergent and convergent thinking—the heart of creative thinking—and the various
processes of prediction, and evaluation. Basic to creative thinking is also an understanding
of what various patterns of the environment might afford, how they function, and might
be constructed. It also involves being able to reflect on and learn from what one has
done (Schön 1984). The invention of new patterns that solve problems well is a hallmark
of creative thought. So is the perception and recognition of problems anew and new
problems and opportunities as they arise.
This description of the designing process may suggest that it takes place in a step-by-
step linear manner. If the people involved had a comprehensive and completely accurate
functional theory as the basis for their work and were completely rational in their thinking
it could be so. Alas, or, perhaps, thank goodness, we have limited understanding (but
considerably more than we are wont to use) and the value-laden nature of decision
making is hardly rational. There is thus considerable feedback and feeding forward
during the designing process and much debate over ends and means. The whole process
is an argumentative one (Bazjanac 1974, Zeisel 2006). There are internal arguments in the
architect’s head and external ones among members of the design team, clients, sponsors,
and, ideally, potential users of the final products.
The whole design process is one of repeatedly establishing ends and then designing the
means to achieve them. Means become ends in an iterative process of analysis, synthesis,
prediction, and evaluation in which decisions have to be made under uncertainty. Creative
designing is a process of opening up and narrowing down the search for solutions and
ultimately deciding on a single design to implement. Designing by habit involves copying
earlier designs or using previous employed patterns largely uncritically.
One of the major changes in professional practice over the past 40 years has been the
rigorousness with which the intelligence phase—the programming process—is being
carried out. The failures in design are seen, quite accurately, as failures to understand
the issues and problems at hand rather than in the ability of architects to generate forms
to solve those problems. The failures can thus be attributed to the limitations in the
functional theory that an architect employs and the way the environment is examined.
In much programming these days, a model of the functions of architecture similar to the
one described in this book, is used for asking questions about the necessary and desired
performance characteristics of a future building. In everyday professional practice much
is, nevertheless, still based more on the study and adjustment of building types that act
as generic solutions rather than working from an analysis of functional requirements
as presented here. Architects work under constraints of time. It is easier and quicker to
work from known types rather than to look at the situation being addressed afresh.
Working from types and precedents is fine provided the ways they function in
context are understood (Hamilton and Watkins 2009; see also Rapoport 1991). In an era
of globalization of the economy and architecture many types are transferred from one
climatic zone and a culture to others where they do not serve their intended purposes
well. It could be argued that being in fashion is the most important function that
major buildings serve today so that malfunctions on other dimensions of a building’s
performance do not matter. It is possible, however, to be in fashion and to simultaneously
resolve other problems well.
The Role of Functional Theory in Architectural Practice
During the twentieth century as the knowledge base required for successful practice
expanded the architectural discipline spun off new fields of professional endeavor such as
construction management, landscape architecture, and city planning and now, it seems,
urban design. The profession itself has developed specialities within practice. Some
architects focus on specific building types—schools, custom designed houses, factories,
and so on; others focus on specific phases of the designing process—programming,
designing, detailing, the production of working drawings, specification writing, or site
supervision. Architects in small firms may do everything or farm out parts of the work to
other practices that are better equipped to deal with them. How does functional theory
fit in?
Throughout the design process architects are predicting how patterns of built form,
as modeled in drawings, will work in the “real” world for those who finance, use, and/
or observe their creations. A model of the functioning of buildings guides architects’
thinking. It is especially important to have a clear model of the functions of architecture
in mind when deciding on what the various purposes a building being designed is to
serve and their relative importance.
Some architectural firms feel that it is outside their domain of competence (or interest)
to deal with the programming task. The more complex a potential building the more
likely it is to be that specialists carry out the work. Complexity arises from having to deal
with poorly understood activity patterns and the conflicting demands of a multiplicity
of stakeholders. Dealing with complexity requires an explicit model of the range of
potential functions that can be served by buildings and/or their components. Without
such a model, discussions about goals and means are likely to be superficial at best and
totally confused at worst with those participating believing they understand each other
but not doing so (see Orwell 1961).
architectural theory, functional theory, and design methodology 319
Those professionals engaged in creating building programs have become increasingly

systematic about the way they ask questions about the activity and aesthetic functions a
building is to serve. Almost always the implications of conflicting design ends only become
apparent while actually designing. Various desired activities may not be compatible with
design requirements needed for safety and security purposes. The financial functioning
of proposed buildings always seems to conflict with other functional necessities. Should
one be designing explicitly for the first set of occupants’ needs without recognizing that
future users’ activities and tastes may be different? How tight should the fit be between
present needs and built form? How robust should a design be, how adaptable? There
is nothing new in these observations and questions. Palladio had to resolve the clash
between striving for symmetry in building form and meeting design concerns such as
avoiding the spontaneous combustion of stored hay. Much was shoehorned into the
symmetrical shapes he created.
The role of functional theory in practice becomes clear. Architects cannot know
all the details of the requirements that different users have of buildings. Functional
theory enables them to ask questions about those requirements and seek more detailed
information as the necessity arises. The stronger the functional theory the more apt the
questions and answers are likely to be. How architects use the answers depends on their
attitudes towards their own work, towards the culture in which their work is embedded
and towards technological progress. Their values show up in the functions that they
emphasize in their designs. Some emphasize buildings as aesthetic objects that challenge
people intellectually; others support a more discreet architecture. Much depends on the
client’s values and resources. It does seem sensible that all buildings be designed to be
robust unless they are temporary in nature and designed with demolition in mind.
Conclusion
A number of architects and architectural educators dismiss the way theory is considered
in this book as “pedantic nonsense”. Their argument is that it is impossible to disentangle
an architect’s knowledge about the built environment and how it functions from
the design actions that he or she takes and thus from his or her ideological position.
This argument is surprising because the most common criticism of the work in the
behavioral sciences is that its findings do not inform practice directly and immediately
enough. They do not tell practitioners what to do. It is said to leave everything up to the
architect to determine what to use and what not to use. The role of functional theory, its
purpose, is to inform—to act as a knowledge base for design—not to dictate designs.
Functional theory also provides environmental psychologists and others conducting
research with a framework for asking questions about what lines of investigation are
worthwhile pursuing.
Functional theory will be enhanced by the experiments that architects make and by
the research carried out by independent scholars. Its state at any time and how it might
be employed in practice will be the subject of ongoing debates. The model presented here
can stand until a better one is presented—one that describes and explains more and is
more helpful to architects in their work and researchers in theirs.
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Index
Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz (1970s)

William Turnbull and Charles Moore architects.
Aalto, Alvar, 6 Amsterdam East proposal, 133

Abu Dhabi, UAE Hubertus House, 93
Breakwater Theater, 201 Ando, Tadao, 27
Abuja, Nigeria, 218 anthropometrics and ergonomics, 99, 100, 107-8
activities, accommodation of, 79-110 Antwerp, Belgium
activity systems, 40, 79-84 Palace of Justice, 224
and architectural theory, 106-9 architecture
and development functions, 104 Art Deco, 25, 186
human and competing, 85 Art Nouveau, 207
segregation and integration of, 85-8 Corporate, 8, 11, 14
adolescents, 249-50 counterculture, 240
aesthetics, 255-90 Deconstruction, 13, 18
and identity, 186-203 discrete, 14, 278
and sequential experiencing, 267-71 Ecological, 20, 308-11
ethnic neighborhoods, 186 Empiricist, see Empiricism
experiential, 255-90 Expressionism, 4
factory chic, 231 Indo-Saracenic, 196
formal, 258, 260-73 Modernist, 2-26, 199, 203
intellectual, 255, 275-86 Neo-Modern, 13-14, 198-200, 203
order and complexity, 263-73 Neo-Traditional, 13, 20, 21, 127
proportional systems, 263-7 New Brutalist, 283
sequential experience, 267-71 New Urbanism, 186, 188
sensory, 258-260 Organic, see ecological
symbolic, 194-6, 213-40, 273-4 Post-Modern, 13, 16, 18, 237
ducks and decorated sheds, 280 flamboyant, 18, 157, 161, 198
expression or association, 263-7 Prairie, 208
theory, 255-8 Rationalist, see Rationalism
affect, 41 Revivalist, 20, 21, 198-201
affective judgments, 213 structural dexterity, 14-15
affordance, 12, 50, 53-4 sustainable, see Ecological
Aga Khan award, 239-40 vernacular, 170, 198, 170
Ahmedabad, India, 306 Arcosanti, Arizona, USA, 167-8, 208
AMA Building, 102 AREX architects, 201
Hassain Doshi Gufa, 25 Aristotle, Aristotelian, 3, 33
IIM, 226 Arnheim, Rudolf, 260
pols, 175-6 Arnhem-Noord, Netherlands
Sarabhai House, 92 Monnikenhuizen, 22
Torrent Research Centre, 158, 310 art, public, 191-3
air movement, see winds and breezes Ashton Raggat McDougall, 18
Ajman, UAE Athens Charter, 3
Court House, 201 Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Albany, New York, USA Hyatt Regency, 168
Empire State Plaza, 218, 261 attention, modes of, 43
State University, 111 Aymonino, Carlo, 123
Alexander, Christopher, 8
Alexandria, Egypt Bad Reichenhall, Germany
Alexandrina Library, 284-5, 321 skating rink, 114
Alfeld and der Leine, Germany Bahçeşehir, Turkey, 187, 235
Fagus Shoe-last Factory, 5 Balance Theory, 42-3, 274
Allport, Gordon, 275 Bali, Indonesia, 189, 200, 224
Amsterdam, The Netherlands Baltimore. Maryland, USA
index 347
Charles Center, 134 Bhatti, Gautam, 18

Oriole Park, 99 Bhedawar, Sohrabji K., 25
Bangkok, Thailand Bhopal, India
Muang Thong Thani, 155 Vidhan Bhavan, 191
Barcelona, Spain Bhubaneswar, India, 226
German Pavilion, 203-4 Oberoi Hotel, 278
Modernist plan, 125 Bilbao, Spain, 160, 187
Parc Güell, 97 Abandoibarra, 161-2, 292-3
Port Entrance, 24, 280-1 Guggenheim Museum, 40, 160, 162, 233, 280
Sagrada Familia, 232 Metro, 162
Barker, Roger, 99 Sheraton Hotel, 161-2
see also behavior settings Sondika Airport, 162
Barrackpur, Bengal, India Birmingham, UK
Gandhi Memorial, 194-5 Convention Centre, 292
barrier free design, 103-4 Blatteau, John, 20, 217
Barton Meyers Associates, 88 Bofill, Ricardo, 18, 237-8
Bauhaus, 4, 32, 36, 319 Boston, MA, USA
Basic Design course, 260-7, 280, 282, 284 Quincy Market, 45
Bawa, Geoffrey, 230 Botta, Mario, 4, 15, 227, 275
behavior, human branding, urban, 191
processes of, 39-40 Braque, George, 53
spatial, 44 Brasília, Brazil, 25, 194, 198, 205-6, 237
behavior settings, 48-50, 79-109, 255 Breuer, Marcel, 227
and privacy, 146 brief design, see programs
comfort and challenge, 105 Brown, Lancelot, 50
master and servant, 106-7 Brussels, Belgium
places and links, 81 Brussel-Centraal, 224
sociopetal and sociofugal, 97 Bucharest, Rumania
Beijing, P.R. China, 292 Avenue of the Victory of Socialism, 25, 218-9
Airport, 127 Budapest, Hungary
Artistic Mansion, 21 Europa Center, 21
CBD, proposed, 187 Buffalo, New York, USA
Dongchangan Jie, 11 Larkin Building, 96
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India buildings
Minakshi Temple, 281 as works of art, 284-6
M.S. Ramaiah Institute, 201 catalytic effect of, 291-4
Vidhana Soudha, 200-1 external effects of, 289-312
Benninger, Christopher, 191, 199 blank walls, 296-7
Beri, Shirish, 128, 311 climate, 299-302
Berkeley, California, USA mirror glass façades, 296
adventure playground, 248 overlooking, 296
Sproule Plaza, 192 overshadowing, 302-3
Berlin, Germany reflections from, 101, 302
Berlin Wall, 134-5 traffic generation, 294-5
Germania, 222-3 financing of, 170
Jewish Museum, 16, 18, 19, 278-9, 283-4 generic forms, 170-1
Potsdamer Platz, 161, 163, 301 signature, 226-7
Sony Center, 163, 203 skyscrapers, see skylines
Unitè d’Habitation, 179 Buonarotti, Michelangelo, 239
US Embassy, 134-6, 138 Burle Marx, Roberto, 301
Berlyne, Daniel, 260
Calatrava Valls, Santiago, 14, 15, 27, 47, 124, 126, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
226-7, 241, 277, 283 Contemporary Arts Center, 102, 209
Calvanism, 5, 35, 275 Cité Industrielle, Une, 237
Cambridge, MA, USA climate and shelter, 117-9
Harvard, 305-7 and building form, 118, 299
Carpenter Center, 304, 307 cognition, cognitive
MIT, Stata Center, 261 and affect, 41
Canberra, ACT, Australia and architectural theory, 252
National Museum, 18, 19 cognitive consistency, 42
Parliament House, 227 cognitive mapping, 143-4
Woden Town Centre, 45 and competence, 145
Candala, Felix, 226, 283 learning, see learning
canonical texts, 20, 151-4, 284 co-housing, 93, 176
see also sacred geometries Trudesland, Denmark, 176
Caracas, Venezuela colors, 224
23 de enero housing, 199 Columbus, Ohio, USA
Univesidad Central, 205-6 Wexner Center, 18, 19
Casablanca, Morocco comfort, designing for, 116-223
Ėglise du Sacrè Couer, 17 metabolic, 119-20
Catalano, Eduard, 126 olfactory, 122
Cautley, Majorie Sewell, 184 sonic, 122
Ceausecu, Nikolai, 218, 224 communities
Cerda, Ildefonso, 308 gated, 135, 153
Cerritos, California, USA religion-based, 178
Center for the Performing Arts, 88 social and psychological, 173-8
Chand Saini, Nek, 210 types, 177-8
Chandigarh, India, 203, 218, 226, 237, 307 competence, 111
Assembly Hall, 234 and self-esteem, 214-5
City Center, 117-8, 219 concept of, 56-7
Rock Gardens, 208, 210 Coop Himmeb(l)au, 18, 19, 319
Secretariat, 226 Cooper and Ekstut, 21, 37, 305
Chartres Cathedral, 53 Cordenoy, Jean-Louis, 33
Cheng Jian Feng, 179, 181 Correa, Charles, 191, 233
Chennai, India Costa, Lúcio, 25, 237
Senate House, 195 Costs, capital, maintenance and operating,
Chicago, Illinois, USA 155-7
Chinatown, 190 costs and rewards, 57
Columbian Exhibition, 218 CPT Group, 83
Crown Hall, 6 Cret, Paul Philippe, 97, 303
DaleyPlaza, 192 Critical Regionalism, 20
Little Village, 190 cul-de-sacs, 185
Pritzker Pavilion, 207, 209 Cullen, Gordon, 8, 270-1
Trump International Hotel, 11 culture and cultural
University of Illinois, 86-87 differences, 58, 89-98, 94
children, 12, 104-7, 185, 240, 243-53 diversity and design, 194-8
Chisholm, Robert Fellows, 195 organizational, 93-96
Chuncheon, Korea taste cultures, 213-6
opal mine, 45 see also house form and culture
churches, 89 C.Y. Lee and Partners, 223
CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture
Modern), 3, 34, 123
index 349
Daubert v Merrill Dow, 27 Fakhoury, Pierre, 223

Davis, California, USA Feng Shui, see sacredgeometries
Village Homes, 22 financial security, 155-62
defensible space, 138-42 Fisher, David, 14
Delacenserie, Luis, 224 Fitch James Marston, xviii, 36
Delhi, see New Delhi FJMT, architects, 311
design methodology, 315-9 Fort Worth Texas, USA
Detroit, Michigan, USA plan, 86-7, 134
Renaissance Center, 168 Water Garden, 293
districts, 143, 182-9 Foster, Norman, Foster and Partners, 8, 27, 96,
doors and windows, 85, 231-3 127, 209, 226, 230
Doshi, B.V., 25 Frampton, Kenneth,
Dresden, Germany Fry, Maxwell, 34, 226
UFA Cinema Center, 18, 19 Fuller, Buckminster, 124
Duany, Plater-Zyberk, 21, 125, 198 Manhatten proposal, 124, 126
Dubai, UAE, 6 , 14 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Burj al ‘Arab Hotel, 1 Commerzbank, 226
Burj Khalifa, 212 DZ Bank building, 164
Jumeirah Madinat, 1 skyline, 221
Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis, 33 Franzen, Ulrich, 208
function, functionalism, 33-9
earthquakes, 113 and architectural theory, 71
efficiency, 34-5, 82, 87 concepts of, 32, 33-48
Effrat, Marcia Pelly, 175 of architecture
Eggers and Smith, 37 aesthetic, 55, 676
Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut and Kuhn, 17, 277 affiliation and identity, 55, 65
Eisenman, Peter, 18 basic and advanced, 63-8, 74-75
El-Wakil, Abdel Wahed, 200 cognitive, 55, 66
Emory Roth and Son, 8, 11, 274 comfort, 116-23
Empiricism, Empiricists, 3-6, 8, 13 esteem, 55, 66, 213-40
and architecture, 3-6, 8, 13, 25 financial security, 155-64
environments for architects, 69, 169
biogenic, 299-302 for sponsors, 70
built, 46 identity and community, 173-204
educative, 250 of the new, 291-312
nature of, 44-60 safety and security, 55, 65, 131-54
potential and effective, 52 self actualization, 55, 67
ERG/Environmental Research Group, xvi-ii, 90, shelter and survival, 55, 63-4, 111-298
96, 180, 232 status, 213-40
ergonomics, see anthropometrics theory of, 39-61
Erskine and Tovatt, 184
Eveux, France Gadamer, Hans-George, 215
Monastery de la Tourette, 282 Gandhi, Nari, 206, 208
Evora, Portugal Gans, Herbert, 194, 215-6
Quinta da Malagueria, 17, 199 garden cities, 8, 123
experiencing, experiential Garnier, Tony, 5, 6, 237
aesthetics, see aesthetics Gaudí y Cornet, Antoni, 97, 233, 239, 308
environmental, 39-60 Gehry, Frank, Gehry Partners, 24, 27, 202, 208-9,
and architectural theory, 59 233, 239, 261, 275, 277, 280-1, 284
and cultural factors, 58 gender and design, 12, 91,
Eyck, Aldo van, 36, 93 generic buildings, 171
gentrification, 292-4 house form and culture, 89

Gestalt theory, 260-7 India, 102
Ghadāmis, Libya, 86-8, 101 Howard, Ebenezer, 4
Dar Ghadames Hotel, 311 Hubback, Arthur Benison, 195
Giedion, Sigfried, 46 Hunstanton, School, 111-2
Gibson, James J., 42, 50 Hyderabad, India, 225
Glendale, CA, USA, 160 Indiranagar and Nirankainagar, 159
globalization, 98, 127 TRS Towers, 17
Goldfinger, Ernö, 283
graffiti, 236, 251, 297-8 identity
Grands Travaux, 218, 292 and architectural theory, 198-203
Graves, Michael, 16, 17, 191 and community, 173-203
Green, Graham, 48, 274 and culture, 194-200
Greenberg, Allan, 20 and individualism, 205-11
Greenough, Horatio, 34, 38, 106 destruction of, 196-8
Gregoti, Vittorio, 115 illumination, 101
Grimshaw Architects, 15 Ilsan new town Korea, 7
Gropius, Walter, 5, 6, 32, 35-6, 38, 232, 283 institutional design, 84, 179
Grover, Satish, 278 interior design, 96-98, 228-31
Gruen, Victor, 87 open plan offices, 90
Guadalajara, Mexico investors, 157-70
JVC Cultural Center, 18 Ipswich, Suffolk, UK
Guangzhou, P.R. China Willis-Faber-Dumas, 226
Pearl River Tower, 310 Islamic, North African cities, 296, 308
Isozaki, Arata, 18
habituation level theory, 58 Istanbul, Turkey
and aesthetics, 273 British Consulate, 135
Hadid, Zaha, 27, 209, 226, 239, 306 Galata, 221
Hague, The Netherlands Haghia Sophia, 47, 196, 274
De Resident, 303 see also Ümranye
Hall, Edward T., 147-8, 153 Itten, Johannes, 34, 260
Halprin, Lawrence, 246 , 270 Iveković, Ćiril Metod, 197
Hanna/Olin, 219
Harrison, Wallace K., 293 Jacobs, Jane, xvii, 4, 8, 179, 252, 296, 315
and Abramowitz, 261 Jahn, Helmut, see Murphy/Jahn
Hart, Frederick, 193 James, John, 53
Hartford, Connecticut, USA James, William, 258
Civic Arena, 115 Jeanneret, Pierre, 7
Haussmann, Baron Georges Eugène, 218 Johnson, Philip, 199, 293
HCP architects, 102 Johnson/Burgee, 209
heat island effect, 23, 300-1
Heft, Harry, 50 Kahn, Louis I., 8, 46, 50, 106-7, 208, 226, 232, 306
Herzog and de Meuron, 88, 203, 209, 230, 233 Kandinsky, Wassily, 260
Hilbersheimer, Ludwig, 6, 123 Kar, Surindranah, 118
Hitler, Adolf, 224 Karr, Joe and Associates, 293
HOK, architects, 99, 313 Katomba, NSW, Australia
Hood, Raymond, 102 Paragon Café, 51
Horace Trumbauer and Zantzinger, 227 Kauffmann, Richard, 185
Houn, Libya kibbutzim, 183-4, 194
Administrative Complex, 15 Kim, Il-Sung, 218
Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 224 King, Anthony, 39
index 351
Kisho Kurokawa and associates, 37 Roehampton Housing, 7

Klee, Paul, 260 Ronan Towers, 115
Klein, Alexander, 35 SwissRe Building, 137, 166, 209, 226
Koenigsberger, Otto, 222, 226 Loos, Adolf, 33
Koffka, Kurt, 260 Los Angeles, California, USA, 115
Köhler, Wolfgang, 260 Disney Concert Hall, 101, 166, 289, 292,
Kohn, Pedersen and Fox, 8 302
Kolbe, George, 204 Gehry House, 24, 274, 277
Kolkata, Bengal, India Hollywood and Hyland, 17, 275, 277
Mullick House, 217 Rush City, 37
Koolhaas, Rem, 27, 143, 227-8 US Bank Tower, 137
Krier, Leon, 8, 188 Watts Towers, 208, 210
Krier, Rob, 20, 303 Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 11
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Petronas, towers, 222-3 Humana Tower, 16
railway station, 195 Louvain-le-Neuve, Belgium, 25, 270, 272
Kubitschek Juscelino, 207 Lubbers Buro, 22
Lubetkin, Berthold, 125
Lab Architectural Studio, 256 Lynch, Kevin, 28, 143
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 280 Lyon, France
Dolphin Hotel, 6 Musée des Confluences, 18
Paris Hotel, 281
learning McHarg, Ian, 113
formal and informal, 244 machines and machine needs, 69
and the Internet, 244, 252 Madinapour, Ali, xviii
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris), Madrid, Spain
4, 5, 10, 34-5, 90, 107-8, 123-4, 179-80, Cervantes monument, 1, 92
203, 207-8, 219, 226, 231, 234, 237, 252, Ciaxa Forum, 88, 203, 230, 233, 297-8
259, 275, 282-3, 306, 315 Estación de Atoche, 126
Leder, Helmut, 260 Fundación Metrópoli, 234
Leger, Fernand, 206 muro vegetal, 297
Leidenfrost/Horowitz, 281 Museo del Arte, 15
Lemaire, Raymond, 25 Puerta de Europa, 209
Leptus Magna, Libya Maillart, Robert, 124, 127, 283
Septimus Severus arch, 193 maintenance, 234-6
Le Ricolais, Robert, 53, 57 Manhattanization, 220
Liebeskind, Daniel, 16, 18, 27, 239 Mann, Dennis, 215-6
life cycle, 89 Marin County, CA, USA
Lin, Maya Ying, 193 Civic Center, 230, 308-9
Lodoli, Carlo, 33 MARS (Modern Architectural Research Society),
London 198
Canary Wharf, 47, 109, 145, 230, 306 Marseilles, France
Centre Point, 11, 155 Unitè d’Habitation, 179-82
Crystal Palace, 126, 283 Martin, Albert F., 8
Elephant and Castle, 23, 158 Maslow, Abraham, xvi, 32, 55, 67, 111
Heathrow Airport, 90, 97 meaning, 41
Highpoint, 125 levels of, 42
Lloyds Building, 166 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Millennium Village, 183-4 Federation Square, 256, 275, 277
Paternoster Square, 47 Southern Cross Station, 15
Riverside, Richmond, 201 memorials and identity, 191, 193
Mexico, City, Mexico Nadawade, India

Universidad Autónima, 9 Hirvai, 128, 311
Meyer, Adolf, 5, 6 Naipaul, V.S., 18
Meyer and Van Schooten, 22 Nasar, Jack, 213-4
Milan, Italy Navi Mumbai, India
Gallaretese, Housing, 123 Artistes Village, 225
Teatro degli Arcimboldi, 115 Income Tax Colony, 20, 21
Mill Run, Pennsylvania, USA needs, human, see motivations
Falling Water, 259 Neidhardt, Juraj, 195
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA neighborhoods
Museum of Art, 227 and children, 247-8, 252-3
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA and ethnic identity, 186-90
skyway system, 87, 133 Chinatowns, 189
Mitchell, Giurgola and Thorp, 158, 227 design, 145, 82-98
see also FJMT unit concept, 182-5
Mitterrand, François, 218 Nervi, Pierre Luigi, 124, 126-7, 127, 283
Models Neutra, Richard, 37, 237
of the design process, 315-20 New Canaan, CN, USA
of functionalism, 33-8, 63-82 glass house, the, 199
of people, 12 New Delhi, India, 218
Modena, Itlay Alliance Francaise, 194-5
Cemetery of San Cataldo, 153-4, 261 Baha’i House of Worship, 15
Moleski, Walter, 141, 230 British Council Building, 233
Moore, Charles, Moore and Turnbull, 36, 37, India International Centre, 6, 127
292, 345 Saint Martin’s Church, 135
Moore Ruble Yudell, 138 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Moneo, Rafael, 15 after Katrina, 115
Moruya, NSW. Australia Plaza d’Italia, 292
Magney House, 128 New York, NY, USA
motivations, 43 22 Cortland Street, 299
and needs, 55 565 Fifth Avenue, 11
see also functions Alfred E. Smith Houses, 37
movement systems, 142-6 American Folk Museum, 203
segregation, 142-6 Battery Park City, 20, 21, 36-7, 145, 186, 305
Mukarovsky, Jean, 36 Esplanade, 219
Mumbai, India World Finance Center, 166, 186
Back Bay Reclamation, 186-7 Brooklyn Museum, 145
D. Naroji Road, 81 Central Park, 301
Eros Cinema, 25 Chrysler Building, 284-5
Methodist Center, 152 Cityspire center, 295
Sadruddin Daya House, 206 Clason Point Gardens, 140-1
Mumford, Lewis, 16 Guggenheim Museum, 270, 306-7
Munich, Germany Hearst Tower, 96
BMW Welt, 18 Lincoln Center, 291-3
Munsterberg, Hugo, 258 McGraw Hill Building, 284
Murcutt, Glenn, 128, 239, 310 Memorial Arch, Brooklyn, 193
Murphy/Jahn, 47, 16, 203 Morgan Museum, 228-9
Mysore, India Museum of Modern Art, 231, 245
Cathedral, 257 Paley Park, 81
Le Olive, 158 Prada Store, 228, 231
index 353
Rockefeller Center, 87, 101-2, 291 participation and esteem, 236

Theater District, 302 Pasadena, California, USA
Trump Tower, 77 City Hall, 45
TWA Flight Center, 9 Paumier, Stephanie, 195
Whitney Museum, 227 pedestrian pockets, 253
World Trade Center, 136, 274, 292 Pei, Ieoh Ming, 226
Newman, Oscar, 138, 140 Pelli, César, Pelli and Associates, 8, 47, 186, 223
Niemeyer, Oscar, 25, 206-8, 237 perception theory, 40
Norburg-Schulz, Christian, 38, 306 Gestalt theory, 260-7
Norfolk, Virginia, USA perceptual systems, 40-41
Diggs, 140 Perrault, Dominique, 208
Nouvel, Jean, 27, 227 Perry, Clarence, 182-3
noxious facilities, 295 person-environment
relationship, 13
Oak Park, Illinois, USA see also affordances
Beachy House, 206-7 Pessac, France, housing, 207
Oak Park Center Mall, 292-3 Petrescu, Anca, 25, 219
Ross House, 217 Phenomenology, 8, 60, 202
Thomas House, 217 Philadelphia, PA., USA,
objects, nature of, 46 Cambridge Housing, 188
Oklahoma City, USA City Hall, 220
Murrah building, 136 Irish and Italian
Oldenberg, Claus, 54 neighborhoods, 189-90
Olmsted, Frederick Law, 195 McNeill Center, 21
Olumuyiwa, Oluwole, 16 Metzker House, 230
organizations, organisational design, 84-5 Museum of Art, 227, 248
formal and communal, 57, 82, 173-4 One Liberty Place, 292
spatial and aspatial, 175-7 Richard Allen Homes, 140-1
orientation, 142-3 Richards Mem. Labs, 107
Orlando, Florida, USA Rittenhouse Square, 97, 105-6, 303
Swan Hotel, 16 Society Hill, 293-4
Orwell, George, 27, 178, 263 Van Venturi House, 277
Oteniemi, Finland Piano, Renzo, 229
Technical University, 6 Picasso, Pablo, 192
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Palladio, Andrea, 222, 261, 319 PPG building, 54, 298
Palmanova, Italy, 135 Plato, Platonic, 33
Paris, France philosophy, 3
Arc de Triomphe, 218 playgrounds, 104-7, 247-8
Ave de la Grande Armée, 219 Poelaert, Joseph, 224
Bibliothéque Nationale, 208 Poissy, France
Champs Elysees, 218 Villa Savoye, 90, 198, 206
Cité des Sciences, 218 pollution, noise, 295
Eiffel Tower, 145 Porphyrios, Demetri, 20
Galerie Internionale, 124 Portland, Oregon, USA
Grande Arche, 31, 215, 217-8 Ira Keller Fountain, 246
La Défense, 86, 109, 219 Portlandia, 191-2
Les Echelles du Baroque, 18, 237-8 Public Services Building, 16
Maison Suisse, 5 Skyway system, 133
Opéra, 218 Portman, John C. III, 11, 167-8, 171
Parc de la Villette, 18, 19, 124 Poundbury, Dorset, UK, 36, 187, 253, 308
practice, professional St. Peter’s, 224

nature of, 23, 29-30 Sistine Chapel, 275
precinct design, 86, 93 Ronchamp, France
see also neighborhoods and districts Notre Dame du Haut, 9, 232, 234, 259, 275, 282-3
Predock, Antione, 121 room geography, 95, 97, 147, 149
Prisbrey, Tressa ‘Grandma’, 208-10 Rossi, Aldo, 123
Pritzker Prize, 239 Runcorn, UK
privacy, 65, 146 Town Centre, 245
hierarchy, see territories Ruskin, John, 255
invasion of, 150-1
mechanisms, 146 Saarinen, Eero, 5, 9
nature of, 146 sacred geometries and design, 151-4, 189-91
procedural theory, see design methodology Sahba, Fariborz, 15
programs, programming, 79-109 Saini, see Chand
property developers, 70, 157, 205 St Louis, Missouri, USA
architects as, 167-8 Airport, 235
globalized, 161 St Petersberg, Russia
private sector, 161 Gazprom, 310
public sector, 159, 161, 167 St Quentin en Yvelines, France,
Proxemic Theory, 147 Les Arcades du Lac, 237
psychology San Antonio, Texas, USA
ecological, 29 Riverwalk, 259
environmental, 29-30 San Diego, CA, USA
public interest, 169 Horton Plaza, 292
Pune, India San Francisco, CA, USA
Mahindra College, 191, 199, 275, 277 Chinatown, 246
Pyongyang, North Korea, 218 Convention Center, 313
de Yong Museum, 209
Radburn, New Jersey, USA Museum of Modern Art, 15
design, 86, 124-5, 182-4 Santa Cruz, California, USA
Rahman, Habib, 195 Kresge College, 37, 345
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA Santa Monica, California, USA
Catalano House, 126 Gehry House, 24, 202
Rapoport, Amos, 36, 89 Santayana, George, 67, 258
Rasmussen, Stein Eiler, 39 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Rationalism, Rationalists, 3 City Hall, 196-7
architecture, 3-6, 123, 198 Parliament House, 195
Neo-Rationalists, 123 Scamozzi, Vincenzo, 135, 261
Research Triangle, NC, USA Schwartz, Martha, 234
National Humanities Center, 96, 178, 180 Scutt, Der, 77
Rewal, Raj, 8, 20, 21 SEARCH Architects, 17
Rice, Peter, 124 Seaside, Florida, USA, 21, 125, 188, 308
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Seattle, Washington, USA
Copacabana Beach front, 301 City Hall, 158
Rockdale, Illinois, USA Experience Music Project, 24
pedestrian mall, 52 Freeway Park, 142
Rodia, Sabato (Simon), 208, 210 Pioneer Square, 259
Rogers, Richard, 163, 226 security
Rohe, Mies van der, 6, 203-4, 231 financial, 74
Rome, Italy physiological, 74, 131-42
Palazzetto dello Sport, 126 psychological, 74, 142-54
index 355
Seifert, Robin (Richard), 8, 11, 239 Steele, Fred, 38

Semper, Gottfried, 34 Steil, Lucien, 20
Seneteri, Pedro, 209 Stein, Clarence, 184, 198
sense of place, 200-2, 306-8 Stein, Joseph Allen, 6, 128
Seoul, Korea Stephenson, Turner and Rice, 230
Gyeongbok Palace, 196-7 Stern, Robert, 8, 20, 21
Japanese General Stockholm, Sweden
Administration Building, 196-7 Hammarby Sjörstad, 309
Leeum Samsung Museum, 227 streets, 185, 220-2
Sert, José Luis, 125, 198 stress, 44, 48, 57, 66, 84, 159
Seville, Spain structures, structural systems, 71
Alcázares Reales, 235 and safety, 113-5, 131-2, 304
Plaza de Armas, 297 shell, 127
Shanghai, P.R. China, 220 Subang Jaya, Malaysia
Lujiazui, 164, 207, 215, 217, 220, 281, 305 Menara Mesiniaga, 128
World Financial Center, 222 Sullivan, Louis, 34
Shantiniketan, Bengal, India Suwon, Korea
Konaraka, 118 housing, 305
Shenzhen, P.R. China Sydney, NSW, Australia
Lianhua Bai, 7 Darling Harbour, 133
Xianhua Bei, 125 Deutsche Bank, 226
Shilpa Shatsras, see sacred geometries Gateway Building, 101
Shoosmith, Arthur, 135 Greenway Flats, 159
Shreve, Lamb and Johnson, 223 Newington, 22, 128
sick building syndrome, 116 Olympic Games, 2000, site, 310,
Sigirya, Sri Lanka Village, see Newington
Kandalama Hotel, 230 Opera House, 5, 127, 159, 226, 284
signification, 3, 14, 17 Queen Victoria Building, 229-30
signs and symbols, 213-40 Red Centre, UNSW, 51-2, 158
Silva, Minette de, 16 Rouse Hill Town Centre, 83, 171
Simi Valley, California, USA skyline, 221
Bottle Village, 208, 210 Surry Hills Community Centre, 310
Singapore, 179
Bedok Court, 179, 181-2, 194 Tagore. Rabindranath, 117
HDB offices, 88 Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
neighborhood form and culture, 118-9 Taipei, 101, 222
shophouses, 190 Tange, Kenso, 109
Sitte, Camillo, 8, 270 tastes, see culture
Siza, Alvaro Viera, 17, 199 Taut, Bruno, 124
skyscrapers, skylines, 220-3 Tempe, Arizona, USA
skyway systems, 87, 142-3 Museum of Art, 121
Snøhetta Hamza, 321 Tendenzia Group, 123
social systems, 46 Territorial hierarchy, 138-41, 147
Soleri, Paolo, 167-8, 208 Terry, Quinlan, 201
SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill), 8, 11, 87 theory
Sommer, Robert, 153 architectural and functional, 27-30
spaces nature of, 21-6, 27-30
nature of, 46, 50-1 procedural and substantive, 28
spatial imageability, 143-5 see also design methodology
Speer, Albert, 218, 223 Thiel, Philip, 270
Sprecklesen, Johan Otto von, 31, 217 Thompson, Benjamin, 45
Ticino, Switzerland Palazzo Thiene, 222

Bianchi House, 275-6 Vinci Leonardo de, 3
Tokyo, Japan Villanueva, Carlos Raúl, 199, 206
Imperial Palace Gardens, 285-6 Ville Radius, Le, 237
Shibuya, 286 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, 33, 111
Tokyo Bay scheme, 109 Vitruvius, 33, 38, 71, 113
Torroja y Miret, Eduardo, 127
Tournon, Paul, 17 Wagner, Otto, 33
Tripoli, Libya Wallace, Roberts and Todd (WRT), 141, 188
Catholic Cathedral (now Majeed Jama War, terrorism and crime, 134-42
Abdul Nassar), 196-7 Washington, DC, USA, 218
Tshumi, Bernard, 18 Riggs Bank, 215
Tunuguchi, Yoshio, 245 Vietnam War memorials, 191, 193
Tyng, Anne, 273 way finding, see cognitive mapping
Weil un Rein, Germany
Ümraniye, Turkey Vitra Fire Station, 18
Meydan Retail complex, 301 Wells, Malcolm, 310
universal design, see barrier free design Welwyn Garden City, UK, 124-5, 295
Unwin, Raymond, 185 Wertheimer, Max, 260
urban design, 170 White, E.B., 134
and community, 182-6 Willis, Carol, 155
and educative environments, 250 windows, see doors and windows
City Beautiful, 25, 218 broken window hypothesis, 236
Neo-Traditional, 21, 25 winds and breezes, 113, 122, 300-1
prestigious, 218-20 Stuttgart, Germany, policy, 302
Utzon, Jørn, 5, 284 Wittek, Alexander, 197
Woitrin, Michel, 25
Valencia, Spain, 226 Wotton, Sir Henry, 33, 38
L’hermisfèric, 277 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 6, 8, 25, 86, 96, 198, 206-7,
Museu de les Ciènces, 14-5, 126, 241, 283 215-7, 230, 259, 309, 315
Palau de les Artes, 47 Wright, Henry, 184, 198
Van Alen, William, 284
Van Doren Shaw, Norman, 215 Yamaski, Minoru, 274
Vancouver, BC, Canada, 161 Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast
False Creek, 164 Basilica of Notre Dame, 225-6
Vaux, Charles, 195 Yeang, Ken, 22, 128, 157, 310
Vaz, Julius, 226 Yirrkala Community, Australia
Velde, Henry van der, 207 Marika-Alderton House, 311
Venice, Italy, 142
Venturi, Robert, Venturi and Rauch, Venturi and Zagar, Isiah, 208, 210
Scott Brown, 17, 260, 277, 280-1, 319 Zhengzhou, P.R. China
Vesely, Dalibor, 63 Zhengdong new town, 37
Vicenza, Italy Zion and Breen, 81

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FUNCTIONALISM REVISITED

Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai in 2004

Published 2016 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2010 Jon Lang and Walter Moleski

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 9781409407010 (hbk)

List of Figures vii

PART I INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURAL THEORY

1 The Inheritance: Architectural Practice and Architectural Theory Today 3

PART II CREATING A THEORY OF FUNCTIONALISM 31

3 Concepts of Function in Architecture 33

PART III THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT:

6 The Accommodation of Activities: Behavior Settings and Architecture  79

13 The Cognitive Function of Architecture: The Environment

PART IV EXTERNALITIES: BUILDINGS IN CONTEXT 289

15 The Function of the New as a Shaper of its Environment 291

PART V CONCLUSION 313

16 Architectural Theory, Functional Theory, and Design Methodology 315

References and Bibliography 321

Frontispiece: Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai in 2004 ii

Part I Burj al ‘Arab Hotel (2000) and Jumeirah Madinat (2003) 1

1.1 Rationalism and Empiricism in Modernist architecture  6

2.1 Architectural theory and functional theory 28

Part II The Grande Arche at La Défense, Haut-de-Seine, France (1983-9) 31

3.1 Traditional concepts of functionalism 35

4.1 The fundamental processes of human behavior 39

5.1 A human motivations-based model of architectural functionalism 64

Part III Tegel Harbor Phase 1 Housing, Berlin, Germany (1988) 73

Basic Functions: Trump Tower, New York City, USA (1983) 77

6.1 Designing for activities and the issues involved

7.1 Designing for shelter (and comfort) 112

9.1 Developers and the financial security of their investments 156

10.1 Complete territorial communities—do they exist? 176

11.1 Environments as expressions of self 205

12.1 The taste cultures of architects and of lay people 214

Advanced Functions: Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe,

13.1 Formal, semi-formal, and informal opportunities for learning 245

14.1 Federation Square, Melbourne observed as an object, set of objects,

14.18 Decorated sheds, ducks, and a duck in the foreground

15.1 Investment decisions and their catalytic effect 293

References and Bibliography: Alexandrina Library, Alexandria, Egypt (1989-2002) 321

Index: Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz (1970s) 345

3.1 Building functions and the concerns of architecture 38

4.1 The human perceptual systems 40

10.1 Formal and communal organizations 174

12.1 Taste cultures, aesthetic standards, and architectural patterns 216

Walter Moleski is executive director of ERG/Environmental Research Group, Inc. The

This book brings earlier statements of functionalism up-to-date as continuing research

[A] narrow functionalism [cannot] be sufficient for complex societies.

Burj al ‘Arab Hotel (2000) left Jumeirah Madinat (2003) right

The Inheritance: Architectural Practice

The Intellectual Heritage

Early Modernist Schools of Thought

The First Generation of Rationalists

The Second Generation of Rationalists

Source: Garnier (1917)

ai. The Railway Station, Une Cité Industrielle (1906-17);

bi. Frank W. Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois, USA

aii. The Fagus Shoe-Last Factory, Alfeld an der Leine,

bii. Detail, Otaniemi Technical

Figure 1.1 Rationalism (a) and Empiricism (b) in Modernist architecture

List of Figures vii

1 The Inheritance: Architectural Practice and Architectural Theory Today 3

PART II CREATING A THEORY OF FUNCTIONALISM 31

3 Concepts of Function in Architecture 33

6 The Accommodation of Activities: Behavior Settings and Architecture 79

PART IV EXTERNALITIES: BUILDINGS IN CONTEXT 289

15 The Function of the New as a Shaper of its Environment 291

PART V CONCLUSION 313

16 Architectural Theory, Functional Theory, and Design Methodology 315

References and Bibliography 321

Frontispiece: Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai in 2004 ii

Part I Burj al ‘Arab Hotel (2000) and Jumeirah Madinat (2003) 1

1.1 Rationalism and Empiricism in Modernist architecture 6

2.1 Architectural theory and functional theory 28

Part II The Grande Arche at La Défense, Haut-de-Seine, France (1983-9) 31

3.1 Traditional concepts of functionalism 35

4.1 The fundamental processes of human behavior 39

5.1 A human motivations-based model of architectural functionalism 64

Part III Tegel Harbor Phase 1 Housing, Berlin, Germany (1988) 73

Basic Functions: Trump Tower, New York City, USA (1983) 77

6.1 Designing for activities and the issues involved

7.1 Designing for shelter (and comfort) 112

9.1 Developers and the financial security of their investments 156

10.1 Complete territorial communities—do they exist? 176

11.1 Environments as expressions of self 205

12.1 The taste cultures of architects and of lay people 214

13.1 Formal, semi-formal, and informal opportunities for learning 245

15.1 Investment decisions and their catalytic effect 293

References and Bibliography: Alexandrina Library, Alexandria, Egypt (1989-2002) 321

Index: Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz (1970s) 345

3.1 Building functions and the concerns of architecture 38

4.1 The human perceptual systems 40

10.1 Formal and communal organizations 174

12.1 Taste cultures, aesthetic standards, and architectural patterns 216