LECTURE 5

RESPONSIVE ENVIORMENT

When it comes to Necessary Activities, the quality of the physical environment does not matter. You have to go to the bank or to the grocery store and you’re going to regardless of the quality of the built environment. You have to.

Things change when it comes to Optional Activities. Optional Activities are things like stopping to read the newspaper, sip on a cup of coffee, visit with a friend, people watch, etc. These types of activities take place in high quality environments because people don’t like to hang out in low quality places

Responsive environmen

t

permeability

Visual appropriatene

ss

robustness

legibility

HOW DOES DESIGN EFFECT CHOICE? The design of a place affects the choices people can make at many levels.It affects;•Where people can go, and where they cannot go (permeability)

•The range of uses available to people(variety)

•How easily people can understand what opportunities it offers(legibility)

•The degree to which people can use a given space for different purposes(robustness)

•Whether the detailed appearance of a place makes people aware of the choices available(visual appropriateness)

•People’s choice of sensory experience(richness)

•The effect to which people can put their own stamp on the place(personalization)

PERMIABILITY

•Only places which are accessible to people can offer them choice

•The extent to which an environment allows people a choice of access through it, from place to place is called permeability

OR•The number of alternative routes from one point to another that a public space offers is a measure of its permeability.

PERMIABILITY

•PERMIEABILITY CAN BE :oPhysical•Which occurrs at entrances to buildings and gardens•The existent of pathways and routeso visual•A pathway may exist in some environment, but if it is not visually obvious than it may remain unused

•Permeability between public and private space is most visual. Not all private spaces are usually private. There is a gradation e.g. Front lawns, entrance halls are less private then the bedrooms or lavatories and can, therefore remain exposed.

•Allowing some merging of the public and private realms can enrich the experience of the public domain to a large extent.

PERMIABILITY

Decline of public permeability occurs through;•Increasing scale of development:Excessively large blocks of development are less permeable than if the development is laid out on to smaller blocks•Use of hierarchical layout:These result in cul-de-sacs and dead ends there by reducing permeability•Pedestrian/vehicular segregationBy segregating the pedestrian and the automobile we confine each of them to a particular set of routes which reduces permeability . A better way to sovle this is the duplication of routes.

PERMEABILITY

PERMEABILITY

VARIETY

Variety refers to the range of activities, people and buildings forms which can be found in a space.

Accessible places are only valuable if they offer experiential choice i.e. variety of experience.

Variety of experience further includes:• Variety of uses• Variety of forms• Varieties of meanings

(with each depending on and creating the other)

VARIETY

Decline of variety occurs because:I. Single use planning due to strict zoning

II.Amalgamation of sites into larger units

III.Over-simplification of buildings in order to increase easy management or enhance corporate image

Variety can be maximized by:IV.Locating a wide range of activities in an area

V. Providing affordable space for these activities to exist and prosper

VI.Designing in a way which fosters positive interactions between these activities

LEGIBILITY

It is the quality which makes a place graspableIt is important at two levels:Physical form;To develop a clear sense of the physical form enjoying it at in aesthetic level•Activity patterns;To be fully aware of the patterns of use in a place without much concern for form•In order to use a place to its full potential, the above two must complement each other. This is especially important for an outsider who needs to grasp a place quickly in order to be able to use it

LEGIBILITY

Decline of legibility in our urban environments has increased over the past centuries:• Pre 20th century cities had layouts which were more legible. Buildings that were important looked important places of public relevance could easily be identified.

This was because public buildings:•Were surrounded by the biggest open spaces •Had the most distinct forms•Allowed passers by to see the activities going inside where possible

LEGIBILITY

Post 20th century cities have layouts irrelevant of how most people use the city.

This is largely because:Large office blocks usually occupy city-centers, excluding the general public and creating confusion of form

Lack of open spaces and appropriate routes for the pedestrian cause him/her to follow ill defined paths –sometimes under ground or sometimes elevated-which alienate him/her and cause much discomfort

LEGIBILITY

Can be maximized by:•Assessing the existing legibility potential of a site and checking it against the views of the wider public , develpoment relevant maps and sketches

•Adjusting the street/block layout of the site to make best use of the legibility potential of existing elements on the site

•Developing a new vocabulary of pathways, landmarks and nodes, such that it compliments the whole.

If you were to think of Athens you might conceive of a mental map much like the gentleman in the upper left illustration. The point is that every place we go has a level of legibility associated with it and places with strong legibility have high environmental quality.

ROBUSTNESS

Places which can be used for many different purposes offer their users more choices than places whose design limits them to to a single fixed use. This quality is called robustness.

Robustness can be•Large scale;An example would be that of a building as a whole.as buildings grow older, and move down-market, it becomes financially feasible for them to accomodate a greater range of uses.•Small scale;An example would be a room where changing the configuration of the furniture may lead it to becoming a lecture room ,dining room or place for a social gathering

ROBUSTNESS

Robustness can be maximized by controlling a variety of factors:•Building depth;A building shallow in plan would ensure natural light and ventilation to all parts in case of changing of use

•Access links;The number of access points from the outside world is a key factor in helping building adapt to change

•Building height;Higher floors in a building have restricted links with outside

•Hard and soft areas;Stair cases, lifts etc. are considered as hard areas and are the least likely to change their function as the building ages

•active and passive areas;Any indoor are which can contribute to outdoor activity id called an active area.

VISUAL APPROPRIATNESS•People will always interpret places as having meanings . When these meanings support responsiveness(i.e. legibility, variety ,robustness)the place is to have a quality called as visual appropriateness.

•Visual appropriateness can be maximized by understanding how people interpret spaces.

•They use visual cues to interpret different meanings based on their experiences and social objectives

•Thus, in order to increase visual appropriateness we need to provide their requisite cues.

•These are of two kinds:Contextual cues-which support legibilityUse cues-which support variety and robustness

What if these images were reversed and the back was the front and the front the back?

If you sense that something is amiss, then you understand the importance of visual appropriateness in urban design.

RICHNESS

•Richness relates to the range of sensory experiences available for users to enjoy, for example

• Sight,(visual richness, serves as the dominant sense for most people)

•Smell(olfactory richness)•Touch•Sound•Motion•These experienced have an effect on the emotional state of those visiting places.

• A visual example would be the use of paths to provide a heightened sense of awareness of the environment and a feeling that something important is going to happen. Therefore, in the visual sense it is important to consider

• how long something can be viewed • and where it can be viewed from.

RICHNESS

•Visual richness:•It depends on the pressure of visual contrasts in the building surface.

•The factors that need to be considered for providing such visual contrasts are:

• The orientation of the surfaced concerned• The viewing distance and viewing time •Non-visual richness:•There are very few places that cater to non-visual senses .

• Olfactory richness-can be achieved through a small herbal garden• Aural richness-can be achieved through installation of a water feature

• Richness of touch-can be achieved through varying surface textures• Kinetic richness-can be achieved through moving walks /escalators.

PERSONALIZATION

•Personalization is the ability the users are given to customize an enviorment on a:

•Small scale; may include moving a chair in a room to altering one’s front yard etc.•Large scale; may include the ability to change the appearance of a building

PERSONALIZATION

•User psychology for personalization:•People personalize their environments for two main reasons;

•Affirmative personalization-as an affirmation of their own tastes and values

•Remedial personalization-because they perceive its existing image

•People personalize their environment in two ways;• to improve practical facilities• To change the image of a place