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The Built Environment And Human Behaviour
6
The Built Environment
And Human Behavior
WORKED BY: ALESSIA TAFANI_ERIS DERVISHI_GLITI MAZNIKU
Four basic theoretical positions regarding the relationship between environment and behavior can be identified:
Four Basic Theoretical Positions
Theoretical Positions
1
free-will approach
2
possibilistic approach
Theoretical Positions
3
probabilistic approach
4
deterministic approach
1
The free-will approach
Suggests that the environment has no impact on behavior. Clearly, since people have severe limitations as biological beings,this is an untenable position.
2
Possibilistic Approach
Possibilists perceive the environment to be the afforder of human behavior and little more. It has been argued here that the environment consists of a set of opportunities for behavior upon which action may or may not be taken. The analysis of human behavior suggests that the people are not as completely free to act on their own choices as possibilists assume. Every individual has a set of motivations and competencies that are at least partially conditioned by the terrestrial, social, and cultural environments.
3
Probabilistic Approach
While recognizing that the environment is full of affordances for human behavior, and that the perception and use of them is very much a function of individual needs and competencies, probabilists take the position that recognizes the uncertainty of the systems within which human behavior takes place and within which environmental designers act, but it assumes that human behavior is not entirely capricious. The probabilistic position underlies most of the recent research on the relationship between behavior and environmental design.
4
Deterministic Approach
Determinism is the belief that when people are acting out of apparent free will, they are really controlled by their heredity and environment. Environmental determinism, an offshoot of the theory of evolution, holds that it is the environment that is the major determinant of behavior. Environment in this context is generally taken to mean the geographical or terrestrial context. It has been easy to assume that the built environment works in the same way.
Terms
Concepts of Determinism
The terms environmental determinism, physical determinism, and architectural determinism often are used synonomously in the environmental design literature. When this is done, the terms all refer to the belief that changes in the layout of the environment will lead to a change in the social behavior and in the aesthetic values of the persons involved.
Environmental Determinism
Environmental
Determinism
Environmental determinism should be used broadly to reflect the belief that it is nurture within the setting of our geographical, social, and cultural environments, rather than nature, our heredity, that shapes our values and behavior. The nature-nurture controversy has been largely dormant in psychology, although recently, with the rise of the field of sociobiology, it has come again to the fore.Environmental determinism is the belief that changes in the geographic, social, cultural, and built environments shape behavior.
Physical Determinism
Physical determinism
It can best be regarded as the belief that human behavior is determined by the nature of the geographic environment as adapted by people at a particular place. Culture and climate are without doubt interrelated, but the physical determinist would take an even stronger position on the effect of the natural and artificial environment on human behavior.
Physical determinism
is the belief that changes in the geographic environment and "builtform" will result in changes in behavior.
Aspects of the physical environment are a major factor in human life, but the physical environment cannot be regarded as the determinant of human behavior despite the strong correlations between climate, landform, and culture. There are many cultural differences among people living in very similar terrestrial environments. Thus, while it is a source of cultural and behavioral differences, the physical environment is not the only source of influence on social behavior.
Architectural determinism
will be used to denote the belief that changes in the landscaped and architectural elements of the environment will result in changes in behavior, particularly in social behavior.
Architectural Determinism
Then we have a hierarchy of beliefs about the impact of the environment on people:
Architectural determinism is the belief that built form, composed of artificial and/or natural elements, will lead to changes in social behavior. Given the natural endowment of the individual, the first position seems tenable although it does not account for all interpersonal differences. The others require closer scrutiny.
Architectural determinism requires some elaboration in order to clarify the relationship between built environment and human behavior.
Architectural determinism
(also sometimes referred to as environmental determinism though that term has a broader meaning) is a theory employed in urbanism, sociology and environmental psychology which claims the built environment is the chief or even sole determinant of social behaviour
Architects, environmental designers and olso social reformers believed in the central role of the build environment in determining human social behavioral patterns and values.
Architectural Determinism
19 Century
19 century
Industrial revolution and the large scale migration of rural workers to the city - awareness of the strong correlation between the unpleasant conditions in which people lived.
Changing the build environment- change in living conditions + lifestyle and aesthetic values.
1930-1940
1930-1940
The principles of housing design generated by successive meetings of CIAM(congrès internationaux d’ Architecture Moderne) and the public housing movement in many countries were based on a series of assumptions regarding the impact of architecture and urban designs on human behavior( le Corbusier 1973)
All the conferences held in this period exhibited a belief that through the architectural and urban design all kinds of social pathologies could be eliminated.
The concept of neighborhood ( from the work of the sociologist associated with the university of Chicago between the world wars)
Believed that: localization of facilities lead to:
-greater face to face contact
-Greater participation in
community affairs
-Less amonie
-More democratic society
The concept of neighborhood
1965
1965 a study in Britain by Christopher Bagley
Showed that: Rehousing people from a decaying central city area to new housing had little effect on high delinquency rates. the cultural pattern was not broken.
One of his most important study was Levittown in 1967
showing a strong relationship between physical proximity and friendship patterns
Friendship is based on the perceived homogeneity of values of people
Herbert Gans studies
The dimensions along which homogeneity are important are:
-Socioeconomic status
-Stage in life cycle
Factors as:
-similariry in attitudes toward child-raising
-Leisure time activities
-General cultural interests
Gans points out that where a change in residential environment, there is a predisposition to change and the chosen environment better affords the new lifestyle.
Herbert Gans ( introduction to Clare Cooper’s Easter Hill Village 1975)
-reminds the reader about fallacy of a belief in Architectural determinism
-Goes on to describe how the facilities and layout of the building complex affect behavior negatively.
We are now in a position to resolve this apparent paradox.
Understanding
During the past two decades, with the growth of environmental psychology as a discipline, there has been a major growth in our understanding of the relationship of the built environment and human behavior.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE PERSON-BUILT ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP
The environment can be considered to consist of interrelated geographic, built, social, and cultural components that afford certain behaviors in consistent ways.
Fundamental concepts
The set of affordances of the environment at a particular location constitutes the potential environment for human behavior at that place.
Not all of these affordances are perceived by people, nor are all the perceived affordances used.
What is used depends on
- the nature of the people involved,
- their motivations,
- experience
- the perceived costs and rewards of their engaging in a particular set of activities
The processes of perception, cognition, and spatial behavior are affected by
• By the competencies of the individual and the group
• By the structure of the built environment
Humans are highly adaptable creatures, but their perceptions of the environment are affected by the things to which they have become accustomed. people adapt to conditions which threaten to destroy "values which are characteristically human".
The environment consists of a set of behavior settings, nested within each other and overlapping.
These consist of two major components
• a standing pattern of behavior
• a milieu
The milieu is the physical structure which is composed of surfaces related to each other in specific patterns that constitute landscapes, buildings, rooms, and furnishings.
The surfaces are composed of different substances, textures, and pigmentations. They are also illuminated in different ways. A composition affords some things and not others to a potential user.
The affordances are the property of the built environment itself within a geographical, animate, and cultural environment
The affordances can be divided into two categories, direct and indirect.
-The direct consist of such things as affordances for activities.
-The indirect include such things as symbolic meanings which depend on the association of the patterns with a referent and on the utility of a pattern for financial gain..
The effective environment consists of those elements that are meaningful to the user or observer of a potential environment.
Each individual has a variety of competencies in dealing with different aspects of the built environment.
• physiological
• social
• cultural.
These differences affect the way the environment is perceived the images people have of it and the way it can be and is used.
It is quite possible for people to be able to perceive the affordances of the environment for others while being unable to use those affordances themselves .
The lower a person's competencies, the more restrictive an environment becomes in terms of behavioral opportunities
This restrictiveness can lead to higher rates of mental illness
In contrast, it has been hypothesized that if the built environment demands less competence of an individual than that individual possesses, then it is too comfortable and not challenging enough.
This can lead to the atrophy of a person's abilities.
An environment affords a particular set of behaviors, this does not mean that the behaviors will take place, even though the people perceive the affordances and are competent enough to use them.
If the affordances are not there, the behavior cannot take place.
The environment can be adapted to afford the desired behavior, or else the people concerned may adapt their behavior to cope with the environment as it is. These adaptations may be accompanied by physiological or psychological stress.
Human behavior, both mental and spatial, depends on our intentions and habits as well as on the affordances of the physical and social world we in-habit.
Intentions are some complex function of the schemata we possess, the desirability of a behavior and its perceived consequences, and the social pressure one is under.
One has to understand the nature of human motivations because they tell us something about the focus of a person's attention at a particular time.
Maslow says that we have self-consciously or unselfconsciously shaped the world to better meet our physiological needs, our needs for safety, belonging, esteem, and actualization, and finally our cognitive and aesthetic needs.
In this case, its clamber-on-ability. It is through the manipulation of the affordances of the built environment that the designer affects human experiences.
The sign in (2) does something similar. It brings attention to aspects of the environment that are not discernible. Perceiving the behavior of others also brings attention to the affordances of an object
In Las Vegas a host of signs, placed so that they afford being seen at different distances, bring attention to available entertainments.
Our attitudes are related to our motivations. What we like and dislike, what we believe to be good or bad, important or unimportant—these attitudes are related to the various socialization processes and experiences we have had and thus to the influence of others.
Our personalities and our social and cultural backgrounds are all indicators of attitudes toward people and toward characteristics of the built environment. Similarly, what we perceive to be the rewards and costs of participating in a particular setting affect our attitudes to the setting
Conclusion
There are many written expressions of the meaningfulness of the inanimate environment to one's existence.
Anyone who has hung a colorful poster on a barren apartment or office wall, or who walks down one street rather than another simply because it is cheerier, or who has selected a house in one neighborhood rather than another because it is more attractive, knows that the quality of the built environment affects one's perceptions of the quality of life.
We need to study the social environment so that we can create surroundings which make it easier for people to do what they want to do, to live the way they want; and to make it unnecessary for them to do things they don't want or would otherwise not do.
This is a strong ideological statement. It would, of course, be possible to take the same understanding and create environments that do the opposite.
The architectural environment is more determining, and thus more important, in providing for the basic needs of people—those of shelter and security—than it is in meeting the needs that are a product of interpersonal and social relationships. Yet even here the built environment is important because it does, at least partially, meet needs for self-esteem, affiliation, and aesthetics through the symbolic messages it provides about status, identity, and values. Yet design is limited also in what it can do in meeting social needs.
A building design impinges on people's lives through the affordances it possesses. It cannot be assumed, however, simply because the environment contains a set of affordances for the activities that designers believe are good for people or has the aesthetic qualities that designers believe are uplifting, that people in the environment will respond in the desired manner.
Not all people perceive the affordances of the environment in the same way.
It is possible to make predictions about who will use what facility, who will bother to look at a particular architectural composition, and who will respond to it warmly and who will not.
Model of Substantive Theory
The knowledge provided by such theory will be much more important in the design of some types of buildings than others, depending on their purposes. Kiyo Izumi (Saarinen 1976), suggests that some buildings are designed more for the successful functioning of machines and equipment than for the people who run them. In other buildings the needs of people are paramount (see fig)
He labels the former type "anthropozemic buildings" and the latter type "anthropophilic." In anthropozemic buildings people have to adapt to the conditions; in anthropophilic buildings the equipment has to be adapted to the conditions of peoplE.