Practice
Services
Spatial behaviour
Workbook #04 | HUMAN FACTORS: SUSTAINABILITY AND HABITABILITY
“Sense depends (not only) on spatial form and quality, but also on the culture, temperament, status, experience, and current purpose of the observer” (Lynch, 1960). Sense here refers to the image a person has of a particular place – different people have different images. However, people in general share common ideas of a particular place – they identify with it in a certain way. “Place identity is closely linked to personal identity. ‘I am here’ supports ‘I am’” (Lynch, 1960). This place identity could be because of the physical form of the area (Lynch’s edges, districts, landmarks, nodes and paths), or because of certain functions that occur in the area that are special to the users in some way. For instance, graduating students would associate the campus with a novel sense of achievement,
something they wouldn’t experience because of their normally unselfconscious behaviour within the campus. Here the ceremonial function of graduation lends a different meaning to the University, different from a more routine cognition map (say) in their heads of the quickest possible route from the lecture hall to a party at the Roundhouse. Cognition maps of the ‘structure’ of a place are based on the five elements of physical form already mentioned, explored through the photographs below.
Boundaries/edges/entrances
The interface between the inside of a building and the outside city is of particular importance. Bay windows, balconies and the entrance (among others) all mediate between the private domain of the house and the public domain without. At larger scales edges could be interfaces between different ecological niches – for example the seashore as an edge between the city of Sydney and the ocean.
Landmarks/vistas
These are external physical objects that act as reference points for people moving within and around the area (or district). Like the University of New South Wales Library that stands tall above the other buildings, landmarks help in orientation when ‘way-finding’. Landmarks could be universally recognized, like the Sydney Opera House, or be person-specific. For example, to be appallingly sexist, a man might recognize his bus stop by the hardware store at the corner while a woman would use a shopping mall as a landmark instead. Of course, to be politically correct, it could be the other way around.
Districts
Districts are sections of the city that are usually large in size. They have an identifying character about them, for example Greenwich Village is perceived to have a very Bohemian character while this may no longer be true. In Sydney, we might say that the Uni is an educational district, the area immediately around it a residential one, and the business precinct around the harbour the (Central) Business District.
Paths/routes
Paths are obviously routes, by which people move about and through the districts. They could be direct linkages with clearly defined start and end points, or more amorphous in character, with vistas and opportunities unfolding as one moves along them.
Nodes
These are points of strategic importance, usually high lit by placing them at axes termini or intersections. For example, the crossroads in an Indian village are usually emphasised by locating them around trees, wells or other nuclei of social gathering. In the two photographs, steps are treated very differently as nodes.
The first is a grand staircase (presumably at the end of a linear axis) leading up to an important building. The second is more personal in character: a narrow staircase located along the general flow of traffic where someone could actually sit at the top and interact with people passing by.
Personal space is the space immediately around us that we claim as our own – an invisible volume of space closer at the back, wider at the sides, and large in front. People ‘invading’ this space may cause discomfort by their uninvited proximity, depending on how familiar you are with the invaders. “Personal space is also cultural; people in Japan have a larger personal space than North Americans, while people from Italy have a much smaller one. This has sociological effects. Nationalities with large personal spaces can seem 'cold' and 'distant' to us; others with small ones may seem 'pushy' or 'aggressive'. A police officer or other person in authority understands this. When questioning a suspect, he or she may get very close, or 'in their face', in order to psychologically seem intimidating.” (Willis, 2001)
An installation by Scott Snibbe (titled Boundary Functions) offers an interesting counterpoint to the notion of personal space. He says
Our personal space changes dynamically in relation to those around us. Boundary Functions is realized as a set of lines projected from overhead onto the floor which divide each person in the gallery from one another. With one person in the gallery there is no response. When two are present, there is a single line drawn halfway between them segmenting the room into two regions. As each person moves, this line dynamically changes, maintaining an even distance between the two. With more than two people, the floor becomes divided into cellular regions, each with the mathematical quality that all space within the region is closer to the person inside than any other. The regions which surround each person are mathematically referred to as Voronoi diagrams or Dirichlet tessellations, widely used in diverse fields, spontaneously occurring at all scales of nature. In anthropology and geography they are used to describe patterns of human settlement; in biology, the patterns of animal dominance and plant competition, and so on.
Is a little privacy too much to ask for?
So what is privacy? Alan Westin in Privacy and Freedom defines it as the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.
But in the digital age, the concept of privacy takes on a whole new meaning. After all, when every electronic device is connected to the Internet, a person can be monitored as they drive their car, use their stereo or TV, or open the refrigerator. In short, their privacy can be (or, as many people already believe, has been) obliterated
Lumeria is a company that develops technology to ensure security of all kinds of online transactions. They believe that privacy is not about hiding from others, but rather about controlling the flow of personal data.
(www.lumeria.com)
I’ve already discussed the concepts of personal space and privacy in brief. In more detail, these articulate themselves as interactive distances, territorialization and personalization – different ways in which people express their personal spaces and identity. E.T. Hall coined the term ‘proxemics’ in 1963 when he investigated man's use of personal space (informal bubble) in contrast with "fixed" (unmovable boundaries like divisions in an office building) and "semi-fixed" feature space (boundaries like furniture).
QUESTION: In American culture, personal space affects EVERYTHING -- even bathroom behavior among strangers. The chart shows six urinals in a men's bathroom, with men already standing at urinal 2 and 4. The man points at the "correct" space, urinal 6 -- this is the one the third arrival in the bathroom SHOULD take. Which space will NEVER be used by the third arrival?
ANSWER: Urinal 3 is the WORST proxemic choice, because the person would have people on BOTH sides. In American culture, the choice of urinal 3 would almost NEVER happen. If it did, it would shock the men at urinals 2 and 4. Bathroom proxemics calls for maximizing the space between people, and any other choice is a clear "violation" of the unwritten rules about personal space.
QUESTION: Every culture has rules about the CORRECT use of space. The "proxemic" rules are unwritten and never taught-- but they are very powerful and known to all members of the culture. In the video PERSONAL SPACE: EXPLORING HUMAN PROXEMICS, we see a woman's reactions as her personal space is invaded by three other people. What will happen?
ANSWER: In spatial invasions, the most common response is for the "invaded" person to leave. In proxemics experiments, only 2% of the "invaded" people say anything to their invader. Covert staring does happen, but hostile staring is almost never seen. Flight is the most common response to spatial invasions. The invasion is stressful for the invaded, making an early departure almost certain.
Research has indicated that Americans are especially conscious of their personal space and allow much less intrusion than do other nationalities, even with those people considered to be friends. There are times, however, that (they) not only seek but relish basking in the group energy of large crowds. The group energy of a crowd at a sports, music, or celestial event can continue to influence the native's sense of personal space long after the event is over. Sometimes we find ourselves just tolerating the invasion of personal space for the sake of the event or task at hand.
We mark their personal spaces – for example leaving your bag in front of the computer before leaving the lab for 5 minutes. I’ve also noticed that we usually sit at the exact same place during a lecture that we did the previous week. Why? There’s no compulsion, no allotting of seats… but we still do it. Personal attitudes of comfort and security – taking another situation how we place our desks in a room is also illuminating. We could protect our rear and flank by facing the entrance and being surrounded on three sides by walls or furniture, adopt a vulnerable orientation by facing with our backs to the entrance, or allow people entry from the front corner of the desk – more sociable yet protected, a maintenance of control over our territory.
Kilroy was here! - Some toilet graffiti from www.thewritingsonthestall.com
Image from www.discovery.mala.bc.ca
Written on the left wall: *TOILET TENNIS* look right Written on the right wall: look left
Don't eat the white mint.
Written on tank next to handle: Please wiggle Handel Written below it: If I do, will it wiggle Bach?
a man must have great ambition in life to have to write his name on the wall of a bathroom stall
"God is Dead" – Fred. Below: Fred is Dead – GOD!
Mike was here. And below it... No I wasn't.
Worn-out paths in the grass, graffiti and other examples of erosion and accretion act as visual clues to the possible usage and uses of a place. For example graffiti may be seen as a creative expression of a vibrant city and its people, but at night, ‘self-respecting’ citizens would avoid places with ‘spontaneous graffiti’ because they would consider the area unsupervised by authority and therefore unsafe.
Richard Barker defines behaviour settings as "units of the environment that have relevance for behaviour… a behaviour setting coerces people and things to conform to its temporal spatial pattern”.
This is similar to Thiis-Evensen’s book Archetypes in Architecture where he says that different spatial forms encourage particular responses by the people experiencing those forms. For example, ghats on the river banks are steps leading down to the water edge, where various functions of the city happen. These could be religious (such as the Hindu ceremony of consigning cremated remains to the river), recreational (safe swimming spots), social (people gathering to play cards by the river), or domestic (washing clothes).