Unit 10 - Chapter 15 - Designing Fitting Environments

Question 1

Define social design

Answer 1

Working with people to create designs rather than telling them what they’re getting or just building it without consultation

Question 2

What is formal design?

Answer 2

Large-scale, corporate, high-cost, exclusive, authoritarian, and high-tech

Question 3

Pruitt-Igoe Buildings

Answer 3

• 43 buildings, 11 storeys high

- Elevator stopped every third floor

Question 4

Brunswick Lens Model

Answer 4

• Distal cues

- Proximal cues

Question 5

What are enabling practitioners?

Answer 5

Architects who consult, collaborate, etc.

Question 6

Explain the concept of placemaking

Answer 6

To make a place, architects and social designers work together to create a space with a human face, or an envelope for behaviour

Question 7

What is pre-industrial venacular?

Answer 7

• An old fashioned way of consulting regarding building
• In times and places where buildings are constructed by small communities in which everyone works together in accordance with a time-tested method of architecture
• The architectural design already fits into the community and with cultural norms, local interests, and hopefully, local materials … e.g. limestone in Kingston

Question 8

What are the goals, advantages, and problems with environmental design?

Answer 8

Social design researchers have 6 goals:

1. Create a physical match between the needs and activities of the occupants
2. Satisfy building users
3. Change behaviour - for example, improving productivity
4. Enhance the occupant’s personal control - the more that users can alter their environments, the more they like it
5. Facilitate social support - building occupants with special needs that are accommodated
6. Employ imageability - the ability of the building to help occupants and visitors and newcomers to find their way around without getting lost or confused