Roger Hart Archiculture Extras Interview
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Archiculture Interviews14 / 30
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ArchitectComputer animation
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ArchitectMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectStoreyComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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SpaceArchitectLand lotMeeting/Interview
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Landscape architectArchitectCentringRoomCASTOR-BehälterSpaceComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectBuildingComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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Nursing homeArchitectMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectureArchitectMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectureArchitectMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectureArchitectSymbolPropertyBuildingMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectureNew ObjectivityMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectArchitectureLand lotNursing homeSpaceHouseBuildingEarthworks (engineering)Computer animationMeeting/Interview
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ArchitectLand lotRoomHouseStudy (room)WallComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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HouseWohndichteRoomSpirit levelCity (band)BauträgerArchitectNursing homeShopping mallMeeting/Interview
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Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:07
Environmental psychology began in the late 60s because really there hadn't been any response from the field of psychology before to the need that architects had and others,
00:22
other environmental groups like geographers and environmental managers of all kinds to the questions of human behavior in the environment. And so environmental psychology from the beginning was asked to address the question of how people perceived and behaved in relationship to the physical environment. We're commonly asked
00:45
by architects as well as by the popular press, how does the physical environment impact or directly influence human behavior? And of course there are some ways that it does, but it's a more complicated story than that and a richer story and more interesting story than that
01:05
because we in turn impact the environment. We have to try to get away from the simple-minded idea that space is somehow separate from people. We tend to talk about the physical
01:22
environment as though it was a container and then we are in this container and so then we ask simple questions like how does the container influence us as though it's separate from us. A more useful way to think about it for architects is how do the settings they create afford a range of opportunities for people? We use this term affordance quite a lot because
01:46
it's not deterministic. It recognizes that people have a range of responses to the influences on them, but those range of responses can be narrowed dramatically by bad design.
02:03
One of the things that architects and landscape architects and anybody involved in design really needs to be doing is trying to enable people to achieve in their lives what they need to achieve. For example, to think of childcare and schools. If you look at very young children,
02:26
the physical environment that they spend time in in a childcare center say or in a preschool enables them in different degrees to do what they want to try to do and young children are trying to play. Well, if young children are in a monotonous room that is homogeneous with a
02:48
single surface and has no storage then the range of play that they can engage in is limited. If those same children are in another room that has carpeting, storage, little cubbies,
03:03
and is differentiated into smaller spaces, the range of things they can go they can do increases enormously. So much so that research that's been done in this kind of setting shows that when you differentiate the space just a little bit children engage in the same activities
03:23
for longer periods. They are more deeply engaged. There's more social interaction between them. So actually simply that by breaking the space up you get richer play opportunity and better
03:40
qualities of social interaction. Well, architects seem to be most comfortable and clear when they're talking about buildings that people are not supposed to touch, you know, they're supposed to be just looked at. That's when they're really at their happiest and clearest and I have attended many of those kinds of lectures. When you think about what the business is of
04:07
making a home that people have done for generations and generations before architects came along, they did it with a whole wealth of knowledge that was not narrowly about structure.
04:21
It was all about the qualities that they were trying to create for a rich, full life. So it's ridiculous to think that one profession could just come in and do that by itself without a team approach. I suppose the reason architecture in the United States was much more
04:44
open to the participation of the client in the design process and to recognizing the importance of a range of disciplines in the training of architects was all part of the opening up of the 1960s and 70s. The zeitgeist of the time was about really being more participatory and being
05:09
more inclusive. The death of that in the late 70s, I've never fully understood why architecture abandoned so completely that rich period and returned to something which was
05:25
narrowly about the technical side of architecture plus a part of the human engagement which is appealing to architects which is the aesthetic part and the symbolic. So you know after the mid 70s or late 70s architects now start just talking about the meaning of architecture
05:45
to people as though they can somehow impose meaning on people and how places are perceived in terms of their visual properties much like they're talking about a piece of art or a museum. The idea that people would be moving and struggling to use these buildings is uninteresting to them
06:04
and one only has to look at all the architecture magazines to see there's no discussion of any of that. They're all empty of human behavior. The photographs are taken usually before people have had the chance to move in and mess up these beautiful objects that they create and
06:22
so I you know it's not a social profession. It really is a profession of artists who are removed from their social responsibility. Of course there are exceptions of architects who
06:40
try to work in a participatory way and there's one or two architecture schools that try to encourage that. I work a lot in the third world or the majority world whatever you want to call it and there of course the arrogance about architecture is harder to uphold because of the
07:05
dire situation. So many people build their own homes and participatory design is more common because it's a necessity and I get to see the benefits of that. I get to see people
07:20
meaningfully engaged in creating their own spaces that are close to their needs but of course they're not doing it with the same resources that we have here. So wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find a way to do participatory housing design for example in this country
07:41
where people are allowed to at least finish off the buildings. Our graduate students and some of us on the faculty do get asked to do architectural programming and sometimes design evaluation so that does happen especially in complex environments where architects are willing to admit that they have to get help. For example we're involved a lot in children's hospital
08:07
design where it's obvious that external expertise is needed. Here's a very real case study. Last year in New York, New York City government was defending itself in a lawsuit brought by
08:27
nonprofit groups working on homelessness who wanted to open up single room occupancy housing which is the kind of housing that was created for single men after the war when there was a big housing shortage. We have lots of this housing still left in New York City and families are not
08:43
allowed to be in it and these homeless organizations coming from a good perspective obviously trying to create a solution to the housing problems that we should allow children families with children into these single room occupancy houses and I supported the city government and went on the side of trying to prevent this from happening. Fortunately we won
09:06
the case but let me tell you what was important data for that. The important data for it was number one in my mind. We know that if you have more than one person per room on average the stress levels are damaging. We now have good reason to believe that they even damage the
09:26
brain so if you have a high stress level like that in the first few years of life you will actually affect the brain. So if anybody wants to find out why it is that the poor remain poor and why educational levels are the poor are as they are we know that lead affects the brain
09:45
so finally we've got rid of red lead but architects need to know and the people who design less architects more the people who hire architects to build environments that you cannot afford to have density levels of more than one person per room because you will have stress effects that affect the brain and development. That's strong data.