Responsive Environments by Ian Bentley.

A practical book about architecture

and urban design. It is concerned with certain designations of design that
often turn out badly and dazzles that visions alone are adequately not. Ideals
must be connected through proper plan thoughts to the texture of the
assembled environment itself. The tragedy of modern design and spatial
qualities, seems, is that designers still need to make a concerted effort to
work out the form and resonant implications of the social and political ideals.

The very strength of the commitment to these ideals ought to be instinctive

by-products of progressive social attitudes. But in adopting this stance,
paradoxically enough, designers need to emphasize the man-made
environment in a social system in its significance, for example, try walking
through a wall, and you’ll notice that it is the physical fabric, as well as the
way it is managed and erected, that sets constraints on space.

Ideals and concepts solely are not enough and they have to be linked
through appropriate design ideas to the fabric of the built environment itself.
This book is a reasonable endeavour to show how this should be possible.

Permeability

Permeability is defined as a place that is accessible to users and can offer

them a choice. The width of the extent to which an environment allows
people a choice of access through it, from space to type, is, therefore, a key
measure of its responsiveness. The permeability of a public space depends
on the number of alternative routes it has to offer from one point to another.
However, these alternatives should be visible, otherwise, users already
familiar can only take advantage of the space. So visual permeability is also
important.

Two current design trends that highlight the permeable aspect of public
space are the increasing scale of development and the use of hierarchical
layouts. The implications of visual and physical permeability make impactful
demands on design. The simplest way of meeting these demands is through
the design of perimeter blocks. Fronts facing outwards onto public space
particularly a street, square, or park, close enough to enjoy its liveliness.
As an element of user experience, the other kind of layouts nearly leads to
permeability issues of one sort or another. It may not always be easy owing
to the restriction of the context to use such a kind of perimeter block
development, but its advantages are so important.

Variety

Variety is characterized as the quality or condition of being extraordinary or

diverse, the shortfall of consistency or repetitiveness. Variety of involvement
infers places with varied forms, uses, and implications. A project’s example
of uses excites especially solid interest among those with control over the
climate since it is both the premise of economic performance and a critical
concern of planning control. In proposing a variety of uses, we are
encouraging those with power over the scheme. Variety of use and spaces in
collaboration unlocks the other angles and scales of variety.

A space with varied uses has varied types of buildings, of varied forms.

It attracts varied people, at varied times, with varied approaches, for varied
reasons.

Because the varied activities, forms, and users provide a rich mix of
perceptual conception.

How much variety?

With all these pressures against variety, it is however pointless to agonize

over exactly how much is needed, designers must simply get the most they
can. Because of the constraints, there is no danger of ending up with too
much.

How to maximize it?

The variety in a project depends on three main factors. Firstly, the range and
variety of activities which can be located there, which shall be demanded.
The scaling possibility of supplying affordable spaces in the scheme to
housing the activities. Lastly, the wider extent to which design encourages
positive interactions between them.
Legibility

Legibility is the quality of being clear enough to be described, understood,

and read. It is important at two levels, physical form and activity patterns,
places may be read at either level separately. For example, it is feasible to
foster a dream of the spatial quality of a space, maybe appreciating it just at
an aesthetic level. Similarly, examples of utilization may be grasped without
much concern with form.

However, to utilize a spot’s capability without limit, attention to physical form

and examples of utilization should supplement each other. This is especially
essential to the outsider, who needs to get a handle on the spot rapidly.

Since the new design should contribute to the legibility of its surroundings as
well as being legible in itself, special emphasis to any parts of the site must
be legible anyway. It is often helpful to use Lynch’s checklist of elements
even within a space on smaller scale paths, nodes, landmarks, edges, and
districts. To stimulate this analysis the typical factors to look for include the
following,

The relative intensity of use.

Recording the relative importance of each path, and the public relevance of
any associations.

Carefully planning any strong linear barriers.

Record areas with different patterns of use.

Record areas with different visual characters, and decide what makes the
differences, overall building forms, ambiance, materials, or details.

The important step towards achieving this legible relationship is to

collectively account for the tentative layout of individual spaces, layouts
within, blocks and uses developed. The modern city is legible only in the
sense that ‘buildings cannot lie’.
Robustness

Spaces that can be used for different purposes offer the users more choices
than places where design limits them to a single fixed use. Environments
that offer this choice have a quality called robustness. Patrons are not
usually interested in promoting user choice, because they are solely
concerned with a certain particular aspect of a user’s life and experience. In
most buildings, the various parts have different potentials for contributing to
robustness. Two sorts of areas need special attention namely, Hard or Soft
and Active or Passive.

Visual Appropriateness

Visual appropriateness is significant in the places which are most likely to be

visited by people from a wider range and variety of backgrounds, particularly
when the appearance cannot be altered by the users themselves. Both
indoors and out, hence, visual appropriateness is important in the more
public aspects of the spaces in the scheme. So far as social space is
concerned, it is, in particular, relevant to the outside of the buildings which
define the public realm.

What makes the visuals appropriate?

The interpretations users associate a place with can reinforce its

responsiveness at the three different levels.

By supporting its legibility, in terms of form and spatial quality.

By incorporating its variety in form and function.

By supporting its robustness, at both large and small scales.

Users interpret visual cues as having specific perceptions because they have
learned to do so’. But users do not learn in a social vacuum. A great deal of
learning, both formal and informal, highlights the members of different social
groups may well make different interpretations of the same place. This
happens for two main reasons mainly the environmental experience differs
from that of others and the individual objectives differ from those of other
groups.

Richness

Richness is the interesting quality of something that has a lot of different

features or aspects. There are only two ways people can choose from
different sensory experiences if the environment itself is established as
broadly outlined. Firstly, by focussing attention on different sources of sense
and experiences on separate occasions. Secondly, by moving away from one
source towards another.

The effectiveness of each of the methods depends on whether the sense

associated can be directed selectively, it picks up information
indiscriminately, from all sides at once. The range of most likely viewing
distances instinctively affects the scale at which richness must be accounted
for. Whilst the surface will be seen at a long-range, large-scale richness is
necessary, where zooming down to a closer range, richness is achieved by
small-scale elements. To maintain richness from long-range to close range, a
hierarchy of elements is played with that brings in a diversity of experience.

To the point, the visual monotony of recent environments is widely

recognized, so the attitude and perceptions of the designers and patrons’ are
changing. But with the evolution of design, the principles of visual richness
have been forgotten. With no principles to refer from, designers only base
their work on examples of richness from the past. The scheme thus calls to
contain visual contrasts, formed by the cues used for achieving visual
appropriateness

Personalization

Personalization is not random. Personalization clarifies the gist of designing

to meet someone’s requirements. Users’ perspective to personalize the
space they wish to be in. These spaces and choices are predictable, even
with highly robust buildings, it is not difficult to establish the most likely
possibilities. Once this is achieved, the probable chances of personalization
can roughly be calculated, to finalize the qualities designed into the scheme.
Why personalize?

An affirmation of one’s tastes and values: affirmative personalization

The perception of the existing image as inappropriate: remedial

personalization.

It is therefore important to make it possible for users to personalize the

existing environments, which is the only way most people can achieve an
environment that bears the stamp of their tastes, values, and experiences.
On the alternate comprehensively, this points to certain considerable efforts
from the designer.

There also comes an instance, a secondary reason for supporting

personalization which is, it makes clearer a place’s pattern of activities and
range of diversity. This is specifically valuable in robust environments,
engaging a variety of uses. By encouraging each user to dress the building
differently, personalization can make each use explicit.

The concept that a built environment must provide the users with an
essentially democratic mood and setting, enriches the paradox of
opportunities by maximizing the degree of choices available to them. Such
places are called ‘responsive’. The approach results in a larger diversity of
spaces and associated experiences in design, especially in terms of
atmospheres, while opening up to have more potential, especially concerning
the overall area and supported consistency in the design.

User perspectives in architectural terms of design have pointed out the value
of narrative approaches as well as challenges to its integration. They set out
to explore the potential of scenarios put together collectively, a technique
from related design disciplines and parameters to iteratively and explicitly
involve user perspectives, for architectural design.