Structured evaluation of attitudes to dwelling environments : people’s subjective assessments of preference satisfaction and meaning as indicators of architectural design performance

Abstract

This Thesis is developed around twin topics. One aspect of the Thesis is an attempt to ascertain the extent to which structured research-techniques from the Social and Behavioural Sciences may be applied to investigations of various man-environment relationships and specifically of the contributions of Architecture in those relationships, - in this case within dwelling-environments. The other aspect of it, is an attempt to ascertain through people's subjective assessments, the preferences, satisfactions and meanings they recognise in various dwelling-environments; and then, to identify the kind and character of architectural components which prompt such recognition. Underlying the first aspect of the Thesis was a quest for a repertoire of research procedures with which to implement and sustain the Evaluative or Performance Approach to Architectural Design, Research and Education. Permeating the second aspect, was a quest for evidence of fundamental factors and concerns in people's experience of human settings, which could perhaps be identified as more or less common to a number of culturally or socially-identifiable groups - as it were, a general semantic-agreement, 'socially-contracted' as in other social behaviour and languages, of both the verbal and non-verbal kinds. Following a brief introductory review of present-day widely felt concerns about recent urban-design and development, seen as an offending environment for human-consciousness, Part 1 of the Thesis develops, against a motivating prospect of urban-crisis related to resource deficiencies, a theoretical framework embracing a commitment to the evaluation of human satisfaction in the designed environment and to appraising and predicting this environment's performance in accommodating that satisfaction. A discussion of Theoretical Commitments towards the twofold interests of the Thesis - in short, research process and research product - comprises an evaluation of survey techniques and the concepts they measure (such as 'satisfaction'), and a review of the philosophical and methodological consequences of adopting the holistic viewpoints of Phenomenology and Communication Theory in either conceptualising, researching or designing the built-environment. The Theory of Semiology is summarised as a model for the semantic theory of the architectural environment. A series of five Basic Theoretical Assumptions, is drawn from this theoretical discussion and leads to both the General Thesis - Aspect A, which, regarding research processes, anticipates the effective application of research techniques from the Social Sciences to research in Architecture; and to the General Thesis - Aspect B, which, regarding research products, looks towards the nature of environmental satisfaction in dwelling-environments by reference to the theories of Semiology and 'Social Contract', and an anticipated semantic-identity of preferred dwelling idioms. Part 2 describes the scope of the survey research attempted and presents a discussion of the three concepts: 'Preference', 'Satisfaction' and 'Meaning'. Part 3, the longest, presents the eight surveys in a series focused on dwelling-environments, each complete with a graphical representation and detailed discussion of results. It is early in this series of surveys that the three subordinate Hypotheses A, B and C are developed, stated and tested against subsequent survey results. Part 4 draws up a summary of the numerous significant survey-findings about dwelling-environments, reconciles these findings with the research hypotheses, and with both aspects of the General Thesis, develops further inferences and assertions about respondent groups and about housing attitudes, and then proceeds to a discussion of their implications for Theory, for Architectural-Design and Planning and for Further Research. Appendixes include explanatory notes about multivariate analysis of variance, and survey-sampling procedure, a respondent debate about Living-Room semantics, plan and photographs of the full-size simulation studio in which the Living-Room settings were produced, and an application of findings on environmental 'meaning' to the Planning concept of 'Amenities' in relation to a Planning Tribunal Hearing.