A D AMSON U N I V ERSI T Y

COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

AR 429 - PLANNING 2 – FUNDAMENTALS OF URBAN DESIGN &

COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE
LECTURE
P R E PA R E D B Y: A R . PA O L O M A R I A . M O R A G A , U A P, S O 2 , L S S - P D C A
WEEK 5-7
URBAN DESIGN AND COMMUNITY PLANNING
RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENT
What is Responsive Environment?
• Physical spaces that are enhanced with ambient intelligence , e.g.
media and technology, to provide a user experience that is
interactive, rich, unique and changing.
• Users of the environment experience a more engaging and
interesting space when compared with the original space before the
enhancement.
How is this done?
• A responsive environment combines several adaptive components such as light temperature
or sound components. As such, the environment can transform it in many ways to adapt to its
users.
• Within responsive environments, the user experience is a combination of interaction,
perception and aesthetic experience. The interaction experience relates to the relation
between the user and the environment.
• Bentley et al. (1985) have developed a set of guidelines which they claim make an
environment responsive to the needs of its users. They do this using the following
concepts: permeability, variety, robustness, visual appropriateness, richness,
personalization and legibility.
Permeability
• Permeability is a property of how easy it is to move through an environment and depends
heavily upon the paths and objects placed within the space.
• There are two types of permeability: physical properties (e.g. a path) and visual
appearance. For example although a path may exist in some environment, if it is not
visually obvious it may remain unused. This in turn affects the sense of place people
experience in the environment. Permeability is also influenced by the nature of spaces,
for example whether they permit private or public access.
• Permeability relates to the way that a design affects
where people can go and cannot go within a city district.

• The urban designer must always consider permeability

first because it involves pedestrian and vehicle circulation
within the city district as a whole. The greater the number
of alternative routes through an environment, the greater
people's freedom of movement and, therefore, the
greater the responsiveness of that place.

• Only places which are accessible to people can offer them

choice. The quality of permeability – the number of
alternative ways through an environment is therefore
central to making responsive places.
• Permeability has
fundamental layout
implications. Because it is
so basic to achieving
responsiveness,
permeability must be
considered early in design.
• The designer must decide
how many routes should
be, how they should be • Bentley, Ian (1985) Responsive Environments: A
linked together, where Manual For Designers. London: Architectural Press

they should go and the

other side of the coin how
to establish rough
boundaries for blocks of
developable land within
the site as a whole.
 Legibility
• Legibility is how easy it is for a person to construct a mental map of their
environment and depends to a large extent to the form of the environment and
the activities people undertake. Lynch (Lynch, 1970) discusses many features such
as paths, nodes, landmarks, districts and edges.
• Legibility is also a quality of a responsive environment that which people can
understand the spatial layout of a place. The designers should provide practical
ways whereby the people can determine and enhance the perceptual clarity of
the paths, landmarks, boundaries, and so forth that have emerged through
consideration of permeability and variety.
• In practice the degree of choice • `
offered by a place depends partly
on how legible it is and on how
people can easily understand its
layout. This is considered in the
third stage of design.

• The tentative network of links and

uses already established now takes • http://protectdowntownathens.com
on three dimensional form, as
elements which give perceptual
structure to the place are brought
into the process of design. As part
of this process, routes and their
junctions are differentiated from
one another by designing them
with differing qualities of spatial
enclosure. Therefore, the designer • Bentley, Ian (1985) Responsive Environments: A
is involved in making tentative Manual For Designers. London: Architectural
decisions about the volumes of the Press
buildings which enclose the public
spaces.
 Variety
• Variety refers to the range of activities, people and building forms which
can be found in a space. The varied nature of people, forms and activities
will create a range of meanings and in turn the meanings may influence the
variety of options available. For example in a museum people can buy gifts,
view exhibits, talk to other visitors and perhaps visit a café. However a
virtual version of the same museum may concentrate only on aspects
related to viewing exhibits, thereby altering the sense of place. As well as
being shaped by the range of activities which are built into the space,
variety is a product of the location of features and paths of movement.
• the second quality of a responsive environment, refers to the
range of uses that a place provides, for example, housing,
shopping, employment, recreation, and so forth. Easily
accessible places are of little use if their choice of experiences
is limited. It aims to maximize the variety of uses for a given
project by, first, demonstrating how one can assess the level of
demands for various uses and, then, determining the widest
mix of uses feasible economically and functionally.
• http://www.bluebikedesigns.com
Robustnes
s
• Permeability, variety, and legibility all refer to larger-scale physical
elements that contribute to the urban district's overall spatial order
and sense of place. The designer next move is to scale of individual
buildings and groups of buildings. Important in here is robustness,
which describes buildings and outdoor spaces. the design of which
does not limit users to a single fixed use but, rather, supports many
different purposes and activities. To design for robustness is "to make
spatial and constructional organization suitable for the widest
possible range of likely activities and future uses, both in the short
and long term".
 Visual Appropriateness
• Visual appropriateness is how the provision of cues can support variety,
robustness and legibility, it is vital if people are to correctly interpret how to make
appropriate use of an environment. Examples of poor visual appropriateness are
when buildings are identical in color and appearance making it difficult to
differentiate them.
• Once the general appearance of individual built elements is tentatively decided,
one next considers visual appropriateness the way in which the design physically
can make people aware of the choices that the place provides. A crucial design
consideration is the development of visual cues that express directly the levels of
choice already provided by the first four qualities.
 Richness
• Richness relates to the range of sensory experiences available, for example
sight, smell, touch and sound. It is also concerned with how the experience
can have an effect on the emotional state of those visiting the place. A
visual example would be the use of paths to provide a heightened sense of
awareness of the environment and that something important is going to
happen. Therefore in the visual sense it is important to consider how long
something can be viewed and where it can be viewed from.
• Involves ways to increase the choice of sense experience that users can
enjoy (experiences of touch, sound, light, and so forth).
• By these stage we are dealing with the smallest details of the project. We
must decide where about in the scheme provide richness, both visual and
non-visual then select the appropriate materials and construct techniques
for achieving it.
 Personalization
• Personalization is the ability we are given to customize an environment on a large or small scale.
Small scale personalization can include moving a chair in a room, large scale personalization being
the ability to change the appearance of a building.
• It refers to designs that encourage people to put their own mark on the places where they live
and work. The stages of design already covered have been directed at achieving qualities which
supports the responsiveness of the environment itself, as distinct from the political and economic
processes by which it is produced. This is not because we do not value the public participation
approach it is highly desirable. But even with the highest level of public participation most people
will still have to live and work in places designed by others. It is therefore especially important
that we make it possible for users to personalize places.
 Reference:
• http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/ResponsiveEnvts.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping#mediaviewer/File:Shoppers_o
n_Dundas,_near_Yonge.jpg
• Responsive Environments, Place and Presence Rod McCall, Shaleph
O’Neill, Fiona Carroll, David Benyon, Michael Smyth