Culture, Architecture, and Design

by Amos Rapoport

The three basic questions of EBS are (1) What bio-social, psychological, and cultural characteristics of human beings influence which characteristics of the built environment?; (2) What effects do which aspects of which environments have on which groups of people, under what circumstances, and when, why, and how?; and (3) Given this two-way interaction between people and environments, there must be mechanisms that link them. What are these mechanisms? Focusing on answers to these and other questions, "Culture, Architecture, and Design" discusses the relationship between culture, the built environment, and design by showing that the purpose of design is to create environments that suit users and is, therefore, user-oriented. Design must also be based on knowledge of how people and environments interact. Thus, design needs to respond to culture. In discussing (1) the nature and role of Environment-Behavior Studies (EBS); (2) the types of environments; (3) the importance of culture; (4) preference, choice, and design; (5) the nature of culture; (6) the scale of culture; and (7) how to make culture usable, Amos Rapoport states that there needs to be a “change from designing for one’s own culture to understanding and designing for users’ cultures and basing design on research in EBS, anthropology, and other relevant fields. Such changes should transform architecture and design so that it, in fact, does what it claims to do and! is supposed to do — create better (i.e., more supportive) environments.”

Genres: Architecture

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Maryam Samer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read before some of Rapoport's work (the ones between 1960s and 1990s). This by far is the clearest in content and seems that he has a clearer view of the concept he is writing about. Yet, there is comment that another reviewer mentioned somewhere, that Rapoport refers to his own writings mostly and the bibliography is missing from the end of the book, is it something the writer intended or was it an editing issue?
The concepts in the book, about cultural influence on design and its importance is a good point, also mention of Architectural Anthropology as a new science that needs to be explored.
From his previous books and this one, the concept of user oriented design is still present. Personally, I feel that is the strongest concept that the writer was concerned with in most of his writings.

[Sri Rejeki]

I wont learning about the relationship betwen culture, architecture and environment

[Mohi · Rating 5 out of 5]

i like to read this book

[Lộc Phạm · Rating 5 out of 5]

add it

[Billy Prawira]

i want to read this book for my research in university.. i hope you know