Responsive Environments

Sue McGlynn, Graham Smith, Alan Alcock, Paul Murrain, Ian Bentley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135143442
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Clearly demonstrates the specific characteristics that make for comprehensible, friendly and controllable places; 'Responsive Environments' - as opposed to the alienating environments often imposed today. By means of sketches and diagrams, it shows how they may be designed in to places or buildings. This is a practical book about architecture and urban design. It is most concerned with the areas of design which most frequently go wrong and impresses the idea that ideals alone are not enough. Ideals must be linked through appropriate design ideas to the fabric of the built environemnt itself. This book is a practical attempt to show how this can be done.

Chapter 1:

Permeability

Introduction

Only places which are accessible to people can offer them choice. The extent to which an environment allows people a choice of access through it, from place to place, is therefore a key measure of its responsiveness. We have called this quality permeability.

Permeability: public and private

If everywhere were accessible to everybody, physically or visually, there would be no privacy. But one of our basic sources of choice stems from our ability to live both public and private roles. For this capacity to flourish, both public places and private ones are necessary.

Of course, public and private places cannot work independently. They are complementary, and people need access across the interface between them. Indeed, this interplay between public and private gives people another major source of richness and choice.

Public and private spaces, and the interfaces between them, each have different implications for permeability.

Permeability and public space.

The permeability of any system of public space depends on the number of alternative routes it offers from one point to another. But these alternatives must be visible, otherwise only people who already know the area can take advantage of them. So visual permeability is also important.

Both physical and visual permeability depend on how the network of public space divides the environment into blocks: areas of land entirely surrounded by public routes. These can vary radically in size and shape, as illustrated below:

The advantages of small blocks

A place with small blocks gives more choice of routes than one with large blocks. In the example below, the large-block layout offers only three alternative routes, without backtracking, between A and B. The version with small blocks has nine alternatives, with a slightly shorter length of public route.

Smaller blocks, therefore, give more physical permeability for a given investment in public space. They also increase visual permeability, improving people’s awareness of the choice available: the smaller the block, the easier it is to see from one junction to the next in all directions.

The decline of public permeability

Three current design trends work against permeable public space:

- increasing scale of development.

- use of hierarchical layouts.

- pedestrian/vehicle segregation.

Scale of development

Unnecessarily monolithic developments, which could function equally well if divided into smaller elements, produce excessively large blocks.

Hierarchical layouts

Hierarchical layouts reduce permeability: in the example below there is only one way from A to D, and you have to go along B and C: never A-D directly, or ADCABCD, but always ABCD. Hierarchical layouts generate a world of culs-de-sac, dead ends and little choice of routes.

This is not to say that culs-de-sac are always negative: they support responsiveness if they offer a choice which would otherwise be missing. But they must be added to a permeable layout, not substituted for it.

Segregation

Permeability is effectively reduced by segregating the users of public space into different categories, such as vehicle users and pedestrians, and confining each to a separate system of routes. When this happens, the only way to give both categories a level of permeability equivalent to a de- segregated system is through an expensive duplication of routes.

Avoid built-in segregation.

Chapter 4 will show other ways of helping motorists and pedestrians to live together. And in any case, it is never necessary to build segregation irrevocably into a layout early in design. If we initially make a high level of permeability for everyone, then segregation can be achieved later, if necessary, by detailed design or management. This gives future users control over how they want to use the place, because they can de-segregate if circumstances change.

Permeability and the public/private interface

Since physical access to private space is necessarily limited, permeability across the public/private interface is largely a visual concern. This has different implications for public and private space.

The interface: visual permeability

Visual permeability between public and private space can also enrich the public domain. If wrongly used, however, it can confuse the vital distinction between public and private altogether.

This is because not all the activities in private space are equally private: there is a gradation, for example, from entrance hall to lavatory. To maintain the public/private distinction, the most private activities must be kept from visual contact with public space.

The interface: physical permeability

Physical permeability between public and private space occurs at entrances to bu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• I. Introduction
• 1. Permeability
• 2. Variety
• 3. Legibility
• 4. Robustness
• 5. Visual appropriateness
• 6. Richness
• 7. Personalisation
• 8. Putting it all together
• Notes
• Suggestions for further reading
• Bibliography
• Illustration credits
• Index
• Books of related interest