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Architectural Perception and Mobility
Since childhood, I have been interested in buildings; monuments and historical sites. This interest has over the years translated into a degree and career in architecture, museum design and cultural planning. I have always been fascinated by old cities, their beauty and the rich experience they provided. The smells, richness of detail, noise and a certain character which kept every inhabitant captivated was also a source of intrigue for me. As an architectural student I decided to take this interest and a level further, and understand what made a city, monument or even a neighbourhood more charismatic? Why were some buildings like the Humayun's Tomb in Delhi and the Taj Mahal appear fresh on every visit?
Architectural Perception and Mobility is the part that I have tried to play in understanding our urban and built fabric; its beauty through the eye of a visitor or an inhabitant in transit. What was started as a dissertation: a partial fulfillment of my architectural degree, has stayed with me for ever and has played an important role in shaping my vision and sensibilities as an architect, and designer. The following are excerpts from the same.
Introduction
Today there is a comprehensive change in the established connection between man and the built environment. In a society that is increasingly in transit and mobile, more and more people belong to the new bracket of temporary inhabitants. They are those who do not inhabit land but pass or commute through it, on the move when dispatched in high-speed capsules.
Their gaze modifies both the viewer and the object. The viewer looks at the landscape and the landscape looks back at him. The landscape is effectively modified with change in viewer’s perception. If the sealed of traveller is the inhabitant of temporary landscapes, then fast cars which blur ones’ vision by compressing physical distance, result in the deterioration of the idea of the physical landscape itself.
This results in the need to study this relationship to enhance and create an impregnable image of the landscape.
Hence while understanding mobility and perception of spaces, the interrelationship between the kinesthetic experiences becomes important where the perception while travelling in space is more dependent on the eyes than the ears, then the nose and of lesser importance is the world of touch.
Moving elements in a city, and in particular the people and their activities, are as important as the stationary physical parts. We are not simply observers of this spectacle but ourselves are a part of it. Most often our perception of the landscape, city – architecture as a whole is not sustained, but rather partial, fragmentary, mixed with concerns. Nearly every sense is in operation, and the image is composite of them all.
Elements of perception are :
IDENTITY – a workable image first requires the identification of the object which applies its distinction from other things, its recognition
as a separate entity.
LEGIBILITY - ease with which a building, parts of a city, landscape etc can be recognized and organized into a coherent pattern, can be visually grasped as a related pattern of recognizable symbols. So a legible design would be one which is easily identifiable.
IMAGEABILITY – that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer. It is that shape, scale, color, detail, scale or arrangement which facilitates the making of vividly identified, powerfully structured highly useful mental images of the environment. It is where the objects are not only able to be seen but also are presented sharply and intensely.
(Source : The Image of The City (Kevin Lynch)
The perceived environment is a fabrication based on what is anticipated and understood as well as what is experienced, and that a perceived archetypal environment is what is sought after.
Impact of Evolution of Mobility on Urban Form
Cities and urban form have been constantly changing and evolving with changes in methods of transportation and mobility, essentially physical..
The movement within an urban space, which is depending on available and affordable mode of transport as pedestrian, private vehicles or public transport, is termed as physical mobility.
To study these changes are essential as we all are a part of this urban spectacle and our experiences and the time spent in the urbanscape helps create our perception of the built form.
To relate urban form and city size with evolution of transport is also essential as these also have a psychological effect on our movement patterns and our duration of observation and hence our perception. The change in built environment is looked at three different scales as urban growth, transformation of rural into urban and changed environment within an urban space.
Plans of cities showing growth assuming extraordinary dimensions with evolution of mobility in different times and eras. (source: URBAN PATTERNS –Arthur B Gallion )
Using Mobility to Create an Architecture Perception
Perception is the most fundamental mechanism linking people and environment and mobility helps in shaping architectural perception.
Kinesthetics : this operates through the proprioceptive senses, being the experience of the body’s displacement and movement through space and is related to the sharpness of angles and curves, the speed of movement and its rate of change, the rate of change of direction, slipperiness of pavements, movement up or down slopes and stairs, change in bodily orientation.
At a smaller scale there are many examples of the conscious use of kinesthetic experience. Thus in Japanese gardens one finds stepping stones over water, grass, or moss which force one to watch and feel as one moves in a non-straight pattern, becoming very conscious of one’s body and its kinesthetics. This is reinforced by the views exposed at each change of direction.
(Source : Human Aspects of Urban Form (Amos Rapoport)
The Rashtrapati Bhawan sequence at Raisina Hill, in New Delhi emphasizes the role of levels and screening, for here what could have been one picture reproduces four times, each view enlarging the centre of the previous view and bringing us near to the terminal building, turns out to be four separate and unique views and thus creates an interesting vista at each successive motion.
(Source : Human Aspects of Urban Form (Amos Rapoport)
The beauty of the Humayun's Tomb in Delhi as as much to the planned approach as to the architectural detailing. The arched gateway create a passage that takes the visitors across into time, the vistas thus create through subsequent gateways and paths finally reveal the beauty of the monument. The journey becomes like an unfolding narrative which captures the imagination of the visitor until the climax is revealed.
The mobility and the act of traversing through space is essential to the monument without which the architectural construct loses its impact.
Transitional Landscape
The landscape is a dynamic place shaped by natural forces that is culturally processed and refined by human action. It is both a container for humans and an object contained in human life that can be used and modified. Traditionally human cultural factors shape landscape and vice-versa: peoples inhabiting and gazing at this same landscape shape their own culture accordingly.
Accordingly, there is a new category of landscapes 'in transit' which users on the move experience. These are peripheral sites, adjacent to transportation routes. Traditionally, they were part of rural land. City walls would enclose and protect city life leaving the countryside outside. Following the evolution of cities these 'clear' boundaries were gradually abandoned. Under the process of urbanization, large amounts of peripheral land were absorbed to accommodate the growth of urban population. Less regulated and understood than city centers, urban sprawl produced 'hybrid' landscapes, mixed industrial, suburban and rural.
Urbanization thus supports a new type of public space and produces moving landscapes. Airports, train stations, port terminals, as well as interconnecting transport means, have become the new social places of a mobile society. The new category of 'temporary', 'in-between' landscapes, which will from now on be referred to as transitional landscapes, are the ones 'on the route' just before arriving or departing from the city, for instance in-between city and city airports. They are landscapes yet to be completed, work in progress. Placeless, meaningless and ephemeral, residual spaces of an architecture of power, itineraries in-between, they appeal to our sensitivity by reminding us of the temporality of our own existence: one moment they are here and the next one they are gone.
Source: Human Aspects of Urban Form (Amos Rapoport)
With the visual formlessness of our cities and an intuition that the new expressway might be one of our best means of re-establishing coherence and order on the new metropolitan scale. We were also attracted to the highway because it is a good example of a design issue typical of the city: their problem of designing visual sequences for the observer in motion. But if in the end the study contributes something toward making the highway experience a more enjoyable one, we will be well satisfied.
The highway experience they refer to is one of several few landscape experiences one is familiar with when travelling to a city. Others include the railway, flying or boat experiences. A common element of all is that the traveller is subject to high speed, the restrictions of a container and a more or less 'distant' interaction with the adjacent landscape, which one perceives in transit. Remoteness however is not just about distance; it is a state of mind. The reduction of sensory involvement makes the whole journey quite different from travels of the past: there is less or no physical effort to keep up with the 'physical' route; and almost no engagement at all of other senses apart from vision (and sometimes sound). However what initially may appear as a loss, could actually be considered a gain, in the sense that vision is enriched to a degree not often achievable otherwise:
You shall not touch; the more you see, the less you hold - a dispossession of the hand in favor of a greater trajectory for the eye. “KEVIN LYNCH”
The machine is the primum mobile, the solitary god from which all the action proceeds. It not only divides spectators and beings but also connects them; it is a mobile symbol between them, a tireless shifter, producing changes in the relationships between immobile elements.
\Perception of Urban Environment Through Mobility
The more potential noticeably different elements and environments exist, the greater the chances of more people perceiving them, experiencing complexity and orienting themselves. The manipulation of noticeable differences seem to provide an understanding of much of the urban design literature.
Pedestrians and motorists will differ greatly in the way they perceive the city, perception of the city is sequential and the city is experienced in time. Perception is dynamic and sequential. It is made up of short scans, involving the integration of successive partial views, but these are only meaningful if there are noticeable changes in successive views and some uncertainty as to the next view. The integration of partial views is affected by speed and, more generally, by the rate of noticeable differences.
Speed influences how often noticeable differences occur, how long they are seen and hence whether they are noticed. Subtle cues need slow pace; driving is not only fast but it also demands concentration, leaving no time or channel capacity to appreciate the environment. Thus pedestrians have a much better awareness of places and clearer ideas of the significance, meaning and activities in the city than either drivers or users of public transport. Because of the lower speed and lower criticality of their movement, pedestrians can perceive many more differences in form and activity. Pedestrians are also less insulated from multisensory information and the active nature of walking increases the dimensionality of information.
This suggests that for different speeds, different cues and different levels of complexity should be designed. The roadside strip, at driving speeds, is too complex and chaotic, while residential streets seen at slower driving speeds or at pedestrian speeds are too monotonous: there is a reversal of needed levels of complexity related to speed. Because of the lack of visible changes in cues and distance to goals at slow speeds there is a low rate of meaningful information, few noticeable differences and the environment is boring.
As speed increases, the task becomes more demanding, and concentration increases. Several other things also happen :
(1) The point of concentration (or focus) recedes from 600 ft. at 25 mph to 2000 ft at 65 mph. As a result elements must become larger. Also while objects perpendicular to the road become prominent those parallel to it lose prominence.
(2) Peripheral vision diminishes so that while at 25 mph the horizontal angle is 100° it reduces to less than 40° at 60 mph. One result is "tunnel vision" which may induce hypnosis and sleep. Side elements need to be quiet and subdued and perceived semi-consciously in the blurred field of peripheral vision, with the main features on the axis of vision and the point of concentration periodically moved laterally to maintain attention.
(3) Foreground detail begins to fade, due to the rapid movement of close objects. The earliest point of clear view recedes from 30 ft. at 40 mph to 110 f1. at 60 mph. At the same time detail beyond 1400 ft. cannot be seen as it is too small, so that the range is between 110-1400 ft. - and that is traversed in IS seconds. Elaborate detail is thus both useless and undesirable.
(4) Space perception becomes impaired so that near objects are seen, get close and disappear very quickly. They thus tend to "loom", which is extremely stressful and elements too close to the edge or overhead, and sudden curves, should be avoided.
(source: Human Aspects of Urban Form (Amos Rapoport)
Example of Cannought Place, New Delhi showing how design favorable to both pedestrians and motorists can work simultaneously where details are kept simple and with regular rhythm for motorists and complex with non-uniform rhythm and high level of visual information for pedestrians.
This is a contrasting example of two environments where one is monotonous in detail where the other provides rich and complex articulation and thus is interesting for the user. The more information or complexity, the more interest and the shorter do distance and time appear. Experimentally high detail environments seem shorter to traverse than low complexity ones, but this is completely reversed in memory: complex routes are experienced as short and remembered as long and vice versa.
Thus, in complex, rich environments one can walk for long periods without becoming tired while the same distance through a parking lot would seem endless because of inadequate rate of information.
The Outcome
The outcome of this sudy was to come up with guidelines for creating an ideal city environemnet for motorists and pedestrians alike, it was also an attempt towards concreting how cities and places are perceived, how our experiences are affected due to movement and the use of technology.
Further attempts are being made to understand cities and built forms in present context where mobility and being mobile has assumed completely different paradigms. Even after six years this is still a work in progress which I have tried to continuously enrich and revise based on my exposure to new places, countries, cities and cultures. What started initially as a simple paper has turned into something much more and personal for me.
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