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Environmental design evaluation
249
Most people reading the whole book would probably have preferred a combined discussion on the influence of each of the factors on trees in forests, parks and towns in one chapter. It is always difficult to choose what should be included in a book because various readers have different opinions. Generally the author has made a good selection reflecting the title of the book. In the ecological part of the book, however, it would also have been of interest to include a short discussion of the forest and tree lines, as these are strongly influenced by the climate. The author has discussed in detail tree planting, but I don’t find that the need in some species for ‘pot’ trees is stressed. Particularly medium-sized conifers and other evergreens are sold from the nurseries in containers to ensure the survival of the tree after planting. Generally the evergreens are more difficult to transplant than most deciduous species; in my opinion even more difficult than most of the difficult species mentioned by the author on p. 243. Most of the plates and other figures are very instructive and so are the tables. On Figs 8 and 9 it would have been preferable to translate the figure text from German to English, even if the originals are German. The letters of the text at Fig. 10 are too small and difficult to read. It would have been better if all the plant names in Tables 37-41 (pp. 106-109) had been given in Latin, particularly as some of the names obviously are translated from the German original into English. The book is recommended for everybody who wishes to know about the influence of environmental factors on trees and the influence of trees on the environment. It will be of great value to landscape- and town planners as well as to ecologists and conservationists. It may also be useful reading for university courses. F.E. WIELGOLASKI (Oslo, Norway) ENVIRONMENTAL
DESIGN EVALUATION
Environmental Design Evaluation. A. Friedmann, C. Zimring and E. Zube. Plenum Press, New York, N.Y., 1978, US $27.00. Environmental design and the sister field of environmental research have been in existence for almost two decades. Only recently have text books presented in-depth views of specific topics, replacing the reader’s version with its more or less related series of articles. Environmental design evaluation, a branch of environmental research, is no exception and the book of Friedmann et al. is to be praised for its attempt to bring the many facets of evaluation studies under one cover. The book contains two distinct parts: one deals with conceptual and methodological issues of design evaluation; the other reviews an extensive body of recent evaluation studies ranging from interior spaces, to buildings, building sites and landscapes.
250
Environmental design evaluation is “an appraisal of the degree to which a designed setting satisfies and supports explicit and implicit human needs and values”. Based on this rather general definition, the authors develop a reference model to organize information relevant to evaluation studies in the first chapter. This model includes various characteristics of the users, the designed setting, the environmental context and the design activity that led to the setting. Furthermore these four subject areas are to be seen in their social-historical context. Given this information structuring model, the authors describe the major stages necessary to undertake an evaluation study. This process is partially completed by a general discussion of various methodological issues of evaluation research presented in the last chapter. The main body of the book (Chapters II, III and IV) is reserved for the review of empirical evaluation studies. The review of the empirical evaluation studies is organized according to the information structuring model. This model proves to be useful in accounting for the major dimensions of evaluation. Furthermore it emphasizes the holistic global view of these studies. A shortcoming of the conceptual and methodological discussion is its lack of reference to the theoretical under-pinning of design evaluation in general and of the proposed approach in particular. Many other approaches and evaluation models have been proposed, some have been used over extensive periods (e.g. the model of the Building Performance Research Unit at the University of Strathclyde); it would have strenghthened the argument if the authors had compared the proposed model with existing ones. There are also many other fundamental issues related to design evaluation, none of which receives any attention by the authors. For example, it can be argued that planning based extensively on design evaluation has a tendency to ignore basic problems in its concern to improve existing solutions. Design evaluation is based on a conservationist spirit. It has many merits, but it also contains dangers we should be aware of. As the authors themselves suggest, should we indeed evaluate prisons to make better prisons or should we rather reflect on the social causes of prisons? The review of the 14 evaluation studies included in the text contains a rich sample of interesting problems to be analysed; they refer to various more or less simple methods that can be used by designers, and they also provide the reader with many illustrative results that have the potential to affect further design efforts. It is mentioned that evaluation studies have often suffered from methodological inadequacies; problems of validity are common due to sampling difficulties and inadequate measurement and analytical tools used. But evaluation studies have also suffered from a lack of in-depth analysis. Fortunately there are many useful concepts and methods developed by the psychological and sociological trends in environmental research that can contribute to more serious and more meaningful evaluation studies. It is hard to see why a guide to evaluation studies does not even mention this body of knowledge.
251
The organization and the content of the book give evidence of the authors’ concern with reaching a variety of readers, including the professional designer who might have little knowledge of environmental research. Unfortunately, the welcome simplicity of the language has somewhat colored the content. The sections describing the evaluation process (Chapter I) and the methodological problems (Chapter V) appear particularly superficial. If these sections are written for a reader who has never done any research, they are too short and too general to even illustrate the problems involved; if they are intended for a reader who has a general understanding of research, they do not convey any new information. There also seems to be a strange inconsistency between the review of the evaluation studies and the methodological discussion in the last chapter. While in the review the reader is assumed to know what behavior mapping is, what factor analysis and varimax rotation mean, and what SPSS subprograms, CODE BOOK programming and PEARSON CORR programs contain, the reader in the last chapter is assumed not to understand sampling, reliability and validity. “Environmental Design Evaluation” is not a text book presenting a thorough discussion of design evaluation; neither is it a convincing guide to evaluation studies. It does not quite address the professional designer nor does it address the environment researcher. These ambiguities have led from a good idea to a disappointing book. ROMEDI
PASSINI
(Montreal, Qub, Canada) PLANNING
THEORY
AND EDUCATION
Theory and Education. Urban and Regional Planning Series, Vol. 20. A. Faludi. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1978, $2.50, ISBN 08-021224-7.
Essays on Planning
In this book nine essays are compiled, all of them previously published in the period 1969-1976. Three of the essays analyse British planning education. Two are reports referring to Faludi’s own experience of planning education. Three essays deal more specifically with the role of sociology in planning education and one, Faludi’s inaugural lecture at Delft University, is a kind of summing-up of the problems of planning theory and planning education. Faludi’s great concern is the development of planning theory as a discipline in its own right and as the core in a planning education. According to him, planning should be based upon both substantive knowledge about the vari ables involved and procedural knowledge, including problems of planning agencies and procedures. One might add the more basic problems of the role of planning and the planner in society. Faludi thinks of planning education as action-oriented and recommends project work as a training method. He refers quite extensively to the British discussion on planning education and observes
Most people reading the whole book would probably have preferred a combined discussion on the influence of each of the factors on trees in forests, parks and towns in one chapter. It is always difficult to choose what should be included in a book because various readers have different opinions. Generally the author has made a good selection reflecting the title of the book. In the ecological part of the book, however, it would also have been of interest to include a short discussion of the forest and tree lines, as these are strongly influenced by the climate. The author has discussed in detail tree planting, but I don’t find that the need in some species for ‘pot’ trees is stressed. Particularly medium-sized conifers and other evergreens are sold from the nurseries in containers to ensure the survival of the tree after planting. Generally the evergreens are more difficult to transplant than most deciduous species; in my opinion even more difficult than most of the difficult species mentioned by the author on p. 243. Most of the plates and other figures are very instructive and so are the tables. On Figs 8 and 9 it would have been preferable to translate the figure text from German to English, even if the originals are German. The letters of the text at Fig. 10 are too small and difficult to read. It would have been better if all the plant names in Tables 37-41 (pp. 106-109) had been given in Latin, particularly as some of the names obviously are translated from the German original into English. The book is recommended for everybody who wishes to know about the influence of environmental factors on trees and the influence of trees on the environment. It will be of great value to landscape- and town planners as well as to ecologists and conservationists. It may also be useful reading for university courses. F.E. WIELGOLASKI (Oslo, Norway) ENVIRONMENTAL
DESIGN EVALUATION
Environmental Design Evaluation. A. Friedmann, C. Zimring and E. Zube. Plenum Press, New York, N.Y., 1978, US $27.00. Environmental design and the sister field of environmental research have been in existence for almost two decades. Only recently have text books presented in-depth views of specific topics, replacing the reader’s version with its more or less related series of articles. Environmental design evaluation, a branch of environmental research, is no exception and the book of Friedmann et al. is to be praised for its attempt to bring the many facets of evaluation studies under one cover. The book contains two distinct parts: one deals with conceptual and methodological issues of design evaluation; the other reviews an extensive body of recent evaluation studies ranging from interior spaces, to buildings, building sites and landscapes.
250
Environmental design evaluation is “an appraisal of the degree to which a designed setting satisfies and supports explicit and implicit human needs and values”. Based on this rather general definition, the authors develop a reference model to organize information relevant to evaluation studies in the first chapter. This model includes various characteristics of the users, the designed setting, the environmental context and the design activity that led to the setting. Furthermore these four subject areas are to be seen in their social-historical context. Given this information structuring model, the authors describe the major stages necessary to undertake an evaluation study. This process is partially completed by a general discussion of various methodological issues of evaluation research presented in the last chapter. The main body of the book (Chapters II, III and IV) is reserved for the review of empirical evaluation studies. The review of the empirical evaluation studies is organized according to the information structuring model. This model proves to be useful in accounting for the major dimensions of evaluation. Furthermore it emphasizes the holistic global view of these studies. A shortcoming of the conceptual and methodological discussion is its lack of reference to the theoretical under-pinning of design evaluation in general and of the proposed approach in particular. Many other approaches and evaluation models have been proposed, some have been used over extensive periods (e.g. the model of the Building Performance Research Unit at the University of Strathclyde); it would have strenghthened the argument if the authors had compared the proposed model with existing ones. There are also many other fundamental issues related to design evaluation, none of which receives any attention by the authors. For example, it can be argued that planning based extensively on design evaluation has a tendency to ignore basic problems in its concern to improve existing solutions. Design evaluation is based on a conservationist spirit. It has many merits, but it also contains dangers we should be aware of. As the authors themselves suggest, should we indeed evaluate prisons to make better prisons or should we rather reflect on the social causes of prisons? The review of the 14 evaluation studies included in the text contains a rich sample of interesting problems to be analysed; they refer to various more or less simple methods that can be used by designers, and they also provide the reader with many illustrative results that have the potential to affect further design efforts. It is mentioned that evaluation studies have often suffered from methodological inadequacies; problems of validity are common due to sampling difficulties and inadequate measurement and analytical tools used. But evaluation studies have also suffered from a lack of in-depth analysis. Fortunately there are many useful concepts and methods developed by the psychological and sociological trends in environmental research that can contribute to more serious and more meaningful evaluation studies. It is hard to see why a guide to evaluation studies does not even mention this body of knowledge.
251
The organization and the content of the book give evidence of the authors’ concern with reaching a variety of readers, including the professional designer who might have little knowledge of environmental research. Unfortunately, the welcome simplicity of the language has somewhat colored the content. The sections describing the evaluation process (Chapter I) and the methodological problems (Chapter V) appear particularly superficial. If these sections are written for a reader who has never done any research, they are too short and too general to even illustrate the problems involved; if they are intended for a reader who has a general understanding of research, they do not convey any new information. There also seems to be a strange inconsistency between the review of the evaluation studies and the methodological discussion in the last chapter. While in the review the reader is assumed to know what behavior mapping is, what factor analysis and varimax rotation mean, and what SPSS subprograms, CODE BOOK programming and PEARSON CORR programs contain, the reader in the last chapter is assumed not to understand sampling, reliability and validity. “Environmental Design Evaluation” is not a text book presenting a thorough discussion of design evaluation; neither is it a convincing guide to evaluation studies. It does not quite address the professional designer nor does it address the environment researcher. These ambiguities have led from a good idea to a disappointing book. ROMEDI
PASSINI
(Montreal, Qub, Canada) PLANNING
THEORY
AND EDUCATION
Theory and Education. Urban and Regional Planning Series, Vol. 20. A. Faludi. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1978, $2.50, ISBN 08-021224-7.
Essays on Planning
In this book nine essays are compiled, all of them previously published in the period 1969-1976. Three of the essays analyse British planning education. Two are reports referring to Faludi’s own experience of planning education. Three essays deal more specifically with the role of sociology in planning education and one, Faludi’s inaugural lecture at Delft University, is a kind of summing-up of the problems of planning theory and planning education. Faludi’s great concern is the development of planning theory as a discipline in its own right and as the core in a planning education. According to him, planning should be based upon both substantive knowledge about the vari ables involved and procedural knowledge, including problems of planning agencies and procedures. One might add the more basic problems of the role of planning and the planner in society. Faludi thinks of planning education as action-oriented and recommends project work as a training method. He refers quite extensively to the British discussion on planning education and observes