Evaluating architectural design review.

Architectural design review is a method of environmental management which is widely used by governmental agencies in both the United States and in Great Britain. Because design review is a governmental function, there is a major need to assess how well it works. Research covering over 29,000 respondents and 5,600 environmental scenes suggests that scientific protocols can be adapted to provide an accurate and efficient design review protocol. The protocol uses preference experiments to find the standardized mean difference [formula: see text] between a proposed project and a random sample of existing projects. Values of d will indicate whether the project will increase, maintain, or diminish the aesthetic merit of the sampled area. The protocol is illustrated by applying it to the case of design review for a single residence. Implications for further implementations are discussed.

Sex, complexity, and preferences for residential facades.

Analysis of variance was used to find out how much variance in preference for residential facades could be attributed to places or people. In accordance with previous findings based on other stimuli, places accounted for more preference variance than did people (16% vs 0%). More focused results were obtained for the subjective factor of sex and the objective design features of number of turns in a silhouette and the percentage of a facade covered by small visual elements. Preferences across sex correlated at .98, indicating that this demographic distinction had a very small effect. The objective factor of visual complexity had a multiple correlation of .90 with preference, indicating a strong effect. These results indicate that design features were much more effective than subjective factors in predicting preferences for environments. Moreover, this finding was reproducible over different samples of people and places.

Effect sizes of mountains and molehills.

Decisions about environmental aesthetics require valid, understandable measurements of visual impacts. This study reports well known scientific measurements (standardized mean contrasts) for well known images (mountains and molehills). The scientific measurements of visual preferences for mountains and molehills were 1.17 and -0.05, respectively.

Complexity of architectural silhouettes: from vague impressions to definite design features.

Nine 2-dimensional shapes were created that varied in four geometric factors: number of vertexes, symmetry, variation of lengths of line segments, and variation of angles. The shapes were evaluated in a paired-comparison experiment on the criterion of perceived complexity. Analysis of variance suggested that the most important predictor of shape complexity was the number of vertexes. P2/A (perimeter squared divided by the area) was also strongly correlated with judged complexity. Symmetry was a significant but weak predictor of complexity.

Of time and preference: temporal stability of environmental preferences.

Time is a central issue in discussions about art and in Berlyne's aesthetic theory. This article reports on the temporal stabilities of preferences for a novel and controversial building at three times after construction (2 years, 18 years, 23 years), and public preferences for 20 ordinary and noncontroversial buildings at three times over nine years. In all there were 5543 respondents. Analyses suggested that the initial response to the novel building was stable over the next 23 years, and the public responses for the 20 nonnovel buildings were stable over nine years. Implications for research are discussed.

Postconstruction validation of photomontage simulations.

Validation of simulation media is of concern to many environmental planners and researchers. Using results from an actual architectural competition, this article correlated preferences obtained from various preconstruction media with preferences obtained from as-built photographs. The photomontage medium performed the best with a correlation of .94.

A new method for teaching architectural studios: use of objective feedback to help design students refine their capacity for self-evaluation.

The literature suggests that there is concern about the traditional method of teaching architecture. This article describes an alternate method of teaching design studios in which scientific assessments are used instead of the traditional architectural injuries. Analysis suggests that the scientific method of teaching design leads to improvements in the students' abilities to predict how other students would respond to their projects.