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Featured Articles
What About Interior Design? Detours in Search of Decent Homes in Suitable Living
Environments
by R. Mitchell
Studies of density and congestion have provided insights into both attitudes and behavior.
The challenge of using these insights for the design of individual buildings and larger
community projects has been limited primarily to hospitals, prisons, college dorms, and
settings for the elderly. Based on Hong Kong and earlier U.S. experiences, this article
discusses how the interior design of small dwelling units can contribute to the policy goal of
providing decent homes in suitable living environments.
Read the complete article.
Material World
by Annie Chu, AIA
In one sense, an interior environment is a tailored collection of materials and surfaces. To
chart an overview of current and emerging ideas in material use, we would like to cite some
recent examples of creative material use in interiors and also share insights.
News and Links
Liquid Curtains
According to an October 2007 article in DesignLink, architects and engineers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a structure with "liquid curtain" walls
that can, at any point, "sense an approaching object and automatically part to let it
through."
BIFMA Drafting a Sustainability Assessment Standard
The Interior Architecture Knowledge Community (IAKC) recently participated in the Business
and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Associations (BIFMAs) Sustainability initiative. The
BIFMA Sustainability Assessment Standard (SAS) for business and institutional furniture is
now ready for review and comment by BIFMA members prior to proceeding to the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) consensus process. Interested AIA members are invited
to provide their feedback on this document to the IAKC, and we will pass it on to BIFMA.
Architects participation in the sustainability exercises of affiliated professions is critical to
developing a comprehensive approach to sustainability.
Read BIFMAs draft SAS [Note: link goes to a PDF]
INT Blog Update
In todays fast-paced design world, we all struggle with
managing far too many projects with far too little of
everything. Too little time, too few resources, and more
competitive fees have added incredible complexity to the architects design delivery process.
So how do we serve our client base, effectively lead projects, and ensure design quality
while still meeting the demands of a multitude of clients? Share your experiences and
comments about your collaborations with architects or interior designers on our blog.
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What About I nterior Design?
Detours in Search of Decent Homes in Suitable Living Environments
by Robert E. Mitchell
ABSTRACT: Studies of density and congestion have provided insights into both attitudes and
behavior. The challenge of using these insights for the design of individual buildings and
larger community projects has been limited primarily to hospitals, prisons, college dorms,
and settings for the elderly. Based on Hong Kong and earlier U.S. experiences, this article
discusses how the interior design of small dwelling units can contribute to the policy goal of
providing decent homes in suitable living environments.
KEY WORDS: Density, Crowding, Interior Design, Hong Kong
The U.S. Congress did not define the terms decent and suitable when it approved the
Housing Act of 1949, calling for a decent home and a suitable living environment for every
American family. This helps explain why Minneapolis antidevelopment activists in the early
1970s could contrive their own definitions to falsely charge that Cedar-Riverside, the first of
the countrys proposed New Towns-In Town, would create an antifamily, high-density,
unsuitable environment. According to James Baileys 1974 article in the AIA Journal, the
opponents to Cedar-Riverside claimed that Associated with [the projects proposed] density
are well-documented adverse effects on the physiological-social behavior of residents,
including increased crime, loss of sense of community and neighborhood, sense of personal
anomic and retarded child development.
1
None of the usual public healthrelated building
code standards were referenced. Instead, the focus was on how the built environment
created an unsuitable social life for the potential residents.
One can cherry-pick the research literature to provide occasional support for this assertion,
but most experts would probably agree with the projects architects (in a personal
communication with the author) that the opponentslawsuit against Cedar-Riverside was
filed with incomplete, undocumented, and personal assertions by people who were opposed
to any redevelopment in a highly dense neighborhood.
2
Evidently both the opponents and proponents of Cedar-Riverside felt that the social science
research on densities was on their side. Even if it could be shown that high densities in some
developments were associated with the negatives claimed by the opponents, this does not
mean that design changes would not be able to mitigate the effects. However, these
architectural changes themselves presumably would be based on social science research on
alternative designs for high-density neighborhoods, their buildings, and the apartments in
these buildings. The burden of proof would lie with the social sciences. But what do we know
about the social effects of alternative designs for high-density residential environments? And
what use do architects make of this research?
One of the Cedar-Riverside opponents sympathizers wrote me this summer that There is a
fair amount of research supporting the proposition that super high density [whatever that
might mean] housing breeds social problems, particularly when housing concentrates
poverty. This critic would agree with Tao Hos 1975 characterization of Hong Kongs
people-packers who are creating multistoried sardine cans solidly filled with restless,
frustrated, discontented people.
3
People-packing continues today, as private developers in
Hong Kong are building 60+-story apartment buildings, while government housing can go to
41 stories. Yet there is no convincing evidence that these residential environments have
become behavioral sinks that are neither decent nor suitable.
The Cedar-Riverside plan called for a mixture of medium- and high-density housing for up
to 30,000 residents on approximately 100 of the projects 340 total acres. The variable
densities were not to exceed 125 dwelling units per acre, about the same as planned for
New Yorks Roosevelt Islands 147 acres in another New Town-In Town project. Cedar-
Riversides population densities would come to approximately 88 people per acre (based on
the projects proposed total of 340 acres).
As a square mile has 640 acres, one cant easily compare Cedar-Riversides fractured mile
with other communities. But residents of New York City and of high-density Hong Kong
might smile at the Minneapolis numbers. In the year 2000, Manhattans 22 square miles
housed 69,873 persons per square mile, down from 106,000 in 1910. The Mongkok and
Shamsheipo districts in Hong Kong held approximately 400,000 people per square mile,
nearly six times Manhattans numbers. There is one Hong Kong per acre comparison with
Cedar-Riverside: in the 1960s the area near the old Jordan Road Ferry in Kowloon
accommodated about 5,000 people per acre.
While some might claim that American vertical villages are only for the newly wed and
nearly dead, all kinds of families live in these neighborhoods. Gerda Wekerle references a
study that found that middle-class New Yorkers living in luxury apartments were satisfied
with their housing and with center city living in general.
4
This condition is not limited to
New York City, for Wekerles own 1974 study Vertical Village: The Social World of a Highrise
Complex found similarly positive attitudes among the residents of Chicagos Sandburg
Village. Elizabeth Mackintoshs 1982 dissertation The Meaning and Effects of Highrise Living
for the Middle-Income Family: A Study of Three Highrise Sites in New York City sensed a
trend to counter the prevailing opinion that all family high-rise living is bad and should be
prevented.
5
Obviously the opponents of Cedar-Riverside held a different view. Old
antidensity biases die hard.
Residents do survive and even prosper in high-rise high-density housing, but a sizeable
minority of Americans harbor the antidevelopment biases of the Cedar-Riverside opponents.
Anti-high-rise apartment buildings are part of our cultural history. For example, Elizabeth
Wood wrote in 1961 that the basic evil of high-rise apartments for families is the distance
between the mother and her children when they are playing outside the dwelling.
6
More
recently, a 1997 national housing survey found a 40 percent minority of American adults
rated Traditional Apartment Buildings with 10 or more units as unacceptable. Eleven
percent rated these units as ideal, and another 33 percent found them acceptable with
reservations.
7
The Minneapolis opponents of Cedar-Riverside criticized both medium-density (by New York
City and Hong Kong standards) neighborhoods and the assumed misbehavior of the kind of
residents who would move to the area. The argument that families with children would
especially suffer has some research backing, such as the experiences of several failed high-
rise public housing estates. However, the residential populations, not their housing, help to
explain these disasters. A high percentage of residents were poor, single-parent minority
households with a disproportionately large number of unemployed teenagers. Social and
economic programs, different tenant-selection criteria, different management practices, and
physical design changes might have helped reduce the problems widely attributed to these
populations.
Oscar Newman, author of the influential Defensible Space, is known for his design solutions
for problem-plagued housing estates. However, he made it clear that the underlying
challenges facing these public housing projects were social and economic, not their physical
design. Newman wrote that the many deficiencies in family structures and life styles, the
difference in funds for staffing and accoutrements that make high-rise housing workable for
middle-income families make it unworkable for low-income families. Newman and others
have proposed neighborhood and building designs to help mitigate the adverse behavior
thought to be made possible by existing designs.
My own studies in Hong Kong during the 1960s complemented other researchers who found
that parents even in lower-density low-rise buildings complain that they cannot supervise
what they cannot see from their home windows. Studies in England have found similar
patterns of dissatisfaction.
8
Certainly the same complaint could be made by suburban
parents living in detached single-family homes on large lots. The complaint is not specific to
high-rise buildings. Moreover, while parents complain and often act on their worries, there is
no convincing evidence that the worries and related behaviors are any more than irritants
rather than contributions to high levels of dysfunctional family, marriage, or individual
responses.
High-rise residences, Hong Kong
Image: Michael Wolf, Courtesy Robert Koch Gallery
We have had five decades of research on how (or if) the built environment affects
communities and their residents, especially families. Some of this research has focussed on
how space and density (but not design) within an individual dwelling unit affects its
residents. Others have studied densities based on data for larger geographical or spatial
units (for example, city blocks). Although reliable findings from both micro and macro
studies can be helpful in designing buildings and their neighborhoods in ways to strengthen
the social fabric of families and communities, it is still an open question on whether the
interior design of housing units can significantly affect the residents. Even if some designs
were shown to have positive consequences, it is not known if architects and designers would
use the results of social science research in their design work.
To see how architects use social research during the design process, I contacted the AIA,
several leaders in the environmental design community, and architects in Hong Kong, and I
also posted online requests for information from two environmental design special interest
groups. Instead of providing me examples and references, I was asked to share with the
design community any examples that I might discover (hence the present article).
During my June 2006 meetings with several leading architects in Hong Kong, I asked how
interior design could contribute to residents well-being. And I also asked how designers
learned about the use of the dwellings they designed, as well as the kinds of families for
whom the designs were prepared. All my respondents were extremely talented professionals
with large buildings to their credit. However, these experienced architects were mostly
concerned with urban design and the individual buildings that held residential apartments.
There seems to have been a wall between designers and their ultimate consumers, as
architects tended to believe that building managers were responsible for feedback on design
issues. More systematic information based on observation studies of how residents use the
space within their apartments was either unavailable or thought not important enough to
play a central role in the actual design work. Hong Kong architects, however, were clearly
committed to designs addressing noise abatement, air circulation, and other important
resident-friendly features.
Architectural designs can affect us all, but it would appear that little has changed since Janet
Reizensteins 1975 finding that 87 percent of a sample of American architects was aware of
environment and behavior research but only 20 percent had ever used this research in their
own work. According to Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian, Reizensteins
[d]esigners did not know where to find research; findings were frequently reported in
jargon-ridden language; the design implications were not immediately obvious; and so on.
9
It is still not clear to me how interior designers and architects today use (if they do use) the
results of social research on the built environment of individual residential units. One
representative of a major American architectural firm wrote me that we do not specifically
use social research in the design of our projects.[Moreover t]he sociological work on
housing density is in some cases confusing. For example, its proscriptions against high-
density housing has led to the dedensification of public high-rise housing in America, but it
has not explained why dense high-rise market-rate housing is so successful, and is
increasingly appealing in many American cities. While this firm does not sponsor its own
research, my respondent reported that Many real estate companies do use market
research, which indicates changing preferences for the use of both personal space and
common spaces. This work [is] often a key contributor to the design process. Another
architect reported that there is a fair amount of participatory planning workshopsaction
research, a process also encouraged by John Zeisel, a leading expert on the social
implications of design.
10
Action research via citizen-participation is not the same as drawing
on existing studies specific to the design challenge at hand. There is a paucity of such
research.
The German architect Arnold Koerte agrees that social scientists have failed to provide
architects with usable information. He wrote back in 1983 that one of my more frustrating
experiences with sociologists is that they are very clever telling you why a housing estate
does not work after [sic] it has been built, but they can hardly tell you before how you
should go about setting up an estate.
11
Even those who do make recommendations are
faced with claims by other experts with contrary suggestionsfor example, with regard to
room partitions.
In the absence of relevant social research, resident participation in the design process can be
helpful in challenging the architects preconceptions. This is seen in a 1984 British study
reporting how architects were misguided in their understanding of the people who would
occupy the residences the architects are designing. According to J. Darke, the architects for
six London housing projects had generalized, imprecise and stereotypical images of
traditional nuclear families that would live in these projects.
12
Large architectural firms and developers of multistory apartment buildings are providers, not
users of the spaces they provide. There is precious little research on how residents actually
use the spaces that architects are designing for them. This can be especially troublesome for
small apartments. An American panel of public health experts recommended during the 1970
Invitational Conference on Health Research in Housing and Its Environment that this
situation be remedied by research on The variety of ways in which interior and exterior
space is used under different circumstances by different groups to find the most efficient
ways of utilizing and providing space and evaluation thereof.
13
This research could begin
with resident responses to different pattern plans (rectangular, straight-rambling, T-shaped,
H-shaped, L-shaped, offset-bedroom units, and others) that have been around for decades
but apparently not field-tested by the occupants.
14
Nor am I aware of studies on how
different-size families cope with the limited space and layout of their mobile homes.
Building research stations and housing authorities in other countries have studied how
residents use their dwelling spaces. In the early 1980s, for example, Singapores Housing
and Development Board created an experiment to test reactions to various design ideas in
lower, four-story buildings. (I have not been able to locate the results of this initiative.)
15
The Swedes also have evaluated the use of different experimental flats.
16
Even if these
experiments provided useful information applicable to the United States, the adoption of
improved designs may be beyond the authority of architects. This is because, as the noted
architect Moshe Safadie observed in 1983, the architect has only limited control over
essential decisions. They are made by developers and government offices. This in turn has
driven the designers to focus primarily on novel forms, external decoration, and applied
patterns. Architects are confined to the embellishment of buildings, especially commercial
ones but presumably high-rise apartment structures as well.
17
Research on Housing and Neighborhood Design
Instead of assessing how similar residents respond to different interior spaces, the social
science research community has focused more generally on the social and psychological
implications of high density and crowding without regard to how space is partitioned. Even in
Hong Kong little attention has been given to the design of small dwelling units interior space
so that the possible adverse effects of congestion or crowding can be minimized. Interior
design is an overlooked research topicat least the research on this design does not appear
in the standard social science and design publications.
This micro-level perspective on interior design is not what Hong Kong architects advertise as
their accomplishments. For example, the 229-page Hong Kong Institute of Architects
directory for 2005 only includes a few pictures of the interiors of the expensive apartment
buildings designed by different firms. One sees similar pictures in the expensive, upscale
home-fashion magazines one might find in an American doctors or dentists office.
Since a persons residence (home) is the physical and social space in which a family
functions, one might expect more empirical explanatory (rather than descriptive) research
on how the design of internal spaces actually affects the users of these spaces. In contrast,
there is a growing body of studies on the social use of space in hospitals, prisons, college
dormitories, and homes for the elderly and disabledbut not for families differing in their
composition and social or cultural characteristics.
Yes, there has been research on the effects that housing in general can have on residents.
One of the first widely-disseminated studies was published in 1962 by Dan Wilners Johns
Hopkins team that followed families moving into public housing (compared with a control
group of nonmovers). In their The Housing Environment and Family Life, these public health
experts reviewed 40 selected studies, 16 of which were done in Europe. The American
studies dealt primarily with health and social adjustment. My own Hong Kong studies in the
late 1960s found that high within-dwelling unit densities did not have the negative effects
often attributed to crowding. Marc Baldassare, in one of the better overviews of residential
crowding, suggested that too much of the research to date (as of 1979) focused on
faddish notions of the effects of density, or, worse yet, aimless searches for significant
relationships.
18
Other American studies have used ground rather than dwelling unit densities, and still others
have been confined to university laboratory settings involving college students exposed to
different, environmentally-controlled conditions over only short periods of time. Of more
immediate architectural implications, other researchers have examined the effects that
thermal comfort, air quality, luminous environment, and acoustic environment can have on
people.
Today a good portion of the design-relevant research appears in public health journals and
more so in Environment and Behavior, as well as other outlets provided by the
Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). EDRAs purpose is the advancement
and dissemination of environmental design research, thereby improving understanding of the
interrelationships between people, their built and natural surroundings, and helping to create
environments responsive to human needs.
Elizabeth Coit, an architect and planner, prepared one of the first lessons learned on how to
tailor designs to meet families needs. Her 1965 Report on Family Living in High Apartment
Buildings was sponsored by the Public Housing Administration of the federal Housing and
Home Finance Agency. She identified difficulties that families encountered and suggested
design solutions. Two decades later Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian adopted
Coits general approach in their well-known Housing as if People Mattered: Site Design for
Medium-Density Family Housing. This important contribution focused on land use and the
design of medium-density buildings, not the interior design of individual apartments.
After Coits contribution (but probably not related to it), design professionals and their
clients began conducting postoccupancy evaluations (POE) of completed and occupied
buildings. A typical POE covers a structures physical facilities, especially for commercial
buildings, although there have also been evaluations of public housing, housing for the
elderly, and housing management. Relatively few of these evaluations are in the public
domain, but from what is available on these practices, there is no reason to believe that
assessments are made of how differently designed (small) homes affect their occupants.
19
Moreover, evaluations that are limited to overall attitudinal measures of user satisfaction are
inadequate substitutes for in-depth studies of how design and space affect individual family
members and the family as a unit itself.
The large volume of the density and crowding literature defies a short unbiased summary
but I will try anyway.
20
First, there is little if any controversy over the public health
implications of high population densities, especially in low-income countries. State-of-the-
knowledge summaries of this field have recently reappeared in public health journals. They
repeat well-known factsfor example, that inadequate sanitation and unwise personal
health practices are incubators for the transfer of contagious diseases. Safe waste disposal,
adequate potable water, and appropriate immunizations (not physical design and densities)
are the most successful health-saving interventions. Attacking the host or the parasite
directly does not require altering the physical environment. This public health focus on the
links between infrastructure and health has little to do with the kinds of social critiques that
groups such as the opponents to Cedar-Riverside made about alleged unsuitable
environments. Instead, their arguments were and are based on the assumed social effects of
the built environment.
The public health literature does provide some design guidelines for individual dwelling units
for example, where to place the kitchen and bathroom, if these are provided inside the
dwelling unit. As Coit explained, Dinners and diapers are not compatible. In developing
countries, keeping farm animals close to ones home adds to a noxious health environment.
One United Nations study found that morbidities suffered by residents in Guinea-Bissau
(where I also lived for more than three years) were partially a result of the ownership of
pigs by urban families.
21
Similar environmental hazards are not common in either the
United States or present-day high-density Hong Kong.
Second, turning back to density, the literature has at least two major themes. The first
refers to the intraindividual processes that translate crowding (density) into cognitive,
emotional, and behavioral problems. Information (or stimulation) overload seems to be the
most common psychological process. However, this is a conjectured process, not a proven
hypothesis. Moreover, it is unclear how physical design can reduce information overload.
Instead, the solution would seem to be to reduce the number of people who are present
when tasks and information presumably produce the alleged overload. Of course this
reduction can in some cases be done by physically partitioning rooms into separate spaces.
The second theme does have design components, as density is taken to mean crowding and
congestionthat is, the simultaneous and competitive demand for scarce resourcesfor
example, the use of the bathroom in the morning, a place on the bus, walking on narrow
crowded streets, or fighting rush-hour road traffic.
In contrast to this behavioral focus, much of the crowding literature refers to attitudes, a
variation of Edward Halls proxemics, the study of humankinds perception and use of
space. Many such studies have questionable evidentiary value, for as the University of
Michigans Robert Marans has reported, there is only a poor correlation between objective
and subjective data relating to the use of space.
22
Moreover, Eric Sundstroms dated 1978
review of research supportive of different hypotheses regarding responses to density and
congestion found a lack of consensus among different published results. For example, only
18 of 29 relevant studies supported the hypothesis that small room size [high spatial
density] produces crowding, discomfort, or other negative mood/states.
23
Perceived and actual crowding are different, for families can and do adjust to small places
and poor design. The need for this adjustment has declined over time. One national housing
survey found that only 5.6 percent of American renters and 1.4 percent of owners reported
that crowding was a problem. If crowding is taken to be 1.01 or more persons per room,
then crowding has declined from 20.1 percent in 1940 to 4.9 percent in 1990.
24
The drop in
severely crowded units was from 9 percent in 1940 to 2.1 percent in 1990. Some of these
statistics refer to individuals, others to households (renters and owners). But the household
typically means families and specifically their domestic life. Of course families evolve
nondesign solutions to compensate for small houses and inconvenient designs. For example,
some researchers have suggested that families use time zoning rather than design-related
space zoning to help alleviate intrafamily conflicts over the use of particular rooms. Still, few
researchers have examined how design affects families qua families rather than the familys
individual members.
High-rise residences, Hong Kong
When I lived in Hong Kong during the 1960s, I was energized by the high ground densities
and street crowding that seemed to upset others. But the then-colonys high-density, mixed
land use (according to a transportation study by the American firm Wilbur Smith) reduced
peak-hour traffic. People throughout a days 24 hours made short shopping, work, and home
trips within a fairly small physical space. One would think that todays Hong Kongs physical
transformation with eye-catching (shock and awe) high-rise apartment buildings (some
arrayed in built canyons), a world-class transportation system, a shift from manufacturing to
a white-collar service economy, less mixed land use, and several million more residents
that all of these changes would create unbearable congestion. However, my visits to various
neighborhoods on the island and in Kowloon (including upper Nathan Road in Mongkok,
where my 1960s office was) made me wonder where all the people had gone. Somehow the
combination of land use and transportation planning deprived me of the energy spurt that
crowded Hong Kong had given me four decades earlier. My apparent loss, of course, has
been a quality-of-life gain for current residents.
These gains in Hong Kong owe much to land-use and related transportation planning that
gave a new physical shape to the larger social environment. But, again, what about the
individual dwelling units where families and their individual members spend most of their
time?
Hong Kong densities and crowding have decreased over time. Even without regard to
apartment design, there has been an increase in the amount of space per person as fertility
rates and family size have declined. Second, the square footage of apartments has been
increasing over the years. And third, although I do not have the current territory-wide
estimates of apartments housing two or more unrelated families (a situation also common
until fairly recently in the United States, where urban reformers railed against the lodger
evil), this sharing has probably become much less common. In 1967, 39 percent of urban
adults in urban Hong Kong reported they shared their dwelling with nonkinspeople. A 2000
survey of public housing units found less than 4 percent of the units had the same sharing
arrangements. (Government regulations typically prohibit such arrangements. This particular
reports classification is not adequately explained.) The decline in sharing is important, for
sharing arrangements were found in my studies (and later replicated by Riaz Hassan in
Singapore
25
) to have negative consequences for the sharing families.
Hong Kong residents utilize scarce space.
Competition for limited resources (crowding or congestion) was a likely source of strain
experienced by some members of these families. But of course, families differ over time in
the number and ages of their members. A 1957 report of the International Union of Family
Organizations claimed that housing overcrowding is essentially a family problem and more
especially a problem for large families.
26
European housing stocks at the time had a
manifest insufficiency of dwellings suitable for large families. There were relatively too
many average and not enough large-capacity dwellings. This imbalance can be addressed
by constructing larger residential units or by reducing the size of families. Hong Kong has
been doing both.
Of course a dwelling unit and an apartment building define artificial boundaries that need not
and can not delimit how families live and the spaces they use. Supplementary spaces are
provided off-site or within an apartment building itself (e.g., a party room). In Hong Kong
during the 1960s there were limited neighborhood resources that would allow families to
export some of their activities outside the home. Play and recreation areas for different-age
children were minimal at best, and the same held for places where children could do their
homework.
Some of the changes in the use of space and resources had nothing to do with design, but
for others the design of the housing estate (its recreation areas) and individual buildings
(more and faster elevators, the placement of dumpsters, the size and design of the
buildings entrance area, the design of stairwells to minimize uncontrolled space) was
important. But, again, other than the placement of kitchens and bathrooms, what if any role
did the layout of rooms and functions have for the lives of individuals and their families?
How do people use their home environments, and what changes would have the most
positive (or negative) effects? Is it possible to identify and then remove design-related
noxious influences?
It is surprising that so little is known to answer these questions. The Marcus and Sarkissian
handbook is largely silent on this matter, as is the social science, public health, and home
economics literature. We have a set of values about the functional specialization of rooms
(bedrooms for sleeping and private behavior, bathroom doors with locks), although it is
common for some American rooms to serve multiple functionsfor example, eat-in kitchens,
and the multifunctional family room. Other studies have tracked the declining importance of
the vestibule (the front-door hallway), the changing location of farm kitchens, a public-
privacy gradient from the front to the back of a residence, and how hallways shape access to
specialized spaces within the home. We also are aware of the differences between an
efficiency apartment and those with one or more bedrooms, and architectural historians
have reminded us that interior designs have changed over time, as Gwendolyn Wright
chronicled in her study of Chicago housing trends from 1873 to 1913.
27
But there is a difference between awareness of changes and studies on whether these
changes have had any appreciable effects on residents. That is, we do not know how small
(Hong Kongsize) apartments can be partitioned to mitigate potential conflicts over access
to the apartments limited facilities. Perhaps design can relieve some intrafamily pressures
but that families could function well regardless of their homes physical organization of
space.
Instead of focusing on the internal partitioning of homes, the emphasis might be more
appropriately given to the placement of furniture and appliances within individual rooms.
Robert Sommer has been a leader in studying how, for example, seating arrangements can
encourage or discourage conversation. Other experts have commented on the space that
some furniture (e.g., sideboards) can consume and thereby reduce habitable space and
traffic patterns (congestion). In our current consumer age, families acquire more and more
things that take up more and more internal space. The placement of these things may have
more consequences for traffic patterns, congestion, and livable space than does the size and
partition of a homes total space. Sommer has suggested that social scientists can contribute
to the optimum placement of things. Many of the findings of environmental psychology will
have more relevance for the management of space than the initial design process.
28
That is, density and congestion can refer to people and their possessions arranged within
defined spaces, as well as the behavior or action chains that families perform in their
spaces. Amos Rapoport, one of the leading theoreticians in the man-environment field,
captured the complexities of viewing the built environment as a matter of the distance
between people and people, people and objects, and objects and objects, as well as the
relative permeability of the various separating boundariesdensity, as most aspects of
urban design must be examined in terms of the relationships among elements.
29
One potential step towards understanding the role of design is to conduct ethnographies
before and after a family has redesigned its own living space. Nuala Rooneys study of 15
families in Hong Kong is a first step in such an inquiry.
30
In the publishers promotion of
Rooneys At Home with Density, the Director of the Hong Kong Design Centre claims that
Rooney proves that good design is the result of common sense, careful thinking, and a
natural response to conditions of life. This book is also said to develop an understanding of
the way non-designers conceive of interior space and thereby challenge Western
assumptions of space within the domestic sphere.(In contrast, Gary Evans in a 2000 issue
of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, as well as others, have rejected the
importance that some attach to culture.
31
)
Rooneys 15 Chinese families living in old Style high-density Housing Authority estates had
to cope not only with the problem of too many people living in a very small space but also
the poor spatial layout, inadequate provisions of electrics (sic) and strict rulesrelating to
fixtures and fittings within the flat. In the preface to his study, Rooney reports he wanted
to knowwhat roleif anydid interior design play in the lives of the residents. The
pictures of how families arranged their small spaces are worth the price of the book itself.
32
As interesting as his study is, Rooney was unable to obtain before-and-after evidence for
the standard measures that other researchers have used to estimate the adverse effects of
crowding (high density). These consequences might be interpersonal conflict among family
members, high levels of emotional strain, or variations of information overload (at least for
children attempting to study). Still, few would doubt that the redesigns certainly look better.
As Rooney noted, Every interior design magazine features a Before and After story.
Typically, the redesigned home is virtually unrecognized from the original, a transformation
found both in Hong Kong and the United States.
33
Those of us who have lived in many different homes (in my case, 26 and counting) or have
observed how our friends and relatives use their domestic spaces should be aware that
interior design can matterfor example, open kitchens, family rooms, the location of guest
bathrooms, or the preferred entrance to the home. (The most used entrance to my
childhood home was through the kitchen door off of the garage. Guests and family members
turned this functionally-specific space into an all-purpose room.) However, our American
experiences are often with larger homes than those found in Hong Kong, other high-density
communities, or efficiency and one-bedroom apartments in vertical villages.
Some years ago there was talk of a Kleenex home. Once a dwelling unit had served its
purpose, it would be physically discarded and replaced by another, differently-designed unit
in the same space as the discarded one. Of course, instead of destroying and replacing, we
simply move (or remove, the term used elsewhere). Mobility allows for adjustment to
changes in the stage of a familys life cycle, as implied in the empty-nest home. As children
leave home, not just their bedrooms become superfluous (surplus), but the whole
interpersonal dynamics among the remaining family members change. Life-cycle changes
also mean in Hong Kong and elsewhere that both densities and crowding become potentially
less stressful. That is, the need for design and space changes over the course of a familys
life cycle. In Hong Kong, this is leading government architects to adopt universal design
principles that facilitate aging in place, a looming trend for this ex-colony.
Universal design based on ergonomic studies and anthropomorphic standards has little if
anything to do with the total space in a dwelling unit, how that space is partitioned in
rooms, and how the functions associated with different rooms change. Research-based
designs to reduce in-the-home accidents (e.g., eliminating high out-of-reach pullout kitchen
drawers) also have little to do with total space and its partitioning. There is minimal other
social research to help architects to design the internal spaces of a small apartment or
house. And even if there were relevant studies, there seems to be only weak links that
would communicate the results of this research to the designers who could benefit from
them.
This absence of relevant social research has not prevented advocates of different public
policies from playing amateur social scientists. The Cedar-Riverside opponents cherry-picked
the biases of the time in attacking what they the opponents claimed would be an unsuitable
living environment. Little has been said about the internal design of different-sized
apartments within this larger neighborhood context. While we may have over the years
acquired a better appreciation of suitable and unsuitable living environments, the definition
of a decent home is still an open question.
After graduating from Harvards China Area Program and earning his PhD in sociology from
Columbia University in 1962, Mitchell joined University of California-Berkeleys Survey
Research Center. While on loan from Berkeley to the Chinese University of Hong Kong to
establish a research center, the author was appointed director of the government-funded
Hong Kong Urban Family Life Survey, a project that included research on how densities
affected parents, children, and larger kinship networks. After four years of living, research,
and consulting throughout East Asia, the author joined Florida State Universitys Department
of Urban and Regional Planning. In addition to authoring a number of housing-related
publications, Mitchell was appointed the American member of a United Nations committee on
the social programming of housing in the developing world. He also was appointed by
Governor Reubin Askew to serve for several years as Director of the Florida Task Force on
Housing and Community Development. This was followed by responsibility for the joint
governor-legislative task force on Marriage and the Family Unit. During this time, the author
was also retained by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for consulting
in Jordan on designs for resettlement of the Jordan River Valley. In late 1979, the author
became a USAID Foreign Service Officer, with long-term postings in Egypt, Guinea-Bissau,
and Yemen. He currently lives in Brookline, Mass. The present article benefitted from recent
interviews Mitchell conducted with Hong Kong architects and housing experts, from both the
private and public sectors.
1. Reported by James Bailey in the December 1974 issue of the AIA Journal (American
Institute of Architects).
2. For a history of this project, see Judith A. Martin, Recycling the Central City: The
Development of a New Town-in Town (University of Minnesotas Center for Urban and
Regional Affairs, 1978). Randy Stoeckers study focuses on the opponents to the
development. See his Defending Community: The Struggle for Alternative
Redevelopment in Cedar-Riverside (Temple University Press, 1994).
3. Tao Ho, Design Criteria for Human High-Density Housing, Ekistics (235, June 1975),
p. 377.
4. From Gerda R. Wekerle, Vertical Village: The Social World of a Highrise Complex
(PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, 1974), p. 4.
5. Elizabeth Ann Mackintosh, The Meaning and Effects of Highrise Living for the Middle-
Income Family: A Study of Three Highrise Sites in New York City (PhD dissertation,
City University of New York, 1982), pp. 328, 330.
6. My emphasis. Quoted by Marvin Lipman, Social Effects of the Housing Environment,
Canadian Conference on Housing (Background Paper No. 4, September 1968), p. 6.
7. Patrick A. Simmons, ed., Housing Statistics of the United States (Fourth Edition,
2001, Bernan, n.d.), p. 65.
8. Joan Ash, The Rise and Fall of High-Rise Housing in England, in Clare Ungerson and
Valerie Karn (eds.), The Consumer Experience of Housing: Cross National
Perspectives (Gower, c. 1980), pp. 10507.
9. Referenced in Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian, Housing As If People
Mattered, Site Design Guidelines for Medium-Density Family Housing (University of
California Press, 1986), p. 5.
10. See his Inquiry by Design (Norton, 2006).
11. Arnold Koerte, Confinement Versus LiberationA Cross-Cultural Analysis on High-
Rise, High-Density Living, in High-rise, high-density living: SPC Convention, 1983:
Selected Papers (Singapore Professional Centre, 1984), p. 180.
12. J. Darke, Architects and User Requirements in Public-sector Housing: 2. The Sources
for Architects Assumption, Environment and Planning B (1984, B), as referenced by
Joan C. Simon and Gerda R. Wekerle, Planning with Scarce Resources: The
Miniaturization of an Urban Neighborhood, in Willem Van Vliet et al (eds.), Housing
and Neighborhoods: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions (Greenwood, 1987), p.
187.
13. Invitational Conference on Health Research in Housing and Its Environment (1st:
1970: Airlie House (American Public Health Association, 1970), p. 11. This report
remains one of the best but obviously overlooked reviews of housing, health, and
public policy. The author participated in this conference.
14. Examples of these patterns are found in Deane G. Carter and Keith H. Hinchcliff,
Family Housing (Wiley, 1949), p. 51, as well as throughout John Zeisels Inquiry by
Design.
15. Liu Thai-Ker, Housing Policies and Life Style, in High-rise, high-density living: SPC
Convention, 1983: selected papers (Singapore Professional Centre, 1984), p. 19.
16. See the chapters in Sven Thiberg (ed.), Housing research and design in Sweden: 22
researchers on housing design (Stockholm: Swedish Council for Building Research, c.
1990).
17. Moshe Safdie, High-Rise Building as a Microcosm of the City, in High-rise, high-
density living: SPC Convention, 1983: selected papers (Singapore Professional Centre,
1984), p. 38.
18. Mark Baldassare, Residential Crowding in Urban America (University of California
Press, 1979), p. 5.
19. For a more recent review of POEs, see Wolfgang F.E. Preiser, Built Environment
Evaluation: Conceptual Basis, Benefits and Uses in Jack L. Nasar and Wolfgang F.E.
Preiser, eds., Directions in Person-Environment Research and Practice (Brookfield,
Vt.: Ashgate, c. 1999), Chapter 4.
20. Literature reviews have become a cottage industry themselves. For one of the latest
efforts focussing specifically on crowding, see Dinesh Nagar, Human Reactions to
Crowding (Jailer: Printwell Publishers Distributors, 1998). As with other state-of-the-
field reviews, he identifies more than the two themes I use here.
21. Human Settlement Interventions Addressing Crowding and Health Issues (Nairobi:
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 1995), p. 17.
22. Cited by Preiser, op. cit. p. 80. For similar findings, see Arthur H. Patterson and
Romedi Passini, The Evaluation of Physical Settings: To Measure Attitudes, Behavior,
or Both? in Charles C. Lozar (ed.), Methods and Measures, edra 5 (Man-Environment
Interactions: Evaluations and Applications, The State of the Art in Environmental
Design Research1974), p. 217. Also for the limitations of measures of satisfaction
with ones dwelling, see Guido Francescato, Sue Weidemann, and James R. Anderson,
Residential Satisfaction: Its Uses and Limitations in Housing Research, in Willem
Van Vliet et al (eds.), Housing and Neighborhoods: Theoretical and Empirical
Contributions (Greenwood Press, 1987), p. 48.
23. Eric Sundstrom, Crowding as a Sequential Process: Review of Research on the
Effects of Population Density on Humans, in Andrew Baum and Yakov M. Epstein
(eds.), Human Response to Crowding (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1978), p.
69.
24. Simmons, op.cit., pp. 276, 28082.
25. Riaz Hassan, Social and Psychological Implications of High Density in Hong Kong and
Singapore, Ekistics (June 1975, v. 39), pp. 38384.
26. International Union of Family Organizations. Housing Commission, Minimum Habitable
Surfaces, Increase in Size and Cost of Dwelling in Relation to the Size of the Family
(Cologne, 1957), pp. 45.
27. Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and
Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 18731913 (University of Chicago Press, c. 1980).
28. Robert Sommer, Looking Back at Personal Space, in Jon Lang et al (eds.), Designing
for Human Behavior: Architecture and the Behavioral Sciences (Stroudsburg, Pa.,
Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, 1974), p. 208.
29. Amos Rapoport, Toward a Redefinition of Density, in Susan Saegert (ed.), Crowding
in Real Environments (Sage Publications, 1976), p. 9.
30. Nuala Rooney, At Home with Density (Hong Kong University Press, c. 2003).
31. See, for example, Barrington Moores Privacy: Studies in Social and Cultural History
(Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe). For how values have led to different residential
standards, see the authors Cultural and Health Influences on Housing, Human
Ecology (4:4, 1976). Also Earl Morris, Housing, Family, and Society (New York: Wiley,
c1978). Gary Evans and his colleagues concluded from their studies and literature
review that the unsubstantiated claim that some cultural groups are more tolerant of
crowding is a myth. See Gary W. Evans, Stephen J. Lepore, and Karen Mata Allen,
Cross-Cultural Differences in Tolerance for Crowding: Fact or Fiction in The Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology (2000, Vol. 79, No. 2), pp. 20910.
32. The book comes with a documentary film, A Thousand Pieces of Gold.) Elizabeth
Mackintosh provided similar information (without pictures) for residents in three New
York City high-density apartment complexes. Mackintosh, op. cit., p. 289.
33. Rooney, op. cit., p. 191.

Material World
http://info.aia.org/nwsltr_int.cfm?pagename=int%5Fa%5F122007%5Finnovativematerial[12/13/2010 9:09:44 AM]
Archive
Spring 2009
Summer 2008
Winter 2007
Fall 2007
Spring 2007
Winter 2006
Winter 2007
Material World
by Annie Chu, AIA
In one sense, an interior environment is a tailored collection of materials and surfaces. To
chart an overview of current and emerging ideas in material use, we would like to cite some
recent examples of creative material use in interiors and also share insights gained from an
interview with Andrew H. Dent, Vice President, Library and Materials Research, Material
ConneXion, Inc. Materials ConneXion, Inc. is the world's leading knowledge base for
information about new and innovative materials.
Sometimes the best
material solutions come
from other industries.
Cross-pollination through
adaptation of materials
from nondesign disciplines
can often generate
unexpected and remarkable
results.
Andrew H. Dent, Material
ConneXion, Inc.
There has been a vibrant culture of material exploration within interior architecture.
Architects and designers have become familiar with the use of various translucent polymers
such as cast-resin products with an array of embedded materials, as well as honeycomb-
structured panels. They are now integrating the use of color light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to
light these polymer products (from the front or back), expanding the variety of ambient
effects. Design professionals are also experimenting with casting free-form modular panels,
such as those seen at the Fornarina store in London.
We are more concerned about the health and environmental effect these materials may
cause. We worry about what is in the variety of plastics so prevalent in our lives, and we are
all aware of sick building syndrome. No wonder natural materials continue to be popular
choices for many architects, while consumers enjoy their reassuring appeal that they will not
harm. Materials such as bark, cork, and washable leathers widen the typical natural palette,
and contribute to a muted effect for interior environments.
Interior architecture has possibly been the most successful of the various design industry in
attracting a popular methodology (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design [LEED]
system) for implementing and gauging sustainable design efforts. Buildings typically last
longer than cell phones, and so the impacts of our design choices are enduring and complex.
Now we will be hard pressed to find an architect or designer who is not conversant with
sustainable material choices for interior environments.
Light Showers, an installation by Morris Sato Studio
In commercial and institutional interiors, the available palette of finish materials has not
changed significantly in the last five years. Architects counter this limitation by being more
creative with materials at hand, such as the inspired use of the solid surfacing material
Material World
Corian by Morris Sato Studio in New York City. Architects also are introducing into the
interior environment materials that were previously not considered due to durability and
washability concerns. The use of these materials now is largely possible due to recent
improvements in the performance of protective coatings. We are also seeing a large amount
of glossy surfaces due to the availability of new coating materials, aiding in the rendering of
curved surfaces.
In residential interiors, we continue to see a great deal of experimentation and innovation
with material use, due partly to the lack of finish material code restrictions. Architects also
are reinterpreting environments within older structures with unexpected materials such as
galvanized metal and stainless steel, creating appealing contrasts to the rich natural
materials.
Light Showers, an installation by Morris Sato Studio
The serial use of found objects continues to have impact by creating scale and intrigue.
Think Ross Lovegroves backlit wall of water bottles at a New York City restaurant, or Pugh
+ Scarpa Architects ping-pong ballfilled walls for a Los Angeles film editing facility.
Perhaps we are introduced to this aesthetics effect when we had our first encounter with
miles of detergent containers at the local big-box store, or with art objects created by artists
in the wake of World War II.
A desire to expand the expression of a ubiquitous manufactured material may lead to the
investigation of fabrication methods or alternative placement. Chu + Gooding Architects
experimented with the removal of yarn from carpet, using the destroyed carpet as
upholstery and the wrinkled carpet as wall covering in its NeoCon West installation.
An installation by Chu + Gooding Architects
Patterns and colors, and more precisely a combination of seemingly unrelated and even
clashing choices, have become quite popular. First seen in graphic and textile design (Hella
Jongerius Repeat design textile for Maharam) and spreading quickly to design in trendy
retail and entertainment environments; the appeal of uncoordinated aesthetics seems to
Material World
have taken hold. Easy access to digital production and communication, printing straight from
a laptop onto a large offering of media, makes experimentation possible. Designers are
mining images from paintings, shapes in nature, and graphic patterns from the 1950s and
1970s, and combining these to quirky, interesting, and sometimes elegant effects.
Perhaps because we can access a wide range of colors on the computer screen, and perhaps
because editing functions have become basic computer skills, we also have become less
inhibited in creating color combinations. Unconventional combinations of colors have
garnered an air of cool. How about flesh tone with lavender and Kelly green, a tongue-in-
cheek combination by the designers of Mexico Citys Chic by Accident?
Witnessing the appeal of mass customization offered to consumers of computers, shoes, and
cars; we have gotten comfortable with the idea of owning something unique. People
generally like to be linked with society (the large group), and they also enjoy being part of a
unique few (the small group). Acquiring the taste for the unconventional and challenging
combinations has become the calling card for high fashion and design groups. It will be
interesting to see where all this will lead next.
Annie Chu is a principal of Chu + Gooding Architects in Los Angeles, crafting engaging
experiences with materials and colors. Clients include USC, UC-Riverside, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Educated at Sci
Arc and Columbia University, Chu trained with Tod Williams, Billie Tsien, and Frank Israel.

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Winter 2007

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