Journal of Architectural and Planning Research

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25:2 (Summer, 2008)

Book Reviews

Inquiry by Design by John Zeisel. New York: W.

W. Norton & Company, 2006. 400 pp., $34.95
paper.

Since the inception of the Environment-Behavior (E-B) discipline in late 1960s, its followers
have assumed that architectural design should
be based on understanding the intricacies of human and environment relations, and its application should be shaped by research-based knowledge. Some of its scholars, such as Amos
Rapoport, asserted that "architecture is not a
'free' artistic activity but a science-based profession that is concerned with problem solving"
(2005:1). Inherent in this approach to architecture is the basic assumption that studying the
behavior of people in relation to the environment can elicit knowledge, which can be generalized and applied in various design contexts.
Be that as it may, despite the wealth of information about the interrelationships between people
and their built and natural environments that
the E-B field has yielded over 30 years of research, the field has taken a back seat in current
architectural education. There is little emphasis
on evidence-based design in student projects,
and only a few schools require courses in programming, master planning, and post-occupancy evaluation. Things were very different
when John Zeisel's Inquiry by Design first appeared in 1981. In the late 1960s and early
1970s, in response to various social and political developments of the era, a small number of

social and behavioral scientists, along with a

few architects committed to the need for more
socially responsible approaches to planning and
design of the environment, ambitiously attempted to articulate a new model or paradigm
for the design process. Zeisel, who came to E-B
from sociology (1975), has been one of the
founding members of this new discipline, and
his book, Inquiry by Design, has been a landmark text in the E-B field since its publication.
Both the need for theoretical understanding of
the relationship between people and their surroundings, and an immediate, pragmatic concern over mismatches between people, institutions, communities, and other designed environments provided impetus for this book. The
motivating force was the premise that knowledge of the fundamental principles of human behavior helps designers clarify the relationship
between environment and behavior. This, in
turn, helps architects consider how the designed
environment can afford people of different backgrounds distinctive experiences and diverse activity patterns. Lang (1987) claimed that this
knowledge enables designers to understand
what they can predict with confidence and when
they are really "going out on a limb."
The functionalist model that Zeisel follows in
his book begins with knowledge and research,
followed by a programming stage that specifies
the social knowledge to be incorporated in the
designed building, then integrates that social
knowledge into the design process itself. The
presumption of this model is that if followed,

Copyright 0 2008, Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.

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and Planning Research

Journal ofArchitecturalt
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this process would result in buildings that would

better fit the needs of their future occupiers and
users. The last step, which was added later, is
post-occupancy evaluation, which completes the
circle by providing the source for new social science knowledge to inform the design process for
the next round of projects. The new paradigm
was embraced by the architectural establishment, and as a result during the late 1970s and
early 1980s virtually every leading school of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and urban planning required courses in
people-environment studies. Zeisel's book became an essential text in many of these courses
and influenced young minds in the field around
the world.
A quarter of a century later, Zeisel updated his
classic text by revising some of the chapters,
adding new research examples, and challenging
the field by linking the social, psychological,
and physiological research of E-B studies to
neurosciences. The updated version, just like
the first edition, is clearly written and well organized. The format, which summarizes topics in
tables and matrices and provides overviews at
the end of each chapter, helps the reader to navigate throughout the book and makes the reading
exceptionally accessible. It is an excellent text
for undergraduate as well as graduate students
in courses that focus on the meeting point of design and research. While some of the photographs and illustrations did not maintain their
freshness over the years, most of the line drawings and diagrams are still unblemished and
supportive of the text as in the first edition. The
two parts of the book, research and design and
research methods, are saturated with research
examples. Some examples are old, but many are
updated with new, credible information. The
last chapter in the revised book breaks away
from the original version and introduces the
new environment/behavior/neuroscience (E/B/
N) approach that Zeisel believes is an enriched
way of understanding some of the central concepts of E-B studies, such as place, territory,
personalization, and wayfinding. Zeisel argues
that these concepts are strategic issues in E-B
studies, and as a result, exploring them can illustrate how neuroscience can add to traditional
E-B perspectives. He writes, "If a new paradigm
is to further the discipline of environment-behavior studies, it must shed new light on old
concepts and introduce new concepts, methods,

theories, and models" (p. 356). To demonstrate

the viability of his proposition, Zeisel discusses
examples from neonatal care units' design and
learning environments, as well as a case study of
an assisted living treatment residence for people
with Alzheimer's.
It is somewhat unclear how the addition of neuroscience to the already many existing fields
that make up the E-B discipline can guarantee
an improved evidence-based design for constructing healthier or enhanced environments.
While the E/B/N model can assist in the programming stage of some facilities, it is dangerous to assume that the design process could follow a recipe with "premeasured ingredients
which when ordered and combined according to
absolutely explicit instructions ... will produce,

all by itself, the correct result" (Fish, 1989:343).

Architectural design is a complex process that
often generates unexpected and unpredictable
alternative solutions even when it is done within
the boundaries of a strict program and precise
performance-criteria design guidelines. Nearly
all the decisions in the design process regarding
form and structure are made without empirical
evidence. Furthermore, the design program reflects only a fraction of the total context of an
architectural undertaking. The context can differ in scale, location, culture, market, technology, and the inventiveness and creativity of the
individual designer.
Judging the E/B/N model is perhaps premature.
These days, when the E-B concepts are almost
absent from undergraduate architectural curricula, which reflect merely a marginal attention
to human or social implications, it appears that
Zeisel's approach is mainly theoretical and can
benefit graduate students who choose to pursue
research-oriented degrees. These concepts can
advance basic theoretical research in the areas
where E/B/N interact, and perhaps "can replace
the naYve stimulus-response model of human behavior" (Lang, 1987:viii). We need theory to focus research in order to improve the knowledge
base of the discipline, as Nobel Laureate Herbert
Simon contended: "Society supports basic research because of a belief that fundamental advances in knowledge will lead to important
practical applications, and conversely, that advances in practical knowledge and technology
rest on the foundation of basic knowledge. The

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25:2 (Summer, 2008)
178

history of the past two or three hundred years

provides a mass of evidence to support this belief' (Simon, 1976:20).
In summary, Inquiry by Design carries on the
work of many other E-B researchers who share
the idea that environmental design can benefit
from a much clearer and more theoretical foundation than it now enjoys. If there is any authenticity to Robert Gutman's (1989) argument that
"the balance between the attention to the purely
architectural and a concern for usability seems
to change every few decades," then there is a
hope for the E-B field and its advocates.
REFERENCES

Fish S (1989) Doing what comes naturally.: Change, rhetoric, and practice of theory in literary and legal studies.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Gutman R (1989) Human nature in architectural theory: The
example of Louis Kahn. In R Ellis and D Cuff (Eds.), Architects 'people. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lang J (1987) Creatingarchitecturaltheory.: The role of the
behavioral sciences in environmental design. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Rapoport A (2005) Culture, architecture, and design. Chicago, IL: Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.

Simon HA (1976) Social and behavioral science programs

in the National Science Foundation. Washington, DC: Na-

tional Academy of Sciences.

Zeisel J (1975) Sociology and architecturaldesign. New
York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Benyamin Schwarz
Ruth Tofle
University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, Missouri, USA

Knowledge-Based Design.: Developing Urban

and Regional Design Into a Science by Ina T.
Klaasen. Delft, Netherlands: Delft University
Press, 2004. 240 pp., $56.00 soft cover.
I was quite excited about reviewing Ina
Klaasen's book. I have been searching for a
book that examines the science behind urban
and regional design. Since I coordinate the Urban Design Certificate Program at Simon Fraser

University in Canada and practice urban design

across North America, I find there is a large gap
between theory, facts, and practice in urban and
regional design. Ina Klaasen does an admirable
job of meticulously describing the past and current approaches to urban and regional design
from an academic perspective. Thorough and
substantiated research supports the hypothesis
and follows through with exhaustive explanations from various perspectives. Ina Klaasen's
book is a very well documented explanation of
the past and current orientation between urban
and regional design as a pattern-oriented approach versus a process-based approach. She
carefully describes the subtle and distinctive differences and then illustrates them with examples.
The book is actually Ina Klaasen's Doctoral dissertation that has been translated to English
from Dutch. Unfortunately, in the translation,
some of the clear flow and meaning is lost. This
book also has an academic orientation, which is
a mixed blessing. I like the very clear and structured approach, and the detailed table of contents is very helpful. However, I found my concentration tended to drift in the actual content as
it went into such detail in parts that seemed to
disrupt the flow of the content. What also appeared awkward is that the summary is located
at the end of the book, detached from the formal
table of contents. A concise summary at the beginning would have been very helpful. Again, I
had to remind myself that as a Doctoral dissertation, that rigor is demanded and certainly was
delivered.
Past literature has generally emphasized the
"aesthetic" architecture of urban design rather
than the science of urban design. Some of the
references that are very familiar to the more scientific or logical side of urban design, including
Jacobs, Lunch, and Alexander, were well referenced and differentiated in the book's text.
There is a definite gap between the fact-based,
more scientific design and the "big idea" or artistic/culturally oriented design. The "big idea"
design that dominates the "aesthetic-driven" urban design world frequently has little (if any)
actual basis in local and regional economic, social, and ecological data or rationale. It may also
have an orientation to historic conservation and
is chosen based on the attractiveness (story and
artistic merits) of the proposition versus sound,

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