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Show 2 The Daily Utah unronicie, maim III Architectural Psychology studies Studies of rooms, buildings and outside areas and how these things affect human behavior -(" . V'J ,i ! r ; x . N . ; ' I , I 1 ' ' "1 By Nazir F. Khan (Editors Note: This is the seventh in a series of interviews with University faculty. This interview is with John B. Collins, who teaches architecture psychology.) KHAN: In what sort of things is architectural psychology interested? COLLINS: We're interested in the whole problem of physical environment (i.e., the rooms, the buildings, the outside area) on human behavior. It's very complex because there are so many factors stimulating us. The question of which have the most long-term effects, which have small, but very specific effects we are still trying to answe. . J.n fact, they're really questions we're trying to ask intelligently ... and the answers are beginning to come slowly. Architectural psychology is a fairly new field. It began at this university in 1961 under the direction of Calvin W. Taylor and Roger Bailey as a result of an earlier conference on environmental factors in k.k,... " - -: 1 - thebuilding with a thick carpet and pad The carpeting has a second advantage of being economical. We find that dollar for dollar the installation of a carpet is no more expensive than installing tile or linoleum. But the maintenance costs on carpets are substantially lower than anything else, io clean a carpet involves running a vacuum over it. To clean tile or linoleum involves scrubbing, waxing and polishing. Visual access from student to student and teacher to teacher can be handled in several ways. On is to put up temporary standing partitions. One thing that happens in such schools is that the rigidity of traditional grading notions breaks down and there is suddenly more flexibility and as I see it, more desirable flexibility. In terms of the teaching process, students who show superior work in any given subject may choose to move away from a particular teacher into a section at a higher level. His teacher simply sends him over to the person teaching at his level of ability. The student progresses at his own rate without the -irtiiiti f - ' - of the strongest areas of investigation b next few years will be the appli!,' architectural psychology and related f to space technology. I was in ; month ago talking with the Manual Center people at NASA. Oneof theiin problems is how to make rather c area comfortable, habitable and mast liveable. The problems that this raise really overwhelming We are to the point in on t technology now that we are able tot men into space, to sustain life whilethsi there, and to get them back safely, 5( putting men into orbit for longer perii do scientific research there and also lo't the effects of space travel and space lii the human beings. One such problem isii' NASA calls the "habitability problem" Consider the overwhelming problem personal sanitation, of their did. There are bound to be some growing conflicts and pains until a successful marriage is consummated. recreation, of physical exercise. Ot sift; boredom. Consider the problems isolation, of sex, of highly rests: stereotyped activities with little chance change. These all are things that is function of human engineering. university is one which allows all three types of people. There are bound to be some growing conflicts and pains until a successful marriage is consummated. KHAN: Where else is such work being carried on? COLLINS: The University is certainly not unique in having this combination of architecture and psychology ... the problem of the environment and its effects on behavior is coming to be recognized as something that needs attention. Other universities such as Berkeley, MIT, Texas A & M, Washington State University, Penn State University, are currently offering courses and methods to measure the impact of environment on human behaviour. We have recently indexed some 50 such centers. KHAN: Through research, psychologists have gotten a vast store of knowledge enabling them to control human behavior. Who is to decide upon the ethics involved in" this procedure? Who is to say what behavior should be encouraged and what behavior should be discouraged? COLLINS: That is a very good question-and also a very troublesome question. One that we have avoided because we don't have the techniques to answer it, properly. There are several ways of looking at the question, though I don't know whether there are any conclusive answers. The first graduate from the Architectural Psychology Program, Dr. Robert Wehrli, here at the University of Utah has proposed f" f n ! z ' if : .... - A architectural psychology of human it dependent on the ingenuity of the pe who sustain theastronautswhile thein; spent part of an afternoon in a motif the first space station that will be lam!; These are two "cans" proportioned -tuna fish cans, 15 feet in diameterandsr and a half feet high. In the one canisc of the scientific data collecting equips guidance equipment, control of the & space station itself, radio eqif monitoring, radar, earth commnni telemetry date, the computer forth!?' station itself, the oxygen and an water recovery, and related packetsjc that there are three major roles involved in deciding how to improve our world. These roles may be thought of as the scientist, the philosopher and the architectengineer. It is the scientist's (or the psychologist's) job to find out how the world really is. It is the job of the philosopher to tell us how the world ought to be and it is the job of the architectengineer to bridge that gap--to change the world from what it is and into what it ought to be. KHAN: What sort of possibilities do you see for architectural psychology in the future? COLLINS: It seems to me that the future of architectural psychology is unlimited. One joint venture among psychology, architecture and medicine with the support of Hardin Branch, Head of Psychiatry at the University Hospital and funded with several graduate traineeships by the National Institute of Mental Health. The initial concept was that medicine should be a valuable point of application of the effects of environmental factors on patients. KHAN: Could you cite some areas of application where such knowledge has had py-offs? COLLINS: Yes, one of the most obvious is in the field of education and school Architects often think of themselves as individuals whose sense of correctness is intuitive. ' - - -- - - " - ti Another problem which Architectural d Psychology has begun to assess is the r problem of traffic flow. We find that people p who walk into an unfamiliar building will tl normally bear to the right, unless signs direct fi otherwise. But, if we paint the walls to the o right dark and the walls to the left light then o they'll go toward the light side rather t han a the light side. We can direct traffic flow in a c museum, for example, simply by colors and w without signs. KHAN: Do you have any problems in f carrying on your work where you infringe C on territory owned by other professions? a COLLINS: In architectural psychology there is the obvious problem of trying to marry a field which is essentially scientific (psychology) to a field which is a subjective or artistic field-architecture. Architects often think of themselves as individuals whose sense of correctness, proportion and design is intnitivp ' . - ' tV 1 4t- J ' - ' ,4 v : i " : 1 ' ; '-4 , I i i ' V " 1 I ' . a i facilities. Some of our trainees have been highly involved in the problem of educational change and improvement as a result of the architectural design. Consider schools without interior walls: This has become a hot item in the educational market. Can we build schools without interior walls, where there is no " separation from teacher to teacher and classroom to classroom, at all grade levels? Ten years ago this was a revolutionary concept, but not anymore. In the Granite School District for example, the probability i is now 50 per cent that any proposed school building will be built without walls. Seemingly, one of t'.ie greatest problems in a I school like this is the noise factor. We have I found that noise is no particular problem 1 except for sudden, sharp noises like dropping books or clanking desks around. This problem is easily solve by carpeting I And, on occasion they are suspicious when we walk in with quantitative measures and reams of computer paper and say "this is what we have found." The master-builder architect likes to see himself as the director of a symphony who has control over each member of the symphony-as the director directs, so is the music, as the architect directs, so is the structure. On the other hand the psychologist sees himself as a sxinetist and may be suspicious of the person who relies on intuitive judgement but feels no need to "prove" that his intuition is accurate. There is a trend in universities toward lndepartmental disciplines, so that there are now many architects who would like to see more science, and there are more i psychologists who would like to see an emphasis on aeshthetic and humanitarian I things in addition to rat research. A mature mans environment galley, sanitary facilities, and some minimal area for recreation. Weightlessness compounds all these problems. Imagine, (unless you saw "2001") the problem of the zero-gravity toilet, this can be messy! Consider the problem of showering and shaving in zero-gravity. Consider the problem of recreation while in space. What do you do after you have monitored all the meteors, measured all the cosmic rays, checked in with earth? What do you do to take up spare time? What can architectural psychologists do to provide change? Certainly we can provide television, which has been telemetered up from earth but wears boring after a few hours. How can we, for example, suggest up and down to a spaceman in zero gravity? Are there example colors that suggest "upness" and colors which suggest "downness?" Can we color-code various parts of the space craft such that danger areas are represented by reds or oranges, rest areas by soft off-whites, computer hardware by darker colors? These are all problems which are currently of interest to architectural psychology. As an example of the intuitiveobjective conflict in designing for space travel, let me design, the uses made of spaces in owner-occupied houses, and so on . . . My own d i sser a t a t io n is a mathematical-theoretical project designed to assess the dimensions along which people who are not trained architects make judgements about interior architectural spaces and effects these dimensions of perceptions have on actual behaviour while in such spaces. We have sponsored two national conferences in Architectural Psychology one in '61 and one in '66. In the '66 conference we had researchers from all of Visual access from student to student and teacher to teacher can be handled in many ways. the United States as well as from Europe. We received daily inquiries for our program in architectural psychology and we currently publish an Architectural Psychology Newsletter which abstracts research going on about the country as well as current publications in architectural design and behavioral psychological problems. We are currently planning research facilities in the University Hospital to assess environmental effects on patients. We've' built a working model of a movable room 1 designed to test minimal to maximal hospital f facilities. We are consulting with the Utah 1 Cerebral palsy Association in planning recreation and therapeutic facilities for handicapped persons. We are involved in the f Salt Lake Drug Crisis center in planning both Crisis Intervention Point and administrative and counseling centers. The architectural psychology program will assess the new college of Nursing Building to show how improved physical facilities foster better educational and research productivity. One particularly interesting project now in progress is determining how the architecturalenvironmental climate affects the creativity and productivity of scientists. Ultimately, the success of any university program is measured in large part by the demand for its graduates. Graduates of the University program are scattered from New York to Los Angeles in universities, industry and private practice. The problem for the graduate is one of deciding among alternatives rather than of finding a job. " VT.t : ' :, ...... . , M . m4 it v ' ! r AW -a tell you this: At the moment, there is only one designer on the whole space habitability group at the Manned Spacecraft Center. He has decided that the "up" ceilings of the first space stations should be light yellow, that the walls should be mustard and the floor an olive ... it is his opinion that these colors suggest psychological "upness and downness" This man is the person who designed the ill-fated Studebaker. Now the problem for the architectural psychologist is this: the man may be right, but we have to know and know for all people if up and down are interpreted this way. I hope to see projects as crucial as our space program backed up with a little more scientific evidence that a single opinion. Certainly, the difference between yellow walls and green walls is not often the difference between life and death; but for extended periods in extreme confinement and under high pyschological stress it just could be. KHAN: What successes are being made here in the University of Utah in this field? COLLINS: We have received a considerable amount of national and international recognition for the work going on here at the University. We were certainly one of the first universities to recognize that there was need and opportunity for a scientific investigation of the interface between architectural and environmental factors with human behavior. We received generous support from National Institutes of Mental Health who have provided our traineeships and some of our operating expenses. We nave also received support from the University and from the various departments uwolyed, Wa've turned out a number of students with graduate degrees in architectural psychology. Some of these nave been architects, some psychologists and some of them have been in allied fields such as industrial design. We've also published a number of dissertations and these: The influence of color and illumination pn the interpretation of emotions, behavioral criteria in building design, a comparative study of the residence hall of ne University, some behavioral criteria in r?!2'"8 the University of Utah union uding, open-ended problem-solving in |