Research Proposal (5a)

As an Interior and Environmental Designer it is important to consider many aspects when designing. With many factors contributing to the overall experience of a space, context and behaviour of humans play a crucial part in how we react in a specific area requiring extensive research when trying to understand this idea. Reviewing the work I completed in first semester which primarily stemmed from Gladwell (2000) The Power of Context (Part 1), it is important to understand how the methods I have learnt over the past year could be applied to gain a deeper understanding of the topic.

Observing people going about their everyday lives we can try and tap into what physical and social features act as stimuli in provoking a certain response. Factors such as location and tolerance levels play a central role in trying to understand how a community works. Whether you are located in a rural or city region, it will have affected certain aspects of your life. For example how might you respond to a situation, positively or negatively? Removing someone from a familiar context and placing them in an alien one can cause a dramatic change in mood, with people becoming nervous and feeling vulnerable. Trying to do this without anyone becoming suspicious is hard and people might not act naturally but it something that Bronfenbrenner (1979) feels is significant when arguing an individual’s reaction to different contexts. When studying an area it is important to listen to the locals. They live there all the time and know about occurrences in the area that you yourself might not pick up on. Using this technique when studying different areas, could allow you to compare the results and allow you to construct key questions that could be asked if interviewing people.

Interviewing people in different locations would either provide an honest response or a biased one. Careful consideration of questions that covered a broad area would narrow the chance for one sided views and with a certain wording could provoke a certain response from an individual. It would be important that a variation on the interviews took place, families, couples and singles as each group would have a different stance of the questions being asked. Asking people questions in groups could prove both advantageous and disadvantageous as there would be a danger that individuals could be influenced. Performing interviews on people with a mixture of ages would prove valuable to gaining an insight into a community from a wide scope of people as different age groups will have different opinions on the area and it is important to consider all angles of the argument. With age comes experience but this does not mean to say that young people should be disregarded, everyone in the community is interacting with the space at a different level. Similarly, this technique should be adhered to if you were to ever interview people from more than one neighbourhood. Taylor, R. B. (1996) suggests that we have to consider the different threats each area poses and when creating the questions a large variation has to exist to gain a maximum level of awareness.

Visual research can be very effective, especially as some people respond better to this technique. Asking people to look at pictures that have been picked specifically can allow you to understand how people see things in a community, e.g. pictures of graffiti, maintained gardens, thugs, tidy streets, which might stir personal responses from some participants. Again as mentioned in other researching methods a mixture of participants, age, sex and race, could all have a varying effect on the data obtained. Changing factors such as the way the images are presented to individuals and the order they are received should all be consider when analysing the results. The use of images is less intimidating than interviews and some people may find it easier to open up and discuss things more with sometimes images causing catalytic reactions. As Barthes argues “all images are polysemous” the danger that people would discuss different things could distract you from your original objective.

Making use of the visual side of the research, taking photographs of an area provides a still snapshot at that given time. Annotating these still frames can allow you to spot things over a certain period of time and with everything frozen it is easier to notice something than it would ever be when observing. With areas constantly changing, these images can be compared over a period of time and with change being such a visual element, it would be hard to distinguish these changes say from a piece of text or a recording. Likewise with video recordings, you could observe in a visual respect with the one difference being that you could see more of how people interact with the space. Stopping, rewinding, slowing down and watching repeatedly can allow you to spend as much time looking at the observations you have captured. Watching things repeatedly lets the observations made be more accurate, with a high chance of seeing something new everytime you can ‘wring’ the footage as much as possible. Conducting a meticulous study with similar aspects, Barker, R.G. & Wright, H. (1955) claim “…the behaviour setting provided information in which allowed explanations for the behaviour observed. Individuals move through a wide range of behaviour settings each day, and it is not personality traits which control behaviour”.

Using crime rates along with visual evidence of an area could provide a comparison method. Areas with high crime rates could be scanned for stereotypical features of a ‘bad’ neighbourhood such as graffiti, broken windows, etc but the only danger with this is that you may unintentionally look for these common traits rendering the findings a little inaccurate. Researching into some of the crime prevention schemes that run in certain areas might prove useful with one such scheme being introduced in Kent. Muir, H (2009) describes the scheme as “A pioneering drive by one of Britain's biggest police forces to tackle antisocial behaviour and low-level offending is being linked to a massive reduction in crime and people's fear of crime”, bearing this in mind, would the opinions of a community change if crime was reduced?

Bringing together all the research gathered, it is important to consider some factors when analysing the results; influences, individuals, location, age, personality, upbringing, etc as these will all have a bearing factor on how an individual has reacted. Other influential factors include home, school and neighbourhood which have shaped massively how we respond to something but by conducting a large number of experiments it would allow stronger conclusions to be drawn from results and allow points to be backed up with researched evidence. Although up-to-date sources like newspapers such as the Guardian and articles on the topic report facts the results that you will have collated are relevant to the area in which you want to specialise in.


Bibliography

Bronfenbrenner, U 1979, The ecology of human development, MA: Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Gladwell, M 2000, The Tipping Point, Little, Brown, Great Britain

Innis, R.E 1985, Semiotics: an introductory anthology, advances in semiotics, Bloomington Indianna University Press

Muir, H 2009, Kent police attribute massive reduction in crime to neighbourhood teams, The Guardian, viewed 22 March 2010, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/21/kent-police-crime-neighbourhood-teams>

Taylor, R. B. 1996, ‘Neighbourhood responses to disorder and local attachments: the systemic model of attachment, social disorganization, and neighbourhood use value’, Sociological Forum, vol. 11, no.1, pp. 41-74.

Making assumptions

Without trying to sound strange, I like watching people. Due to the fact that this semester our assignments have asked us to observe how people react, I have found myself watching people a lot more.

Today coming home from Dundee, I observed a lot of different types of behaviour. Everybody is unique and the behaviour I surveyed echoed this.

Driving along the dual carriageway, there had been a crash involving a car and a bus - the car coming off the worst. Almost everyone on the bus craned their necks to see what had happened and some tried to figure out what had happened, talking animatedly amongst other fellow passengers and making a connection over something so horrible. It was interesting watching those people who did not look though. Some glanced quickly and then diverted their gaze in another direction almost as if they were scared that they were going to see something that they did not want to see. Others looked straight ahead as if trying to block out the scene and pretend nothing had happened.
It was also interesting seeing how people reacted to the crash on the scene. With no Police or Paramedics it was clear that the crash had not long occurred and with no control in place, traffic started to move in an unusual fashion. Cars tried to bump up onto the central reservation and lorries tried to drive through the mucky fields - attempting anything to try and pass the wreckage. With no Police hold people seemed not to know what to do and acted out of character suggesting that the presence of Officers can have a calming affect on a situation.

Police are there to protect. When something occurs or someone reacts in a fashion that is seen as socially unacceptable they are the people we rely on to look after us. Randomly meeting and chatting with an old man and lady while waiting for another bus to my village I was told a story about a man who they had witnessed the previous day arguing with a crow. Shouting and cursing at this crow, the old man described how the manner in which the man was acting was having a disturbing affect on passers by and the Police removed the man to restore peace. Humans are notorious for being stuck in habits, do anything to disturb this pattern and the effects could be detrimental. Reminding me of the book 'The Tipping Point' where context was believed to be the main cause of a man named Bernie Goetz to attacking 4 youths, I tried to understand here how this idea could be related. With hundreds of people using the bus station each day, by not arresting this man, the message being sent out to others that his behaviour was acceptable may invite others to offend when they normally might not have implying that we are susceptible to abnormal stimuli.
Another factor of the story that interested me was the fact that the man arrested had an artificial leg which was on show due to his shorts he wore. Just coming into spring, it strikes me as being a little strange that this man was wearing shorts in the first place as it was not the warmest of days yesterday. Myself, I would have wanted to cover this up. The old man described him as being loud and tough looking and appearing to be drunk or on drugs. He also added that he appeared to be an ex solider who had fought in a war. It is all very easy for us to express our disgust but I cannot help but think that maybe that this was a plea, subconscious or not, for us to regard him. Possibly wanting to show us the effect the war had had on him with the drink or drugs being a reasonable explanation behind his behaviour. One thing I have learnt from this years Design Studies module though is never to assume! Some of the points I have mentioned could be complete nonsense but they have got me thinking about things...



Eventually when I finally got on the bus home the old man, lady and myself seemed to create a triangle on the bus in the positions we had chose to sit in. In Interiors there is a term known as the kitchen triangle where the sink, cooker and fridge should be in a triangle shape so as to create a regulated work flow, but in our case a level of connection?
With people hopping on and off at stops all the time most people on the bus will watch them curiously, regarding them until the get to their seat or the bus leaves them at their destination. It was interesting though when a man with a large tattoo covering his face got on the bus to see how the passengers around me behaved with some people reacting really strangely. Some moved to the edge of their seats so that he could not sit next to him and I even saw some people grip onto their bags a little tighter. What did they expect this man to be? With so many things being associated with tattoo's these people were conforming to the thing that most people do when they are unsure of something, fear... I bet if they had started speaking to this man he would have been perfectly normal and not some mad man that many people stereotyped him to be. Never judge a book by it's cover...

With thanks:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marketamedkova/984693855/
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/bus-queue.jpg

Understanding Bourdieu (literally)

Understanding Bourdieu, WEBB, SCHIRATO & DANAHER

I enjoy reading, but I’m finding that the texts we have to read for Design Studies to be rather difficult to take in. Sometimes I can read a whole page (and sometimes even a whole chapter) and couldn’t even tell you what I had just read.

To solve this problem, I decided to read a small bit and write about it, read a bit and write, etc. This means that I can think about what I’ve just read and put it into my own words and if I really haven’t understood anything I can go back and re – read it, without realising this after ten pages.

The first time I read the Bourdieu passage I suffered from this same problem. The only time I seemed to understand bits was when there was a mention of football and when he only mentions this once, you can see my problem.

Bourdieu is interested in the culture of design asking questions like why do people buy certain products and how does the product they buy help them?

Describing culture as a game, Bourdieu encourages us to embrace this and our understanding on how to play it. He highlights the fact that the social and political context in which we are placed in changes the ‘rules’ slightly and designers have to consider this carefully when designing. Last semester, as part of one of my assignments, I looked at ‘The Power of Context’ where I learnt quite a lot about the context in which we are placed in and how that in turn affects things like our personalities and our reaction to design. As a designer it is important to take every aspect of the client you are designing for into consideration.

Something that Bourdieu mistakenly does, and that John Frow points out, is to treat people as though they ‘belonged to a single class’. He argues that Bourdieu forgets you cannot possibly place for example a football fan, a ballet dancer and Jazz specialist in the same field. Although are all part of the creative field, I doubt you would find a football fan interested in ballet and Jazz, and vice versa so depending our tastes and influences we are organised into social groups.

Evaluating the ideas behind our acceptance to art, Bourdieu asks why is it that some people are more comfortable to talk about art than others? Again referring back to context, he explains that people who are brought up around cultural things like art and fine music are more ‘natural’ when presented with them. What about the people that create this art in the first place, what sort of response do they want to provoke from their audience?

Dividing the field of cultural production into two parts, autonomous and heteronomous poles, we are educated in the difference between the two. I had to re – read this section so many times to understand it but I think I may have understood it, well I hope I have…

The heteronomous pole aims to achieve “commercial success”, where, to me, they are complying with demands from others and not really doing what they want to do or possibly don’t believe in.
The autonomous pole of the field demonstrates that people working in this part are resigned to the fact that there reward won’t always mean finance. They can do what interests them, not restricted with their outcome and can aim at a specific group of people rather than creating a generalised response to something to please a wider niche.
If you really want to make a living in this field it is more than likely that you will have to give into the demands of the general public and conform to what they want to see, which I think is a shame. Or your work will have to be recognised as excellent before everyone follows the herd over. Surely art should be something that the artist chooses?

Assignment 4: Reading and Reviewing

Taylor purposely sets out to highlight the differences between neighbourhoods and investigates the level of responses to disorder. He clearly delivers his ideas, educating us with the key facts needed to understand his arguments. Very quickly Taylor begins to talk about the sources he used to gather his information to write the journal. This evidence-based report relies strongly on the data gathered in research such as resident surveys, census information, on - site assessments and crime rates from 66 randomly selected neighbourhoods. From this research he is able to use the facts gathered to conduct other tests but also to make conclusions about the information gathered – context does affect how responsive we are.

Expansive research provides us with a great understanding of the underlying theme of the journal; context affects response. Taylor talks about how neighbourhoods help shape a community and also an individual. Although this point is discussed, further reading that helps reinforce this idea by looking into specific areas is “Stencil Graffiti”. Different neighbourhoods have different types of graffiti – each provoking a different level of response depending on the context in which they are placed. The environment in which individuals are placed serve as a backdrop where changes in it act as stimuli to individuals. (Manco 2002:5)

So why does context affect our responses to certain things? Taylor answers this successfully by highlighting a large amount of sources and manages to keep his personal opinions out of his writing, creating an unbiased report. Making a neutral point and then backing it up with a source meant that on reading, his report appeared creditable. Talking about local communities, Taylor presents ideas about the sense of community and value of community and refers to some local communities as “a complex system of friendship and kinship networks and formal and informal associational ties” (Kasarda and Janowitz, 1974:329; see also Hunter, 1974). Sometimes results from Taylor’s experiments placed a negative spin, for example on African – American neighbourhoods. He appeals directly to the reader that although there is significant evidence that renders this true, he also asks us to take into consideration that not every neighbourhood has been studied and so results are entirely random. By presenting us with this additional information, we are aware that he is sensitive to the fact that not every neighbourhood was part of the study.

Another method used to present sources was including test results in which Taylor asks people a number of questions about their neighbourhood (how attached they are to their neighbourhood? would a neighbour stop graffiti?, are there dangerous places to avoid?, etc), providing an honest response from local people. The results of this test reinforced the idea that different neighbourhoods work differently and that people in different neighbourhoods have different response levels to those in other neighbourhoods. Different neighbourhoods pose different threats so by creating interviews with a large variation in questions a deeper understanding can be gained when researching different opinions on a context.

One factor of a neighbourhood that acts as a threat is graffiti. Graffiti is associated with crime; place this in a neighbourhood context and the mood changes almost immediately for people. Graffiti is not the only catalyst of the change of behaviour from an individual but placed with the right conditions people become nervous and feel vulnerable – maybe because they are not exposed to graffiti on a regular basis. Taylor explains that in ‘high class’ neighbourhoods there is an uproar about graffiti because residents are not subjected to this everyday. Some residents view their neighbourhood simply as a place to live, nothing more. In contrast, other residents in neighbourhoods feel a strong sense of social attachment and are familiar with everyone in their street (Taylor 1996:42). Associations that aim to maintain high standards are now introducing schemes to help promote a better standard of living. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/21/kent-police-crime-neighbourhood-teams (21 November 2009))


With the aim to educate people in ‘Environmental Psychology’, Tony Cassidy expresses his idea that personality doesn’t control behaviour but that setting is the reason behind our reactions. With so many questions surrounding the area of context and behaviour, the author tries to answer as many of these questions as he can using a number of sources and experiments.

One of these includes an experiment conducted by Roger Barker and Herbert Wright in 1947. Although this source is slightly dated, the information gathered is still relevant in portraying the idea that environmental factors are more important than personality. This meticulous 25 year long study by Barker monitored the effect of context on behaviour of 100 children, studying them until adulthood. At a time when video equipment was not available, the results were extremely detailed allowing reliable conclusions to be drawn from these.
“…the behaviour setting provided information in which allowed explanations for the behaviour observed. Individuals move through a wide range of behaviour settings each day, and it is not personality traits which control behaviour.” (Cassidy 2003:47)
The conclusions drawn from Barker’s experiment are very accurate due to the fact that there was so much information gathered. Comparisons could be made due to the vast amount of research collated and the number of participants that took part in the experiment and it could be concluded that there cannot be a separation of behaviour from its setting. Context can influence our experience so by watching lots of different individuals, results could be compared on their placement. By repeating similar aspects of this experiment making use of video equipment, recordings could be watched repeatedly to gain a greater understanding.

Another source, Bronfenbrenner, argues that behaviour settings offer inadequate reasons as an individual’s experience of context is not included. He argues that “behaviour settings provide incomplete explanations because they do not include the person’s experience and appraisals of the context” (Cassidy 2003:51). Bronfenbrenner disputes that response to a place is specific to an individual and personality does in fact come into it. Individuals are all brought up differently and are taught to behave differently so by placing a number of people in certain contexts they are likely to behave slightly differently - this is not due to the context but to their own individual personalities. Memories also play an important part in explaining Bronfenbrenner’s theory because an individual will remember how they behaved in an environment previously or how someone else behaved, thus influencing how they respond.

From presenting these conflicting sources, Cassidy feels strongly enough to present his own ideas about how small changes in context can have a massive impact on behaviour. These might take the form of either physical or social aspects provoking a positive or negative response from an individual. When people are presented with things that they are unfamiliar with, their behaviour changes. For example, if a person from a high class neighbourhood was presented with graffiti they may feel uneasy and threatened whereas a person from a rough neighbourhood may not respond in a negative way. Something that we are subjected to often will in time have little effect on us - presented with something new and we are more likely to respond.


Although both sources have similar underlying themes, there is a slightly different content in each source. Taylor specifically talks about behaviour in neighbourhoods and how individuals within a community can have a positive or negative response to their surroundings. Raising the issue that these small changes within context can have a massive impact, designers are now trying to accommodate these problems and are trying to come up with solutions. Designing Safer Environments echoes what is said by Taylor but shows specific examples of how each context has different problems that have been understood to enable better design solutions. For example by changing the orientation of buildings so that they overlook public spaces, we are more conscious as individuals of what is going on around us (Stephen 2006:7). By studying contrasting neighbourhoods using crime rates and photographs, one could conduct a mini experiment in which observations could be made about the design of a neighbourhood.

Instead of highlighting the small changes in contexts that can affect our behaviour, Cassidy presents us with different environments that are the most influential in imposing change to our normal behaviour, e.g. school, home, neighbourhoods. Experiments in each of these areas are presented in extensive detail creating a greater understanding of the objective, the advantage of this being that a large number of experiments have been conducted so that stronger conclusions can be made. The sources offered to us from Cassidy are all very reliable but compared to Taylor’s they are a little outdated, with one of experiments commencing in 1947. Lasting 25 years there is no denying that this experiment is extensive but conditions in these times were very different to what they are like now so it is hard to compare the results with the current circumstances. Problems faced in that period would have been different to the problems faced nowadays and a more up to date experiment could be conducted so that results could be compared from two different eras. Newspapers such as The Guardian are up to date sources about the latest attempts to try and tackle crime within a community but also they document designer’s attempts to try and solve these problems. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/19/public-services-policy-michael-bichard-design-council (2 December 2009))

Each day in different contexts, small changes can alter behaviour. An artist who uses this as a platform in which to present his work on is Banksy. It is clear that most of his designs are created to draw a response, sometimes positive but mainly negative. As Taylor and Cassidy both stress, these small changes can affect people differently and Banksy manipulates this to gain attention. By placing his stencils in the places he does he is rewarded with the maximum response and can communicate his opinions. As a designer it is important to understand certain things such as where a product is best suited and who it is best suited for. Although Banksy ‘writes on walls’, a lot of thought from his behalf goes into researching the area that will receive the most response. With different attitudes to this work it is clear that the upbringing of an individual plays an important role in interpretation, something that Taylor and Cassidy both convey - but what if they are wrong? A report by Nuffield council on Bioethics asks the questions if our genes have more to do with our behaviour than context and if anti – social behaviour has got anything to do with our upbringing? A little more research into this topic would provide a better understanding to the relationships between genetics and upbringing and the response to context. We cannot choose to ignore this source, as it may be vital in explaining other issues that context cannot.

Context and behaviour is such an interesting topic and as an Interior and Environmental Designer it is important to consider every aspect of our design and be sensitive to an environment's needs. Extensive research is required when trying to understand a context and the people that inhabit it - get this wrong and you risk upsetting whole communities!

Bibliography

Banksy, 2006, Wall and piece, Arrow Books Ltd, United Kingdom.

Barker, R.G. & Wright, H. 1955, Midwest and its children, Row and Petersen, New York.

Bronfenbrenner, U 1979, The ecology of human development, MA: Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Cassidy, T 2003, Environmental psychology, Psychology Press, East Sussex.

Dudman, J 2008, The wow factor, The Guardian, viewed 2 December 2009, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/19/public-services-policy-michael-bichard-design-council>.

Hunter, A 1974, Symbolic communities, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Kasarda, J.D. & Janowitz, M 1974, ‘Community attachment in mass society’, American Socialogical Review, vol 39, 328-339.

Kennedy, I 2002, Genetics and human behaviour, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, London.

Manco, T 2002, Stencil Graffiti, Thames & Hudson, London.

Muir, H 2009, Kent police attribute massive reduction in crime to neighbourhood teams, The Guardian, viewed 21 November 2009, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/21/kent-police-crime-neighbourhood-teams>.

Stephen, S 2006, Designing safer places, The Scottish Executive, Edinburgh.

Taylor, R. B. 1996, ‘Neighbourhood responses to disorder and local attachments: the systemic model of attachment, social disorganization, and neighbourhood use value’, Sociological Forum, vol. 11, no.1, pp. 41-74.

Context and Design

Recently I have gained a deeper understanding of just how much context effects design... Gaining information for my last task in the design studies assignments I began to truly understand how different environments provide different reactions to art and design. An example of this would be graffiti. Some people see this as a piece of art while others see it as vandalism, but why is this?

Context. Depending on many factors, e.g. where you were raised, what was happening in the environment around you, what you were interested in as a child, etc, these would all play part in how you respond to things. Personally for me I think graffiti is art, purely because it is not always just a spur of the moment thing. Some 'designers' think about where to place their graffiti for the best response and how to layer things so that some parts jump out and capture the viewer. Graffiti gets a better response in some areas than others so it is important for this to be taken into consideration. Graffiti is a platform for people to raise issues important to them so we as designers have to be careful about which we show case our design as some people may not respond how we want them to...

Assignment 1: Arguments and Evidence

We as humans are very sensitive to the environment around us, whether we are conscious of this or not. In the chapter, The Power of Context (Part one), Gladwell presents Bernie Goetz to us. A seemingly 'normal' man, who was approached by four black youths and asked for $5 on a subway car. Goetz shoots at these youths and leaves one paralysed but is still hailed as a 'hero'. Crazy?

Three of these four youths were carrying screwdrivers (clearly looking for trouble) and they had all committed previous offences, so really Goetz was cleaning up the streets, wasn't he? I mean he was clearly a normal man who had had enough of the violent crimes occurring and decided to take a stand! Wrong! Gladwell and the reader delve into Goetz's past and learn about how he was merely an accident waiting to happen. He was a class example of an emotionally unstable person - bullied as a child, abused by his father, a social misfit... It was only a matter of time before the environment around him made him 'tip'.

Reading The Tipping Point was very interesting for me. Never before have I read a book that has made me think about things so much or agree with statements I had never questioned before. The book for me was very enjoyable but at times sometimes hard to read. Gladwell presents many ideas all at once, sometimes bringing points up which had be discussed previously and this sometimes confused me.

Creating the mind maps made me understand things more and reinforced ideas that initially I had found hard to understand. I choose the Power of Context chapter to look at in more detail because for me it was the most interesting chapter. I had never thought before that crimes could be committed because of the environment around us. Splitting the chapter into different parts allowed me to focus on key points, e.g. Crime, Goetz, etc, and mind map these into more detail.

The mind mapping allowed me to understand more of the book than would have been possible by writing screeds and screeds of linear notes. If I forgot anything while I was mind mapping the first time I could always go back and add more (even my own opinions).