Diseño y viviendaSeraHawaii

SOME PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS LINKED TO HOUSING’S INTERNAL INHABITABILITY 1. Ana Maritza Landázuri*, 2. Serafín Joel Mercado** y 3. Alejandra Terán* *Facultad de Estudios Superiores Iztacala, UNAM. Av. de los Barrios Número 1, Los Reyes Iztacala, Tlalnepantla Estado de México. **Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Av. Universidad 3004 México Distrito Federal. 04510 1. alandazu@yahoo.com 2. sjmercad@prodigy.net.mx 3. aleteran@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research was to analyze how some of the characteristics of the architectural design influence housing’s internal inhabitability, as well as the psychological transactions that happen between these aspects of relationship of man with his dwelling. A no probabilistic intentional sample was used in Mexico City’s Metropolitan Zone. Some variables were explored through a scale and the others were taken directly from architectonic plans of the house. Study was exploratory, expostfacto. For the statistical treatment, a multiple linear regression analysis was employed and a multidimensional scaling was employed also. The results confirm how some of the aspects of the architectural design of housing satisfy the needs and expectative of its inhabitants.

KEY WORDS: Architectural design, psychological transactions, inner inhabitability, environmental psychology.

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Introduction The dwelling is the oldest and most important interaction setting for human beings, both individually and collectively.

Our point of departure is the relationship of human beings with their milieu specially the dwelling, considering that it is the fundamental unit for family life and people’s basic territory.

We talk about milieu, considering that from different perspectives and disciplines the view has been accepted that man alters the nature of the environment and in return, the environment affects people’s behavior. Environmental psychology studies the relationship between man and its sociophysical environment, recognizing the inextricable unity between the social and the Physical aspects (Stokols 1978).

This has been approached from a cognitive vantage point that integrates aspects from several cognitive trends such as Information Processing, Constructivism, Social Cognition and Transactional Psychology. This broad cognitive position allows us the understanding of the relationship between subjects and their milieu.

From this perspective, environmental information interacts with the inner structures of the subject in such a way that inner models of reality are constructed that are dependent of both the input and the information the subject holds in the form of memories, expectations, sets, and the context. From this point of view, we made an effort to analyze the transactions of the subject with its home, trying to determine the effect of some design variables upon this process.

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We assume Wapner’s (1991) position, taking as the unit the personenvironment system, which implies that the individual is always inextricably embedded in some sort of environment in such a way that the person is part of a greater totality; the person in the environmental system that operate as a whole in such a way that any disturbance in a part affects the whole system.

The cognitive structure is defined as the set of beliefs, values, precepts and attitudes that the individual has regarding the actual and potential settings; being affected by the sociocultural variables, such as cultural background, age, gender, social class, occupation (Wapner, 1991). In this context is that we attempt to understand the relationship between subject’s experiences and the design of the house.

Inhabitability is the satisfaction or pleasure felt by inhabitants of a given setting dependent on the degree to which the design satisfies their needs and expectative. It is the attribute of built spaces of satisfying the objective and subjective needs of individuals and groups that occupy them. It is the extent to which the settings and the institutional structures function for the objectives they were designed for and thus generate the satisfaction of their inhabitants (Castro, 1999).

In this paper we examine the design characteristics of housing. The main theoretical framework of this research is the work of Mercado et al (Mercado & González, 1991; Mercado, Ortega, Luna & Estrada, 1994, 1995), who generated a model of the dwelling’s perception and evaluation that includes the concept of inhabitability and the entailment 4

of this with the psychological factors that determine it.

We were

interested on which design factors affected inhabitability.

Alter an analyses, we concluded that design factors should be an important determinant of inhabitability and that taking in account factor related to space, setting communication and organization and the support provides by the design to social processes should affect the inhabitability.

The purpose of this research was to analyze how some of the characteristics

of

the

architectural

design

(housing’s

physical

dimensions, connectivity, circulations, sociopetality, safety, depth, and surveillance influence housing’s internal inhabitability, as well as the psychological transactions that take place between these aspects of the relationship of man with his primary environment surrounding intended by the dwelling, manifested through subjective factors such as

control,

activation,

pleasure,

fulfilled

values,

privacy,

meaningfulness, functionality and operability.

METHOD The working hypothesis was that the architectural design has influence on inhabitability through their effect upon the psychological variables included in the model.

The independent variables were the traits of design and the dependent ones Inner inhabitability and the psychological variables included in the model. A non probabilistic intentional sample from

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Mexico City’s Metropolitan Zone was used, selecting acquaintances to choose dwellings for the sample. Houses, not subjects were analyzed.

Some variables were explored through a scale and the others were taken directly from architectonic plans of the house. To measure inhabitability and the related psychological variables Mercado, Ortega, Luna and Estrada’s (1995) instrument was used.

The study was exploratory, expostfacto. A multiple linear regression analysis was employed to establish the relationship between the variable and a multidimensional scaling analysis was used also to establish the grouping of the design factors.

RESULTS Results confirm that the aspects of the architectural design of housing we explored are related to the needs and expectative of its inhabitants.

It is important to point out that the explained variance in the dependent variables ranged between 12 and 50%.

The main findings were: Arousal had the highest explained variance (50%). This variable is linked

significantly with

number of spaces, total

circulations,

circulations that allow getting through easily, sociopetality and connectivity.

The number of spaces affects arousal by increasing the number of opportunities to do things. Number of circulations has an inverse

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relationship with arousal as they provide a greater privacy and lessen interference and conflict.

It was also found that distance to public spaces, the number of spaces (rooms) and the safety in the circulations was related to the pleasure obtained from the houses milieu.

Control is affected by the number of connections between areas, which gives greater control over the environment as, with a greater number of connections you have an ampler choice of routes and greater access to places.

As we could have expected, operability and functionality have an important overlap, sharing space’s average size, and the number of circulations. Operability is the easiness of displacement and action in order to get around doing the different everyday jobs, while functionality implies the congruence between the organization of space and objects and the sequence of actions in a task. Both are supported by the availability of space to move around and to organize it, provided by the size of the rooms and the availability of circulations.

Privacy is affected only by the number of circulations, as when there are more circulations you get a better control of the access others have to the information about you an your activities that you want to retain confidential.

Finally, meaningfulness is affected by the number of built square meters, the number of spaces, the room’s average size, the closeness to public spaces and the number of circulations; all of which are related

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to status. People with the larger homes, with a greater number of larger rooms, more halls and stairways and more rooms connected with the outside are undoubtedly the richer and more powerful individuals.

CONCLUSIONS We obtained evidence of some factors that affect the inner inhabitability of homes in urban areas. This enables us to better understand the relationship between inhabitants and their home.

This

evidence

should

improve

post-occupation

evaluation

procedures by pointing some critical aspects to consider.

Norms can

be

generated

regarding

the

aspects that

we

demonstrated are important for the quality of housing, aspects that undoubtedly can be incorporated to architectural theorizing.

The evidence of the relationship between inhabitability and quality of family’s life implies that the relationships we found are aspects to be taken in account, specially when dealing with social interest housing, which due to economic reasons, tend to be smaller and simpler every time.

REFERENCES Canter, D. (1978). Psicología en el Diseño Ambiental. México; Concepto.

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Castro, M. E. (1999). Habitabilidad, medio ambiente y ciudad. 2° Congreso Latinoamericano “El habitar. Una Orientación para la Investigación

Proyectual”.

México;

Universidad

Autónoma

Metropolitana.

Bell, P. A., Greene T. C., Fisher J. D. & Baum A. (2001).

Environmental Psychology. NY; Hartcourt College Publishers.

Mercado, S. y González, J. (1991). Evaluación Psicosocial de la Vivienda. México; INFONAVIT. Mercado, S. Ortega, P. Estrada, C. y Luna, M. (1994). Factores Psicológicos y Ambientales de la Habitabilidad de la Vivienda.

México; UNAM. Mercado, S.

Ortega, P. Estrada, C. y Luna, M. (1995).

Habitabilidad de la Vivienda Urbana. México; UNAM. Stokols, D. (1978). Environmental psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 29, 253-295.

Wapner, S. (1991). A holistic, developmental, systems-oriented environmental psychology: Some beginnings. In: D. Stokols and I. Altman (Eds.). Handbook of Environmental Psychology. 2: 14331474. Malabar; Krieger Publishing Company.

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