IAPS BULLETIN Nº44

of People-Enviromental Studies

MOVING FROM INTERDISCIPLINARY TO TRANSDISCIPLINARY CONTRIBUTIONS DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC: TRASCENDENCE

IAPS SYMPOSIUM DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – SEPTEMBER 2017 KNOWLEDGE FOR CLIMATE-PROOF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN RAPIDLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS www.iaps2017.com

Editor: Ricardo García Mira CONVERSE OR CONVERGING DISCIPLINES BEHAVIOR SETTINGS, AFFORDANCES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PREFERENCE URBAN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY & SPATIAL COGNITION: THEORETICAL VIEW & COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE AGEING, URBAN ENVIRONMENTS AND PLACE: MOVING TOWARDS A TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AGENDA THE RESTORATIVE POTENTIAL OF PUBLIC AQUARIUMS: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF VIEWING SUB-AQUATIC ENVIRONMENTS

AUTUMN 2016 - #44

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International Association for People-Environment Studies aims to improve the physical environment and human well-being.

Submissions Whilst we encourage all our members to submit material, any submission for inclusion in the Bulletin should be written to high standards of English grammar and punctuation. To help the review process, we kindly ask you have the material checked by a fluent English speaker before submitting it to the Bulletin.

Please, send your contributions for the next issue by e-mail to Ricardo García Mira, at the following address: bulletin.iaps@gmail.com

Bulletin of PeopleEnviromental Studies.

Autumn 2016 Number 44 ISSN: 1301 - 3998

All manuscripts should be written in Times New Roman 12 pt., double-spaced. The maximum word length for articles is 2000 words. Include names, affiliation and full contact details of all the authors.

www.iaps-association.org

Instructions on how to become an IAPS member, or to renew your membership, are available on the IAPS webiste:

Editor Ricardo García Mira

iaps-association.org

Editorial Team Tony Craig Sigrun Kabisch Taciano Milfont Adriana Portella Henk Staats Clare Twigger-Ross

Photo Credits All photographs included in this list are under a Creative Commons license: Attribution-noncommercial 3.0 Unported.

Cover: Whitney Museum of American Art by Shinya Suzuki*.

Page 2: Dubai By Night @ Burj Khalifa by Martijn Barendse*.

Page 5: Park Fountain by Guru Sno Studios*.

Page 18: Tram in Torino, Italyn by photobeppus*.

Page 22: DF, Brasil 22/102015 by Pedro Ventura/Agência Brasília*.

Page 22: Edinburgh by Guido Heitkoetter*.

Page 28: Aquarium Monaco by Willo Eurlings*.

Back: The High Line by Payton Chung*.

* Flickr user

IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

Editorial Committee Aleya Abdel-Hadi Giuseppe Carrus Angela Castrechini Arza Churchman José A. Corraliza Sandrine Depeau Edward Edgerton Ferdinando Fornara Birgitta Gattersleben Bernardo Hernández Corina Ilin Maria Johanson Florian Kaiser Peter Kellett Marketta Kitta Roderick Lawrence Jeanne Moore Enric Pol Ombretta Romice Massimiliano Scopelliti Kevin Thwaites Hulya Turgut David Uzzell

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IAPS Board 2016-2018 Ricardo García Mira, President, Bulletin Editor

Taciano Milfont, YRW

Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand

University of A Coruña Spain Tony Craig, Secretary

Adriana Portella, Membership, Bulletin, Website

The James Hutton Institute Scotland, UK

Federal University of Pelotas Brazil

Clare Twigger-Ross, Treasurer

Collingowood Environmental Planning Ltd. UK

Petra Schweizer-Ries, Website, Membership

Bochum University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Caroline Hagerhall, Membership

Seungkwang Shon, Conference support

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Sweden

Dongshin University South Korea

Sigrun Kabisch, Conference support, Publications. Helmholtz Centre for

Ian Simkins, Networks

Environmental Research Germany

Experiemics, Experiential Landscape Research UK

Karina Landeros, YRW

Henk Staats, Conference support, YRW

National Autonomous University of Mexico

Universiteit Leiden The Netherlands

The IAPS Board is now structured into four workgroups, each with a lead responsible member.

Management Responsible: Ricardo García Mira (President).

Members: Tony Craig (Secretary), Clare Twigger-Ross (Treasurer), Petra Schweizer-Ries (Membership), Adriana Portella (Membership).

Tasks: finances, membership, profile, constitution, elections, meetings, conference voting, general liaison, and the public face of IAPS. Published Outputs Responsible: Ricardo García Mira (Bulletin).

Members: Sigrun Kabisch (Publications), Adriana Portella (Bulletin, Website), Petra Schweizer-Ries (Website) Tasks: bulletin, website, bibliography, publicity.

Conference related activities Responsible: Sigrun Kabisch (Conference Support).

Members: Karina Landeros (YRW), Taciano Milfont (YRW), Seungkwang Shon (Conference support), and Henk Staats (Conference support, YRW).

Tasks: Young Researchers Workshop, Hall of Fame, Conference support.

Networks Responsibles: Ian Simkins (Networks).

Members: Karina Landeros (Networks, YRW), Caroline Hägerhäll (Networks).

Tasks: IAPS networks coordination.

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Bulletin Summary EDITORIAL ADDRESS Editorial address (R. GarcĂ­a Mira)

P. 7

7 P. 8-30

CONTRIBUTIONS

Converse or Converging Disciplines (R. J. Lawrence) Behavior settings, affordances, and environmental preference (J. Nasar) Urban Economic Geography & Spatial Cognition: Theoretical View & Comparative Perspective (D. Stea)

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Ageing, Urban Environments and Place: Moving towards a transdisciplinary research agenda (R. Woolrych, J. Sixsmith)

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The restorative potential of public Aquariums: Psychological and Physiological effects of viewing sub-aquatic environments (D. Cracknell, S. Pahl, M. P. White, M. H. Depledge)

25 P. 31-36

RESEARCH PROGRAMS

Urban Transformations: sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience (S. Kabisch, F. Koch) Sustainable Cities. Many roles for environmental psychology (Henk Staats)

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P. 37-45

PAST CONFERENCES

24 IAPS Conference Activities of the Division of Environmental Psychology The Psychology of Architecture: Some observations on a Texan renaissance th

37 42 44 P. 46-49

NEXT CONFERENCES

IAPS 2017 Symposium XIV Conference on Environmental Psychology

46 49 P. 50-55

NEWS

Opening Agendas. The Catalysts of Social Innovation: Power, politics, and the moment for Urban Social Innovation An Award-Winning Project of IAPS-CS Network (H. Turgut)

50 52 P. 56-57

THESIS

The Impact of Learning Space Design and other Socio-Physical variables in the process of teaching and learning (V. Lรณpez-Chao)

56 P. 58-59

PUBLICATIONS

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning Land Ownership and Land use Development

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Editorial address,

by Ricardo García Mira We begin a new year full of exciting activities that characterize our research work. Projects, conferences, symposia, a diversity of research meetings, all marking a common pathway: to advance knowledge on people -environment relations.

This last year we celebrated 24th IAPS Conference in Lund and Alnarp, which focused on the analysis of aspects of interest in our spatial relationships and the necessary transition to sustainability that must take place in the context of home, work or leisure. As we are now accustomed to see in our best conferences, that of Lund and Alnarp attracted more than 400 delegates who participated in the various programmed activities.

Congratulations to Maria Johansson and Caroline Hägerhäll and their team for the great work they have done! The conference was a very exciting and interesting event. Alongside the conference, we celebrated our periodic Board meeting and the General Annual Meeting.

young researchers who made IAPS a meeting place not only for senior researchers but also for bright young researchers who came to the IAPS doctoral workshops to learn and develop their knowledge in our field and today run their own teams and Projects; Gabriel strengthened the international dimension and extended IAPS to Latin America and Africa. His ability to connect with different cultures and in different languages made it possible to expand IAPS in countries in Latin America, such as Brazil, or Africa, such as Egypt, and also to strengthen intercultural relations; Ombretta represented youth in the leadership of IAPS, and she refined the organization’s communication tools with the wider scientific community as well as strengthened collaboration with our sister organizations in Asia, especially in China and South Korea. Finally, Edward reinforced the role of IAPS as an international think tank, publicizing its capabilities and experience, as well as its interdisciplinary and international collaborative dimension.

The meeting in Lund was also an occasion to pay homage to our past presidents: Rikard Küller (1981-1984), Giles Barbey-Feer (1984-1992), Arza Churchman (19921998), David Uzzell (1998- 2004), Gabriel Moser (20042008), Ombretta Romice (2008-2012) and Edward Edgerton (2012-2014). Across IAPS´s lifetime, they contributed to creating an association that stimulates interdisciplinary collaboration: The pioneer Rikard Küller, who laid the legal foundations of the association and brought together people that had an interest in research work that had already been initiated since 1969; Gilles continued the work of consolidating the organization and laying the foundations for a greater linkage between disciplines, mainly between psychology and architecture, and thus expanding the focus of IAPS; Arza, the first woman to chair the organization, strengthened the psychological perspective on design and pushed the work of many women researchers who emerged with force in the early 90’s; David faced the millennium change and supported the work of many

Sigrun Kabisch and Henk Staats tell us about their experience and research concerns in relation to sustainable urban development, sustainable cities and the psychological and sociological dimensions involved.

Finally, we dedicate several pages to recreating the development of our most recent conferences.

Among the agreements reached during these meetings, it is worth mentioning that the Bulletin will be somewhat smaller from now on but will be published at a higher frequency, thus adapting to the present time. Another important aspect is the IAPS website, which has a new and contemporary design, including features that make it more interactive and operational, , and in which the networks are updating more frequently the information of interest for their members. Our member database is now more efficient and the website more visited. It has also been connected to the PayPal system, which allows an easier renewal and update of membership.

The contributions contained in this issue of the Bulletin address relevant themes for our field of research and practice. Roderick Lawrence analyzes the evolution of the dichotomy between the disciplinary and the interdisciplinary, and proposes to go further by deepening the need to go towards transdisciplinarity and thus transcend the idea of generating new knowledge. Jack Nasar analyzes nightime experience in different behavioral scenarios and explores the types of lighting that affect spatial behavior. David Stea brings with his contribution a new reflection on the variables that affect spatial cognition in relation to what has been the evolution of urban centers and peripheries and their associated economic geographies. Ryan Woolrych and Judith Sixsmith take us back to the transdisciplinary agenda by focusing on the principles of this approach applied to the project they have just begun, exploring the sense of place in the development and promotion of age friendly communities and the barriers posed by the absence of a transdisciplinary approach. From a more focused perspective on the psychological dimensions of the environment, Deborah Cracknell and her colleagues address research that discusses the potential and restorative capacity of environments with natural species, specifically aquariums, and their impact on health and wellbeing.

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Converse or Converging Disciplines

INTRODUCTION

Roderick J. Lawrence Emeritus Professor at the University of Geneve (Swithzerland) roderick.lawrence@unige.ch

ABSTRACT

People-environment studies have been interdisciplinary for decades. This article briefly considers the contribution of research between and across disciplines during the study of people environment relations by the international community of participants in IAPS activities during the last four decades. This broad field has multidisciplinary origins. However, these origins have not always led to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contributions. The low level of collaborative research between researchers in different disciplines already identified in the late 1980s has not changed much since. The author requests a fundamental rethinking of the added value of inter- and trans- disciplinary research to address the complexity of people-environment relations and to improve the impact of research in this field on policy definition and implementation.

People-environment studies is a term that refers to a broad multidisciplinary field of theoretical and applied research stemming from a concern about the multiple relations between people and their immediate surroundings. The term ‘immediate surroundings’ refers to the internal and external conditions of human habitats, from the scale of rooms in different types of buildings, to residential neighbourhoods in cities, and the ambient environmental conditions of urban agglomerations and their hinterlands. During the 1960s, architects and psychologists played a crucial role working at the micro-scale of habitable rooms, buildings and neighbourhoods. These contributions were labelled architectural psychology (Pol, 1993). They were meant to identify how people perceive and use their immediate surroundings in terms of their personal traits and the physical fabric of buildings. These contributions were explicitly interdisciplinary because they involved at least two researchers trained in two different disciplines who were committed to advancing knowledge by combining known disciplinary concepts and methods in novel ways.

The earliest public conferences about peopleenvironment relations in Europe were held in KingstonUpon-Thames (UK , in 1970), Lund (Sweden, in 1973), Strasbourg (France, in 1976), Louvain-la- Neuve (Belgium, in 1979), and Guildford, (UK, in 1979) shared the denomination

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‘International Architectural Psychology Conferences’ (Pol, 1993). It is noteworthy that the conference held in Louvain-la-Neuve from 10-14th July 1979 was jointly organized by the Centre for Urban and Rural Sociology in the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Economic, Political and Social Sciences, and the Research Centre for Architecture, in the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Applied Sciences. Consequently, the denomination ‘architectural psychology’ could be interpreted as a misnomer because it does not represent the factual contributions of researchers and practitioners from multiple disciplines involved in the programme of this conference.

In 1981, the foundation of the International Association for the Study of People and their Physical Surroundings (IAPS) was formalized in London. Elsewhere, the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) was founded in North America in 1968.

Other regional associations include the Association for People and Physical Environment Research (PAPER) founded in Australia and New Zealand in 1980, and the Man -Environment Research Association (MERA) founded in Japan in 1982. The IAPS institutional framework has provided a platform for researchers from multiple disciplines to share their research findings and learn from others working on the same or similar subjects in different cultural and geographical contexts.

promotion in their own discipline, to the departmental organization and structure of universities founded on strong disciplinary borders, and the strong focus on academic publication channels that prioritize specific competences, as well as the relatively low allocation of public and private funds for interdisciplinary research. Is it therefore excusable that the added value of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research has rarely been a core subject of debate at IAPS conferences and symposia? This author requests a debate on this subject.

LOOKING BACK TO THE FUTURE

Transdisciplinary contributions involve mutual learning, joint problem definition, and the sharing of data and information in order to solve realworld problems by applying contextually specific knowledge in precise situations.

OBSTACLES TO COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

Pol (1993) showed that collaborative research between authors in Europe trained in different disciplines was marginal during the 1970s and 1980s in the field of people-environment studies. This tendency to work within disciplinary borders has not evolved in recent decades! There are academic and institutional reasons for this which are common to the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities as documented by recent research (Bromham, Dinnage & Hua (2016).

These obstacles extend beyond the choice of disciplinary confinement by many individuals concerned by recognition by colleagues and career

We have noted that the origins of peopleenvironment studies were explicitly multidisciplinary and sometimes interdisciplinary. Given that the interrelations between people and their immediate surroundings should not be delimited and reduced to traditional disciplinary concepts and methods, more interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contributions are necessary in order to address the complexity of the subjects studied in this field. These kinds of contributions can apply a broad integrated perspective which recognizes that architectural, behavioural, cultural, economic, social, physical, political and psychological factors need to be considered simultaneously if a comprehensive understanding of people and their immediate surroundings is to complement disciplinary and professional interpretations.

This author has emphasized that the either/or dichotomy of the current debate on disciplinary versus interdisciplinary research discussed in the special issue of Nature (16th September 2015) needs to be surpassed.

It’s time to admit that disciplinary and interdisciplinary research can and should coexist, because the cobenefits of interdisciplinary research for individuals, research groups, and research institutions in the public and private sectors can lead to added value for society (Lawrence, 2016).

CREATING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING

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This request cannot be successfully answered until there is a shared understanding among the IAPS

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Figure 1: Disciplinary concepts and methods from human geography, social anthropology, psychology, and sociology were combined creatively to create the new interdisciplinary concept place identity.

membership about an interdisciplinary epistemology of people-environment relations! Today, the lack of shared understanding is partly related to the short history of divergent, sometimes conflicting, positions about the denomination of the field as ‘environmental psychology’ which Pol (1993) has documented. During the late 1970s, the term ‘architectural psychology’ was largely replaced by ‘environmental psychology’. This change was driven by psychologists who envisaged a broader range of settings than buildings for research which could include gardens, green public spaces, forests, national parks and other natural environments. However, the question debated at that time was: Are we involved in a young sub-discipline?

Many researchers who were not trained in psychology argued then that the term ‘environmental psychology’ did not reflect the broad scope and the wide range of multidisciplinary concepts that have been applied to study many subjects, such as housing for different types of households and the requalification of residential neighbourhoods. These diverse contributions are from disciplines and professions including anthropology, architecture, epidemiology, ergonomics, human ecology, environmental and social psychology, geography, sociology

and town/urban planning. Many of these disciplines have not been represented at IAPS Conferences which also warrants more attention.

MOVING FROM INTERDISCIPLINARY TO TRANSDISCIPLINARY CONTRIBUTIONS

Today, we know that peopleenvironment relations are not structured within traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries. This is the main reason to propose a shift from disciplinary to interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary contributions in the field of people−environment studies.

This shift can provide the foundation for participative research and professional practice as some innovative contributions have shown (Lawrence, and Després, 2004; Lawrence, 2015).

Interdisciplinary contributions have been implemented in the social sciences for about a century. These contributions involve the convergence of several disciplines; each discipline retains its own concepts and methods that are applied to a mutually agreed subject. In these studies one contributor will usually coordinate the research process and seek integration. This integration may provide a synergy for the development of new concepts, as shown in Figure 1: IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

for example, in the 1970s in the field of PES, the disciplinary concepts of cultural identity (in anthropology), personal space and identity (in psychology), social class and position (in sociology) and space/place (in human geography) have been creatively used to generate the interdisciplinary concept known as place identity.

In contrast to interdisciplinary research, the defining characteristic of transdisciplinary contributions is transcendence. These contributions apply different types of knowledge (scientific knowledge, professional know-how and tacit knowledge) thus creating a broader knowledge domain than interdisciplinary contributions (Lawrence and Després, 2004).

Transdisciplinary contributions involve mutual learning, joint problem definition, and the sharing of data and information in order to solve real-world problems by applying contextually specific knowledge in precise situations (Lawrence, 2015).

There are a growing number of examples of transdisciplinary projects that implement PES, especially pragmatic responses to housing and urban situations that involve a number of nonacademic actors and institutions. These contributions are meant to reduce the long-standing applicability gap between research and practice by concerted

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action. This means that communication and negotiation processes are crucial to ensure the credibility, legitimacy and salience of selected subjects and research questions. In this respect, transdisciplinary contributions are quite different from basic research, interdisciplinary research and applied research (Hirsch Hadhorn et al., 2008).

A NEW RESEARCH AGENDA

Finally, IAPS could rethink the scope and content of its mission. It could endorse research about the organization and management of collaborative research projects in order to improve our current understanding of the relationships between representatives of two or more academic disciplines (e.g. anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists and psychologists as well as representatives of disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences).

These relationships will be defined by similarities and differences between the disciplines. Much more research is required to identify what selected disciplines share in common and to what degree they differ: Do some disciplinary concepts, terminology and research methods inhibit collaboration between disciplines whereas others enable dialogue?

IAPS could also endorse the growing volume of innovative research that tackles wicked problems stemming from people-environment relations (e.g. loss of biodiversity, migration flows, urbanization trends) by using tools and methods such as agent-based modelling, scenarios, and a range of simulation tools that apply systemic conceptual frameworks rarely presented in IAPS conferences or publications.

A century after the endorsement of interdisciplinary research by the

International Council for Social Science we still do not have an understanding of the degree of similarity and difference between concepts, methods and theories in the natural and social sciences and the humanities about people-environment relations. Once these are understood then further empirical research is necessary to explore how representatives of disciplines can and actually do collaborate to deal with complex subjects in this field. This approach can then be enlarged to a transdisciplinary perspective by considering how scientists, professionals and other representatives of civil society collaborate with each other.

Note The author thanks Tony Craig for comments and suggestions he provided on an earlier draft of this paper.

References • Bromham, L., Dinnage, R., Hua, X. (2016) Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success. Nature, 534, 684–687 (30 June 2016) doi:10.1038/ nature18315.

• Després, C., Brais, N., Avellan, S. (2004) Collaborative planning for retrofitting suburbs: transdisciplinarity and intersubjectivity in action. Futures, 36, 471−486.

• Hirsch Hadorn, G., Hoffmann-Riem, H., Biber-Klemm, S., Grossenbacher-Mansuy, W., Joye, D., Pohl, C., Wiesmann, U., Zemp, E. (eds) (2008) Handbook of transdisciplinary research. Berlin: Springer.

• Lawrence, R. (ed) (2015) Advances in transdisciplinarity 2004-2014. Futures, 65, 1-216 (special issue).

• Lawrence, R. & Després, C. (eds) (2004) Futures of transdisciplinarity. Futures, 36, 397−526 (special issue).

• Pol, E. (1993). Environmental psychology in Europe: From architectural psychology to green psychology. Aldershot UK, Avebury.

• Lawrence, R. (2016) Interdisciplinary science: A coming of age? Bulletin of the New York Academy of Sciences, posted 3rd May 2016 http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Detail.aspx?cid=f01521e6-851c-429d-8a7e92e0d385d1d1

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Behavior settings, affordances, and environmental preference

Jack Nasar Professor Emeritus, City and Regional Planning Section The Ohio State University nasar.1@osu.edu

Streets and squares are the lifeblood of the city (Jacobs, 1961).

As such, they deserve and have received the attention of person-environment research (see for example, Gehl, 2011).

For such research, I find it useful to consider urban squares and public places through the lens of two related types of ecological psychology: The ecological psychology of behavior developed at the Midwest Field Station (see Wicker, 2002 for a review) and the ecological psychology of visual perception (Gibson, 2014).

Through specimen records and setting records, researchers at the Midwest Field Station (MFS) found a local structuring of the environment in terms of behavior, and they found that place a person was in—the behavior setting-determined human behavior in it. The behavior setting had one or more standing patterns of behavior. The setting milieu (socio-physical conditions) surrounds the behavior in space and time. I believe that time represents an important somewhat overlooked dimension in research on persons and their surroundings. I will return to it later. The MFS observations showed that 1) behavior changes dramatically when a person moves from setting to setting; and 2) the behavior of different persons within a setting tended to be

more similar then the behavior of any of them in different settings. In this approach the ecological unit (a hybrid of behavior and the environment) is the behavior setting.

GGibson’s (2014) ecological psychology focused on visual perception. Though the focus of these two approaches differed, they shared a view of the interdependence of the environment and behavior. Gibson saw perception as a perceptual rather than a cognitive process; humans did not construct visual perception in our heads; instead, the environment offered “invariant” information that humans picked up through direct perception. In this approach, the ecological unit is our perceptual systems (a hybrid of the organism and its environment). According to Gibson, the perceptual systems evolved to pick up certain kinds of information from the environment. He came up with the important ecological concept of affordances. An affordance is the relation between an object in the environment and the organism that offers an opportunity for an action. For example, a row of metal hangers in a closet might afford a cat a place to sleep, but would not work for a dog or a human; a 1.6 m high doorway might afford passage for someone 1.5 m tall, but not for someone 1.9 m tall; stairs do not afford passage for a wheelchair, while a no-step or low slope entry does (Figure 1).

Affordances can play a role in behavior settings. Consider Whyte’s (1980) classic study on environment and behavior.

For his street-life project, he used stop-action cameras to record behavior in Manhattan plazas over three years in every kind of condition. He used the observations to learn what made some plazas more livable (filled with people) than others. The research is noteworthy for combining a

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Figure 1: The affordance of hangers for a cat, and of staris versus a no-step entry (right) for wheelchair user.

research question with policy and doing so through unobtrusive observation of behavior. Whyte used affordance terminology in referring to livable spaces. The term, and environmentbehavior hybrid, refers to the kind of plaza (livable) that affords the opportunity for people to stop and spend time. Whyte also used affordance terminology in referring to a key aspect of livability: sittable space. Rather than referring to chairs or seats, he used an environment-behavior term that refers to objects that afford people the opportunity to sit. His other “livable” elements also had an affordance characteristics. Movable chairs afforded people a feeling of control. Triangulation involved something that might stop people and lead them to interact with one another. Food vendors gave people nourishment (food or drink) while in the plaza. Deciduous trees afforded comfort, by blocking the summer sun and by letting the sun through in the winter. Connection to the street allowed passersby to see into the plaza and allowed plaza users to watch people.

Unfortunately, Whyte never reported the statistics that supported his conclusions, nor did the Project for Public Spaces (2011) in its studies of plazas and public spaces. Although studies on plazas did report the statistics (Joardar, 1977; Joardar & Neill, 1978; Mehta, 2007), they also took a correlational approach, which cannot establish cause. Though impressive, the research had not uncovered whether the specific physical characteristics affected the livability of the plazas.

A CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT ON SITTABLE SPACE, SCULPTURE, AND FOOD VENDORS

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To get at causality, my doctoral student and I ran a controlled experiment in which we tested the effects of three of the characteristics identified by Whyte and the others as affecting livability: sittable space, triangulation (through sculptures), and food vendors (Abdularim & Nasar, 2014).

We manipulated the three livable features in color photographs of three different squares. Figure 2 shows the eight conditions in one of them. A full factorial design in any one square for the presence or absence of each of the three features results in eight virtual squares. Across three squares, the study had 24 virtual squares. Had we added another feature, it would have required 81 plazas. We did not test vegetation, because of the substantial body of research on the desirability of nature; we did not test connection to the street/people watching because of the difficulty of showing it in color slides; and we did not test water, because we saw it as a mix of naturalness and triangulation, which we did test.

We obtained responses from 60 people (23 men and 37 women). As part of the study, we developed and tested a four-item scale to measure behavioral intent—the degree to which someone would want to visit and spend time in a place. The four item Perceived Visitability Scale (PVS) had high interitem reliability and each item had high inter-observer reliability. It also showed discriminant validity in differentiating

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between the three plazas and between effects of the presence or absence of the livable features. Research on behavioral intent suggests that the measure should predict actual behavior well (Webb & Sheeran, 2006).

The PVS ratings indicated that squares with seats, a food vendor, or sculpture had higher scores than plazas without those elements; and the combination of seats and sculpture had higher scores than either element alone. The ratings also indicated that sittable space had the largest effect.

These findings held across the three plazas, suggesting some generality, and in particular in light of the convergence with observational findings in so many different plazas.

DAY AND NIGHT EXPERIENCE OF NATURE

Recall I mentioned the importance of time for settings. These studies all dealt with experience during day light, as does much environment-behavior research. An earlier study of mine pointed to substantial differences in the day and nighttime experience of the same places. In particular, another doctoral student and I studied preference for natural environments and urban skylines during the day and after dark (Nasar & Terzano, 2010). In affordance terms, we suspected that natural scenes after dark would have negative affordances. After dark, natural environments become similar to the ambient optic array of a fog lacking differentiation and visibility (Gibson, 1979), and thus making it more difficult to detect people, shapes or surfaces.

This would threaten survival and evoke fear. In contrast, skylines after dark might have a desired visual complexity without the less desirable “building� elements in view, perhaps looking somewhat like stars in an evening sky. Our two studies re-affirmed the long-standing preference for natural environment (during daylight), but they also found that people liked skylines after dark even more, and that they gave the lowest scores to natural environments after dark (Nasar & Terzano, 2010).

A subsequent study examined the restorative value of a larger sample of natural scenes (pairs of four kinds of

Figure 2: One of the three squares with (clockwise from top right) none of the elements; seats; food vendor; seats and food vendor; all three elements; sculpture and food vendor; sculpture and seats; sculpture (Abdularim & Nasar, 2014).

natural environments, cultivated, fields with trees, water, and trails), and eight urban skylines (including two historical urban scenes), all matched for the day and nighttime view (Nasar, Pasini, Burro, & Paolillo, 2013). It too found that natural environments after dark had the lowest scores (Figure 5), and that natural environments during the day and historical environments during the day and after dark had the highest restorative scores.

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LIGHTING OF SQUARES AFTER DARK

The findings of differences in day and nighttime experience led me to return to the study of squares (Nasar & Bokharaei 2016). I thought that as behavior settings, their character might change from daytime to after dark. After dark, lighting takes on more importance. Studies had identified the modes of lighting that people notice and the effects of those modes

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Figure 3: The presence of seats, sculpture or a food cart had significant positive effects on visitability.

Figure 4: Skylines after dark received the highest pleasantness ratings (Nasar & Terzano, 2010).

Figure 5: Natural environments after dark had the lowest restorative scores (Nasar et al., 2013).

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of lighting on people’s impressions of office interiors (Flynn, 1988; Hawkes, Loe, & Rowlands, 1979; Veitch & Newsham, 1998). But office interiors are different settings from plazas after dark. Office interiors are private places while squares are tertiary or public territories that many people have the right to use (Altman, 1975). Such territories are more prone to crime and fear of crime (Cozens, Saville, & Hillier, 2005), and after dark, fear intensifies, and lighting that affords clear prospect (views ahead) might be preferred (Nasar & Fisher, 1993).

Thus, while for office interiors, the research suggested that people prefer peripheral, non-uniform, and bright lighting, for squares after dark, people would likely prefer overhead, uniform and bright lighting. It would give them the affordance of clear views ahead, with no dark spots that might hide a potential criminal.

To test this, we created color slides of three simulated squares each varied for mode of lighting --overhead or peripheral, uniform or non-uniform, and bright or dim (Nasar & Bokharaei, 2016). Figure 6 shows one of the squares. In a within-subject design, we obtained responses from 30 students (16 men, 14 women) to each of the 24 squares. We obtained ratings on each of the three salient aspects of emotional responses to places—pleasantness, excitement, and restfulness (Posner, Russell, & Peterson, 2005; Russell, Lewicka, & Nitt, 1989; Russell & Pratt, 1980). In 7-point bi-polar scales, participants rated each square separately for unappealing-appealing, dull-exciting, and safe-unsafe from crime. Thus, they made 72 ratings in orders randomized across the participants.

As suggested by consideration of setting characteristics, affordances, and fear or crime after dark, and unlike preferences for office interiors, preference was highest for squares with uniform, bright, and overhead lighting.

Uniform lighting had the largest effect followed by bright, and then overhead. A follow-up study with a larger and more diverse sample of adults from across the U.S. and with different manipulations of the peripheral lighting (slanting out or down) found the same effects.

16 CONCLUSION

In sum, ambient lighting conditions after dark affect impressions of one kind of setting—squares. I believe that for urban design, we need to know more about nighttime experience and the affordance provided by different kinds and modes of lighting for different populations, measures, and settings. We need to understand that experience for moving through spaces as opposed to looking at them, and we need to know how the mode of lighting affects spatial behavior.

Figure 6: One of the three squares in bright mode with mixes of the uniform or non-uniform and the overhead or peripheral modes (Nasar & .

Figure 7: For each square, participants preferred the uniform, bright, and the overhead lighting at statistically significant levels (Nasar & Bokharaei 2016).

Footnotes 1 2

I welcome your reactions: nasar.1@osu.edu.

An earlier classic study that paired observations with theory and public policy had also identified affordances in outdoor settings and used affordance terminology to describe the combination—defensible space (Newman, 1972).

References

• Abdulkarim, D. & Nasar, J. L. (2014). Do seats, food vendors, and sculptures improve plaza visitability? Environment and Behavior, 46(7), 805-825.

• Cozens, P. M., Saville, G., & Hillier, D. (2005). Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED): A review and modern bibliography. Property Management, 23, 328-356. doi:10.1108/02637470510631483

• Nasar, J. L. & Fisher, B. (1993). “Hot-spots” of fear and crime: A multi-method investigation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 13, 187-206. doi:10.1016/S02724944(05)80173-2

• Gehl, J. (2011). Life between buildings: using public space. Island Press.

• Nasar, J. L. Pasini, M., Burro, R., Paolillo, A., & Perry, S. (2013). Restorative value of nature and skylines in daylight and after dark. Paper presented at the 44th Environmental Design Research Association Conference, May 29- June 1, 2013, Providence, RI.

• Hawkes, R. J., Loe, D. L., & Rowlands, E. (1979). A note towards the understanding of lighting quality. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 8, 111-120. doi:10.1080/0 0994480.1979.10748578

• Project for Public Spaces. (2011). About PPS: Placemaking for communities. Retrieved from http://www.pps.org/about/approach/

• Gibson, J. J. (2014). The ecological approach to visual perception: classic edition.

Psychology Press.

• Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. Vintage.

• Joardar, S. D. (1977). Emotional and behavioral responses to plazas: A case study of downtown Vancouver (Doctoral dissertation, University of Vancouver, Canadian thesis on microfiche, no 34854). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/20684 • Joardar, S. D. & Neill, J. (1978). The subtle differences in configuration of small public spaces. Landscape Architecture, 68, 487-491.

• Mehta, V. (2007). Lively streets: Determining environmental characteristics to support social behavior. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 27, 165-187.

• Nasar, J. L. & Bokharaei, S. (2016). Impressions of Lighting in Public Squares after Dark.

Environment and Behavior, 0013916515626546.

• Posner J., Russell, J. A., & Peterson, B. S. (2005). The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 715-734.

• Russell. J. A., Lewicka, M., & Nitt T. (1989) A cross-cultural study of the circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 848-856.

• Russell, J. A. & Pratt, G. A. (1980) description of the affective quality attributed to environments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 311.

• Veitch, J. A. & Newsham, G. R. (1998). Lighting quality and energy-efficiency effects on task performance, mood, health, satisfaction, and comfort. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 27, 107-129. doi:10.1080/00994480.1998.10748216

• Webb, T. L. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological bulletin, 132(2), 249.

• Wicker, A. W. (2002). Ecological psychology: Historical contexts, current conception, prospective directions. Handbook of environmental psychology, 114-126.

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17

Urban Economic Geography & Spatial Cognition: Theoretical View & Comparative Perspective

David Stea Research Associate, Center for Global Justice, (Mexico); Emeritus Professor of Geography and International Studies, (Texas State University – San Marcos) david.stea@gmail.com

Lynch’s work stressed visual potency in the formation of urban mental images. Later work investigated the roles of historical importance or touristic appeal (e.g. Downs and Stea, 1977; Stea and Wood, 1971). A variable largely omitted regarding cognitive maps, however, involved their relation to economic geography (Cadwallader, 1975).

URBAN ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

A century past, geographers began to relate economic behavior to space at a geographic-scale, to macrospaces, thus preceding research into spatial cognition.

Multidisciplinary overviews also reveal a marked shift in urban economic geography and in associated cognitive maps of urbanites in both industrialized and developing countries over the past half-century, between their behavior and locations of consumer goods, places of work, and paths of arrival.

Although the concept of mental representation of the distribution of places in space -- spatial cognition – was introduced into psychology long ago by Tolman (1948), the existence of cognitive maps was largely ignored until the research of the urban planner Kevin Lynch (1960), inspiring geographers to study various aspects of spatial imagery and environmental designers to investigate such related phenomena as wayfinding (Arthur and Passini, 1989). Debates over whether “maps in the head” existed went unresolved until Nobel laureate neurophysiologists identified a GPS-like tracking system in the brain’s hippocampal region (Moser and Moser 2016).

The work of Johann Heinrich Von Thunen –arguably the father of economic geography -- in the early 19th century, treated agricultural settlements in Germany (O’Kelley, 1996).

His concentric rings of agricultural activity were centered on market towns, ranging outward from market gardens, nearest the central city, to livestock ranching on the periphery. Among this model’s limitations, was that it applied only to flat plains.

Central Place theory: rings to hexagons. More than a century after Von Thunen, in the burgeoning industrial early 20th century, Walter Christaller introduced Central-Place Theory (a sub-area of location theory, dealing with where and why economic activities are located). In Central Places in Southern Germany Christaller (1972) hypothesized that a centrally-located market town (hence, a “central place”) provides goods and services for the surrounding area.

Central places are ordered such that those providing fewer and more widely distributed goods and services are called higher-order, while lower-order central places service smaller market areas, providing goods and services that need be more easily available. Christaller posited a geometrical model of nested hexagons, with higher order places at the center of each hexagon and places of lower order at the vertices.

Christaller’s model, also limited to flat plains and as later

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modified by August Losch (1954)), was further constrained by other assumptions. Sadly, the immediate major application of Christaller’s model was the formulation of plans, based on central place theory, to reconfigure the economic geography of Germany’s eastern WWII conquests during, initially Czechoslovakia and Poland -- and later (but unrealized) those parts of the Soviet Union invaded by Germany.

Most urban economic and certain socioeconomic analyses are based on spatially monocentric city models, presaged by von Thunen and formally introduced by Christaller. Urban economics continued to attempt to account for spatial relationships between individuals and their economic motivations in the form, function, and development of (especially American) cities, an aspect of economic behavior largely ignored by neoclassical economics. Monocentricity, stressing the role of a single central business district (CBD), has been weakened in recent decades in large part by changes in the nature and technology of urban transportation. Steam engines made urban location of factories possible, away from sources of water power.

In cities, electrified street railways enabled establishment of early suburbs, allowing some residents to move away from city centers, reinforcing sectoral development (Hoyt, 1939), and enhancing commuting (making it possible to live farther from the CBD and for some back-office businesses to move altogether out of the CBD). The advent of the automobile and paved streets outside city centers facilitated “infill” of the interstices between street railway lines, leading to densification of already-established “streetcar” suburbs and construction of new residential areas outside the central city.

CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL PLACES

Perhaps most important for the formation of new cognitive maps has been, during the last third of the 20th century, the octopus-like spread of urban places to incorporate surrounding towns, thus producing polycentric cities (e.g. the incorporation of Pasadena and Santa Monica into Greater Los Angeles, or of Tlaquepaque and Tonala into Greater Guadalajara). Centers of

the incorporated towns become subcenters of the former central place; the emergence of peripheral places, such as nodes or “beads“ (Pivo, 1990) along the “strings” or “threads” formed by circumferential highways, such as Route 128 around Boston and the Capitol Beltway encircling Washington, D.C.

Finally, over the past three decades the decay of many CBDs has produced “doughnut cities,” in which many economic activities have moved to peripheral places. Revitalization of some former CBDs have made them IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

attractive to upper-income people: such central places have moved from being business districts to assuming highresidential and financial functions. In many large cities of the world, Central Place Theory must make room for “Peripheral Place Theory”, a perspective not yet adequately developed, although the “edge cities” concept of Garreau(19) (1992), peripheral conglomerates as successors to giant malls, comes close.

Each of these evolutions has required modifications of, or radical changes to, spatial cognition, reflecting,

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and reflected in, cognitive maps of changing urban economic geographies.

Outward residential movement was accompanied by the movement of many retail functions to peripheral places.

Instead of each street being dedicated to comparison shopping -- that is, similar shops clustered together -- “shopping centers” emerged, each containing an enormous variety of stores, one or two of each kind. To obtain the best bargains, one would need to go from one shopping center to another. Since these places were scattered, they could not be served efficiently by public transportation, making the cars indispensable to traversing many areas. The automobile, an invention of the late 19th century originally intended, for luxury trips or weekend excursions, became necessary for commuting to jobs in the center and shortly for almost all retail behavior in Western industrialized cities. In response to a reshaped economic landscape, urban spatial behavior and associated spatial cognition were radically reshaped.

Interest in cognitive maps, mental representations of place, diverged.

Building upon the earlier work of Scott Greer (20)(1966), a study of the cognitive maps of residents of various parts of Los Angeles revealed (21)(Orleans, 1973) vast differences between the maps of the wealthy and those of the poor: the maps of the wealthy, while coveringd hundreds of square miles – stretching beyond the city itself to encompass other places -- were punctate, with little detail. In contrast, cognitive maps of the ghettoized poor covered just their neighborhoods, but in copious detail.

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: USA AND MEXICO

During my childhood in New York City, some 65 yeas ago, Canal Street shops in Manhattan, offered an array of hardware and electrical components, each shop basically the same as its neighbor in basic content, and differing in details.

Thus, one could go from shop to shop comparing what was available and at what prices. It was my first lesson in economic geography -- to get thus-andso, one went to Canal Street. In even earlier years, my grandfather would go to New York’s “garment district” to buy clothes. The shops were adjacent and potential customers would go from one to another to compare quality and price.

In 1966 I moved to Mexico City to find retail functions highly centralized: when I asked where to get a certain item, the response was invariably the same: “en el Centro”. Even more than in New York, certain retail services were located on certain streets: jewelry stores were on “Madero” and “5 de Mayo” streets, for example, while electrical appliances were on “Articulo 123”.

Thus, urban economic behavior was then spatially radial, following paths into the center, and to an extent, sectoral. If one lived on the periphery, to shop for almost anything, one went to el Centro – the central place within the fabric of a particular city. The stores in the center paid the most rent and were more competitive with each other; those neighborhoods (colonias or barrios) outside offered a great array of daily necessities, in floating open markets, municipally-established closed mercados and tiny tiendas de abarrotes (variety stores offering small quantities of foodstuffs and other items). Thus, a citizen equipped with just a modicum of economic spatial cognition knew what was available where.

In the 1960s and 1970s a trend which had begun in the ‘50s became widespread not just in cities of industrialized nations, but in large urban places of the so-called “developing countries”: a movement from places near the centers of cities to peripheral places, then called “the suburbs.”

ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR AND COGNITIVE MAPS: JOURNEYS TO WORK, TO BUY, TO STEAL

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Spatial behavior creates cognitive maps and cognitive maps in turn facilitate that form of spatial behavior termed “journeys.” Journeys involve spatial knowledge, and acquisition of such knowledge is termed “wayfinding” (Arthur and Passini, 1989). The form of spatial behavior most represented in geographic studies is the “journey to work” or “commuting.” (Hagerstrand, 1970; Hanson and Giuliano, 2004).

Of considerable interest to those involved in retail marketing has been consumption behavior, journeys to buy.

(Lusch, 1981). Recently,spatial aspects

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of crime and their relationship to cognitive maps of criminals has received attention (Canter, 1995) through crime pat tern theory (Brantingham and Brantingham, 2005) to which the concept of activity spaces is central.

Journeys to rob are spatially similar to journeys to work, in that both involve travel along accustomed paths. The difference is that in the former the work is legal, in the latter illegal.

Many studies of criminal behavior have stressed the relationship of such behavior to accustomed activity spaces, which define a familiar area of operation or home range (Taylor, 1988). The Brantinghams used the concept of activity space to identify the relationship between the offender’s location of potential targets and the course of his or her accustomed daily movement routines.

A FEW CONCLUDING POINTS

Consumption. A consumer who wishes to purchase something will always ask two questions: first, the name or kind of store that supplies the product, second where it is located: Locations of retail stores are dependent on spatially distributed economic factors, and knowledge of these can generate cognitive maps, affecting search behavior. Rents are higher in certain areas than others (CBDs, nodes, etc.) which affects locational choice by retailers: knowledge of this and the resulting surface of probable rents can lead a knowledgeable consumer to generate a cognitive map of where a particular store is likely to be.

Polycentric cities. Many cities have more than one center: an “old” center (historic district) and a “new”

center (commercial district, whose location is affected by economic factors). Cities also absorb other cities as they grow: Mexico City has more than one historic district, having absorbed such towns as Coyocan.

Newer centers are generated at nodal points on circumferential roads (e.g.

Boston’s Route), the locations of which, again, are determined in part by land economics.

Residential choice. New arrivals in American suburbia want good schools. Outer suburbs may have cheaper housing than more established inner suburbs. In the USA, schools are funded by property taxes, and property taxes are proportional to housing costs: thus, a middle class family will in develop a search pattern to trade off commuting costs against educational quality.

References • Arthur, P., and R. Passini. (1989) Wayfinding: People, Signs, and Architecture. NY: McGraw-Hill.

• Brantingham, P. and P. Brantingham. (2005) “Crime in the Urban Environment: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice.” Talk given at Michigan State University.

• Cadwallader, M. (1975) A behavioral model of consumer spatial decision making.

Economic Geography, 51, 339–49.

• Canter, D. V. (1995) Criminal Shadows. NY: Harper Collins.

• Christaller, W. (1972) “How I discovered the Theory of Central Places: A Report about the Origin of Central Places.” In: English, P.W. and R.C. Mayfield (eds)., Man Space and Environment. NY: Oxford University Press.

• Downs, R. M. and D. Stea. (1977) Maps in Minds: Reflections on Cognitive Mapping. NY: Harper & Row. • Garreau, J. (1992) Edge City: Life on the New Frontier NY.: Anchor.

• Greer, S. (1966) Urban Renewal and American Cities; the Dilemma of Democratic Intervention NY: Bobbs-Merrill.

• Hagerstrand, T. (1970) “What about People in Regional Science?” Papers of the Regional Science Association, 24, 7–21.

• Hanson, S., and G. Giuliano. (2004) The Geography of Urban Transportation. (3d ed).

New York: Guilford.

• Hoyt, H. (1939) The Structure and Growth of Residential Areas in American Cities.

Washington DC: Federal Housing Administration.

• Losch, A. (1954) Economics of location. New Haven: Yale University Press.

• Lusch, R. F. (1981) Integration of economic geography and social psychology: Models of patronage behavior. Advances in Consumer Research, 8, 644-647.

• Lynch, K. (1960) The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

• Moser, M-B. and E. I. Moser. (2016) Where am I? Where am I going? Scientists are discovering how the brain navigates. Scientific American, 314 (1), 26-33.

• O’Kelley, M. E. (1966) Agricultural Location Theory: Von Thunen’s Contribution to Economic Geography, 20 (4):457-475.

• Orleans, Peter (1973). “”Differential Cognition of Urban Residents: Effects of Social Scale on Mapping,”. In Downs and Stea, eds., Image and Environment: Cognitive Mapping and Spatial Behavior. Chicago: Aldine.

• Pivo, G. (1990) The net of mixed beads:Suburban office development in six metropolitan regions. Journal of the American Planning Association, 56 (4), 457-469.

• Stea, D., and D. Wood. (1971) A Cognitive Atlas: Exploration into the Psychological Geography of Four Mexican Cities. Chicago: Aldine Place Perception Project.

• Taylor, R. B. (1988) Human Territorial Functioning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Tolman, E. C. (1948) Cognitive maps in rats and men. The Psychological Review, 55 (4), 189-208.

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Ageing, Urban Environments and Place: Moving towards a transdisciplinary research agenda

Ryan Woolrych Associate Professor of School of the Built Environment Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland r.d.woolrych@hw.ac.uk

Judith Sixsmith Professor in Public Health Improvement & Implementation University of Northampton, UK judith.sixsmith@northampton.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

Designing ‘friendly’ places for older people requires consideration of the ageing process, the physical environment, the resource, service and policy landscape, and the psychological meanings and social affordances of place.

Consequently, creating age friendly places is a complex and ‘wicked’ real world problem. Wicked problems refer to problems which can be framed by different levels of conceptual and practical abstraction, where no clear solutions exist and are complicated by ethical, historical, political or professional dimensions (Stahl and Cimorelli, 2013). Transdisciplinarity is an approach well fitted to tackling such wicked problems

as it requires an integration of different disciplinary, intersectoral and experiential knowledges to focus on the problem area, developing new ways of thinking, new methodological approaches and new practices to produce solutions which are holistic in nature (Wickson et al, 2006). The fundamental aim of transdisciplinarity is to make a positive difference in the world by addressing social problems, rather than simply developing theoretical or methodological knowledge bases, through transcending knowledge boundaries, co-production and co-creation, action oriented research, and challenging existing power based hierarchies that constrain knowledge production (Boger et al, 2016).

These key transdisciplinary principles drive a new ESRC research funded project entitled Place-Making with Older Adults: Towards Age-Friendly Communities (2016-2019). The project will explore the role of sense of place in promoting age friendly communities in Brazil and the UK in order to inform age friendly city policy, planning and design. Drawing on a total of 18 neighbourhoods in 6 different Brazilian (Brasilia, Pelotas and Porto Alegre) and British cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester), the project involves over 10 academic partners, bringing together various academic disciplines including gerontology, architecture, urban planning and community psychology. The project incorporates knowledge mobilisation activities to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration between older adults, academia, policy and practice. This paper outlines the case for transdisciplinary research on ageing and place, describing some of the theoretical, methodological, empirical, and practical challenges and opportunities to achieving greater transdisciplinarity in ageing research.

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22 AGEING, SENSE OF PLACE AND URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

Ageing populations have generated complex challenges in how to design urban environments that support and promote healthy urban living for older people. As they age older adults face declining physical and cognitive capacities, changes to their living arrangements and loss of social supports. In response to this, the ageing-in-place agenda has become an important issue in redefining policy for older people (Sixsmith and Sixsmith, 2008). The notion of ageing-in-place posits that the preferred environment for older adults to age is in the community, where they can remain active, engaged and socially connected (Wiles et al, 2011). Yet ageing-in-place is dependent on older adults having the place-based supports for social participation, mobility and active living (Sixsmith et al, 2014).

International policy and practice has focused on the creation of age friendly cities and communities as environments to encourage active ageing (Davies and Kelly, 2014). In working towards these environments, best practice guidelines have been developed to support walkability and the design of outdoor spaces (HAPPI, 2012; IDGO, 2012). However, changing the physical form is not sufficient in itself to create a more inclusive environment for ageing since places are more than physical spaces (Buffel et al, 2014). Viable environments are articulated through a strong sense of place, defined as the social, psychological and emotional bonds that people have with their environment

(Manzo and Perkins, 2006). A strong sense of place results from having access to supports for active participation, opportunities to build and sustain social networks, and assuming a meaningful role in the community (Seamon, 2014).

Whilst research has focused on understanding sense of place amongst older people within urban environments (Rowles and Bernard, 2013), an impediment has been the lack of transdisciplinary work. Ageing itself is a complex and nuanced process, drawing upon inter-related issues across different disciplines, including urban studies, ageing, environmental psychology, and gerontology.

Understandings, interventions and solutions impacting ageing and place are cross-cutting requiring the pooling together of expertise to find viable solutions. Achieving this raises a number of theoretical, methodological, empirical and practical challenges and opportunities.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON AGEING AND PLACE

(i) Theoretical Challenges: Research has explored the way the physical environment supports or impedes the ability to ‘age-inplace’, driven by a model of personenvironment congruence (Wahl and Weissman, 2003), a theory within environmental gerontology that compares the person’s physical and mental capacity with environmental demands and how these impact on the person’s ability to perform activities of living. Whilst this approach has

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been useful, more research is needed to explore experiential dimensions and how these intersect with place meaning. Age friendliness requires attention to the person-in-the-place and the ‘transactional’ nature of place use and meaning that is negotiated and constructed through an ongoing ‘interaction’ between person and environment (Seamon, 2014). This involves construction of perceptions, feelings, behaviours and outcomes, developed as a response to the qualities or affordances (physical, social and cultural) that a place provides (Eyles and Williams, 2008). It is therefore important that different theoretical approaches are recognised, where the experiential knowledge of older people themselves sits alongside practicebased and academic theory. In this way, the physical environment, access to and use of places combine with functionality of place based resources and services as well as sensory and relational experiences of place (largely missing from the published urban design interventions concerning agefriendly communities). Such complex combinations of disciplinary, crosssectoral and experiential expertise require transdisciplinary work that bridges theoretical understandings of place from multiple perspectives.

The challenge lies in identifying the relevant perspectives and working towards synthesising understandings to co-produce new ways of thinking that reveal more of the problem area and point towards effective and sustainable solutions. Bridging disciplines and theoretical approaches can create conflict across research teams as

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‘preferred’ theories are transformed or dismissed. Polk (2015) suggests that a strong focus on co-creation is necessary at the outset of the project, enabled by extending the ideas generation and initiation period and revising ideas as the project progresses in a more reflexive frame.

In the ESRC place-making project, theoretical and conceptual pluralism is embraced and co-creation of ideas has been enhanced by frequent meetings and open and honest discussion is encouraged. This has required team members setting aside existing disciplinary assumptions, embracing new ways of approaching the problem area and to be open to new theoretical paradigms for interpretation.

Consequently, the theoretical frame for the project has developed through multiple reflexive phases. A consequence of this has been a strong feeling of ownership of the project by all partners and the emergence of new ways of approaching age-friendly communities. (ii) Methodological Challenges: Scientific research which depends on a single method approach to understanding the way older adults experience ageing and home is valuable, but may fail to fully capture the complexity of everyday lived experiences of place. This is because every method has the possibility to highlight some information but hide others e.g. interviews can access information on thoughts, feelings, attitudes etc. but cannot show actual behaviour in environments. More innovative methods including visual and creative methodologies (such as ‘go-along’ interviews and participatory mapping) have emerged and been largely welcomed as they capture relational aspects of place and the neighbourhood context in which people live (Evans and Jones, 2011). These reveal more immersive experiences of place, for example, the role of walk-along interviews as a method for allowing older adults to articulate emotional and sensory understandings of place (Carpiano, 2009).

Such immersive methods are planned into the ESRC place-making project to encourage a wide variety of

different understandings to be captured.

When methodologies derive from different research disciplines then new knowledge, insights and solutions into ageing and place can be fore fronted.

The point here that there is no specific transdisciplinary methodology (Harris and Lyon, 2014), rather we should be open to a range of different methods, through dialogue, collaboration and negotiation. Such openness highlights the transformational potential of research methods to expand current disciplinary understandings and enable a thorough questioning of our assumptions about what works (in terms of collecting evidence) and how knowledge is created. Moreover, transdisciplinary research should extend beyond academia into cross sectoral domains to fully incorporate different ways of thinking that lead to the co-creation of innovative methods and co-production of data interpretation. This will help to ‘bridge’ academia, older adults and practice, such that learning from academia can be transferred and used by stakeholders, and where in turn practice can better inform academia. (iii) Empirical Challenges: There is a lack of empirical research into cross-cultural understandings of place amongst older adults and how established links with the built environment are developed in specific socio-cultural contexts. As a result, we know little about comparative experiences of place (between and across communities, cities, regions and international contexts). Transnational working is required to examine how sense of place can be facilitated across diverse social and cultural contexts as well as planning and development frameworks. A key problem here relates to the development of a shared vision, shared understandings and shared language through which mutual reflective learning can happen; a fundamental requirement of transdisciplinarity (Boger et al, 2016).

To enhance such learning within a transdisciplinary frame, research needs to create knowledge sharing opportunities that enable reflective exchange across cultural and social divides.

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The current ESRC project has strong communication processes specifically designed to create an ethos of trust and openness to promote project visioning across the UK and Brazilian teams. A series of three month cross institutional and cross country internships are also planned at critical points in the research pathway to promote shared understandings and working practices. This will allow better understanding of the experiences of older adults and identify opportunities for place-making across different cultural contexts. It will also enhance the knowledge base from which policy making in the area of age friendly communities and cities can derive.

(iv) Practical Challenges: The ageing-in-place policy agenda has received some support via local and national policy and the WHO Age Friendly Cities programme (WHO, 2007). The WHO Age Friendly Cities movement recognises cities that support active ageing by optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age. However, whilst there are concerted efforts at the city and regional level to implement age friendly programmes, research itself has been limited in terms of its real world impact on policy and practice. A major weakness has been the lack of effective knowledge mobilization, and the absence of ‘meaningful’ participant engagement in the research process.

Research based in the transdisciplinary approach emphasises an action orientation which focuses on making a positive difference in the real world (Lawrence, 2004). This requires the integration of older people and other key stakeholders in the research process which in turn requires attention to team-building, setting research agendas that prioritise social change and tool development to target issues and problems relevant to both older adults and those responsible for bringing about change

In the ESRC project, collaborative working with older adults, policy makers and practitioners throughout the research process will provide the dialogue space to enable the co-creation of design guidelines that support

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sense of place and the development of age friendly environments. Many gerontological research activities emphasise the genuine involvement of older adults in the research (Pratesi et al, 2013), ongoing collaborative dialogue and partnership-working that will build capacity beyond the research and thereby enable transdisciplinary working. This is needed to situate the voice of older adults in contemporary debates on place, the built environment and urban planning and design, and to enhance the quality and sustainability of environments for older adults.

complex and require navigating and working across multiple perspectives and scales. For example, this might require negotiating the project vision, aims, objectives and priorities, identifying the value of different methods, discussing the potential implication and relevance of the research results and how they can be effectively disseminated to create social change. Central to transdisciplinarity is the importance of co-creation and co-production, between the older adult, academic and professional community, such that people can challenge their own understandings and practices in terms of how we see the world and question where knowledge resides.

Within this process, we need to recognise the important of experiential or lay knowledge, from older adults, practitioners and community groups and learn how to better mobilise that knowledge into more effective interventions. Finding solutions to support ageing-in-place requires a transdisciplinary approach, not just in terms of academic disciplines, but in engagement with the various policy arenas and the wider public.

MOVING FORWARD

The absence of transdisciplinary working is an impediment to understanding how older adults experience place and thereby a barrier to designing effective solutions for age-friendly environments. Research processes that enable different forms of shared learning and thinking to emerge provide the context for exchange between knowledge bases and for that thinking to be used to transform current understandings and question our own positions. These processes are

References • Boger,J. Jackson, P. Mulvenna, M. Sixsmith, J., Sixsmith, A., Mihailidis, A., Kontos , P. Miller , J., Polgar, Grigorovich, A. and Martin,S. (2016) Principles for Fostering the Transdisciplinary Development of Assistive Technologies. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 1-11. doi: 10.3109/17483107.2016.1151953

• Buffel, T., De Donder, L., Phillipson, C., De Witte, N., Dury, S. and Verté, D., 2014. Place attachment among older adults living in four communities in Flanders, Belgium. Housing Studies, 29 (6), 800-822 • Carpiano, R. M. (2009). Come take a walk with me: The “Go-Along” interview as a novel method for studying the implications of place for health and well-being. Health & Place, 15 (1), 263-272 • Davies, J. K., & Kelly, M. (Eds.). (2014). Healthy cities: research and practice. Routledge • Evans, J., & Jones, P. (2011). The walking interview: methodology, mobility and place.

Applied Geography, 31 (2), 849-858

• Eyles, J., & Williams, A. (Eds.). (2008). Sense of place, health and quality of life. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd

• HAPPI (2012) Housing our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation. Available at http:// www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/sites/default/files/happi_final_report_-_031209.pdf • Harris, F., & Lyon, F. (2013). Transdisciplinary environmental research: Building trust across professional cultures. Environmental science & policy, 31, 109-119

• IDGO (2012) Inclusive Design for getting Outdoors. Available at http://www.idgo.ac.uk/ design_guidance/streets.htm • Lawrence, R. (2004) Introduction: Futures of Transdisciplinarity. Futures, 36, 397–405. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2003.10.005

• Manzo, L. C., & Perkins, D. D. (2006). Finding common ground: The importance of place attachment to community participation and planning. Journal of planning literature, 20 (4), 335-350

• Menec, V. H., Means, R., Keating, N., Parkhurst, G., & Eales, J. (2011). Conceptualizing agefriendly communities. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 30 (03), 479-493 • Peace, S., Wahl, H. W., Mollenkopf, H., & Oswald, F. (2007). Environment and ageing. In: J. Bond, S. Peace, F. Dittman-Kohli, & G. Westerhof (Eds.), Ageing in society (pp. 209-234), London, UK: Sage & BSG.

• Polk, M. (2015). Transdisciplinary co-production: Designing and testing a transdisciplinary research framework for societal problem solving. Futures, 65, 110-122.

• Pratesi, A., Sixsmith, J., and Woolrych, R. (2013). Genuine partnership and equitable research: working “with” older people for the development of a smart activity monitoring system. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 18 (6), retrieved from http://www.innovation.cc/ • Rowles, G.D. and Bernard, M.A. (2013). The meaning and significance of place in old age.

In G. D. Rowles & M. A. Bernard (Eds.), Environmental gerontology: Making meaningful places in old age (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

• Seamon, D (2014) Place attachment and phenomenology: The Synergistic Dynamism of Place. In: Lynne C. Manzo & Patrick Devine-Wright (Eds.), Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods, and Applications, (pp. 11-22). New York, NY: Routledge • Sixsmith, A., and Sixsmith, J. (2008). Ageing in Place in the United Kingdom. Ageing International, 32 (3), 219-235.

• Sixsmith, J., Sixsmith, A., Fänge, A.M., Naumann, D., Kucsera, C., Tomsone, S., & Woolrych, R. (2014). Healthy ageing and home: The perspectives of very old people in five European countries. Social Science & Medicine. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X13000846 • Stahl, C. and Cimorelli, A. (2009). A Demonstration of the Necessity and Feasibility of Using aClumsy Decision Analytic Approach on Wicked Environmental Problems.

Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 9 (1), 17–30

• Wahl, H. W., & Weisman, G. D. (2003). Environmental gerontology at the beginning of the new millennium: Reflections on its historical, empirical, and theoretical development.

The Gerontologist, 43 (5), 616-627 • World Health Organization. (2007). Global age-friendly cities: A guide. World Health Organization.

• Wickson, F., Carew, A, Russell, A (2006). Transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality. Futures, 38 (9), 1046-1059.

• Wiles, J. L., Leibing, A., Guberman, N., Reeve, J., & Allen, R. E. (2011). The meaning of “ageing in place” to older people. The Gerontologist, 52 (3), 357-366.

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The restorative potential of public Aquariums: Psychological and Physiological effects of viewing sub-aquatic environments

Dr. Deborah Cracknell National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth, UK. deborah.cracknell@national-aquarium.co.uk Dr. Sabine Pahl Plymouth, UK. sabine.pahl@plymouth.ac.uk Dr. Mathew P. White Plymouth, UK. mathew.white@pcmd.ac.uk Prof. Michael H. Depledge University of Exeter, UK. m.depledge@exeter.ac.uk

A significant body of evidence suggests that many people value natural environments for the psychological wellbeing that they provide, such as positive emotions, reduced stress and cognitive fascination (see reviews Bowler, Buyung-Ali, Knight & Pullin, 2010; Bratman, Hamilton & Daily, 2012; Gascon, Triguero-Mas, Martinez, Dadvand, Forns, Plasència & Nieuwenhuijsen, 2015; Hartig, Mitchell,

De Vries & Frumkin, 2014; Velarde, Fry & Tveit, 2007).

Nevertheless, although the volume of research exploring the health and well-being benefits of nature is considerable, there are still many areas of this broad subject that have received comparatively little attention. For instance, most previous research exploring the health benefits of natural environments, compared to built settings, has used ‘green space’ as a setting (Bowler et al., 2010). In contrast, fewer studies have specifically considered the potential for ‘blue space’ (aquatic) settings to promote human health and wellbeing (Volker & Kistemann, 2011; White, Smith, Humphries, Pahl, Snelling and Depledge, 2010). Furthermore, the majority of studies focus on the actual or perceived health benefits associated with exposure to ‘natural’ environments.

However, people can have restorative experiences in a range of different, less ‘natural’ settings (e.g. public libraries – Brewster, 2014; houses of worship – Herzog, Ouellette, Rolens & Koenigs, 2010; museums – Kaplan, Bardwell & Slakter, 1993; Packer & Bond 2010; zoos – Pals, Steg, Siero and van der Zee, 2009) and it is important that research into these alternative, often more accessible and less weather-dependent, restorative places is not neglected.

Also, importantly, many studies do not sub-categorise environments; settings tend simply to be classified as ‘natural’ or ‘urban’ (Velarde et al., 2007). Environments, however, can vary greatly in content and composition, and failing to investigate the variety of settings makes it difficult to determine which particular components within a setting contribute most, or at all, to positive health outcomes (Pearson & Craig, 2014).

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In view of the relative lack of research into the benefits of ‘blue space’ and alternative settings, this PhD investigated the perceived health and well-being benefits of exposure to an alternative, potentially restorative ‘blue space’ setting, namely public aquariums, and examined how a component of this setting, its marine life, could influence perceived restorativeness and related well-being outcomes.

Although there appears little, if any, research investigating the potential well-being benefits of viewing public aquarium exhibits, there exists evidence to suggest people enjoy viewing fish - and have done so for thousands of years. The ancient Romans were particularly known for keeping fish for aesthetic reasons, rather than just for food (Bridges, 1970), and stocked their fish-ponds with beautiful and valuable fish (Taylor, 1881). They were also the first to bring fish into their homes, keeping sea barbels in small marble tanks (Brunner, 2011). The Chinese were the first to successfully breed fish and selectively bred carp for

purely decorative purposes. In the 1600s goldfish were introduced into Europe as ornamental living objects and by the Victoria era fish keeping was a popular hobby. The world’s first public aquarium opened at this time: the “Fish House” in Regent’s Park, opened by the Zoological Society of London in 1853. The “Fish House” sparked an enthusiasm for keeping fish in homes all over England (Bridges, 1970) and its success saw similar public aquariums open in England, continental Europe and the United States (Bridges, 1970; Brunner 2011).

Although there are over 300 substantial public aquariums worldwide (Penning et al., 2009) and around 700 million visits to these zoos and aquariums annually (Gusset & Dick, 2011), the relatively small amount of research into the potential health and well-being benefits of viewing aquaria has centred on home aquaria or aquaria in healthcare settings. For instance, a survey of home aquaria owners found that 94% of respondents benefited from their aquaria, with around 70% of respondents stating that they found

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their fish calming, relaxing, and that they contributed to reducing stress and anxiety levels (Kidd & Kidd, 1999).

Presumably, it is this potential to provide relaxation and calm that makes aquaria so popular in healthcare settings.

Although studies exploring these benefits remain few and far between, some studies do suggest that there may be psychological and physiological benefits to engaging with aquaria. For instance, Katcher, Segal and Beck (1984) found that participants who were instructed to contemplate an aquarium before dental surgery experienced greater relaxation and reduced anxiety than other, potentially calming, conditions such as contemplating a colour poster of a mountain waterfall or sitting quietly in a chair (control).

Earlier work by Katcher, Friedman, Beck and Lynch (1983) observed significant decreases in blood pressure in participants who watched a tropical fish tank following a stressor task.

The above anecdotal and empirical evidence provided much of the rationale behind this PhD. Further evidence, however, was provided by public

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aquarium visitors themselves: when observing aquarium visitors it is clear that many have preferences for different species and exhibit types, finding certain animals and exhibits especially relaxing and engaging. Additionally, a small number of studies that have looked at visitors’ motivations to visit public aquariums (and zoos) have noted that, while many people visit aquariums for entertainment or educational purposes (e.g. Packer & Ballantyne, 2002), some people may also gain relaxation and psychological well-being from their visits (e.g. Falk, Heimlich & Bronnenkant, 2008; Packer & Bond, 2010). Falk et al. (2008) found that, overall, the people’s reasons for visiting zoos and aquariums clustered into five visitor ‘identities’: ‘Explorer’, ‘Facilitator’, ‘Experience Seeker’, ‘Professional/Hobbyist’ and ‘Spiritual Pilgrim’. Although the ‘Spiritual Pilgrim’ category comprised the smallest percentage of visitors, interviews revealed that this group were primarily driven by restorative and/or contemplative experiences. For example, one participant commented: “I like the jellyfish. They were very soothing to watch…I would definitely come here by myself…very relaxing, so different than the craziness of the rest of the world” (p. 68).

The first two studies of the PhD extended earlier work by White et al.

(2010), in which participants were asked about their preferences for three environments (urban, green space and blue space), by adding two further

environments: natural underwater scenes and aquarium exhibits (White, Cracknell, Corcoran, Jenkinson & Depledge, 2013: Cracknell, White, Pahl & Depledge, 2017). Participants rated 50 photographic images on their aesthetic and behavioural preferences, their affective responses, and the perceived restorativeness. In order to ascertain whether familiarity with sub-aquatic environments influenced responses, participants were also asked about their previous diving or snorkelling experiences and, if applicable, where they preferred to undertake these activities (tropical or temperate seas, or both). These studies ‘set the scene’ by placing natural and human-made sub-aquatic environments within the context of more commonly researched settings such as green space). Overall, results indicated that both natural and human-made underwater settings were at least as potentially restorative as green space environments. Familiarity with underwater environments only influenced affective responses, with divers/snorkellers rating the underwater images significantly higher on positive affect than non-divers. The majority of people who dived or snorkelled preferred to do so in tropical waters.

As anecdotal evidence from public aquarium visitors intimated that people had preferences for different ‘types’ of exhibit, the third study focused solely on participants’ responses to images different exhibit types, likely to be encountered during a typical aquarium visit. To establish whether there were IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

any preference trends, the exhibits were first categorised by geographical region (i.e. temperate/tropical), and further sub-categorised by species richness (high/low) and abundance of individuals (high/low). The photo set of 40 images were rated on the same four measures as the first two photo studies.

Based on previous studies exploring the relationships between actual and/ or perceived biodiversity and health and well-being outcomes (e.g. Dallimer et al., 2012; Fuller, Irvine, DevineWright, Warren & Gaston, 2007), it was anticipated that greater preferences and perceived restorativeness would be associated with those exhibits containing greater species richness.

Interestingly, although photo ratings of tropical images containing high species richness supported this hypothesis, this was not the case for the equivalent temperate images. In this instance, greater ratings were associated with low species richness. It was not entirely clear why this may be. It may possibly have been due to the inclusion of some ‘bait ball’ images in the temperate low species richness category: potentially people find these striking images of large numbers of fish moving in unison especially fascinating.

The remaining PhD studies were undertaken in a real public aquarium, the National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth, UK. The first field study aimed to examine people’s responses to increasing levels of marine life in a large exhibit, during a period of exhibit restocking (see Cracknell, White, Pahl,

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Nichols & Depledge, 2015). This study not only expanded the preceding three photo studies by taking a more indepth look at people’s psychological responses to aquarium exhibits, but it also extended these studies by exploring the participants’ behavioural and physiological responses. The study had two parts. Part A consisted of observing the amount of time a sub-sample of aquarium visitors spent looking at the exhibit during each of the three stages of restocking (Unstocked/Partially/ Fully stocked). As previous studies have found that there are positive relationships between psychological well-being and (i) level of species richness (e.g. Fuller et al., 2007), and (ii) length of time of self-selected visits to natural environments (e.g. White, Pahl, Ashbullby, Herbert. & Depledge, 2013), Part A investigated the relationship between stocking level and voluntary exposure time to the exhibit across the three conditions. Part B consisted of monitoring the psychological (e.g.

Feeling Scale – see Hardy & Rejeski, 1989) and physiological reactions (e.g. heart rate) of experimental participants seated in front of the exhibit after 5 and 10 minutes during the three stages of restocking. Again, based on earlier research, the relationship between indicators of psychophysiological wellbeing (e.g. positive mood, heart rate) and the exhibit stocking level were examined. Furthermore, by monitoring these indicators at 5 and 10 minutes it was possible to establish whether longer exposure times conferred more benefits.

In brief, Part A confirmed that the visitors tended to spend longer in front of the exhibit when it contained greater levels of marine life. From a psychological perspective, the Fully stocked condition may have provided greater levels of interest and fascination, than other stocking levels, and a better opportunity to disengage from the mundane; all elements which have previously been shown to aid psychological restoration.

Evaluation statements (e.g. ‘I enjoyed watching the exhibit’; ‘I feel better after watching this exhibit’; ‘I found watching this exhibit…Very boring/Very interesting’) completed by participants in Part B supported findings from Part A. The evaluation statements

revealed that, as stocking levels in the exhibit increased, participants’ interest in the exhibit and their willingness to watch the exhibit again significantly increased.

Furthermore, it was also evident from both the observation (Part A) and evaluation data that the exhibit alone, even when unstocked and containing only seawater and artificial decoration, seemed to be sufficiently interesting to confer some benefits. Analysis of valence and arousal measures revealed that, in IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

general, the longer people spent in front of the exhibit, the more positive and calm they became. However, as levels of marine life increased, people became more positive but relatively less calm.

This latter finding suggests that greater levels of marine life are associated with more fascination and interest.

Regarding the physiological data, all stages of restocking were associated with significant drops in heart rate and blood pressure (following a rest period), indicating that exposure in all conditions was calming and physiologically restorative. Most of these positive benefits, however, occurred within the first five minutes, with few improvements following a further five minutes of exposure to the exhibit.

Nevertheless, the greatest drop in heart rate occurred when the exhibit was Fully stocked and this drop was significantly different from the Unstocked condition.

The final two studies of the PhD sought to investigate the links between perceptions of marine life and wellbeing outcomes. Previous research in terrestrial settings (e.g. Dallimer et al., 2012) has found that people can experience difficulties when trying to estimate species richness, making it potentially difficult to establish links between species richness and wellbeing outcomes. As perceptions of biodiversity were not investigated in my previous studies, the final two studies asked aquarium visitors about their perceptions of species richness when viewing one or two large aquarium exhibits. I found that broad levels of marine life could be distinguished but estimates of actual numbers were poor.

Viewing one or two exhibits tended to improve mood, decrease arousal and be perceived as restorative. Any differences in responses to the two exhibits were more evident when both had been viewed.

In summary, throughout this PhD, I found that real and simulated public aquarium exhibits were able to provide restorative experiences and that these restorative experiences were influenced by the diversity and quantity of marine life. In view of this, public aquariums, or representations of their exhibits, may be able to provide valuable opportunities for easy and regular access to a restorative environment: this may be

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especially beneficial for those with little or no access to natural settings.

Furthermore, a greater understanding of people’s responses to different exhibit characteristics may be particularly useful if certain animals or behaviours are found to be especially relaxing, uplifting or stimulating to watch. This information may be vital when trying to establish the ‘optimum’ exhibit for other environments, such as a stressful workplace or a healthcare setting.

Finally, greater contact with nature, in whatever setting, however, may provide more than human health and well-being benefits. Connecting people to the marine environment and its species may lead to a better understanding and appreciation of the benefits of natural environments and help increase motivations to protect species and habitats in the wild.

References • Bowler, D. E., Buyung-Ali, L. E., Knight, T. M. & Pullin, A. S. (2010). A systematic review of evidence for the added benefits to health of exposure to natural environments.

BMC Public Health, 10, 456.

• Kaplan, S., Bardwell, L. V., & Slakter, D. B. (1993). The museum as a restorative environment. Environment and Behavior, 25, 725-742.

• Brewster, L. (2014). The public library as therapeutic landscape: A qualitative case study. Health & Place, 26, 94-99.

• Katcher, A., Segal, H. & Beck, A. (1984). Comparison of contemplation and hypnosis for the reduction of anxiety and discomfort during dental surgery. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 27, 14-21.

• Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P. & Daily, G. C. (2012). The impacts of nature experience on human cognitive function and mental health. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1249, 118-136.

• Bridges, W. (1970). The New York Aquarium book of the water word: A guide to representative fishes, aquatic invertebrates, reptiles, birds, and mammals. New York: New York Zoological Society American Heritage Press (pp. 9-10).

• Brunner, B. (2011). The ocean at home: an illustrated history of the aquarium. China: C&C offset Printing Co., Ltd. • Cracknell, D., White, M. P., Pahl, S. & Depledge, M.H (2017). A preliminary investigation into the restorative potential of public aquaria exhibits: A UK studentbased study, Landscape Research, Landscape Research, 42, 18-32.

• Cracknell, D.L., White, M., Pahl, S., Nichols, W.J. & Depledge, M. H. (2015). Marine Biota and Psychological Well-Being: A Preliminary Examination of Dose–Response Effects in an Aquarium Settings. Environment and Behavior, 48, 1242-1269.

• Dallimer, M., Irvine, K. N., Skinner, A. M. J., Davies, Z. G., Rouquette, J. R., Maltby, L. L… & Gaston, K. J. (2012). Biodiversity and the feel-good factor: Understanding associations between self-reported human well-being and species richness.

BioScience, 62, 47-55.

• Falk, J. H., Heimlich, J. & Bronnenkant, K. (2008). Using identity-related visit motivations as a tool for understanding adult zoo and aquarium visitor’s meaning making. Curator, The Museum Journal, 51, 55-79.

• Fuller, R. A., Irvine, K. N., Devine-Wright, P., Warren, P. H. & Gaston, K. J. (2007).

Psychological benefits of green space increase with biodiversity. Biology Letters, 3, 390-394.

• Gascon, M., Triguero-Mas, M., Martinez, D., Dadvand, P., Forns, J., Plasència, A. & Nieuwenhuijsen, M. J. (2015). Mental health benefits of long-term exposure to residential green and blue spaces: A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12, 4354-4379.

• Gusset, M. & Dick, G. (2011). The global reach of zoos and aquariums in visitor number and conservation expenditures. Zoo Biology, 30, 566-569.

• Hardy, C. J. & Rejeski, W. J. (1989). Not what, but how one feels: the measurement of affect during exercise. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 11, 304-317.

• Hartig, T., Mitchell, R., De Vries, S. & Frumkin, H. (2014). Nature and health. Annual Review of Public Health, 35, 21.1-21.22.

• Herzog, T. R., Ouellette, P., Rolens, J. R. & Koenigs, A. M. (2010). Houses of worship as restorative environments. Environment and Behavior, 42, 395-419.

• Katcher, A. H., Friedman, E., Beck, A. M. & Lynch, J. J. (1983). Looking, talking and blood pressure: The physiological consequences of interaction with the living environments.

In A. H. Katcher & A. M. Beck (Eds.), New Perspectives on our lives with companion animals (pp. 351-359). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

• Kidd, A. H. & Kidd, R. M. (1999). Benefits, problems, and characteristics of home aquarium owners. Psychological Reports, 84, 998-1004.

• Packer, J. & Ballantyne, R. (2002). Motivational factors and the visitor experience: A comparison of three sites. Curator, 45, 183-198.

• Packer, J. & Bond, N. (2010). Museums as restorative environments. Curator: The Museum Journal, 53, 421-436.

• Pals, R., Steg, L., Siero, F. W. & van der Zee, K. I. (2009). Development of the PRCQ: A measure of perceived restorative characteristics of zoo attractions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29, 441-449.

• Pearson, D. G. and Craig, T. (2014). The great outdoors? Exploring the mental health benefits of natural environments. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1178. Doi: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2014.01178 • Penning, M., Reid, G. McG., Koldeway, H., Dick, G., Andrews, B., Arai, K., … Gibson, C. (Eds) 2009. Turning the tide: A global aquarium strategy for conservation and Sustainability. World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Bern, Switzerland, (p.1).

• Taylor, J.E. (1881). The aquarium: its inhabitants, structure, and management (second edition). London: David Bogue (p.5).

• Velarde, M. D., Fry, G. & Tveit, M. (2007). Health effects of viewing landscapes – landscape types in environmental psychology. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 6, 199-212.

• Volker, S. & Kistemann, T. (2011). The impact of blue space on human health and well-being – Salutogenic health effects of inland surface waters: A review.

International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 214, 449-460.

• White, M.P., Cracknell, D., Corcoran, A. Jenkinson, G. & Depledge, M.H. (2013): Do Preferences for Waterscapes Persist in Inclement Weather and Extend to Sub-aquatic Scenes? Landscape Research, 39, 339-358.

• White, M. P., Pahl, S., Ashbullby, K., Herbert, S. & Depledge, M. H. (2013). Feelings of restoration from recent nature visits. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 35, 40-51.

• White, M., Smith, A., Humphryes, K., Pahl, S., Snelling, D. & Depledge, M. (2010). Blue space: The importance of water for preference, affect, and restorativeness ratings of natural and built scenes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30, 482-493.

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RESEARCH PROGRAMS

URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS: SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS RESOURCE EFFICIENCY, QUALITY OF LIFE AND RESILIENCE Sigrun Kabisch Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig (Germany) sigrun.kabisch@ufz.de

Florian Koch Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, (Germany) florian.koch@ufz.de

Prof. Dr. Sigrun Kabisch is head of the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, and professor at the University of Leipzig. She is member of the Scientific advisory board of the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe and Member of the board of the International Association for People-Environment Studies IAPS. Her main research fields are: interdependencies between the social, built, and natural environment in urban landscapes, urban restructuring with respect to demographic change and socio-spatial differentiation in different regional contexts.

Dr. Florian Koch is Manager of the Integrated Project “Urban Transformations: Sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience” at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ. He studied spatial planning in Dortmund and Rome and holds a PhD in Social Science from Humboldt University Berlin. He was coordinator of the spatial planning program at Erfurt University of Applied Sciences and published on the future of the European City, urbanism and governance. His main research areas include: Multi-Level-Governance, urban and regional studies, urban sustainability transformations.

WHY SUSTAINABLE URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS AREAS ARE NEEDED…

If one would ask urban dwellers if they want to live in a more sustainable city, most people would probably agree.

But it might be a little bit trickier, if they were asked what actually needs to be done to turn a city into a more sustainable habitat. This question is also the starting point of our research program on urban sustainability transformations (www.ufz.de/stadt) which we developed from a socio-environmental perspective. The main ideas are briefly described in this article.

Dealing with sustainable urban development is a very timely task: UN figures have demonstrated that currently the majority of the worlds’ population is urban and even more, prognoses expect a further growth in absolute and relative terms of the urban population until 2050 (UN, 2014). This huge importance of cities as urban areas is not necessarily

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something to worry about. Research has demonstrated that cities bear the potential to become sustainable places to live and work as for example ecologically positive forms of transport can be more easily implemented in urban than in rural areas, land consumption can be reduced through denser forms of living and cities also are places of hope were educational offers are in general better than in rural areas (Glaeser, 2011).

But it has to be acknowledged that a city is not a homogenous object but an umbrella term for very different types of settlements: Megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants foremost in the Global South, shrinking cities which suffer from economic and demographic decline as well as newly constructed cities or small towns are all classified as “city” and may not have that many aspects in common. Nevertheless, the challenge for all these types of settlements is how to realize their potential to contribute to a more sustainable development globally, especially in times where contemporary urban development paths are often contrary to sustainable development: Urban areas are perceived rather as hot spots for driving environmental change at multiple scales (Grimm et al. 2008) than as breeding ground for sustainability. Among other, cities contribute substantially to air pollution (Lelevield et al. 2015), land consumption (Seto/Fragkias 2005), and CO2-emissions. This goes along with an increase of an uneven distribution of goods and burdens across the urban territory and among urban inhabitants.

Accordingly, recent demographic, environmental and economic changes bear many challenges for urban areas such as increasing social inequality, vulnerability towards climate change or insufficient infrastructure systems.

As a reaction to this situation, the need for holistic and fundamental urban transformations towards sustainability has been highlighted in different political agendas as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015), the UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda (UN Habitat, 2016) but also by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, 2016).

Figure 1. Resource Efficiency, Resilience and Quality of Life as key Element of Urban Transformations, Source; IP Urb Trans, UFZ Leipzig.

Figure 2. Working Packages of the Integrated Project Urban Transformations, Source; IP UrbTrans, UFZ Leipzig.

…WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE THEM…

In contemporary cities, implementing innovative radical, large-scale and integrated socio-technical changes face political, socio-cultural, technical and economic obstacles (Geels 2002).

A more holistic policy approach is needed in order to alter existing life styles, technologies, business models, legal and planning regulations as well as institutional and political structures (Koch et al 2016). The transformation of the current status quo is achieved by overcoming resisting forces and deal with opposition, which is often located on regional, national or supranational level, as well as between sectors (Hodson/ Marvin 2012). Urban Sustainability Transformations compete with other IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

policy goals starting with single progressive ones, and also radical goals like social coherence or access to education or equal distribution of economic benefits. These kind of transformations do not form a coherent set of goals, but a diverse, sometimes even contradictory bundle of goals which are not always compatible. For example, CO2 reduction and climate change mitigation may be in conflict with climate change adaptation action (Wamsler 2015). Thus, achieving multi-contested urban sustainability transformations requires a lot more than appealing to the good will of urban dwellers to undertake changes or the vague dream of more sustainable cities. The identification of existing power structures and urban

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regimes, the creation of coalitions and also public support cannot be overestimated when implementing these kinds of transformations in real life politics. …AND HOW CAN RESEARCH ON URBAN TRANSFORMATION HELP TO TURN CITIES MORE SUSTAINABLE?

The Integrated Project “Urban Transformations Sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience” at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, aims at developing different options for sustainable urban development in order to achieve a reasonable equilibration of resource efficiency, quality of life, and resilience in cities (Kabisch/Kuhlicke, 2014). This approach takes into account that different types of cities exist, not only concerning the population size but also the development paths in terms of urban growth and urban shrinkage, both taking place on different levels, at different pace and directness. (Figure 1).

Whereas urban growth is connected to population growth it is today the prevailing urban trend in developing countries, and often directed to the occurrence of large agglomerations, shrinkage of urban population can be mainly observed in developed countries within Europe or in Japan in terms of loss of population. Within our research approach, both development paths as well as re-growth are analyzed concerning pathways to urban sustainability. Important elements are the elaboration of governance options and the translation of scientific results into urban practice.

Acknowledging the heterogeneity of cities and urban development paths has implications for researching and implementing urban transformations: While in our understanding sustainable urban transformations can only be achieved if at the same time resource efficiency, resilience and quality of life issues are considered, the concrete priorities and balance between these issues may differ in each city. Therefore, we emphasize the plural of urban transformations: Rather than one single urban transformation towards sustainability, several types of transformations exist (Rink et al., 2015).

Furthermore, we deal with uncertainty and consider unexpected events as challenges and chances for new and experimental ways of problem solution. This combines physical and technical components of the urban fabric on the one hand and human activities including values and common standards on the other. It pursues sustainable development goals in a real world experience. In this way, urban dynamics are not addressed in a linear way within a status quo setting but as processes which are non-linear and only to a certain degree foreseeable.

Our research is structured into four work packages (WPs) (see Figure 2):

• WP 1: Concepts & Synthesis: Urban transformations between global dynamics and local contexts In WP 1 the conceptual framework of urban transformations towards sustainability is developed.

For different urban contexts with their complexity and dynamics, interlinkages with regard to resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience are scrutinized. We analyze the central drivers, processes and consequences in the context of urban land use change, resource use, and environmental risks, identify synergies, trade-offs and conflicts as well as appropriate governance options.

• WP 2: Urban Land Use, Urban Ecosystem Services.

In order to achieve a sustainable urban development, it is crucial to shape urban land use changes, options and conflicts in a way that allows for a good provision of urban ecosystem services which support quality of life and environmental health. Set against this context, WP 2 identifies the impact of urban development patterns on green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, re-use of brownfields as well as environmental gentrification.

It develops appropriate governance options considering behavior patterns of different socio-demographic groups.

• WP 3: Sustainable Water Infrastructures.

Urban water and wastewater infrastructure systems are an integral component of sustainable urban development.

Historically, urban water and wastewater systems were designed under the premise of stable conditions and high degrees of centralization. In future, water infrastructure will need to be able to respond to dynamics such as climate change, and population dynamics. The existing water infrastructure in many urban areas is aged and often in need of maintenance, expansion, or replacement in order to have continued access to adequate water supply and sanitation services. The aim of this WP is to develop future water infrastructure scenarios and solutions that are sustainable from technological, social, legal and economic perspectives.

• WP 4: Environmental Risks & Vulnerability.

Cities are exposed to various environmental risks such as flooding, heat-stress or air pollution, causing not only loss, damages and diseases but also possibly questioning their very existence in the long run, at least if one takes into account the likely consequences of climate change. We analyze and evaluate urban vulnerabilities in an interdisciplinary context and focus on temporal and spatial dynamics as well as on the capacities of cities and their inhabitants to cope with environmental risks.

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For this purpose we develop, design and evaluate participative governance strategies and methods in close interaction with stakeholder groups.

Accordingly, we contribute to increase urban resilience.

In order to stress the transdisciplinary character of our research agenda and to support the implementation of urban sustainability transformations into concrete action, recently an exposition by the name of “A changing Leipzig through the lens of urban research at the UFZ” was presented at the city hall of Leipzig main foyer in November 2015. A scientific

program (talks & discussions, tours, etc.) completed the presentations and lead to interactions between research and broader public. (Figure 3).

In order to overcome the barriers and problems of implementing urban transformation, these kinds of participation forms are highly important. Therefore, it is the aim of our project, to develop scientific approaches which are based on coproduction of research agendas. We therefore strive to strengthen the inter- and transdisciplinary approach of our research as we are convinced that the answers to the question of the

beginning of this text: “What actually needs to be done to transform a city into a more sustainable habitat?” cannot be found in a pure academic environment but need to developed in discussions with citizens and a variety of local stakeholder. This refers to collaboration and co-production in the hometown as well as with partners abroad. For example, we presented and discussed our research approach together with representatives from two city councils and the JPI Urban Europe at the European Habitat III conference in Prague/Czech Republic, in March 2016.

Figure 3: Exposition of UFZ urban research results at the city hall of Leipzig. Photo: Susan Walther.

References • Geels, F. (2002). Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study. Research Policy, 31 (2002), 1257–1274.

• Glaeser, E. (2011): The Triumph of the city. How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin Press.

• Grimm, N., Faethl, S. H., Golubiewski, N. E., Redmann, C.L., Wu, J., Bai, X., Briggs, J.M. (2008). Global Change and the Ecology of Cities. Science Vol. 319, Issue 5864, pp. 756-760.

DOI: 10.1126/science.1150195 • Hodson, M., Marvin, S. (2012). Mediating Low-Carbon Urban Transitions? Forms of Organization, Knowledge and Action. European Planning Studies. Volume 20, Issue 3, 2012. DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2012.651804.

• Kabisch, S., Kuhlicke, C. (2014). Urban Transformations and the Idea of Resource Efficiency, Quality of Life and Resilience. Built Environment, 40(4), 475-485.

• Koch, F., Krellenberg, K., Kabisch, S. (2016): How to achieve Urban Sustainability Transformations (UST) in real life politics? Brief for the UN Global Sustainable Development Report, 2016.

• Lelieveld, J., Evans, J.S., Fnais, M., Giannadaki, D., Pozzer, A. (2015). The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature 525, 367–371. DOI:10.1038/nature15371.

• Rink, D., Banzhaf, E., Kabisch, S., Krellenberg, K. (2015). Von der, Großen Transformation zu urbanen Transformationen. Zum WBGU-Hauptgutachten Welt im Wandel. GAIA Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, Volume 24, Number 1, 1 January 2015.

21-25.

• Seto, K.C., Fragkias, M. (2005). Quantifying spatiotemporal patterns of urban land-use change in four cities of China with time series landscape metrics. Landscape Ecology.

20(7): 871-888.

• UN Habitat. (2016). Zero Draft of the New Urban Agenda. Retrieved from https://www. habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda • UN. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform Our World. .

Retrieved from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

• United Nations (2014): World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights (ST/ ESA/SER.A/352)

• Wamsler, C. (2015) Mainstreaming Ecosystem-based Adaptation: Transformation Toward Sustainability in Urban Governance and Planning. Ecology and Society 20(2):30 • WBGU. (2016). Humanity on the move: Unlocking the transformative power of cities.

Berlin: WBGU (German Advisory Council on Global Change).

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SUSTAINABLE CITIES. MANY ROLES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Henk Staats University of Leiden, The Netherlands staats@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Short bio: Henk Staats teaches at the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at Leiden University. His research interests include environmental preferences, psychological restoration, and the analysis and change of pro-environmental behavior. He cooperates with scientists of other disciplines (ecologists, architects, landscape architects, engineers), government institutions, enterprises, and NGO’s to develop and research approaches that may increase sustainability, biodiversity, scenic beauty, and well-being.

He is senior associate editor of Environment and Behavior.

His work can be accessed through ResearchGate, Web of Science or Google Scholar. He likes cycling, running, and speed skating, and therefore has a direct, personal interest in a clean and beautiful world.

Getting on the board of IAPS is a good opportunity to reflect on what I have done and plan to do in the coming years. I thank Ricardo Garcia Mira, for his request to introduce myself and my work in the Bulletin.

A few months ago Terry Hartig, friend and fellow-investigator on many projects, published a paper that bears witness to the importance of the theme of Urban Sustainability. The paper is titled “Living in cities, naturally.” co-authored by Peter Kahn and is published in Science. This publication in this prominent journal is a significant event. It shows that editors of influential media look at environmental psychologists to help understand what is going on in cities, how cities affect wellbeing and health, and in what way psychology can provide insights to urban design that can ameliorate conditions for living. This theme is getting recognition all over the world. The statistics are probably well known but just to be sure: the world’s population is moving towards cities; coming from a percentage of 14 in 1900, currently

more than half the world population lives in cities, , and this percentage is expected to grow to 66% in 2050, according to UN calculations. The world population is also growing at a fast rate, from 7 billion now to almost 10 billion in 2050.

So much more people will live in bigger cities! Are people capable to deal with that? Evolutionary psychologists never tire of explaining that we, as a species, lived in small groups during most of our history and that we are geared towards these small social units and have a real hard time being in close contact with so many unfamiliar people. Studies on high density living and crowding stress can be expected to become again a major topic for environmental psychologists, like they were in the seventies and eighties of the last century.

Already a few years ago German psychologists created a lot of publicity after publishing research in Nature (Lederbogen et al., 2011) on the negative consequences for mental health of living in larger cities. The authors attribute the effects to the social stress caused by having to live up to expectations of others and the fear of failure. Irrespective of this specific cause, many challenges exist for environmental psychology to contribute to healthier, ecologically more sustainable cities.

It is probably not a complete coincidence that this theme runs through my career. To give a brief overview: I received my master degree in social psychology, at a time when social psychologists no longer exclusively focused on running small-scale laboratory experiments. Together with a group of fellow-students I worked on a research project on the consequences of urban renewal, later leading to research for a master thesis that employed Maslow’s theory on the hierarchy of human motivation to investigate the way social contact in neighbourhoods fulfilled the different needs postulated by Maslow. It was truly amazing to see the analyses producing the main part of the predicted hierarchy within those neighborhood contacts. This nice result spurred my enthusiasm for the literature I was now getting familiar with, and this was certainly magnified by the different research jobs I worked in. For a couple of years I shuttled from one position to another doing research on landscape preference, planning issues, environmental behavior, until I got a grant to turn some of my earlier work into a doctoral dissertation. The topic was the relationship between urban crowding stress and outdoor recreation: how important is outdoor recreation for people living in high

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density conditions, the four major cities of the Netherlands in my study, and are motives to go out determined by the urge to escape environmental stressors? Results showed that this was a concern, but not a strong one and mainly for people in quite unfavorable living conditions who also had a personality that was sensitive to high stimulus loads. This study, and the time to read extensively, definitively turned me into an environmental psychologist: I was fascinated by the literature appearing in Environment and Behavior, the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Leisure Sciences and similar journals, not to mention some of the books and papers being published in that period from the : papers on the possibility to predict scenic beauty from the physical characteristics of a scene (Shafer & Mietz, 1970), or about the observations of youngsters and their cars cruising through main street (Goldberg, 1969), books on experimental aesthetics (Berlyne, 1974)! It was so different from mainstream social psychology, and I liked it a lot. That interest has persisted, and through the work of Daniel Berlyne, Joachim Wohlwill and more contemporary authors as Stephen and Rachel Kaplan, Roger Ulrich, Gary Evans, my dissertation work evolved in what is now known as restorative environment research.

The cooperation with a number of people and Terry Hartig in particular has led to many studies on this topic, and I look forward to continue. At the same time environmental problems also got my attention. A new position, at the department of Social and Organizational Psychology of Leiden University, brought me into contact with the research group on energy and environmental research, strongly committed to analyze environmentally relevant behavior and interventions to change that for the better. We then worked on that together, resulting in studies on all kinds of groups and programs: households, office workers, farmers, garage workshop managers, sports teams, greenhouse growers, and people who had organized themselves to work together towards more sustainable behavior patterns (in organizations known as EcoTeams, Carbon Conversations, EnergyTeams).

The combination of restorative environment research and a social psychological frame of reference now has led to research in which I look at the combined effects of physical and social characteristics of the environment. I do experimental work now on people walking on forest paths, encountering others. Using physiological, behavioral and self-report methods I study effects of encounters with other individuals in non-threatening situations, to see what those encounters in a natural environment do on stress relief and restoration. This research is guided by old ideas,

mainly Wohlwill’s ideas on characteristics of nature (1983) , but ideas I find fascinating to explore. The same interest has recently led to the study of interiors, a research domain known as proxemics, people close together. In studies on care homes and café’s we focus on privacy and intimacy as determinants of restoration and wellbeing. And finally there is this promising idea that exposure to nature may encourage environmentally friendly behavior. This work, inspired by Kaiser and Hartig, Weinstein and others, has led to studies on children in Spain, initiated by Silvia Collado and José Antonio Corraliza. And this promising avenue is another one I like to continue the coming years.

AAll of these strands of research now may become nicely captured under a new initiative here in Leiden: we are developing a bachelor program on Urban Studies, a threeyear program intended to school professionals who are capable of analyzing urban phenomena and guiding these in the right direction. This program is multidisciplinary, and quite a challenge but it really is interesting to be part of that. My task is to bring environmental psychology into the Urban Sustainability track, together with colleagues from Environmental Sciences and the Humanities. I look forward to bringing this initiative and the new research that it certainly will stimulate to future conferences of IAPS.

References • Berlyne, D. E. (1974). Studies in the new experimental aesthetics. Steps toward an objective psychology of aesthetic appreciation. New York: Hemisphere.

• Goldberg, T. (1969). The Automobile. A Social Institution for Adolescents. Environment and Behavior, 1, 152-185.

• Hartig, T., & Kahn, P. H. (2016). Living in cities, naturally. Science, 352, 938-940.

• Lederbogen, F., Kirsch, P., haddad, L., Streit, F., Tost, H., ….Meyer-Lindenberg, A. (2011).

City living and urban upbringingaffect neural social stress processing in humans. Nature, 474, 498-501.

• Shafer, E. L., & Mietz, J. (1970). It seems possible to quantify scenic beauty in photographs.

USDA Forest Service research paper NE-162. Upper Darby (Pa.): Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• Wohlwill, J. F. (1983). The concept of nature. A psychologist’s view. In I. Altman and J. F. Wohlwill (Eds.) Human behavior and environment. Advances in theory and research. Vol. 6.

Behavior and the natural environment (pp5-37). New York: Plenum.

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PAST CONFERENCES

24TH IAPS CONFERENCE LUND & ALNARP, SWEDEN, 27 JUNE – 1 JULY 2016 THE HUMAN BEING AT HOME, WORK AND LEISURE. SUSTAINABLE USE AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDOOR AND OUTDOOR SPACES IN LATE MODERN EVERYDAY LIFE

The conference was hosted by the Environmental Psychology Research Groups at Lund University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Southern Sweden. The conference was very successful, and more than 400 delegates attended and participated in the multiple sessions held in these two historical cities.

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The Rector of the Lund University addressing his speech to the IAPS delegates.

The conference addressed the interrelations between the social, the built and the natural environment, and how they shape human behavior. It focused on the factors that shape the actions and everyday lives of citizens in a diversity of environments and on providing insight into how to promote transitions to sustainable lifestyles, economies and communities.

WORKSHOP OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS

The associated Young Researcher Workshop, was held at The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Alnarp, Sweden), during two days before the Conference (26-27 June), creating a framework for the mentorship of young researchers in the field of people-environment studies.

HONNORING PAST IAPS PRESIDENTS

During the conference, the past Presidents of IAPS were honored and a Diploma was delivered to them or to the persons who represented them during the opening ceremony of the Conference. The current President emphasized, in his speech, their contributions to the association and the field of people-environment

“From left to right: Rifa Maliqi, Maria Johansson, Caroline Hägerhäll, and Thorbjörn Laike, members of the Organising Team.”

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More than 400 delegates attended the IAPS Conference.

A good social and scientific environment during the conference

studies, and the merits of having stimulated and maintained an active and exciting IAPS from the late sixties until today. He recognized the role played by the first presidents during the 1980’s when there were more difficulties for interchanging information and establishing communication among scientists, until the 1990’s when email revolutionized communication and information sharing among scientists. Garcia-Mira also underlined the contribution of past women Presidents who played a key role in motivating and encouraging the participation of other women in research, conferences and symposia, in the Board of the Association as well as other activities of IAPS. IAPS BOARD MEETING AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Past Presidents of IAPS were honoured with a Diploma of Acknowledgement.

The annual Board meeting and the Annual General Meeting were also held during the conference, where IAPS members were informed about the activities and policies programmed for the future and received updates on the financial situation of the Association as well as on its publications policy.

IAPS HALL OF FAME

During the Closing Ceremony Professor Roderick Lawrence received the recognition of the membership for his long career and contributions to IAPS, and joined the Hall of Fame of IAPS.

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The IAPS board meeting was held at the main building (The Castle) of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

From left to right: Seunkwang Shon, Roderick Lawrence, Marino Bonaiuto, Andrew Seidel, Ann Devlin, Ricardo Garcia-Mira, Henk Staats, Ferdinando Fornara, and Enric Pol.

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More than 400 people attended and participated in the multiple sessions of IAPS24.

A view of the room during the closing ceremony.

Announcing the next Conference in Roma Tre University (Italy).

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ACTIVITIES OF THE DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AT II CLACIP 2016 BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, OCTOBER 12TH AND 15TH

Between October 12th and 15th, 2016, the 2nd Latin American Congress for the Advancement of Psychological Science (CLACIP) was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Psychological Science (AACP). In this context, the Division of Environmental Psychology carried out a program of activities aimed at the spread of this branch of psychology, that is still an unexplored area in this country. Many activities were proposed in order to generate a meeting space capable of stimulating the labor of psychologists who work on the area of Environmental Psychology, both on its research and intervention.

As a pre-congress activity, and for the first time in Argentina, Dr. Ricardo García Mira coordinated a Workshop that made it possible to receive training on Environmental Psychology from an internationally renowned academic.

From an interdisciplinary call, not only professionals on psychology, but also on other disciplines related to the environmental area took part in this important event.

The “Binding Session” was an innovative space that aimed to generate a meeting between public-policy-makers and researchers in the field of Environmental Psychology.

This could promote interdisciplinary and collaborative labor between academia and the public sector in the field of environmental sustainability. Plenty of the problems that managers presented as perceived in their activity constitute demands that could find an answer in the area of Environmental Psychology, while the psychologists presented pieces of research in Environmental Psychology that could be applicated to environmental - urban public management and policies. Problems and investigations on urban solid waste management, recovery of urban wate rcourses, intervention in natural disasters (volcanic eruption), population relocation for environmental reasons and environmental practices to prevent the spread of dengue were introduced.

Results of research applied to environmental problems of social relevance in vulnerable populations were

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introduced in the “Symposium” (perception of risk in a neighborhood exposed to electromagnetic pollution and in a community exposed to petro-chemical pollution, also identification of preventive practices), and also research on theoretical models of pro-environmental behavior (disposition to install sustainable home-energy-systems) and the importance of the physical environment in mental processes (illumination effects on emotional states).

The “Border Session” discussed the current situation of Environmental Psychology in Argentina, making a comparison with other countries, particularly european ones. As a prominent theme, the difficulty of inserting Environmental Psychology in the curricula of public universities was discussed.

Finally, the Division’s master lecture was given by Dr. Ricardo García Mira. It was titled “Psychological Science and Environmental Policy: Transitions towards Sustainability”.

The activities carried out by the Division of Environmental Psychology within the framework of II CLACIP served thepurpose of covering spaces of formation, meeting of researchers, exchange with public-policy-makers, and spred of this branch of psychology among students, professionals, managers and public in general. All this in a context where this issue finds little space in formal university area, despite the interest it attracts.

The coordinators for the activities of the Environmental Psychology Division of the AACP were: Schelica Mozobancyk, Florencia Pasqualini and Javier Augusto Pérez Sobrero.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ARCHITECTURE: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON A TEXAN RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ARCHITECTURE – DECEMBER 2016

BY DAVID STEA, CENTER FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE MEXICO & SANAZ TALAIFAR, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS (AUSTIN)

Over two cold, gray, and rainy days in Austin in early December 2016, the University of Texas hosted a landmark conference on the psychology of architecture. The conference was notable in that, while a number of gatherings on the general theme of environmental social science have taken place, this event was the first in some time specifically devoted to architectural psychology.

Capably organized by Sam Gosling and Sanaz Talaifar, both of the Department of Psychology at UT, the conference hosted 150 participants from a dozen countries. Most were “new faces”: researchers and practitioners who had not

earlier risen through the ranks of such formal organizations as EDRA and IAPS. The conference’s four sponsors were the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Austin Institute for Architecture, and both the Psychology and Architecture departments at UT Austin. These sponsors reflected the interdisciplinary nature of the conference.

Over thirty presentations were organized into symposia, individual paper sessions, and poster presentations under general themes such as domestic architecture, healthcare design, cognition, occupant emotions, social impacts, sitespecific studies, and novel methodology.

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These symposium presentations were accompanied by four keynote presentations. Alexi Marmot (Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London; and Director of AMA Alexi Marmot Associates) opened the conference with an illustrated keynote with the intriguing title “Lessons from the Coalface of Architectural Practice and Academia”.

The presentation highlighted successful interdisciplinary collaboration and future possibilities. She was followed

by Elizabeth Danze (interim Dean of UT’s School of Architecture and a principal of Danze Blood Architects) whose keynote drew from ideas based in psychoanalysis and was entitled “Architecture, Psyche, and Self Reflection”. David Canter, a pioneer in the early foundation of architectural psychology in Europe, participated through a live video talk broadcast directly from the UK. His keynote address, “A Brief History of Architectural Psychology and Where We Went Wrong”, described how architectural psychology became environmental psychology and contributed to his establishment of investigative psychology a quartercentury ago. Concluding the conference, David Stea delivered a keynote entitled “From Architectural Psychology to Environmental Psychology: behavior, to cognition, to participatory design.” He presented an historical overview of the American side of the development of architectural and environmental psychology complementary to that presented earlier by Canter, emphasizing observations on how architectural psychology has been and can be applied to design and planning.

The conference opened new windows onto architectural psychology. It shed a different light on earlier topics of research and brought new perspectives on interdisciplinary collaboration. What remains to be seen is how the new networks, which resulted from interactions at this conference manage to endure and expand.

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NEXT CONFERENCES

IAPS 2017 SYMPOSIUM DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – 27-29 SEPTEMBER 2017 KNOWLEDGE FOR CLIMATE-PROOF URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN RAPIDLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS www.iaps2017.com

Please, go to the Symposium website: www.iaps2017.com for additional information and for online registration.

ORGANIZED BY

Nathalie Jean-Baptiste (Convenor of the Housing Network) and Wilbard Kombe.

With the support of: Émilie Pinard (Co-convenor of the Housing Network) Sigrun Kabisch, Rolf Johansson, Roderick Lawrence (Housing Network) Peter Kellet (Culture and Space Network) Petra Schweizer-Ries (Sustainability Network).

HOST INSTITUTION

Institute of Human Settlements Studies (IHSS) Ardhi University Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

CONTACT

Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste & Prof. Wilbard Kombe Institute of Human Settlements Studies (IHSS) Ardhi University Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

E-mail: organizers@iaps2017.com

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You are cordially invited to participate in the IAPS 2017 Symposium.

The event will be held from 27 - 29 September 2017 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. IAPS 2017 will take a pioneering look at urban development, people and environmental behaviour with a particular focus on Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Participants will debate the added value of explicitly relating scientific knowledge about climate, risks and extreme events to pro-environmental behaviour and city planning.

The scientific committee welcomes contributions addressing one of the following themes: • Planning and design in disasters, multiple risks and climate change • Housing, land use planning, informality and urban settlements • Gender based experiences, behaviour, perceptions and environmental change • Resilient urban infrastructure, transportation and energy • Governance and management of the urban built environment • Ecosystems services, green infrastructure, health and livelihoods • Dissemination of knowledge, advocacy and communication

Selected papers will be published in an edited book titled “Knowledge for Climate-Proof Urban Development in Rapidly Changing Environments”. In addition to the book, the organizers aimed at publishing the best papers in a Special Issue in a scientific journal. More details on the forthcoming publications will be uploaded on the symposium website.

SYMPOSIUM FEES

Early bird fees (before 30 April 2017) $ 300.00 USD Regular fees (after 30 April 2017) $ 400.00 USD

IAPS 2017 Symposium student fees Symposium $ 190.00 USD SUMMARY

Contemporary cities in low-income countries have numerous social and economic development challenges as well as environmental issues that should be addressed. The “business as usual” development trajectory has serious implications for both current and future generations. Some cities will need to reassess their development goals and planning interventions to incorporate new challenges stemming from global change (climate change, migration flows, and land grabbing). Others will need to address questions of how to create safer and more equitable built environments.

Residents in peri-urban areas – already reliant on marginal and often hazardous land for their housing and

livelihoods – are particularly vulnerable unless preventive actions can be taken to improve their quality of life. Despite the economic and social progress observed in the global south, there still is a series of discontinuities in terms of knowledge about the impacts of climate change, individual and collective pro-environmental behaviour, and the provision of services and infrastructure. Given that urban areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America are progressively being configured over longer time periods through policies and land-use planning, the question of secure built environments will become even more relevant.

It is against this background that the IAPS 2017 Symposium will take place in Dar es Salaam. IAPS 2017 organizers argue that effective measures need foresight information about sustainable urban development, impacts of climate change on specific localities and possible strategies for creating adequate human habitats particularly in informal settlements. In this regard, urban scholars, local authorities and developers are asked to reconsider and/or to reconcile short- and long- term objectives for development and associated environmental and social costs.

The IAPS 2017 Symposium will take a pioneering look at urban development, people and environmental behaviour from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It will debate the added value of explicitly relating scientific knowledge about climate change to pro-environmental behaviour and city planning.

The symposium will address questions such as: What are the implications of global environmental changes for land use planning in coastal cities and inland states with low economies? What are the consequences in terms of health challenges? And whose responsibility is it to prevent and reduce the negative impacts of climate change?.

FORESEEN SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGES

• Participants will learn about specifics of the challenges faced by urban populations in different regions of the world.

• The latest evidence from international projects will provide a deeper understanding about the interconnection between land use development, pro-environmental behaviour and climate related impacts.

• In articulating the particularities found in different contexts in particular in Africa and Asia, participants will learn about approaches and implementations that influence urban development in these parts of the world.

• The focus will be on bridging the applicability gap between scientific know-how and implementation.

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IAPS 2017 SYMPOSIUM STEERING GROUP

The committee is composed by international scholars responsible for the quality of the scientific input during the Symposium:

The steering group serves as the symposium’s main organizational body and operates mainly from Ardhi University.

The group is responsible for all matters of organization, symposium program design and field activities.

Names

Institution

Dr. Oumar Cissé

Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine

Prof. Ricardo Garcia

University of A Coruña

Prof. Carole Després Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste Prof. Rolf Johansson

Prof. Sigrun Kabisch Dr. Peter Kellet

Prof. Wilbard Kombe

Prof. Alphonce Kyessi

Prof. Roderick Lawrence Dr. Domingos Augusto Macucule Dr. Makarius Mdemu

Prof. Jochen Monstadt Prof. Livin Mosha

Dr. Stephen Mukiibi Prof. Denise Piché

Assistant Prof. Émilie Pinard Prof. Petra Schweizer-Ries Prof. Alison Todes

Prof. Hülya Turgut

Prof. Kris Wernstedt

Université Laval

Ardhi University

Swedish University of Agricultural Science

• Dr. Nathalie Jean-Baptiste • Prof. Wilbard Kombe • Dr. Makarius Mdemu • Dr. Tatu Limbumba • Dr. Daniel Msangi • Dr. Dawah Lulu Magembe-Mushi • Prof. Émilie Pinard • Prof. Kris Wernstedt • Ms. Glory Thadeus

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research University of Newcastle Ardhi University Ardhi University

University of Geneva

University Eduardo Mondlane Ardhi University

Utrecht University Ardhi University

Makerere University Université Laval

Laurentian University

University of Applied Science Bochum & Saarland University

University of the Witwatersrand Özyegin University

Virginia Tech University

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XIV CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ÉVORA, PORTUGAL, 21-24 JUNE 2017 “ESPACIOS Y COMPORTAMIENTO HUMANO: DE LO LOCAL A LO GLOBAL” www.congresopsicamb2017.com

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Environmental Psychology Association (PSICAMB), based in Spain, is informing about its XIV Conference on Environmental Psychology which will be held in Évora, Portugal, next 21-24 June 2017.

Papers will be accepted in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.

We invite you all to participate in the conference.

Soon, we will publish the conference website.

Key Dates: • Deadline absstracts submission: 15 February 2017 • Abstract acceptation: 15 March 2017 • Early bird registration (reduced price): 24 April 2017 Contact for further information:

Ana Loureiro – Email: a.t.loureiro@gmail.com Fátima Bernardo – Email: fatimab@uevora.pt IAPS - BULLETIN 44 | AUTUMN 2016

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NEWS

OPENING AGENDAS. THE CATALYSTS OF SOCIAL INNOVATION: POWER, POLITICS, AND THE MOMENT FOR URBAN SOCIAL INNOVATION UNDERSTANDING URBAN SUSTAINABILITY

Ricardo Garcia Mira IAPS President

Last May 2016, I have been participating in the Green Week 2016, in a specific session organized by the European Commission. The session on “The catalysts of social innovation: power, politics, and the moment for urban social innovation” was held at the Committee of the Regions of the European Union.

The title of my presentation was “Understanding urban sustainability” where I presented some research results from the GLAMURS project (Green Lifestyles, Alternaive Models, and Upscaling Regional Sustainability), underlining the relevance of behavioural approaches and agent based modeling for exploring the activation of change of in our unsustainable lifestyles.

It was a pleasure to share and build knowledge with European researchers, activists, and representatives of the DG of Research and Innovationt of the European Commission in key aspects for understanding what is happening today in Europe regarding the change and the transition to a more sustainable society.

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RODERICK LAWRENCE PROMOTED TO EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA (SWITZERLAND)

Roderick Lawrence* has been promoted to Emeritus Professor by the Rectorat of the University of Geneva. This promotion is in recognition for his contribution to teaching and research at the Centre for Human Ecology and Environmental Sciences since 1986, as well as his international awards, the most recent being his inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who in the World (2016) and Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering (2016).

A ceremony was held at the University of Geneva on 18th November 2015. On that occasion, Roderick gave a public lecture titled “A long pathway to transdiciplinarity”. He presented his academic, geographical and professional itineraries from the time he graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture and Town Planning Degree with first class honours from the University of Adelaide. After two years of professional practice in Sydney, Roderick crossed several continents during his pathway from Australia via South East Asia to India, Iran and the Middle East, before travelling from Greece to Scandinavia then taking up a scholarship at St. John’s College, Cambridge, England.

During his graduate studies in Cambridge, Roderick crossed disciplinary boundaries to learn concepts and methods in the social sciences as well as architectural psychology. He applied an interdisciplinary approach to his cross-cultural research on housing design, dwelling practices and home. Moving from England to Switzerland to take up residence in the home country of Clarisse, his life-long partner, Roderick developed his interdisciplinary competences further at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. From the early 1980s he was engaged in action research with innovative simulation methods that involved laypeople in the design of their future residences. Before being appointed at the University of Geneva, he completed a 6 month consultancy at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, working as a professional officer for the Housing, Building and Planning Committee.

Today Roderick is known for his contributions published in several languages about housing and urban studies, health and quality of life, and principles of human ecology for sustainability, which he has completed using interdisciplinary

and cross-cultural research methods. He has consistently used concepts and methods from the field of people-environment studies to show the added value of transdisciplinary contributions that can be applied from the local to global levels in order to reduce the applicability gap between knowledge, policy definition and implementation.

Following institutional restructuring at the University of Geneva, Roderick now works at the recently founded Geneva School of Social Sciences (G3S). His current responsibilities include the Direction of the GEPP program, a Swiss representative of the Management Committee of the European COST Action TD1408, and he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the td-network for transdisciplinary research under the auspices of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences.

Currently, Roderick is also Visiting Professor at the International Institute for Global Health of the United Nations University, and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI) at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Homepage: http://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/geo/ collaborateurs/enseignants/lawrenceroderick.html

Link to one of his more recent publication: R.Lawrence (2016) ‘Interdisciplinary Science: A coming of age?’

New York Academy of Sciences Magazine, Spring, 3rd May 2016: http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Detail. aspx?cid=f01521e6-851c-429d-8a7e92e0d385d1d1 Author Note: Roderick Lawrence served on the IAPS Board for 16 years from 1986 to 2002. He founded the first IAPS Network for housing in 1986. He served as IAPS Treasurer from 1994 to 2002. He transferred his role as coordinator of the IAPS Housing Network to Nathalie Jean-Baptiste in 2014.

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AN AWARD-WINNING PROJECT OF IAPS-CS NETWORK: THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT IT IS USED TO BE IN ISTANBUL AS A PALIMPSEST CITY1

Hülya Turgut Professor, PhD. Ozyegin University, Faculty of Architecture and Design Istanbul, Turkey Co-Coordinator of IAPS-CS Network turguth1@gmail.com

Metropolises, with their common vivacious, mostly chaotic and random characteristics, although including differences, are in a going-on growth in the whole world. In the cities where the perpetual change and transformation of the components is inevitable, there have always been opportunities to create creative milieu in different qualifications for different actors. Institutions of a living city have always been shaped by its dwellers and create new spaces. Istanbul, embodying all these characteristics and presenting numerous potentials, has been an important laboratory for both architectural practices and architectural design studios. Within this context, informal education activities, which are practices outside of the formal educational programs applied in architecture schools, are becoming more important and Istanbul has been an important tool in these activities.

From this point of view, on the purpose of making a contribution to informal education activities on architectural education, under the framework of IKSV ‘Istanbul Culture and Art Foundation’ Istanbul Design Biennial, IAPS-CS ‘Culture and Space’ Network has been organizing “The National Culture and Space Meeting

Series” in Turkey since 2012. The aim of organizing these activities is mainly to focus on architectural issues in urban context using the concept and theories on culture and environment relations based on the environment-behaviour studies. Following this, another important aim is to bring together graduate, postgraduate and PhD students from different schools and young researchers by correlating researches and theoretical works with different levels of architectural design education and also to provide a wide range discussion milieu by organizing such an activity on the part of an independent network. At the end of the all steps, to provide a discussion milieu including all the participants is one of the most important methodological steps of the activities.

The first Istanbul Design Biennial with the theme of “Imperfection” took place between 13 October-12 December, 2012. The theme of “Imperfection” was attempted to be read through Istanbul during the Biennial organised by IKSV. The expectation was for Istanbul to provide an inspiration for the design creation process with its far from being imperfect nature, fuzzy and temporary and yet exciting characteristics. Within the context of the Academic Program of the Biennial a series of events were jointly organised by “IAPS-CS Network” and Istanbul Technical University , Faculty of Architecture. Accordingly, throughout the biennial a number of intertwined activities such as paper selections, design workshops, student competitions, exhibitions and symposiums were held.

Within the scope of these activities, the main aim was to analyse the “Palimpsest”2 state of Istanbul and the discussion of concepts such as spatial and social oppositions, change, transformation, continuity, urban and

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Figure 1. Intertwined activities of IAPS-CS Network within the Istanbul Design Biennial.

architectural identity urban palimpsest within a dialectic framework.

The second Istanbul Design Biennial with the theme of “The Future is Not What it is Used to be in Istanbul as a Palimpsest City” took place between September and December, 2014. Maltepe University, Architecture and Design Faculty and IAPS-CS Network organized a series of activities entitled “The Future Is Not What It Is Used to Be in Istanbul as a Palimpsest City”, within the scope of Istanbul 2. Design Biennial Academic Program. The activities were a continuation of the activities that are realized within the academy program of the previous biennial. IAPS-CS Network Activities that continued during the biennial, have composed of interrelated steps such as design workshops, article anthology, student competition, exhibition/colloquium/symposium and publication3. Within this context, the main aim is to bring on discussions on the palimpsest character of Istanbul and to provoke students to question multi-layered city Istanbul.

The students were expected to read and interpret the multilayered and palimpsest state of Istanbul, imperfection of its layers and to discuss the manifest of “The Future is Not What it is Used to be in Istanbul” from their points of views and express their interpretations.

In the following part, some information of student competition and design workshop are given in detail.

enhancing the students’ understanding of the multi-layered, multi-dimensional and complex nature of “urban space” and “urban life” and encouraging them to develop their own perspectives for comprehending the city.

The results of the workshop demonstrate how students’ interest in exchanging ideas and their willingness to work both individually and in collaboration with others in a learning environment that encouraged their curiosity, changed their attitudes towards the city. The learning process was as important as the final products in this workshop. This learning process was driven here by the concept of working in teams or groups. The team works carried out through different methods developed by young researchers from various fields of study, has created a quite fruitful workshop process, in terms of enabling exchange of different teaching methods, perspectives and ideas.

THE DESIGN WORKSHOP

The design workshop as a part of the series of activities organized within the academy program of the Biennial was held in Salt Galata, Karaköy with the participation of undergraduate and graduate students from many universities.

During the workshop process, students carried out “urban readings” intended for understanding the illegible, complex and multi-layered character of Istanbul by tracing the different social, spatial and temporal layers of the city.

They have tried to read, understand and interpret the changing dynamics of Istanbul, and its social, temporal and spatial reflections, by developing their own viewpoints.

One of the most important outcomes of the workshop was

Figure 2. Workshop participants at The Modern Art Museum: Salt Galata-Karaköy, Istanbul.

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Figure 3. Some Pictures from workshop in Salt Galata, Karakoy-Istanbul.

Student competitions are as important as professional architectural competitions, since they offer the opportunity to explore alternative ideas and to reinforce knowledge and skills learned at architectural school, and so are among the vital ways of complementing architectural education. In particular competition themes that stretch the conventions of architectural discipline and original participatory projects that are developed in this context provide important clues about the future of architecture.

Setting out from this premise, IAPS-Culture & Space Network is holding a national student design concept competition called “Imagining Istanbul”, as part of the Second Istanbul Design Biennial organised by Istanbul Culture and Art Foundation. With regard to the biennial’s academy programme, this is one of the most participatory activities. The competition text has takes into account the fact that Istanbul is a “palimpsest” city and the potentials that this situation offers; and by going in pursuit of traces of different periods of the city aims to be the igniting spark for projects that learn from these traces and thereby present predictions of the future. On 8 November 2014 a jury evaluated 28 entries that examined the present and past of the city from unusual angles and developed original interpretations of “tomorrow”. As a result 5 projects were found equally worthy of receiving the prize, while 2 projects were awarded an encouragement prize.

At the end of the competition process, the evaluation meeting of the competition was held in order to examine the contribution of the “Imagining Istanbul” design concept competition to discussions of contemporary architecture.

The entire process, including choosing the competition theme, publicizing the competition, the participating projects and competition results, has been evaluated with respect to architectural education.

The Palimpsest Istanbul competition projects follow a few routes in producing future scenarios. The first group of projects are ready-to-be-built, up-to-date

Figure 4. Selection from the explanation of Project no. 9 ‘Palinpolis’, one of the joint prize winners.

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projects. The second group of projects deal with grids and mega-structures. Another category is about happily-everafter scenarios of ecology. Dystopic examples point the underground or a virutic dissemination. There are also proposals about the sky. These are annexes like the megastructures. Of course, there are proposals that are beyond these categorizations as well. The horrifying, Istanbul earthquake, which has become a nightmare since 1999, is at the focus in post-apocalyptic scenarios. These scenarios have shifted since the Gezi Park occupation.

Architecture has played a heroic role in saving the future. Bu has also played a tragic role in monopolizing power. The function of futurology lies in here. This competition has shown the importance to make future play a greater role in architectural education. Foreseeing the dynamics-to-come plays a key role in creative thinking.

Professor, PhD. Ozyegin University, Faculty of Architecture and Design Istanbul, Turkey Email: turguth1@gmail.com for activities of 2014 http://iksvakademi-iapscsbe.tumblr.com/ http://www.facebook.com/IapsCsbeNetwork for activities of 2012 http://www.facebook.com/IapsCsbeNetwork http://kulturmekanatolyeleri.tumblr.com/ http://iapscsbekulturmekan.tumblr.com/

Figure 5 . A view from the IAPS-CS Network section in main exhibition of 2nd. Biennial of IKSV.

Footnotes 1

2

With special thanks to participants, workshop leaders , jury members and the scientific and organization committee: Hülya Turgut, Esra Akbalık, Melike Atıcı, Emel Cantürk, E. Cemre Çelikcan, Hale Sinirlioğlu; Bilgen Ataç, Beril Sulamacı, Bürkan Emre, Belis Öztürk, Gamze Karayılanoğlu, Hasret Özdemir Gülbay

Palimpsest: A manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing, but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form (Oxford Dictionary).

3

Following the end of the Biennale, this very comprehensive series of events was awarded as the most succesfull 3 projects out of 72 projects at the Academy Platform.

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THESIS

THE IMPACT OF LEARNING SPACE DESIGN AND OTHER SOCIO-PHYSICAL VARIABLES IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Vicente Lรณpez-Chao Academy Professor, University of A Coruna, Spain vlopezchao@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Physical environment is a permanent element in educational activity that has been issue of international concern since the second part of last century. Literature shows the influence of learning space factors in academic outcome, behaviour and social relations (Barret, Davies, Zhang & Barret, 2015; Gifford, 1995, Weinstein, 1979). Moreover, traditional classroom design entails power relations between teacher and students (Jacklin, 2004) that hinder the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) goal of paradigm shift: from teacher-centred to student-centred through active teaching methodologies. However, existing contributions come from several fields of knowledge under an individual approach without connecting all different perspectives. There is not a scientific base or global

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framework for educational building designers, politicians, or teachers involved in classroom design of the influence of space. This relies on openplan or traditional layout designs that continue showing poor teachinglearning experiences, since a design change does not mean an improvement by itself, practice must be taken into account (Tse, Learoyd-Smith, Stables & Daniels, 2015).

Therefore, the main objective of this research is to find out whether learning space factors influence on academic outcome at the higher education level. For this purpose, a systematic review of the literature was performed through Education, Environmental Psychology and Architecture to create a self-reported data collection tool. The study was carried out at the University of A Coruna under a multi-method approach that included questionnaire (n=793 undergraduate students) and semistructured interviews (n=5 professors).

Psychometric tests, expert judgment and focus group showed the reliability and validity of the questionnaire, and exploratory factorial analysis let to explore factorial structure of the holistic model. Then, descriptive, nonparametric and multiple linear regression analysis were applied to student data. After analysing statistic results, interviews took place in order to get professor perspective feedback of findings.

Finally, the triangulation of results lead to a global model that involves three main learning space factors: environmental, attraction to the use of space and workspace comfort and favouring social relationship factor.

The multidisciplinary approach has let to support research evidences and to rise up findings that shows the current user needs of space variables (i.e. control of lighting instead quantity).

From these results it is possible to conclude that academic performance

at university level is influenced by environmental and spatial variables, and by the capacity of classroom design to promote social relations.

The importance of this research, regarding the state of the art, relies on the lack of a holistic vision of learning spaces. Additionally, it is obtained a tool that let anyone to evaluate a specific learning context, to diagnose which factors are direct correlated with academic performance and to detect which are presenting a negative influence on it. In order to demonstrate this evaluative capability, some changes of the studied spaces are provided to improve learning performance.

In addition some limitations are presented such as the impossibility of real relation of data with specific teaching methods. Proposal of objective measuring and its comparison with perception data is presented as a convenient continuity of the study.

References • Barret, P., Davies, F., Zhang, Y., & Barret, L. (2015). The impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning: Final results of a holistic, multi-level analysis. Building and Environment, 89, 118-133.

• Gifford, R. (1996). Environmental psychology: principles and practice. Needham, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

• Jacklin, H. (2004). Discourse, interaction and spatial rhythms: locating pedagogic practice in a material world. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 12(3), 373-398. doi:10.1090/14681360400200208

• Tse, H., Learoyd-Smith, S., Stables, A., & Daniels, H. (2015). Continuity and conflict to in school design: a case study from Building Schools for the Future. Intelligent Buildings International, 7(2-3), 64-82. doi:10.1080/17508975.2014.927349 • Weinstein, C. (1979). The Physical Environment of the School: A Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research, 49(4), 577-610. doi:10.3102/00346543049004577

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PUBLICATIONS

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS - URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING ISSN 1755-0793 | E-ISSN 1755-0807 http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/ jurdp.2016.169.6.255 Derya Oktay, Prof. Dr. Ondokuz Mayıs University, (Turkey).

Themed issue on Urban Identity in the Era of Globalisation - Part One (Editor: Derya Oktay) Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning. Volume 169, Issue 6, December, 2016.

Oktay’s editorial is free to view on the ICE Virtual Library. http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/toc/jurdp/169/6

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Dr. Derya Oktay’s contribution in the new book released by the European Academy of Land Use and Development (EALD) Oktay, D. (2017), A Critical Approach to Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons from Traditional and Contemporary Paradigms, in Land Ownership and Land Use Development: The Integration of Past, Present, and Future in Spatial Planning and Land Management Policies (Editors: E. Hepperle, R. Dixon-Gough, R. Mansberger, J. Paulsson, J. Hernik and T. Kalbro), vdf Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH, Zürich, 295-306. http://vdf.ch/land-ownership-and-land-use-developmente-book.html LAND OWNERSHIP AND LAND USE DEVELOPMENT: The Integration of Past, Present, and Future in Spatial Planning and Land Management Policies Derya Oktay, Prof. Dr. Ondokuz Mayıs University, (Turkey).

A Critical Approach to Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons from Traditional and Contemporary Paradigms

ABSTRACT In the era of globalisation in which serious environmental problems are threatening cities and their inhabitants, as cultural integrity is constantly under attack and many cities lack socially inclusive and responsive environments, there is an urgent need for a radical shift towards a holistic strategy for sustainable urbanism combining ecological sustainability and socio-cultural sustainability. This calls for sensitivity to the traditional urbanism and impact of global ideas, practices, and technologies on local social and cultural practices both at the city scale and architecture scale. In line with these, this chapter aims to establish an environmentally sound and human friendly framework for sustainable urbanism in future cities. In this context, the study firstly provides a conceptual understanding of sustainable urbanism and a critical review of its philosophical and practical framework; secondly, it provides a critical assessment of contemporary approaches to sustainable urbanism; thirdly, the chapter analyses the traditional Turkish (Ottoman) city which provides valuable clues for sustainable development, and discusses possible research directions that could help promote the concept of sustainability in the urban environment of future cities.

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Editor Ricardo Garcia Mira

University of A Coruna Department of Psychology People-Environment Research Group Campus de ElviĂąa, s/n 15071 - A CoruĂąa (Spain) Phone: +34 881011792 Fax: +34 981167153 E-mail: ricardo.garcia.mira@udc.es URL: www.people-environment-udc.org

International Association for People-Environment Studies aims to improve the physical environment and human well-being.