Human Factors - Report

HUMAN FACTORS REPORT OLIVER BALDOCK. MARCH 2019. ARCH7043.

The purpose of this report is to analyse how Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and the wider architecture profession design for the experience of a user within their proposals. I will analyse a variety of representation techniques, that explore the narratives and defining characteristics of their respective projects. In doing so, I hope to show how the image of architecture can define a proposal, both to its benefit and detriment. This report focuses on the housing sector, where often the client is not the end user which causes complications when designing for user experience.

Fig.1 Concept diagram for a housing masterplan

Fig.1 demonstrates an early stage sketch which quickly defined the major narratives behind a project. It represents how the proposal interacts with the context, the major site constraints within the project and, most importantly for a residential project, initiates a conversation about how residents transition between the home and the street. Discerning a line between the opposing values of openness and security is fundamental to how housing projects touch the ground. Whether you have residences or commercial and community spaces on the ground floor often defines a project’s narrative and a client’s intent.

Yet, the sketch is still abstract, it doesn’t need to deal with the feasibility of a design, and whilst it sparks a notion about the key drivers behind a design, a lot is left to the imagination. Similar sketches at the earlier stages of more developed projects have come to define the character of a project far more than any subsequent design decisions, and quickly convey the focus of a project to both the client and other consultants.

Fig.2 diagrammatically explores a residential projects. The concept is developed further than a sketch, exploring the site constraints, proposing a feasible project

Fig.2 Massing diagrams for a residential project near London City Airport

and exploring how the narrative creates a mass. This form of representation is useful for conveying the reasons behind design decisions, and creates a step between the sketch and CAD drawings. The image is still abstract with more design intent, however loses the human scale to the design in a similar manner to plans, sections and elevations.

Fig.3 Render for a competition for student residences.

Alternatively, renders can be use to quickly evoke a project’s narrative and defining features. Thus, they can be a step between the sketch and the diagram, producing an image that reasserts the human experience back into a more resolved scheme. Fig.3 captures in one image the relationship between a university campus, new student housing and their residents. At a more nuanced level, it explores a new method of societal participation within an existing system. Combined with a few, clear diagrams (Fig.4) and a section cutting through the life of the building (Fig.5), the scheme explores a more subtle understanding of the university’s desire to improve their students’ mental health and wellbeing. Far greater weight is given to the holistic approach and proposed atmosphere of a project through this form of imagery, and they can be a better tool for selling a project than the traditional plan and section.

Fig.4 Concept diagram for a competition for student residences.

Fig.5 Perspective section for a competition for student residences

Fig.6 View of residential project from nearby street

Fig.6 is still a render, yet it aims to demonstrate the (lack of) impact of a proposal on the local landscape and is as reactive as Fig.3 is proactive. The intended audience of this image is not the potential client but those affected by said proposal, and aims to sell the development in a different light.

Fig.7 & 8 Snapshots from Enscape views inside a university project.

A Stage 5 university project, currently under construction, uses VR as a tool for the design team to better understand contractors BIM models to improve detection and avoid clashes. New software in the office allows for the tagging and highlighting of these detail from within the virtual model taking the VR model from a presentation tool to becoming design software. VR walkthroughs and 360o panoramas (Fig.7 & Fig.8) have also been used for both discussing F&E layouts with staff across departments, and for providing a better understanding to artists tendering for installations in the university grounds. For these purpose, as seen in Figures 7 & 8, the model has been rendered as white card to prevent unrealistic expectations of the finished construction.

A more pragmatic approach to understanding user experience would be through both pre and post occupancy evaluations. Although FCBS has a framework for the latter, both the process and the data produced are underused. FCBS undertakes a continuous process of improving how ‘lessons learnt’ can be picked up in new projects and how information and knowledge acquired from one project can be transmitted to new teams

working on similar proposals.

The post occupancy surveys come in two parts. Based on comfort, quality of spaces, ease of access etc. the qualitative half of the survey can be undertaken soon after occupation. The more quantitative element of the survey is understanding the data behind the building: energy use, thermal comfort and general resource usage which may uncover underlying problems not picked up through day to day use. Both are important in understanding how the building is experienced, but if major flaws in the design are uncovered, post-construction it can be impossible to make fundamental changes to a building.

WORKING GROUP BOARDS GROUP 1: TEACHING SPACE - LEARNING SPACE EXAMPLES

ESSENTIAL

DESIRABLE

AMAZING

mal lecture/ teaching spaces University of Toronto, FCBS - Formal

Manchester School of Art, FCBS S - Informal study spaces

?

Others?

Fig.9 Snapshot of pre-occupancy game played with staff of a university

This is where pre-occupancy evaluations and consultations could play and important role. For non-residential projects, a conversation with the end user (be that students in a university or staff in an office) should be a necessary part of the design process. Fig.9 shows a successful consultation meeting with university staff at the very early stages of a project which ascertained what factors were important to their working lives. These results informed the design decisions which followed, creating a far more successful initial bid.

However, when designing housing in anything other than a community-led development, there is little chance to engage with the direct needs of the end user. Instead, the project becomes driven by the London Housing Design Guide or similar, which although highly informative, lacks nuance, and, as Pocket Living have begun to show in their deviations from this script, does not always produce the best results.

In conclusion, FCBS use a variety of techniques, both in representation and evaluation to help understand and communicate the experience of the user and the narratives guiding each project. Every method analysed above has its strengths and weaknesses and every one influences and drives the project in its own way. Yet it feels that,

despite the importance and the need for of housing in the current climate, the designers of said spaces across the profession remain one step removed from vast quantities of information which could produce housing that is far better suited to its resident.

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