Psychologie environnementale | EPFL Graph Search

La psychologie environnementale, confondue parfois avec l’écopsychologie, est « l'étude des interrelations entre l'individu et son environnement physique et social, dans ses dimensions spatiales et temporelles ». Elle s'intéresse aussi bien aux effets des conditions environnementales sur les comportements, cognitions et émotions de l’individu qu’à la manière dont celui-ci perçoit ou agit sur l'environnement. La psychologie environnementale repose sur une meilleure compréhension et prise en compte des interrelations complexes qui se tissent entre l'individu et son environnement, qu'elles soient conscientes ou non. En tant qu’acteur, l’individu perçoit, ressent, se représente et se projette dans « son » environnement, de manière positive ou négative selon les cas. Cet environnement, avec ses particularités réelles ou fantasmées, la manière dont il est investi et façonné par l’individu participe de l’identité de l’individu et d'un groupe, et donne signification à leur comportement. L’

New Urban Social Movements, Situated Practice and the Affordances of a Porous Urban Space.

Darío Negueruela Del Castillo

With this presentation I intend to put forward a new definition of urban porosity as a notion capable of describing the necessary rich quality coupling urban space and social and civic engagement. This is done through the analysis of the social space practiced by new urban social movements, and points to a new geography of social urban governance, which bears the potential of redirecting the policy and praxis of urban interventions. In the current context of the readjustment of large-scale economic and regulatory trends, it is not clear how the coupling of mixity and density alone is capable of articulating a sustainable and socially cohesive urban tissue without mobilizing its socio-political counterpart as a necessary form of reflexive urban governance. Within this problematic, porosity has been put forward as an operative notion capable of capturing and mobilizing capacities of urban space for affording a more adaptive socio-spatial continuum. Drawing on the seminal contributions by authors like Secchi and Dehaenne, I redefine porosity beyond physical or compositional dimensions. I pose porosity as an emergent relational property within a new frame of reference that draws from distributed cognition and environmental psychology. This is done in the context of the analysis of new urban social movements in Madrid, and how they change the geography and spatial scale of reference, questioning through actions at the small scale, a concept of Madrid of new residential peripheries at metropolitan and regional scale.

2016

On the Symbiosis of People and Building

Sytse de Maat

Controversies continue to exist between architects and the public about what is a good building. High-style modern architecture is often disliked by the public. Moreover, in everyday life people blame the architect for everything they find impractical in a building. The non-operable window is emblematic of this controversy. The kernel of the problem lies in the lack of knowledge about how people relate to their buildings. This thesis investigates the relationship between people and their buildings, a topic that lies on the interface of architecture, psychology, and anthropology. In architecture, many have attempted to create buildings that feel alive, although much of what is built today feels alien to those who inhabit it. Environmental psychology has its focus on perception and meaning, whereas in anthropology, the habitat is often observed in a cultural perspective. This thesis aims at building theory that connects the insights of these disciplines. The importance of the topic lies in the increasing alienation of people from their buildings. Although many architects work on buildings that we can better relate to, alienation and disconnection continue to exist because, to mention one aspect, the built environment is made by more people than only architects. In the multidisciplinary world, improvement of the relationship of people and building would surely benefit from the introduction of a clear focal point and an adequate conceptual framework. From literature, insights were collected that explain the relationship in four perspectives: human aspects, properties of buildings, its relation to society, and abstract systems. Together they form a model that can serve as the focal point. Next, in order to identify what is changing in the relationship, the model was used as research tool in different contexts, ranging from vernacular to modern. Fieldwork research was conducted in traditional habitats, state-of-the-art modern buildings, and settings in between: primitive housing in urban slum or informal settlement. Detailed research methods for the survey of people's interaction with buildings were newly developed in the field and combined with existing sampling and coding techniques. Architects tools like sketches, scale models, and photography were used next to interviews and participatory observation. Results are presented in several reports ranging from slum dwellings to hi-tech. Besides architecture, they describe the practice of everyday life, logic and inconsistencies in building methods, and effects on the people-building relationship. From the findings, we concluded that what happened to the people-building relationship in the transition from vernacular to modern could be described in five trends. These trends explain the current disconnection as well as the difficulties we face in creating live buildings. Thus, together with the focal point, a conceptual framework is created holding the patterns typical of the people-building relationship. This knowledge can be used as both tool and theory by the profession. The research suggests that in order to create a strong people-building relationship, the whole process of building, dwelling, and daily operation must be focused on inclusion of the end-user. Today's technology and regulations favor exclusion and therefore contribute to a built environment that is not humanly sustainable.

EPFL2015

On the Symbiosis of People and Building

Sytse de Maat

EPFL2015