Design in Familiar Places: What Makes Home Environments Look Good

Front Cover
Bloomsbury Academic, Jun 3, 1988 - Social Science - 206 pages

Residents look at their neighborhood differently than visitors and designers do. The features that they see as most important can differ significantly, so that spaces that are viewed as successful by designers may be disliked by residents. Designers who hope to create successful residential environments can benefit from a more complete understanding of the residents' perspective and their priorities. This residents-eye-view is especially critical in troubled neighborhoods.

Brower compares the responses to the same environment by residents, tourists, and designers. Using observations, interviews, innovative survey methods, and an examination of the literature, he details accepted norms that govern who uses and controls neighborhood spaces, children's play networks, neighboring patterns, territorial behavior, and the personalization of space. Brower then describes the application of these ideas and findings in a series of design interventions in an inner city neighborhood in Baltimore. These interventions are thoroughly documented and evaluated, and the lessons learned from both successes and failures are used to inform design ouidelines for the study area. The interventions also help to define the role of outside professionals; in particular, the importance of involving residents in defining and resolving their own problems, and the need to accept space management and social organization as proper concerns of design. The book is written in clear, simple language, and uses drawings and photographs to illustrate the ideas presented.

From inside the book

 

Contents

A Home in the Wilderness
75
Introduction
95
Casebook
103
Copyright

4 other sections not shown

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Design in Familiar Places: What Makes Home Environments Look Good
Sidney Brower
No preview available - 1988

Common terms and phrases

activity adults alley Appleyard associated back spaces ball playing Baltimore City Department basketball behavior borhood Boys Brower Bruce Manor buildings cavern construct courtesy of Baltimore Department of Planning Doll-Play Donald Appleyard door furniture example familiar feel fences festivals front Harlem Park high-threat areas home environment houses important to residents inferential mode inner-block parks interest Interviewer Le Corbusier live look mean medina MONKEY POLES Mount Vernon residents Near-Home Spaces neigh neighborhood neighbors non-designers objects organization outdoor paint parking lot pedestrian perception Photograph courtesy physical environment play activity play equipment Play in Near-Home player playground Point and Mount problems qualities Radburn ratings recreational residential areas residential environment residents and outsiders row houses safe showed sidewalk signs sitting social staff streetfront teenagers things tion tourist traffic trash Trust users visitors Walking Census yards

References to this book

About the author (1988)

SIDNEY BROWER is Associate Professor in the Community Planning Program at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Bibliographic information

TitleDesign in Familiar Places: What Makes Home Environments Look Good
AuthorSidney Brower
Editionillustrated
PublisherBloomsbury Academic, 1988
Original fromthe University of Michigan
DigitizedDec 20, 2007
ISBN0275926869, 9780275926861
Length206 pages
Subjects › 

Social Science / Human Geography
  
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