Citation
Finch, E. (1998), "Editorial", Facilities, Vol. 16 No. 12/13. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.1998.06916laa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited
Editorial
What has become of environmental - behaviour research? Many prominent books were written in the late 1960s and 1970s that brought this subject to public attention. To find out the current state of play I recently attended the International Association for People-Environment Studies' 15th biennial conference in Eindhoven, Holland. The theme of the conference was Shifting Balances Changing Roles in Policy, Research and Design.
Evidently, the area of environment - behaviour research is alive and kicking going by the strength of papers presented at the conference. Papers ranged from the user evaluation of odours on the Paris Metro to the built habit in polar and circumpolar environments. The variety of nationalities also gave rise to an equal diversity of issues. Other presentations included "Status in school buildings in Recife"; "Creating therapeutic environments for dementia care"; "Visual access configurations"; and "Attitudes towards facility siting in Taipei". One presentation that particularly caught my eye was a presentation describing the post-occupancy study of a Japanese old people's residential home. The tracing and tracking techniques that were used to reveal usage patterns were extremely thorough. I began to feel somewhat sorry for the residents who must have been followed all day by psychologists carrying clipboards.
Most of the delegates at the conference had a background in either psychology or architecture, with a few planners and economists. I was struck by the absence of the facilities management profession. This is perhaps surprising, since much of the formative work in facilities management originated from environment-behaviour research. There are many good ideas passing around in this community and it would be good to see much more cross-fertilisation.
IAPS has traditionally hosted biennial conferences around Europe. The North American counterpart is the Environmental Design Research Association which also hosts a large annual conference as well as a number of conferences in specialist topics.
Useful Web addresses
International Association for People-Environment Studies:http://www.tue.nl/bwk/iaps/
Environmental Design Research Association: http://www.clr.toronto.edu:1080/VIRTUALLIB/CONFERENCES/EDRA/leadin.html
Edward Finch