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This chapter examines the notion of spatial justice and its applicability in the context of informality. In the first part it examines the concept of informal urbanism in the context of informal settlements and experiences with upgrading programmes. Drawing on critical evaluations of some of the most well-known upgrading programmes, the chapter in the second part then theorises the notion of spatial justice. I argue for a multidimensional, fragmentary, context- and culture-specific concept, which encompasses equity, empowerment and recognition. As an operationalisation of the notion of spatial justice developed in this chapter and a conclusion to it, a framework is proposed to underpin the assessment of spatial justice in public space based upgrading programmes in informal settlements. It contains aspects regarding the quality of the material space, the integrity of its production process, issues of management and regulation as well as the use of space.

This chapter draws on analysis of the spatial and material configuration as well as analysis of use to establish whether and how open spaces contribute to an increased spatial justice in Comuna 13. Location, and visual and physical accessibility have been found to be limiting factors for the spaces’ usability by diverse user groups. Regulations and management issues have also been found to be highly influential on the sites’ usability, the diversity of its users or the regulation of behaviour deemed ‘inappropriate’, such as informal trade. On the other hand, design and spatial organisation into subspaces increased the spaces’ usability and accessibility for a diversity of user groups, thus increasing spatial justice. Analysis of use underlines the multifunctionality of people’s everyday spaces for pedestrian traffic, recreation and socialising as well as informal trade. It also shows that not all new spaces are accepted equally, and that new spaces fall into disuse especially if they fail to provide a design and functionality that relate to people’s everyday activities.

With increasingly precarious work contracts, more remote work, and additional flexibility in the timing of the workday, the new world of work is creating both relational opportunities and relational challenges for modern workers. In this chapter, we pair recent research on human thriving with trends we observe in organizations' efforts to create and maintain a sense of community. Key in these efforts is a new kind of built environment – the coworking space – which brings together remote and independent workers and, increasingly, traditional employees as well. We show that in curating community, or perhaps even the possibility of community, coworking spaces may support the interpersonal learning and vitality that help workers to thrive.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the differences in consumers’ willingness to pay for different types of design attributes due to different levels of specific anticipatory emotions evoked by them. The research aims to show how firms can benefit by leveraging the findings that different types of design attributes – that is, functionality, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability – affect profit margin per unit differently. Further, the chapter claims that design is a core competency that can pay dividends in terms of profit margins for firms. It is important for firms to develop expertise in understanding and leveraging relationships between the types of design attributes, specific emotions, and consumers’ willingness to pay.

The chapter uses the product categories of cell phones and laptop computers in the three experiments to test the hypothesized relationships between design attributes (functionality, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability), specific emotions, and willingness to pay.

The research finds that different attributes of design – functionality, aesthetics, and sustainability – evoke different types of emotions and different levels of willingness to pay.

The data were primarily collected via experiments in a behavioral laboratory.

Firms can leverage different attributes of design to position and price products according to emotional requirements of the target customer segment to match their willingness to pay and maximize profit margin per unit.

The research specifically measures willingness to pay in joint presentation – independent evaluation scenarios to assess differences in how functionality, aesthetics, and sustainability impact willingness to pay.

Tourism research has been largely unconcerned with the aesthetic dimension, although few attempts have recently begun to surface. In this chapter, the authors highlight a multifaceted process of incorporating aesthetics in tourist experience design, based on a three-level framework for theming. The first level is based on aesthetic features of destinations as atmospherics. The second level deals with multisensory atmospherics, transcending the mere visual focus of the tourist gaze. Key experiences of the beautiful, sublime and picturesque are deeply embedded in visual, somatic, olfactory, auditory and gustatory decoding of aesthetic markers. The third level deals with the human factor in atmospherics, particularly focussing on the role of residents. Through a discursive lens, local people are simultaneously identified as sources, co-creators and beneficiaries of aesthetic environments. Thus, the chapter hopes to open possibilities for exploring experiences of atmospherics (including aesthetics) through a dialectic approach.

The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven approach. To explore this design-driven approach, we propose a construct, design orientation, as a firm’s ability to integrate functionality, aesthetics, and meaning in its new products. We hypothesize relationships between a firm’s design orientation, customer orientation, technological orientation, and willingness to cannibalize on its new product performance.

We use data from surveys of senior marketing executives entrusted with design in 252 US firms, we validate the construct of design orientation and establish its distinctiveness from related constructs of creativity, technological orientation, and customer orientation. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we test the hypotheses and find support for them.

Individually, design orientation, technological orientation, and customer orientation improve new product performance. In addition, customer orientation decreases the positive effect of design orientation while willingness to cannibalize increases the positive effect of design orientation on new product performance.

More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) perceive that their firm can improve its new product performance by increasing its design orientation, an overlooked organizational capability.

Although practitioners have acknowledged the importance of design as a strategic marketing issue, there is little in the literature on how firms can benefit from building capabilities in the design domain, the issue we focus on in this research.

Purpose – This chapter discusses a study in which we examined campus architecture, spatial design, aesthetics, and cultural policy with regard to the manner in which attributes in these visual and textual entities shape the full range of diversity of the student body or the individuals and collective group who study within the university.

Methodology – This chapter presents the qualitative element of a larger multi-method inquiry. The data for this study were generated from a sample composed of eight universities in four states in the United States and of cultural policy documents from multiple universities in addition to the eight specific universities that were visited on-site.

Findings – Twelve themes emerged from data derived from campus visits to eight universities representing diverse geographies and institutional structures and from analysis of the cultural policies of 30 institutions of higher education. Taxonomic analysis (analysis of the organization of themes and their relationships to one another) revealed important directional associations among the themes yielding rich findings for future theory development and testing.

Implications – The findings yielded important understandings about the influence of cultural policy as reflected in the campus community, on inclusion, exclusion, and diversity. Of particular note were the unexpected thematic findings regarding the political, proprietary preferences of “disabled” groups related to space ownership and the future implications of occupying specialized designated architectures. We conclude with conceptual and methodological directions for expanding this research agenda internationally and for informing change in cultural policy and architectures on campus communities.