Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
DOI: 10.5923/j.ijpbs.20130304.04
Department of Construction, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Urban Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Bauhaus University Weimar, Weimar, 99423, Germany
Abstract The concept of privacy, personal space, territoriality, and crowding are central to the study of environment and
behavior relationships. Each has received increasing attention by social scientists and environmental designers in the past
decades for somewhat d ifferent reasons. The study of crowding has been spurred on by a burgeoning world population, and
some experts are predicting ecological doom as more and more people consume decreasing resources and as pollution of air,
water and other natural resources increases. Some social and behavioral scientists believe because of the interpersonal
stresses that occur fro m too much contact with too many people. It is likely that research on the areas of crowding, personal
space, privacy and their relationship to the built environ ment will probably increase in the coming decades.
Keywords Architecture, Psychology, Built Environment, Personal Space, Privacy, Territory, Crowding
1. Introduction
In many regions of the world, people spend the majority of
their time indoors. Americans, for examp le, spend approxim
ately more than 90% of their t ime within buildings (Wallace,
1987). Hence, the feeling and interactions of the occupants
are highly correlated with the design elements and
architectural features of the built environment. In other
words, the built environ ment provides the setting by which
we live our lives, and impacts on our senses, our emotions,
participation in physical activity and community life, our
sense of community, and general well-being. Meanings are
generated by buildings and spaces, which we read as we
pass through them. Places are created and shaped by those in
control of resources and with certain interests, which affects
our degree of access to, and the way we use, those spaces
(Butterwo rth, 2000).
One o f the impo rtant issues is the understanding, and
translation of these psychological and behavioral concepts
into the real physical wo rld by environ mental designers such
as architects, planners and urban designers. In architecture
we do not use the terms psychological needs. The reason
that psycholog ical n eeds are not identified by clients is
because they are feeling (Robert & Russell, 2002). The way a
p erso n can exp ress h is feelings abo ut a sp ace is by
recognizing that it is an exciting space. It is the arch itects
responsibility to design required spaces that are excit ing and
lively . The fo llo wing are a b rief e xp lan at ion o f t hese
* Corresponding author:
armin_ mehdipour@yahoo.com (Armin Mehdipour)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/ijpbs
Copyright 2013 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
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5. Conclusions
Social psychologists talk about personal space, an
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