For me, a new, clearer understanding of what made for good, if not great design was taking shape. Considering the sequencing of people’s anticipated experiences was given greater detail by asking, in a sense, Betty Edwards’ “what is it I don’t see?” Experiences as acted out, as people’s physical behaviors or better yet their body language calls for certain dimensioned spaces made up of particular forms, character, and content. We don’t see just the ballerina but also the form and character she inscribes in space across the stage. This sounds a lot like Halprin’s RSVP Cycles. There are similarities but also major differences. RSVP Cycles lacks a narrative component. Lacks the identification of likely users’ anticipated experiences. To a great extent, Halprin posits the behaviors his designs’ participants will define. Here again, as with Lynch (1971), the designer decides the insights and experiences to be felt by the design’s participants.
Think about it, driving a VW Beetle requires different shaped spaces than that required to drive a tractor-trailer truck. Widths, heights, lengths, turning radii, stopping distances all play a role in what the drivers read in an effort to drive safely. And finally, we color the experiences at least with adjectives, if not also adverbs. A bare concrete wall expresses a certain stark nature more likely found on a military base, than an ivy-covered concrete way on a college campus. Then consider the “place” expressions of the materials and their finishes as found in Taos, NM, Alexandria, VA, or Colonial New England. Two different parking lots may accommodate the same number of cars, have the same aisle widths and turning radii, but in each geographic location be comprised of different plants, materials, and the materials’ finishes.
Halprin, L. 1970. The RSVP Cycles: creative processes in the human environment. New York: George Braziller.
Lynch, K. 1971. Site Planning. Cambridge, MA: MIT.