New thesis: Places for people's experiences

Despite the ambition to create places in urban environments that are perceived as pleasant, the focus tends to be on the place itself rather than on the people who dwell there. The functional and quantifiable properties of the place are rewarded at the expense of people's physical and sensory experiences of it. A new thesis in design brings together the place-oriented and the people-oriented perspectives using tools that aim to create awareness of how different actors can interact in the creative process.

The design of a place is not random. Several different professions, such as architects, landscape architects, traffic engineers and experts in accessibility and art are involved in planning how a place should be designed. There is a strong emphasis on the physical design: the relationship between streets and buildings, different directions into, out of and within the site. The design of the place directs people's movements and understanding of the place. The focus is on what kind of activity the place should encourage; should it be a shopping center, a playground or a residential area?

“The perspective also places great emphasis on style and aesthetics. But it is a kind of superficial attraction, often linked to appearance. Places today should ideally be 'instagrammable',” says Minna Eronen, author of the thesis.

Hard and soft values

She emphasises that this techno-rational, functional perspective is necessary, but not sufficient. It needs to be complemented by a deeper perspective that focuses on people's different experiences of the place.

“Both hard and soft values are needed.”

By experiences, she means how an individual perceives a place with their senses (with more than just sight). How does it sound? How does it smell? How does it affect? The techno-rational perspective does not ignore human sensory experiences in the design of a place. But they should be measurable. For example, there are rules about what decibel level is allowed in a particular place.

“The unmeasurable, qualitative, subjective experience must also be taken into account because we experience a place differently depending on who we are. Factors such as age, gender, physical and psychological aspects, and whether we are residents or visitors affect what we focus on and how we experience the place.”

The empirical material consists of workshops and interviews with people who work with urban planning in Skellefteå. One of the methods is the so-called Now, Wow, How, where participants have discussed the current situation, future visions and how to achieve them. Ordinary people have also been involved in the project. At a bus stop in Luleå, passers-by were given the oppurtunity to create a shared idea map of future squares using inspirational images and post-it notes attached to a white piece of paper.

A common language

One of the aims of the thesis has been to develop a common language of experience to prevent silo thinking between the experts and the dominance of the experts over the people who stay in a place. For this reason, the tools developed in the thesis aim to encourage dialogue between experts as well as between experts and ordinary people.

“Usually, people are allowed to comment on experts' suggestions for how a place should be designed. However, if we are to talk about true inclusion, they should be involved already at the conceptual stage, where sensory aspects should also be explored.”

Examining existing places is important for the development of future places. Minna Eronen has asked people to tell her what makes certain places more or less pleasant. Using these stories, she has developed one of her tools. This helps to understand what combinations of place characteristics can generate certain types of overall experiences.

“My tools are really about concretising what is intuitively obvious to all of us,” explains Minna Eronen.

• The thesis in full text. External link, opens in new window.