Sanjoy Mazumdar

School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine

Abstract

Since the early days of Environmental Design Research culture has been a fundamental concept. How does it affect built form? What are the perils of ignoring culture while designing? How can this knowledge assist in dealing with current day problems? And what are the future prospects? This paper tries to answer these questions by reexamining some of the literature in this sub-field.

Culture in Environmental Design Research – A retrospective and prospective view

Culture has been a foundational and fundamental concept in Environmental Design Research (EDR). Scholars have long been intrigued by the unique cultural characteristics of vernacular architecture. And in the 1960s major works established that culture affected human spatial behavior (Hall, 1959, 1969) and “socio-cultural” factors, among several, were primary in affecting house form (Rapoport 1969). This was an important moment for EDR.

How does culture affect spatial behavior and built form? This brief paper will first answer this question by providing an overview of concepts offered in the literature. Does this knowledge provide a deeper understanding of the importance of how space affects culture? This we take up next. Finally, what relevance does it have for future culture-in-EDR (CEDR) studies and what questions might be pursued in the future? I suggest that these are exciting times as there is scope for much more work in a) trying to discover and explicate on additional concepts, and b) how CEDR can provide important insights for understanding and dealing with current issues.

I. Culture’s effect on spatial behavior and built form

Scholars have provided reviews of culture and built form (cf. Rapoport’s many writings, esp. 1969, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1979; Lawrence & Low, 1990; Mazumdar, 2000; Oliver, 2003). Later, Rapoport (1973) argued that culture-influenced lifestyle was the main factor. Our broad question enables us, while acknowledging these earlier contributions, to reexamine some of the earlier literature to delineate concepts that assist in understanding the many relationships between culture and built form. Moreover, in addition to behavior it also permits us to consider ideational constructs, notions of ideal, and more. Some of the concepts were mentioned in earlier reviews, the focus and coverage here provides more nuanced insights. Described below are several concepts combined into nine categories arranged roughly from the tangible to the abstract.

1. Codifications, Rules, Norms: Codified principles for design, placement, orientation, shape, construction, relation to surroundings, nature, climate, congruence, and even including appropriate attitude provide directions for design. Sometimes referred to as geomancy, or dismissed as superstition, these can be found in some cultures, e.g. Vastu Shastra (India), Feng Shui (China), Phong Thui (Viet Nam), Fusui, Hogaku, Chiso (Japan), Pungsu-jiri seol (Korea), Punsoy (Philippines). These can affect the location, layout, and planning and design of towns, urban spaces, as well as individual buildings. Rules are formal guides for action. Rules may be in the form of prescriptions and dicta with specific requirements, e.g. a house door required to face a particular direction (Bourdieu, 1971; Cunningham, 1972), or may govern the use of space and the process of use (Eyde, 1971; Frake, 1980). Conversely, rules may take the form of proscriptions and taboos disallowing particular environments, designs or actions, e.g. prohibiting mixing spaces of different categories (Cunningham, 1972). Norms are accepted procedure/conduct/action. Cultures may have norms regarding seating location and procedure (e.g. Atoni, Cunningham, 1972; Potash, 1985; Eyde, 1971).

2. Traditions, Customs, Mores: Traditions are long established, handed down conduct, actions, or procedures. These could be particular ways of conducting activities, or way of building. Examples are ways of constructing buildings using mud (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 1997). Many traditional ways of building were very effective in using local materials, structural techniques, indoor ambient comfort, and situated technologies e.g. wind catchers (badgirs in Iran) used for cooling buildings. Customs are long established practices considered unwritten law or are widely accepted way of behaving or doing. House related customs have been described (Bourdieu, 1971; Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 1994). Mores, customs, and especially traditions emphasize connections with and being part of history, local context, and accumulated wisdom. Cultural mores are fixed morally binding attitudes and conventions of a group. Examples are guest care mores that might require providing them specific facilities and treatment.

3. Rituals, Rites, Ceremonies: Rituals are culturally established form of actions or activities that are to be performed in a specified way or sequence. Examples are building rituals that might require constructing the roof first in a particular way. Homes may have to be ritually established (Pueblo, Eskimo, Saile, 1985) or consecrated with rituals (Atoni, Cunnungham, 1972; Hindu house, Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 2009). Spaces may be created solely or primarily for ritual (primary ritual space), secondarily for ritual, thus permitting other uses as well (secondary ritual space), or where a space can also be used for ritual (tertiary ritual space). Rites are culturally prescribed forms of speech, actions, or activities. These could be associated with life stages, such as birth, puberty, death, or be related to the seasons or calendar. Ceremonies are special commemorative events that mostly require following formal procedures performed usually in the presence of many guests and may need to meet time criteria for auspiciousness or validity. At these times the physical environment may receive special attention and preparation. Festivals are celebratory events that could be secular (dealing with the group) or religious and might require special spaces or designs. These bestow significance on particular highly anticipated times and activities that help transform house into meaningful home.

4. Beliefs, Myths, Stories: Adherence to beliefs -tenets held by a group- is expected, and violations are assumed to cause problems. Examples of beliefs include the house should be kept dark (Atoni, Cunningham, 1972), windows should be closed at dusk (Buginese, Errington, 1975), and a fire should be kept burning at all times (Zoroastrians, Mazumdar & Mazumdar, 1997). Myths are long held ideas whose historical origins are unknown. A Temne myth is that the house (design) can prevent/cure illness (Littlejohn, 1967). Beliefs and myths regarding health and appropriate living can influence the way buildings are designed. Stories are narratives of events, actions, actors, or ideas. The Navajo have and tell stories about their sacred places (Kelley & Francis, 1994:5). Beliefs, myths and stories are indicative of the importance to the culture and guide behavioral and spatial choices.

5. Symbolism, Meaning, and Expression: Cultures use symbols to convey information internally to culture members and externally to others as part of a non-verbal communication system. From entire building to shape, space, form, size, material, color, structural components, such as a beam (Rapoport, 1979), can become a symbol conveying information. These can be considered good or auspicious and therefore desirable or they can be inauspicious, problematic, and thus to be limited in use or even avoided. Pointed shapes and roofs are seen as inauspicious in some cultures. Unique or unusual elements can become representative of the culture. Components and aspects of the environment can have meaning to culture members, convey a sense of the importance of the object. Deep emotional connections can be created with buildings and physical elements, and place attachment can lead to ethics of care but can prevent abandoning home even as disaster strikes (Mishra, Mazumdar, & Suar, 2010). Local art can be a means of bringing auspiciousness and good fortune into the building, cultural expression, symbolic communication, and commentary. Some cultures have integrated artistic expression into the environment. Sculpting, painting entire buildings, walls, and other environmental features is common in come cultures. Selection of the palette of forms, materials, colors being culturally governed these expressions may indicate the culture’s preferences. Much of this kind of expression, being vernacular, relies on local materials, dyes, colors and tends to be unpretentious and unselfcongratulatory, though it may be highly developed. Oliver (2003) provides many examples from Kano and Ndebele in Africa, and the everyday alpona art in West Bengal, India (for Gujarat cf. Udamale 2003:69, 71). The transition from space to place is made sometimes through acts of creating, building, making, and expressing.

6. Religion: Religion, as a cultural feature, affects the conception, design, and use of built form. Interestingly, somewhat like a synecdoche, effects of religion on the culture–design relationship reflects almost all the features and the array of ways culture affects design described here and can be included here in much the same ways (Mazumdar & Mazumdar, forthcoming 2019). Furthermore, the need to adhere to requirements of religion has influenced the planning of entire towns (e.g. Jerusalem, Jaipur, Varanasi, Tenochtitlán).

7. View of nature: As offered by Florence Kluckhon (1948) these were “man subjugated to nature”, “man in nature” and “man over nature”. To these we shall add a few. Man subjugated to nature is one in which humans are helpless and subject to nature’s whims. Examples come from India, parts of Africa, and Mexico (Diaz-Gurrero, 1967). Respect for nature - a view in which nature is to be respected, honored, and cherished. Nature may not be disturbed, negatively affected and destroyed and is not solely for human consumption. Hinduism, for example, views nature as omnipotent and emphasizes respect for it, which may have led to no action, which could have been interpreted as being subjugated. This view is less willing to make major modifications, but it does not have the same ideological thrust as current day environmentalists. Man in nature view sees humans as part of nature and is less opposed to interventions in nature. Harmony with nature is a view wherein humans are expected to live in harmony with nature. Examples come from India, early China and Japan (Hagino, Mochizuki, & Yamamoto, 1987). In Eastern Indian philosophy humans and nature are integrated, and presumably in harmony (Deutsch, 1986). Hindus believe gods can exist in various settings, including humans, animals, plants, mountains, etc. Similarly, Shintoism suggested that gods and spirits can appear anywhere in nature and therefore should be considered sacred and worshipped (Littleton, 2002) and humans should live in harmony with nature (Shaw, 2008; Mazumdar, Yokoyama, Itoh, & Fukuda, 2019). Chinese Taoist principles suggested humans living in harmony with nature with minimal human impact on nature (Goodman, 1980; Ames, 1986). Caretaker of nature is a view in which humans have the responsibility to take care of nature, followed by Native Americans (Callicott, 1982; Cornell, 1985) as illustrated by the following Navajo quote: “In taking care of the earth, everything must be respected. The plant and animal life must be valued and conserved. This is the way the earth must be cared for. This is what we learned from our forefathers. Today this is how we continue to care for the land" (Schmitz, 1985). This may involve minimal disturbance to nature. “The [Yupiaq] made their winter and summer settlements a part of nature, disturbing the environment as little as possible” (Kawagley 1995:15). Guardianship of nature is a closely related view wherein humans believe they are tasked with guardianship. The Abkhazian principle of Apsuara requiring guardianship of nature and forests is an example (Stafford, 1999). These two views assign greater responsibility on humans for protecting and caring for nature. In the man-over-nature or mastery over nature view “entailing privileges but not obligations” (Leopold, 1949:203), exerting power over nature, subjugating it, utilizing it and its parts as resources to be exploited and taken without adequate consideration of the effects is considered acceptable or even desirable. “The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being” (Michaelsen, 1995:43 quoting John Locke 1823). It places nature outside its immediate sphere of concern (Spoehr, 1956:100), is “utilitarian” and open to exploitation and alienation (Callicott, 1982). Fisher (2008: 139) posits:

“(T)he Judeo-Christian tradition sees a fundamental separation between humans from the rest of nature, not based on reason, but on revelation. The book of Genesis recounts how

‘God created man in his own image… and… said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth”’.

Such dominance over nature has given us license to exploit and manipulate the environment, and paradoxically, to end up creating conditions that threaten our own existence as a species, countering the command to be fruitful and multiply.”

It has been attributed to the West (White, 1967; Ames, 1986) and is believed to have resulted in much environmental degradation.

8. Cosmic view and World view: Cosmic view is the view held by a culture about the cosmos, its creation, history, operation, effect on humans, and how humans should respond. For example: “The original Yupiaq [of Alaska] based their philosophy and lifeways on maintaining and sustaining a balance among the human, natural, and spiritual worlds.” (Kawagley 1995:15). Cosmic view can affect the way culture members construct their buildings and the built environment can be a representation of their cosmos. For example, the Atoni house is viewed as a model of their view of the cosmos (Cunningham, 1972), and the same for the Buginese house (Errington, 1975). Cosmological referents can be found in several cultures (e.g. Chamula of Chiapas, Gossen, 1972; Oliver, 2003:168-190).

Worldviews are conceptions about how the world came about, the relationship of people with other humans, other species, nature, nation, and could be a way to bring/impose order on lack of order. Protestant work ethic and fatalism are contrasting worldviews affecting the role of humans in the world. Other examples are attitudes toward public and private, notions of private property, neighbor relations, and lifestyle. Effects can be seen in the conceptualization of buildings and their use (e.g. communal homes or bohio of the Motilone (Jaulin, 1971) vs. nuclear family homes), the way buildings are located, designed, and used.

9. Values: Values are deep-seated, shared, ideational constructs and convictions held by a group. These are conceptual, may have an ideal component, contain notions of appropriate and inappropriate, and signal preferences. Values are viewed as very important, are mostly shielded from change, though they change slowly over the long term. These affect conceptualizations of life and living, affect design, the framing of the design problem, the process for finding solutions, the development of acceptable solutions, the identification of an appropriate and acceptable selection, and choices of materials, technology, and more. These have an effect on lifestyle, relationships with humans, environment or nature, and other species. Deep-seated values permeate philosophy of life, ethics, and relationships (e.g. Mazumdar, et al, 2019).

As can be seen from the above, culture may provide ways of conceptualizing, designing, constructing, modifying, and using physical environments. It can provide direct prescriptions and proscriptions, but can also invite insight, and imagination. Culture fosters living a worthy life, and by timing activities provides rhythms, enables anticipating, working for and achieving various facets of life. It facilitates familiarity with various components and enables preferred relationships to flourish. Though not discussed directly above, many cultural activities and culture spaces require a particular ambiance, thus enabling an experiential feel, heightening the sentient aspect of being. Briefly these might include visualscape and its elements, auralscape, hapticscape, olfactoryscape, gustatoryscape, and a combinatory ambiance. Furthermore, culture can aid the making of significant places and fostering special connections to places. These features assist the formation of emotional connections, remembrances, and attachment to places. It is important to keep in mind that these concepts help in determining whether designs are appropriate or not and may assist in dealing with current problems.

The numerous studies describing one or more of the abovementioned concepts are useful in learning about the ways cultures relate to space. Even with this long list we may not have a complete taxonomy. It is likely that some of the depth, complexities, contradictions and fine details have not been fully apprehended yet and this provides opportunities for additional scholarship seeking as yet undiscovered concepts and adding to the list. For example, culturally what are the situated meanings of particular shapes, sizes, materials, and architectural details (Mazumdar, Mazumdar, Docuyanan & McLaughlin, 2000), what meaning and importance are attached to silence, permanence, impermanence, life, and death? Research delineating how and why these concepts are undergoing change, and the direction and magnitude of the change are welcome. Additionally, more physically oriented studies are needed to complement the social science oriented studies. These will help make this area more robust. Moreover, scholarship useful in understanding existing conditions and applicability of the concepts to current issues will help with the continuing relevance of this area.

II. Effects of Culturally Inappropriate Environments

Culturally inappropriate designs/spaces, even well-meant efforts (Rapoport, 1978), continue to be built due mainly to misunderstandings, lack of knowledge, errors, carelessness, sense of self-absorbed supremacy, mistaken notions and ideologies, disregard due to modernization, professionalization and distancing of design (Snyder, Sadalla, & Stea, 1976; Rapoport, 1978; Reynolds, 2017).

Inappropriate designs could lead to several consequences; some of the known ones are noted below. When no choice is available the culture may have to accept the design made available irrespective of the extent of inappropriateness. When choice is available it could, lead to selecting less disliked options, modifying, repurposing, not occupying, and even rejecting the design (Oliver, 2003). As a result, cultural activities, practices, traditions, rituals, and roles (including ceremonial ones) may not be performable, may be ablated, truncated, adapted, adjusted and partial or incomplete. Such inability to meet cultural requirements may lead to guilt at having to violate known rules, sense of inadequacy at not being able to live a culturally appropriate life, discomfort and stress of having to make unsuitable choices and engaging in inappropriate behaviors, and may lead to avoidance behaviors. Inability to live a cultural lifestyle and conduct necessary practices may lead to lack of or incomplete socialization of new members and shame ensuing from forgetting cultural mores. Additionally, inadequate environments and partial compliance may involve improper symbolism, exacerbating the problem. These may have cultural, social, and economic costs, cause harm to the culture and its members (Snyder, Sadalla, & Stea, 1976; Rapoport, 1973b, 1978; Mazumdar, 1985), and could lead to loss of culture, becoming a-cultural, and ethnocide (Jaulin, 1971).

I have offered the term “cultural ecological design” to emphasize the need to understand the relationships between cultures and their physical environments, the dependence of cultures on supportive, facilitative design, and to consciously avoid design failures (Mazumdar, 2012).

Not all problems are due to design alone. Failures may be associated with a combination of problems. Future scholarship could discover and identify additional effects of inappropriate designs, planning, policies, practices, rules, laws and more.

III. Promising areas of scholarship

What current issue areas can highlight the need for CEDR studies? In solving and finding solutions to current issues researchers and professionals seem to lose awareness of the contributions of culture. Therefore, it will be useful to conduct research that does not overlook but instead delineates the importance and contribution of culture in the following areas.

1. Culture, sustainability, and environmental problems: Many cultures were conscious of what we now refer to as sustainability and had developed ways to attain it. Some chose to attain long-term sustainability by elevating this idea as a major aspirational value, bestowing significance on it as an exalted requirement, or creating the idea that nature ought to be loved. These then created requirements for rituals, actions, innovations, and even taboos. Examples come from India, Japan (e.g. Mazumdar et al, 2019) and Yupiaq: “Their [Yupiaq] rituals and ceremonies were intended to help maintain the spiritual realm so indicated.” (Kawagley 1995:15).

Currently referred to as “climate change”, great acceleration, and anthropocene epoch, the nature and speed of environmental degradation, destruction and catastrophes is worrisome and might even be irreversible. Even though there is broad acknowledgment of the primary causes of this – industrial production and its internationalization (Stokols, 2019) – the remedies proposed do not attempt to drastically change the emphasis on industrialization as the primary mode for achieving a good life. Instead they aim to decrease the spread and magnitude of the effluents and effects of industrial production. By doing so they hope to lightly reduce or delay the consequent environmental damage. Is this likely to be effective? It is worth examining how cultures identified and found solutions to environmental problems and why they made particular selections from the options available to them. How did they make decisions regarding availability and use of raw materials? How did they examine the short and long-term effects of the potential options and how did they make the selections? Many of the solutions being proposed these days have been in use in some cultures. For example, in the US after many years of emphasis of large-scale industrial farming along with the use of artificial and industrially produced fertilizers and pesticides, genetically modified varieties, and more, all of which had negative impacts on the environment, and health and well-being of humans and other species these days farm-to-table is being presented as a desirable solution. Ignored in this narrow-minded mode of problem solving is examination of the cultural approach. For example, the Vietnamese culturally prefer to grow a fair amount of their food in their garden. Moreover, they compost unconsumed food and scraps to feed the garden. In doing so, they go beyond the unidirectional set of actions of garden-to-table to add table-to-garden, thus completing the circle and thereby demonstrating a more sophisticated and advanced approach to sustainability. Use of natural energy for homes could benefit similarly from examination of cultural solutions regarding, solar and wind, e.g. badgirs, verandahs, courtyards, and more.

2. Culture and transportation: Transportation is an important planning and environmental issue for the number of reasons not the least of which is the promotion of the automobile as a mode of private and personal transportation. Mostly, the government is responsible for the provision of roads, safety, minimizing accidents, loss of life, destruction of (private) property, and for transporting people and goods. Even with a near-identical problem and approach there are significant variations in the ways different cultures have viewed the “transportation problem” and the solutions they have developed. For example, streets in Copenhagen are planned and designed to be much more friendly to pedestrians, wheelchairs, strollers, and bikers than streets in America. Japan’s recent traffic lights at some street intersections are designed to prioritize pedestrians crossing, not automobiles; these have reduced pedestrian wait times of course, but also speeded up vehicle movement and reduced automobile accidents.

3. Culture and disaster planning and design: Much attention is being focused these days on disaster planning. Cultures live in a variety of settings: some dwell in very beautiful, bountiful environments, with few natural disasters (e.g. Canada, Denmark) whereas others exist in fairly harsh environments (e.g. at 13000 feet in mountainous regions of Bhutan and Nepal; desert regions of Saharan Africa) or with many natural disasters (e.g. Japan, Fiji which is affected by sea rise). From an etic or outsider’s perspective it is common to suggest that people in disaster-prone and harsh environments move to less dangerous places, but few willingly act on this. Instead, due to a high degree of pace attachment or lack of choice people choose not to move from these “problematic” places. "The first [example] is a village in the Philippines. Here, some years ago a volcano had erupted with great force and vengeance, sending villagers below it scattering to escape its destructive powers. …. In a remarkable feat of testimony to the strength of their community the villagers returned to the places where the community had been." "They took up their lives in the half structures, reassembling the pieces of their religious life around the visible portion of the old church. … Here then, was a large group of villagers who despite the assaults of nature, remain deeply attached to their sense of settlement. … What to us might have seemed simply like the vacant shell of a community was still a place to which they wanted to return." (Orum & Chen 2003:2). Moving to another place mainly to avoid disasters and stay alive does not seem to be very attractive or compelling reasons. An example of a different view that values the lives of animals is the Inuit:

“Arctic Indians or Inuit live a most precarious existence in a land that offers few resources. Nonetheless, they believe that their greatest risk is not from subzero temperatures or lack of food, but the omnipresent reality that their lives depend on taking the lives of other living things, whether fish and seal from the sea or four-footed land animals.” (Johnstone, 2007:334-335).

In the major approach to post-disaster planning and design so far the primary task has been seen as solving an abstracted problem: to decrease the number of deaths, lessen the loss of property, hurriedly offer makeshift temporary shelter (TS)(in school gymnasia, sports arenas, etc.), provide temporary housing (TH) in available existing stock in town or new TH on a nearby site, and subsequently, build permanent housing (PH) for those who need it and aid for those who can afford to build their own homes in the original or on a new site (Mazumdar & Itoh, 2019). In this approach, the emphasis is on the magnitude, and the numbers provided is seen as determining success. This problem solving approach does not enable time or interest to learning about the local context, the cultural ecological views of disasters, what the local people view as problems and how to solve these.

Cultures are usually aware of the context in which they live and over time have developed ways of coping with the threats. These might involve consideration of where and how to build their structures, ways to contain the impact of the disasters, adjustments to their lives, develop long and short-term solutions that make both their lives and their natural environment sustainable in the long-term. Attention to cultural ways, traditions and knowledge might be highly appropriate to the local context and thus very useful for solving situated problems.

4. Cultural wisdom: Most cultures have over extended periods of contemplation, study, trial and experimentation, achieved a good understanding of the geographic, environmental, physical, climatic, social and other contexts in which they have existed, and have devised mutually supportive symbiotic relationships with these, i.e. a cultural ecology. In this they have developed “cultural wisdom” which consists of years of accumulated experiences, knowledge with respect to what actions would lead to long-term sustainability of the culture, the solutions and also the rationale for those (Mazumdar et al 2019). Ignored for a while, cultural wisdom is relevant, important and worthwhile and those who are seeing it this way are benefiting from it. For example, in Japan five-story pagodas have withstood earthquakes without significant damage over long periods. It is only recently that the principles involved in the design of pagodas was viewed as cultural wisdom and incorporated into multistory buildings in Tokyo so that these buildings could absorb the some of the energy of the earthquake.

IV Conclusion

This review and the perspective presented indicate that the study of culture in environmental design research is becoming more important. Although only a few questions, scenarios and trends could be described here others could be added to this preliminary list. Examples are culture and health/public health, housing, neighborhood, streets, recreation, culture change, problems not dealt with by culture, and more. Unlike some calls for theories and generalizable statements that search for commonalities across cultures, here the exhortation is to conduct studies in a variety of cultures and contexts so that these situated cultural wisdoms and ways of solving problems could be recorded, studied, learned from, and built upon. Culturally sensitive/appropriate designs can also be environmentally friendly, rely on natural energy for comfort, local materials, lead to decreased reliance on fossil fuels, minimal environmental degradation, and contribute in a small but necessary way to reduction in climate change. Thus, there is much to look forward to in the future.

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