Photo-elicitation providing inhabitant insights to practitioners, while socializing architects to use EDR, through architectural education: A Proposal for the Next 50 Years

Tyrone Yang AIA, Ph.D, WELL AP, LEED AP, Roger Williams University
Eleftherios Pavlides Ph.D., AIA, Roger Williams University
Galen Cranz Ph.D, University of California Berkeley
Osama Mansour Ph.D., M.Sc. Architecture, B.Sc. Architectural Engineering, Western Kentucky University
Rula Z. Awwad-Rafferty Ph.D., University of Idaho
Mio Jia Masters Candidate in Design for Special Populations, AIA 2019 Design for Aging Fellow
Rana Zadeh Ph.D., Associate AIA, LEED AP, EDAC, Cornell University
Deborah Wingler Ph.D., Healing Design Integration, LLC
Lesa N Lorusso MBA, MSArch, University of Florida
Penny Houchens IIDA, NCIDQ, LEED AP, Lean, Gresham Smith, TN
Carolyn Blake Gresham Smith, TN
Skip Yauger Gresham, Smith and Partners, FL
Mehdi Khosrovani RA, AIA, NEMD Architects, Inc
Kathleen Snelgrove OTR/L, CHT, University Orthopedics Inc
Annalisa Baci Roger Williams University
Victoria Fagan Roger Williams University
Lauren Tamburrino Roger Williams University
Hannah Wade Roger Williams University
Zsuzsanna Gaspar AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Goody Clancy
Lisa Ferreira AIA, LEED AP, Goody Clancy
Roger Goldstein FAIA LEED AP, Goody Clancy
John McDonald AIA, LEED AP, Elkus Manfredi Architects
James Thomas AIA James Thomas Architect

Learning Objectives:

• Derive inhabitant perspective on architectural spaces by asking interviewees to look at photographs depicting familiar spaces and asking interviewees to use their own criteria in evaluating what works well and what does not.
  
• Choose what places to photograph, how to select vantage points, how to pretest photographs to be used in photo-elicitation interviews.
  
• Enter interview responses into an analysis matrix by breaking each sentence into distinct comments, so similar comments can be grouped together, coded, and examined with the social attributes of those making them.
  
• Use photo-elicitation interviews to collect data that will inform architects about multiple inhabitant constituents with different values, needs, and perceptions that co-inhabit the space that the architects have designed.
  

Session Abstract:

Over the last half century, architecture has been enhanced on the margins by environmental design research. Practice has been mostly left unaffected by social science research. The bulk of architectural production is carried out with little evidence of being informed by formal research, mostly relying on intuition and experience to serve inhabitant needs. Focusing on ethnographic photo-elicitation and academic/practice collaborations, this intensive explores one approach so that over the next 50 years, environmental design research will become as indispensable to architects as engineering became in the early 20th century.

Educators and architects will present ethnographic photo-elicitation studies or pilots exploring the potential of photo-elicitation. Moreover, photo-elicitation, combined with relevant social science literature reviews, has generated useful information for architects and building owners by closing the feedback / learning loop between an architect's design intent and actual occupant experience.

The key components of photo-elicitation include:

(1) Using photographs of a building to interview occupants;
(2) Encouraging interviewees to use their own criteria to evaluate what works well and what needs improving;
(3) Engaging the building's architects to help interpret findings, by providing information on client goals, the building code, and technical restrictions, etc.

One main goal for the intensive is to synthesize our learnings from recent intensives to develop a manual to facilitate the widespread incorporation of ethnographic photo-elicitation into architectural curricula and practice.

• What kind of documentation could help implement ethnographic photo-elicitation in classes or in practice?
  
• What is the role of the architect's feedback in creating research useful to practice?
  
• How can ethnographic photo-elicitation support the larger goal to make social science research indispensable to architectural practice?
  

Academics sometimes collaborating with practitioners will provide photo-elicitation examples provided from a student center, dormitory, marine science building, inpatient/outpatient healthcare facilities: behavioral health, oncology, pediatric intensive care unit, and community theater.

Ethnographic Photo-Elicitation: The Role of the Architect

Eleftherios Pavlides

This presentation draws on 28 years of experience with ethnographic photo-elicitation as part of teaching and especially from the past half dozen years involving architects as active participants. Historically architects are viewed as potential consumers of environmental design research, often characterized as uninterested consumers at that. Engaging the architect as research collaborator to examine buildings they have designed from the inhabitants' point of view, provides help at all stages or the research process, from introducing to the client who helps recruit interviewees and identifies areas of interest to photograph for photo-elicitation, receiving information such as building code, client goals, budget and technical limitations to help interpret interview comments to derive actionable findings, and providing evaluation of the research usefulness by supplying examples of design decision supported by the findings. Highlights from several collaborations with architects will illustrate the various phases of the architects' role in ethnographic photo-elicitation research.

Accessing the Inhabitants' Emic through Semantic Ethnography

Galen Cranz

Ethnography for Designers teaches architects and designers how to listen actively to the knowledge people have about their own culture. This approach gives structure to values and qualities. It does this by noting the terms and underlying structure of thought people use to describe aspects of their culture. By responding to underlying cognitive patterns, the architect can both respond to the user and interpret creatively. Thus, ethno-semantic methods can help designers to enhance their professional responsibility to users and, at the same time, to feel fulfilled creatively. This presentation references a practical guide for those teaching social factors and social research methods to designers and for those using these methods in practice.

Ethnography in the Realm of Sustainability and Building Design

Osama Mansour

This presentation reflects on the use of ethnography as an effective approach in Post Occupancy Evaluation of high-performance buildings. The discussion includes ethnographic evaluation of two green educational buildings; an elementary school in Tucson Arizona, and a laboratory building at University of Calgary. The ethnography reveals important social and cultural dimensions in the domain of sustainability and design. A pilot introducing photo-elicitation and engaging the architects who designed the building will be presented evaluating the different kind of information is elicited by asking occupants to discuss spaces presented in photographs.

Ethnographic Photo-Elicitation Supporting the Design of a Community Theater with a Historic Preservation Significance

Rula Z. Awwad-Rafferty

Through photo-elicitation and interviews, we studied inhabitant responses to a historic community theater. We discuss the use of photo-elicitation as a means of community engagement and how findings were incorporated into the renovation of a structure of historic preservation significance.

Image-Based Interviews of Older Adults in an Assisted Living Center

Mio Jia

Working with a graduate student assistant, we collected image-based interviews of older adults in an assisted living center, focusing on how design could improve social connections. We will discuss how using images facilitates conversations and our methods for organizing the interview responses.

Utilizing Photo-Elicitation to Garner Feedback from Children and Their Parents of the Outpatient Surgical Environment

Deborah Wingler

This presentation will focus on using photo-elicitation to extend equal regard to child and parent perceptions of the outpatient surgical environment for children who are undergoing an outpatient surgical procedure and their parents. In this session, methods for developing a photo questionnaire, and leveraging technology to facilitate its implementation in a fast-paced high-stress healthcare environment will be discussed. Additionally, insights for photo questionnaire development to support multiple forms of analysis such as point pattern, time-series, and regression analysis will be shared.

Photo-Elicitation Informing Inpatient and Outpatient Healthcare Facilities: Behavioral Health, Oncology, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

Lesa N Lorusso, Carolyn Blake and Skip Yauger

We present our experiences applying qualitative inquiry to the different populations in healthcare settings: patients, doctors, nurses and other staff. Responses were collected through recorded interviews, which were transcribed and coded. The coding procedure was standardized to encourage consistency and minimize bias between coders. Responses from interviews were grouped into domains of inquiry to organize the findings. We discuss our learnings from experimenting with ethnographic photo-elicitation and the viability of implementing this type of research as part of standard architectural practice.

Ethnographic Photo-Elicitation: Exploring the Method with a Pilot Project

Mehdi Khosrovani and Kathleen Snelgrove

We report on the results of pilot testing photo-elicitation with occupants of buildings on a college campus. We discuss the occupant feedback on the buildings collected by the study but also suggest opportunities for improving the method itself to facilitate implementation and adoption by researchers new to the process.

Ethnographic Photo-Elicitation through Teaching: Benefits to the Client, the Architect and the Students

Tyrone Yang, Eleftherios Pavlides, Annalisa Baci, Victoria Fagan, Lauren Tamburrino, Hannah Wade, Zsuzsanna Gaspar, Lisa Ferreira, Roger Goldstein, John McDonald, and James Thomas

In this presentation, we reflect on 2 years of implementing ethnographic photo-elicitation as part of an environmental design research class. We discuss the benefits to the students, architect sponsors and the building occupants. We also discuss some of the practical challenges to coordinating a class of students to study one building as well as some of the tools and methods we have developed to facilitate this process. We will conclude with a discussion about a manual that we are developing and invite suggestions from the participants of the intensive.