Practitioner Use of Environmental Autobiography for Library Buildings and Designs

Amy Beth

No collaboration of social science research and design initiatives combining environmental autobiographies, narratives, and library building projects is complete without the story referencing itself. Narrative based research has a habit of coming full circle. The first time I read Some Place Like Home (Israel, 2010) I marveled at the frequency with which libraries were referenced as ideal places in reflections and on “home.” Israel’s work explores in-depth interviews from three superstar architects, all of whom discuss libraries in their homes and in the homes of their ancestors, and who also provide examples and images of the famous libraries they have built. Israel demonstrates how the places of their past informed the inclusion of ideal aspects into their (present life) design work. When I tallied the instances of libraries discussed, and the images of libraries used to demonstrate the self-place bond, I couldn’t help but wonder if Israel noticed how extensively the experience of ideal places of home bled into libraries. Accepting my invite to explore, we sat in her home—featured in her book—and talked about the significance of libraries in people’s lives, the interest that libraries as ideal places hold for architects, designers, and people in general, the beauty of environmental autobiography, the work of the Design Psychology field and of the Toolbox she had created that could be adapted to explore ideal environments. We talked of raising our children and our thoughts about communal scholarship. As with the vast majority of other environmental psychologists, libraries hadn’t figured among the settings explored during her graduate education, but the scholarship she had created on self-place bonding and ideal places provided a distinct way to include and consider libraries going forward.

For more than two decades I have gathered narratives about how people experience libraries, while seeking how to present narrative as useful data in the design and redesign process of library building projects. In the field of architecture, both in design and theory, qualitative studies most commonly appear as post-occupancy evaluations. The education of architects and design professionals lacks well-honed intersections with social science research. Concerns of aesthetics, technology, structure, and theory dominate architecture school curricula and ultimately control the field. The architecture school tradition of challenging students to take on large design projects to demonstrate their competencies in imagining and handling huge structures, infrastructures, and spectacular presentations does not assist the budding professional in creating human environments. I recommend, as part of the architect’s education process, tuning in to one’s own environmental story, such as Leanne Rivlin documented in the Childhood City Newsletter of 1978, and as Clare Cooper Marcus did through environmental autobiographies with her students at UC Berkeley in late 1970s (Marcus, 1979), work that was expanded by Toby Israel through her creation of an adaptable Design Psychology Toolbox. Drawing from some of the readings listed in the bibliography of this paper, I implore my colleagues who teach in the field of environmental psychology to incorporate libraries as environments in their programs of study. Libraries should not be environmental anomalies. Understanding one’s own environmental story and considering the meaning of space in the lives of people can offset an emphasis on learning about design gurus and design meant for image, and instead calls forth the invaluable, innate environmental knowledge that architecture and design students bring to their education, training, and eventually to the field. The core notions that make up a design professional’s sense of place start in the childhood experience of the spaces they inhabit and in which they are encouraged to grow. These understandings continuously develop throughout a designer’s life, and influence the work produced throughout a career. Oddly enough, libraries are a “missing narrative” in the environmental stories of design professionals and from general cultural understandings of the way libraries work. The love of reading and of authors that saved lives with their shared stories is a different narrative than how libraries can be better imagined and built when we consider the human possibilities for transactional space. My findings support my belief that learning how to tap into one’s own great reservoir of environmental knowledge would be best started in the early stages of formal practical training, and that it’s never too late to benefit from tuning in to one’s own innate knowledge while becoming a seasoned practitioner. Whether considered in the context of an architecture and design program, or by colleagues at a firm, or by stakeholders creating a library project, an exploration of environmental meaning might transform the overarching emphasis of the practice of architecture from form and function, to the realization of architecture as both form and culture.

My research explores the significance of libraries as an environment of important meaning over the life course for architects, designers, and indirectly, for librarians. I investigated and examined the value of narrative data as qualitative research with practitioners who design and plan library buildings and renovations. The central question of this research asked whether Israel’s Design Psychology Toolbox could be adapted from exploring home as ideal places to exploring libraries as ideal places in architecture and design projects. When I sit with Israel’s Some Place Like Home (2010) alongside the data compiled from the participant-narratives, I affirmatively conclude that, “yes, the DPT is adaptable for use in exploring libraries as ideal places for architects and designers.” The research stems from the observation that meaningful ways to capture, analyze, and include prior library experience in the design of libraries are missing. I believe that my research indicates the possibility for an examination of human relationships to libraries that are likely to inform new project planning, and to guide architects to seek data that will affect the project outcome positively.

The specialized environmental experience of architects, designers, and librarians forms a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding the social, emotional, and interpersonal attachment to the library as place, and toward building human-centered libraries.

Memories, thoughts, ideas, and experiences of six architects and designers are presented here as visual data. The analysis of the completed DPT exercises provides empirical evidence that there is benefit in using the Toolbox and methods of Design Psychology to prepare practitioners for visioning and client in-take work and as they engage with library stakeholders and building clients.

The study participants agreed that taking part in environmental autobiographies, narrative reflections, and ideal place-visioning helped them better understand what influences their professional concerns, their taste, their sensitivities, and their concept of ideal places.

Projects that prioritize cost measures for efficiency and metrics of use fall short of creating spaces that are responsive to human needs; they have also been known to disrupt the project plan in untimely ways. Space plans that are intentionally designed to support individual and group relationships to libraries as a significant human environment are much more likely to achieve self-place fulfilling outcomes, and in turn, are more highly regarded by those who come to claim them as their own. The relationship of people to libraries described in personal narratives holds rich data in what the building program should consider. Exploring the relationship of people to libraries yields rich data about libraries as environments of importance where people develop self-place bonding and where the journey through personal, intellectual, and professional development may occur. The six design professionals who agreed to explore the DPT for this research found that understanding, analyzing, and incorporating a qualitative environmental autobiographical tool revealed much in their own self-bond place awareness.

In conclusion, the participants identified two valuable applications of this inquiry for their own practices: as a tool for increasing their own capacity as library design project leaders, and as a tool for guiding clients and stakeholders in articulating more fulfilling, inclusive, place-based decisions while in the initial, creative stages of library planning.

I believe that environmental autobiography as a tool holds relevance for librarians. As essential partners with architects and designers in library planning, it is necessary for librarians to understand the tools, methods, and experiences that literally can shape where and how the work of libraries takes place, and that has substantial impact on various library-users. Social science research tools such as environmental autobiography, can be adapted for use at all-staff meetings, not only as an exercise for reflecting on the work environment, but also as a way to consider how patrons navigate in library spaces. If facilitated properly—with consent for sharing responses and memories that emerge—this process can generate rich conversation amongst colleagues. Committees tasked with rethinking space needs may embrace social science environmental tools to allow them to foreground human self-place attachment at the beginning of a design process, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of projects that only privilege budget and efficiency of space-use metrics. A committee of library colleagues who have experienced using an adaptation of the DPT for libraries are likely to have a better command of space- planning concepts for communicating human and facility needs as architects and designers join the table. While architects and designers regularly work in teams, the hierarchical culture of librarianship stunts individual input and participation. Empowering library staff to explore the DPT to lend their insight to a project as peers can break down some of the natural reticence that becomes second nature in rigid workplaces. It might take committee members to explore the tool prior to extending it to groups of library stakeholders to build a more inclusive building program, but the awareness of input from various stakeholders may prove invaluable in their participation in the project and certainly in project outcomes. The DPT provides an opportunity not only to work with the narratives of those who are deeply invested in the building program, but also with those who are less familiar with how the library functions, and those who do not use the facility, those who are not as conversant with its systems, and to learn more about how the library can better reflect and serve them, too.

My experience as a librarian has included many people volunteering their “library stories,” wanting to relate their meaningful remembrances to me. Over many years, I have learned that receiving library stories from members of the public is a transactional or performativity norm in librarianship. This abundant data, if explored formally by environmental psychologists, architects, urban planning designers, and library educators, can move us toward a deeper understanding of narrative data and developing theories of place and space with profound implications for the libraries in our lives.

In my work on library building and renovation projects, architects and designers have pulled me aside, one by one, in almost confessional tones, to impart their own library narratives. They describe a yearning to incorporate something specific from their past, a library memory, a library space they loved, or simply the chance to re-create space with deep meaning for newer generations. I expand this recounting to address how their hopes are repeatedly dashed by the bare-bones utility of the project specifications, budgets reduced to durable, long lasting materials, and only “justifiable” expenses. As virtuous and fiscally responsible on the part of institutions and governing bodies with oversight for libraries as this may sound, the reality of creating library spaces with this “frugal first!” mindset produces libraries with a tendency to be mechanistic and graceless. If the end goal is to create spaces that people want to return to, library boards and stakeholders must rethink economizing for the sake of economizing. Designers attest it takes vision more than funding to create outcomes.

August Buffington, in discussing future libraries, shared:

“Walls are super expensive. You take a busy urban library and you need to factor in things like people, flow, and sound. You have to factor in skateboards and people on canes and people congregating. There’s no end to behaviors in libraries. You need design to navigate behavior. But the committee wants it to be austere and ascetic, so it doesn’t get a taxpayer scowl for spending—even if the taxpayer wants it to be beautiful when they get there. So, we looked at the requirements for the number of feet for bookcases that needed to be built into the project and we used this furniture to create different zones and connections to bigger experiences and spaces while still retaining the experience of an intimate, visually engaging space.” Augustus Buffington– Organic (Ideal Library Place)

In the attempt to be civically and financially responsible, building project boards and committees can make shortsighted decisions to save money that end up more costly in the long run. My experience serving on library building projects and supporting stakeholders in preparing to work with designers has taught me that different, more productive conversations occur when people take the time to acquire the tools.

A classic example is the shortsighted way a board or committee will turn down the more expensive lighting attached to the outside of the library building or parking lot when they learn it is LEED certified and jump to the conclusion it is costing more just for the LEED designation. In reality, there is ample data showing the cost of the LEED fixtures are a return on investment in record time because the maintenance and replacement lighting mechanisms have drastically higher endurance rates. Fear from having to defend the high cost of an appropriate fixture at the next Town Meeting will drive stakeholder decisions that not only cost more over time but also compromises safety when lighting is faced in the wrong direction. In rural areas where libraries are depended upon for high speed Internet access a cost efficient well-lit parking lot can literally serve as an extension of library hours. Architects dream of going beyond joyless, conservative, static spaces to create welcoming and desirable library spaces such as they once knew. Libraries ride on the laurels of being libraries, that is, places considered time honored and sacred just by virtue of being a library. Libraries didn’t start out as storefronts in strip malls where you need to be transported by motor or with extreme caution by bicycle, and least of all by foot.

Buildings are a part of the experience of experiencing libraries. While it is important to respond to the client, often the culture of responsible and thrifty project committee members can diminish outcomes as well.

To support the work of staff and committees involved in library building renovations, redesigns, and new visions for library-building projects, I have incorporated aspects of environmental autobiography exercises, and in more recent years, DPT exercises into my workshops. The design teams assigned to these projects have responded favorably to the client preparation, and have remarked on their ability to discuss the projects at hand more deeply. When the team enters the project with a discussion of the meaning of the place rather than the specifications and design steps, the outcome of the project, while keeping in budget, is inevitably different.

In my experience, given the enthusiasm of both design teams and the project stakeholders for doing the work of a fuller consideration of the library, and the potentially positive impact this work can have on project outcomes, we need to shift from wondering why approaches like the DPT are not yet standard, and instead seek leadership and accountability for structuring this important work into guiding the project steps.

Architects, including those in this study, have told me that it is not uncommon that two- thirds of the way through a building project, clients will inform them that concerns have surfaced; the project, however seemingly on target it is to meet its stated requirements and deadlines, is somehow lacking the very qualities they sought to make the library resonant for their users. Even in those cases when architects often agree with client complaints and are willing to revise the project to make adjustments to the human environment, there is a high cost in revising the project at a later stage. The practitioners who have experienced this moment on any number of projects attest that costs would have been considerably lower had two things occurred at the outset: if the design firm had felt secure in guiding conversations about the human environment at the project’s beginning, or if they knew that the client might have been open to considering the human environment as much as the more utilitarian aspects. When asked directly if there is any financial gain in waiting two-thirds of the way through a project to increase the price tag, architects have definitively answered in the negative. New projects with new deadlines are waiting in the wings. The reputation of their firm is at stake. Refitting is uninspired work in comparison to creating. A large-scale project typically has spending timelines with bureaucratic mandates. Everyone stands to lose financially when a project is delayed and redesigned. The client in-take process, planning, and proposal stages are the appropriate periods in a project’s development for examining meaning and attachment to a library. This happens best when qualitative research tools, including the partnership of social scientists, the skills of architects, and the insights of librarians are all brought together.

The findings of my research support that the effectiveness of the DPT begins once the practitioner—an architect, a designer, or lead librarian on the project—has finished many if not all of the exercises in the Toolbox. Having done so, practitioners will have experienced a personal exploration of connection to place that gives them a deeper understanding of how the library comes to have meaning in the lives of patrons.

The client can then be invited to participate in DPT exercises, before the conventional closed-door committee design process begins, and before square-footage cost figures, efficiency of information use, and retrieval metrics dominate the project landscape. I am advocating that library narratives inform the work of these committees from all reaches of people who use the library, who work in the library (at all levels!), who support the library (as volunteers, board members, administration outside of the library, fundraisers, etc.), and who do not use the library at all. If utility becomes the exclusive driving exploration of the project, the opportunities to support design, use, and the reasons why people have sought to return to the library, or to avoid it, get lost. Efficiency must make way for calculations that honor human connection, fulfillment, and place attachment.

Adapted for work in library settings, the DPT requires a substantial investment of time and focus. Simply stated, the DPT is too long. Research participants who would see the study through all the way through were not easy to find. Several participants dropped out of the research having completed eight of the eleven exercises. There was no lack of enthusiasm for the research, they simply could not take more time away from the demands of their professional work and were not inclined to donate personal time when no continuing education credits could be offered. I consulted Dr. Israel about this dilemma, and she shared that completing the research with her three superstar architects was an exercise in patience and repeated efforts to secure their time.

While the DPT can be used in degree or certification granting educational settings as is, or for those private clients investing in projects that involve exploring home as an ideal place, then its length is not at issue. I strongly recommend it be modified appropriately for commissioned or tax-funded institutional projects where ample funding is not the case. Full exploration of the Toolbox stands to strengthen it adaptability and saliency. Mentors and guides can make a world of difference in the process of applying new skills and studying its efficacy. I recommend that design professionals and environmental psychologists form partnerships to work with clients when using qualitative research tools like environmental autobiography and the DPT. This partnership will not only make for a stronger interpretation of results with the client, but it will strengthen the ability of the practitioner to manage the findings and incorporate them into the early project programming phase. Last, I believe that architectural firms should include tools like environmental autobiography and the DPT as a standard part of initial project planning. Making the process optional only diminishes the likelihood that this necessary approach to human design concerns will be understood as an integral to a positive outcome.

The participation of six architects in this research fully introduced them on a personal level to the DPT as an instrument and an approach to working with library clients for future library-building and design projects. The research was limited to explorations of how the participants’ sense of self and sense of place are entwined and might be relevant in creating library environments, and did not extend to an investigation of how the six practitioners might use the Toolbox more broadly with their clients. I can only speculate how they might use DPT exercises as a formal aspect of the initial practitioner-client project intake process. The impact of this research may go beyond the six participants, as each one works collaboratively with colleagues in their firms and in their professional lives. Some participants explicitly indicated they had already shared take-aways based on their study participation with their immediate colleagues. In addition to incorporating elements of the DPT at their firms, the participants shared that they were likely to use some of the exercises with clients, and that further educational, public, and professional programs of interest would be places for them to share their experiences and findings. In addition to having clients, several of the participants teach on the university level, and some of them serve on committees in professional associations; all of them actively attend professional programs. My commitment to this work and my curiosity about its usefulness might lead me to follow up on their intentions in the future. Until such time, their enthusiasm and good will toward my research project is sustaining:

“In listening to myself, there’s the experience of remembering coming to a place of self-awareness.”
“The exercises elicit memories—interesting! —about libraries and being book related.”
“The opportunity of this interview to articulate these emotions is powerful.”
“That was enjoyable to rethink.”
“I am reflecting on learning about the Avery Index, thank you.”
“This is why I love talking about this with you… This is so great to name.”
“I never thought about it until now.”

In conclusion, I am wholly appreciative of the memories and insights the six participants shared with me for this study. There were times during the interviews when I wanted to pause to reflect on and to fully integrate the depth of their narratives into my understanding. Furthermore, with each participant, there was at least one moment when they asked me to stop the recording to say something off the record; they continued describing a sensitive private experience or an intimate event in their life or a set of emotions that shaped them because of the trust that had developed between us.

To undertake this particular type of work, at its core an investigation of meaning and memory, the researcher must be prepared to sit in the presence of personal truths earned through trust and respect, and to receive the gift of an individual’s narrative, including those beyond the usual professional comfort zone. The many hours that I spent getting to know the participants as individuals and reviewing participants’ words made it difficult for me to categorize their experience simply as patterns of data for analysis. I repeatedly felt honored to be the recipient of their sketches and stories. There were periods in the process of analyzing the data that I held their stories too close to my protective instincts to be able to zoom out and see patterns while the voice of the individual proved too intimate to release into the summary data. To be the keeper of narratives, to be a librarian attuned to how environments affect human experience in the evolution of libraries, and to be an environmental psychologist determined to bring the gifts of our insights, methods, skills, and analytical abilities to the place where architecture and design professionals meet us, is a privilege every day.

Plate 2: Personal Journeys: Expressing Meaning

Plate 2