he built environment is a challenging subject. It is pervasive and relevant to all who live in the human-made or arranged world—to all who live on this planet. A healthy built environment makes significant contributions to human life. It fulfills human needs and values; it extends and increases comfort, productivity, and enjoyment. A quality environment can foster a greater sense of belonging, involvement, and pride. An environment created without supportive qualities can have unfortunate influences on people, decreasing the ability to learn, perform, and enjoy life’s activities. An unhealthy built environment breeds high levels of apathy, crime, vandalism, and disease.
The built and natural environments are shaped by many human, environmental, and technological factors. The character and quality of the built environment is dependent on everyone, and effective design and planning are critical to an inclusive, proactive process. It is important for everyone to be aware, involved, and responsible. Each of us is an influential part of the ongoing story of the built environment.
“Built environment” is a relatively new term and an inclusive concept. It emerged in the 1980s, and its importance awaits fuller appreciation and comprehension. In reality, the built environment is as old as the beginning of time, dating back to when humans first fashioned stone tools, created clothes and discovered (utilized) fire for warmth, modified caves for shelter, and formed cooperative communities. The term embodies all human creation—past, present, and future plans.
The primary purpose of this book is to explore and clarify the many interrelated aspects of the built environment and to demonstrate that design and planning for human, environmental, and technical needs overlap many fields of interest and study. Interdisciplinary, collaborative design and planning are critical to understanding and resolving the many societal human-environmental prob
lems, locally and globally. This need to integrate across traditional specialized boundaries is expressed not only in students’/readers’ and authors’ interests, but also in professional and societal concerns found in contemporary literature and mandated by state and federal policies. This book is dedicated to the elimination of apathy and, conversely, to the encouragement of people to become aware of and involved in the life-supportive qualities of the built environment. Awareness and involvement are important prerequisites for all responsible citizens. The book attempts to develop an interdisciplinary forum for collaborative study of the built environment. It encourages people from all disciplines to enter into an inclusive study of the built world in which we all share and live, work and play. It demonstrates the importance of collaborative effort in dealing with complex subjects in a unified and holistic framework, fostering constructive ideas and positive developments.
The genesis of this particular collaborative investigation began at Washington State University. A graduate-level, collaborative, special topics seminar in Environmental Science was first offered in 1974 to explore the related interdisciplinary aspects of the built environment. The seminar met with considerable enthusiasm from a diverse group of students and faculty. They concluded that this subject was critically important to everyone and should be offered earlier to beginning university students from all disciplines. This evolved into the development of another experimental course for undergraduate students in 1975. The same positive results occurred, and in 1979 the course achieved permanent status as an interdisciplinary, team-taught course in Architecture/Interior Design/Landscape Architecture. In 1984, it was approved as a class, which fulfills one of the General University Requirements in Humanities.
Early on, our collaborative group carried out an exhaustive search for appropriate books for this new study. We determined that libraries were full of definitive references on each component of the built environment, but few addressed the important overlapping aspects of the humanly created world. None existed that were appropriate in scope and integrative enough in concept to be useful to our work. Consequently, we developed the first collaborative book on the subject—The Built Environment: A Creative Inquiry into Design and Planning, published by Crisp in 1994. The book has been used by a number of colleges and universities throughout the country.
In 1997, the University of Idaho’s Architecture Program redesigned their introductory course offerings. They carried out a nationwide investigation of introductory courses, their syllabi and textbooks. This study concluded that the course and book at Washington State University best matched their needs. In 1999, they implemented a similar interdisciplinary, team-taught course using the above textbook for beginning students in all the design fields.
In 2002, the coordinators of the University of Idaho and Washington State University investigated the feasibility of updating the original book. We carried out a series of discussions on the future of the courses and the textbook. We concluded that the fundamentals of the first book were sound but that it could be updated with more state-of-the-art advances in environmental design/planning. The editors carried out a four-year development process for this new, updated book.
We, the editors, would like to express our sincere appreciation to the many past and present participants who have collaborated to evolve this book into its present form. All the authors, individually and collectively, have made critically important contributions to this work. The authors have been able to convey their important part in context with the whole, their chapter within the framework of the book. Their willingness to collaborate effectively in this integrative process was fundamental to this interdisciplinary process and was very much appreciated. The following Contributors List identifies the authors and their affiliations. The reader is encouraged to do a Web search of their distinguished resumés and the continuing contributions they have made to the design and planning of the built environment. All the authors and editors have personally absorbed the costs of developing this manuscript and have agreed to donate all royalties to a university development fund.
The collaboration between environmental science and environmental design has been an important interdisciplinary thread and a unifying influence on this work. There exists a challenging but compatible relationship between environmental science, which deals primarily with the natural but humanly impacted environment, and this study, which focuses on environmental design and planning and the built or humanly created world. We are particularly appreciative of the scholarship and wisdom of Gerald L. Young, a human ecologist and coeditor of the first edition of this book. His interdisciplinary understanding of environmental science, ecology, and design/planning has made a major integrative contribution to this work.
Special thanks are also extended to the students who, over the years, have provided constant feedback through their interest and encouragement, and their concerns and complaints—challenging us to do a better job. The hidden but extensive work of Sandra Tyacke needs recognition. She, and others, have been most helpful in typing and retyping a seemingly endless array of written drafts, outlines, references, letters, and memos. Sandra’s remarkable patience, professionalism, and word processing skills have made this whole process run smoothly. We express our sincere appreciation to our families, who have patiently seen this volume through many drafts—and many hours, days and nights “away.” We thank them for years of caring and support.
The graphics and illustrations are the responsibility of the authors of each chapter, unless otherwise noted. The graphic design of the circular logo and linear formats are by Sarah Recken and Jon Singleton of Washington State University. We express our appreciation to David Lim, Peter Wolfe, Karl Heitman, Janet Archer, and Zulqaisar Hamidin, students at Washington State University, for developing many of the graphic diagrams and sketches and Jarod Hall of the University of Idaho for his development of the cover design. Finally, we express our gratitude to Pamela Overholtzer, graduate student at the University of Idaho, for her technical editing, graphic and photographic skills, which she generously shared during our final push to the finish line.
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