Discussion Section 1. Spatial Invasion Exercise

The following is a series of three spatial invasion exercises to be done with a partner. In all cases there will be an “invaded” and an “invader”. The invader will determine when the distance is too close for comfort and will stop invading. Be sure to switch partners for each of the three phases of the exercise. Pair up with someone you do not know well. Put all belongings, notebooks, etc. to one side. Have nothing in your hands.

Handout 1. SPATIAL INVASION EXERCISE

Discussion Section 2. Family Life Style and Memories of Home

This exercise is designed to increase your awareness of variations in the meaning and use of environments. Home is a primary example where both manifest and latent functions of the physical environment come into play. Some of the HER Processes and some concepts likely to be discussed include:

Environmental determinism, Cognitive appraisal (Manifest-latent and Congruence), Territoriality, Privacy, Noise, and Crowding.

Procedures

A. Before class, please reproduce on poster board, as well as you can remember, a floor plan of your family residence when you were age 16-17. Label the rooms by standard names. Please also label doorways. Please also attach a photograph of your home, if possible. If there were 2 or more floors, use separate poster boards for each floor. If your floorplan is too small, people can't see it. Make sure the floorplan and labels can be seen from 8 feet away. Indicate in the lower right of the poster board, the number, gender, relationship to you, and ages of resident household members at that time. Name the city and country location of residence.

B. Put some notes down for the following questions, as well as you can remember, about dominant utilization of the domestic spaces by reference to the rooms on your floor plan. Illustrate your answers with incidents and family events. We will discuss these in section:
1. In what spaces did your family members congregate?
    a. What types of activities occurred in these spaces? Describe personal examples.
    b. Were these same family spaces also used for close friends/outside the family? More casual acquaintances?
    If applicable, describe differences between family and other social spaces.
    c. What word would you use to describe your feelings about each of the family spaces? The other social spaces if applicable?
2. What space(s) in the residence, if any, did you consider your own in which you could be assured of relative privacy?
    a. Under what circumstances did these private territories NOT WORK?
3. Can you think of any activities that were not well supported by the physical space in your home? In other words, think of instances of incongruence (or lack of fit) between the environment and the activities/intentions of your family. Please describe one or two examples.
4. In what ways do you think your personal background influences the spaces you used or the ways in which they were used in your home? Personal background here is taken in its broadest terms: country or cultural background, ethnicity, age, gender, family composition.
5. How did the location of your home (e.g., city/country, weather, topography) affect design of your home or use of rooms?
6. "You can't go home again." Since you left home to go away to college, how have the ways your family utilize the spaces in your home changed?
    a. Did you notice that when you went home over the holidays that territorial issues/feelings arose? Please provide a personal example.
7. If you were to build your home all over again to better fit your personal needs and values, what changes would you make and why? How would you fix some of the more salient examples of incongruence?
8. An important social and environmental revolution that influences you and your family, and perhaps the design and functioning of a home is the home computer along with another technological changes such as cell phones. To what extent has the home computer or some other technology affected your family’s use of your home environment? Can you think of any ideas to re-design your home to better take advantage of this technology?

Gentle reminder: Preparation and participation affect your discussion section grade.

Discussion Section 3. & 4. Dormitory Design Guidelines (Written Assign. 1)
See the following page in the Assignments & Grades section for more details.

Handout 3-4. DORMITORY DESIGN GUIDELINES WORKSHEET

Discussion Section 5. Noise Experiment

Print and fill out the Noise Sensitivity Scale before section.
Please score it and record as indicated.
Handout 5a. NOISE SENSITIVITY SCALE

Print TWO copies of the Stress Scale and bring them to section.
Handout 5b. STRESS SCALE

Discussion Section 6. Cognitive Mapping

Materials will be provided in section.

Discussion Section 7. Ergonomics Analysis

The draft poster for the Ergonomic Analysis (Written Assign. 2) will be due in section.
See the following page in the Assignments & Grades section for more details.

Discussion Section 8. Cornell HER Treasure Hunt

Under the guidance of your trusty TA, locate on campus design examples that illustrate each of the following concepts. For each concept indicate why/how design reflects the concept. Note: for this section, you'll meet in a different location. Check with your TA.

• Wayfinding
• Disability Accessibility
• Visibility
• Noise
• Depth
• Feng-shui
• Focal Point
• Visual Exposure
• Behavior Setting Boundary
• Restorative
• Congruence
• Functional Distance
• Biomechanics
• Anthropometrics
• Sociofugal
• Non-Territorial Office