Walk this way. On affordances for human movement in architectural spaces.

The aim of the project is to identify architectural qualities (affordances) that influence our everyday experiences of movement. Creating affordances for movement is one of the most important elements of architectural programming for the built environment . The Design of Information Systems research group of the Informatics Department at UiO has presented me with a possibility to conduct the study at UiO, at a site of an actual architectural project (the new Informatikk building of UiO). This opportunity is exceptional as it provides the unique resources (a 3d model of the new building that is now being developed at at IFI) and the academic support (in particular the possibility to work directly with the research community that greatly values participat ory design approach) Thus far research on human movement has focused mostly on psychological processes and cognition, generating theory rather than producing applications for design. On the other hand, there is a substantial literature from the fields o f design, but it focuses on the signage and and not the architectural environment itself. This proposed study aims to close this gap by identifying the environmental qualities that influence the everyday experience of movement. To address this question I plan to employ triangulated methods drawing on: phenomenological tradition of studying experience, quantitative space syntax analysis and a participatory design approach. Simultaneously the goal of this project is to provide to the design professions guid elines that could be more easily translated into user-friendly designs, as well as build a more comprehensive social science-based theoretical understanding of human movement. It also has a potential of enriching the multidisciplinary field of environment al psychology by embracing the approaches developed in the field of IT studies (and in particular the participatory design approach) and could possibly also lead to a valuable contribution to the IT field.