Environmental Cues: A Methodology for Studying Meaning in Built Environment

Abstract

The interest in culture and built environment relations has received a growing attention during the last decades. The culture and built environment relations are more crucial when changes in both are more rapid and excessive since such changes can severely threaten continuity in the built environment and culture and may have undesirable physical, social and culturel consequences. Environmental cues which communicate meanings at different levels are very helpful in studying culture and built environment relations as well as changes in both them across different areas and over time. Than the task is, how one can study what they communicate, how they communicate, which are the most important ones, how one can analyze those cues and what meanings they communicate to the local and other people. In this paper the theoretical framework as well as the model for analyzing changes in culture and the built environment is established. Research methods and the procedures are discussed in detail and a comprehensive research methodology for analyzing the culture and built environment relations via environmental cues is proposed. The proposed approach can be used for different environments, at different scales as well as in incorporating the values, meanings and lifestyles of the different user groups, in designing the new.