On the Cultural Responsiveness of Architecture

This paper approaches the relation of culture and built environments from the perspective of environment-behavior studies. Based on the author's previous work on culture-environment relations, it first clarifies the concept of culture and of designed environments. It then considers this relation in terms of “responsiveness,” the theme of a recent ACSA Regional meeting. It concludes that such cultural responsiveness is indeed important but that to achieve it the professional culture of architecture will have to change.