Theorizing Built Form and Culture is a festschrift volume celebrating the lifelong scholarship and the oeuvre of Amos Rapoport, a leading expert on the intersections of culture and built environments and a founding member of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Edited by Kapila D. Silva and Nisha A. Fernando, it is a collection of essays by scholars around the world, each exploring, extending, testing, or reflecting on the theoretical contributions of Amos Rapoport, especially focusing on culture–environment relations, vernacular architecture, environmental design, and architectural practice and pedagogy.The book is organized into four parts: Home and Work Environments, Cultural Landscapes, Environmental Well-being, and Design Theory, Pedagogy and Practice. These four parts indicate that the chapters explore the culture-environment relationships across varying environmental scales (building interiors to large cultural landscapes), place types (home to heritage sites) and different cultural contexts around the world.The introduction by Silva readers may have liked more detail on how exactly certain chapters will engage with or diverge from Rapoport's theories.Part I: Home and Work Environments contains five chapters that apply Rapoport's theoretical notions to the residential design and workplace use. The first chapter, Analyzing the transformation of the Kuwaiti house by Mohammad Al-Jassar, uses Rapoport's concepts—systems of settings and activities, culture-core vs culture-periphery—to examine how the Kuwaiti house has transformed over 7 decades. It focuses on gender roles in that transformation, exploring how modernization, changing aspirations, and social and cultural dynamics have altered built form. The use of the Kuwaiti house is an apt case for exploring the clash between modernization and tradition. The attention given to gender roles adds depth and illuminates how transformations in built form are mediated by changes in social relations. Chapter 2, Amos Rapoport and my journey toward Culturally Enriched Communities by Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, explores the role of architecture in supporting and suppressing peoples' ability to thrive, especially in refugee communities, leading to Culturally Enriched Communities, a platform to advocate for built environments where everyone can thrive. The author reflects on her own journey and builds on Rapoport's focus on culture that reaffirms the significance of everyday places and practices to peoples' lives. The reflexivity in the chapter – personal journeys often illuminate how theory influences practice or scholarship, making concrete what ideas can do – helps humanize Rapoport's influence beyond purely academic arguments. Çağri Imamoğlu in Chapter 3: Toward an understanding of environmental evaluations in urban residential areas: continuing the journey enlightened by Amos Rapoport focuses on how people perceive residential areas in urban contexts, engaging Rapoport's perspectives about environmental preference, choice and meanings. Supported by empirical evidence (surveys, interviews, etc.), this chapter offers valuable data on how residents’ perceptions diverge from design/policy assumptions. In Chapter 4: Integrating Amos Rapoport's ‘systems of settings and activities’ and Anthony Giddens's ‘structuration theory’: the socio-spatial context of live-work environments, Atiya Mahmood integrates Rapoport's ideas on understanding environments as a system with Giddens' thoughts on agency, exploring how users both shape and are shaped by space in environments where home/work functions overlap. Studies on live-work environments are increasingly relevant in modern contexts (remote work, flexible space), and so this chapter is a timely contribution. Finally, Chapter 5: Expanding on Amos Rapoport's systems of activities and systems of settings in nursing workspaces by Karen Keddy looks at how systems of settings and activities manifest in such specialized workspaces. Her use of collages to elicit nurses’ work and spatial experiences is innovative.Chapters in Part II: Cultural Landscapes apply Rapoport's ideas to macro spatial settings such as urban spaces and cultural landscapes. Nisha A. Fernando, in Chapter 6: Sensory experiences as cultural place identity: two case studies, explores how sensory experiences (sight, sound, smell, possibly texture or atmosphere) contribute to cultural place identity via two case studies, one in New York City and the other in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sensory dimensions are often under-explored in built form studies; therefore, this chapter addresses a gap in literature and helps move beyond visual/structural into experiential, which aligns well with environment–behavior studies. Chapter 7: Amos in Arabia: Humanizing principles in the architecture and urbanization of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh by Yasser Elsheshtawy draws on two urban scenes: the “Sha'abi” house social housing program in Abu Dhabi and humanizing programs in Riyadh neighborhoods. The chapter provides an excellent comparative context in the Middle East, where modernization has often led to sharply contrasting forms. Asha Kutty and Newton D'Souza focus on race, marginalization, culture and how built form (storefront churches) reflects and shapes community, identity and spatial claims. This Chapter 8: Culture, race and marginalization: The case of African American storefront churches in central city Milwaukee shows how marginalized communities use built space and maintain cultural identity under conditions of limited resources, resilience, and improvisation. Wei Zhao in her Chapter 9: Systems of settings and activities: A framework to study vernacular settlements and cultural landscapes in China applies Rapoport's framework to vernacular settlements in China, to study cultural landscapes and how systems of settings/activities reveal patterns of daily life, tradition, and adaptation. As China's diversity of vernacular settlements gives rich material, this chapter shows adaptation to local climate, materials, culture, and possibly changing socio-economic forces. In Chapter 10, Amita Sinha, Kailashpati Maurya, and Upama Sen study the Santhal people in Shantiniketan (India) and how their houses and cultural landscape express identity, social relations, and perhaps forms of vernacular architecture. This chapter, titled The Santhal house and cultural landscape in Shantiniketan, India, is unique as it focuses on relatively less well-studied indigenous group and thus gives a fresh perspective. Ranjith Dayartne's Chapter 11: Theoretical inspirations of Amos Rapoport: Reflections on the International Studies on Vernacular Settlements (ISVS) reflects on the influence of Rapoport's ideas on the research work produced through the ISVS network and provides a meta-analysis showing patterns across cases, which is valuable in assessing Rapoport's theory's strengths and limitations. In Chapter 12: Exploring heritage from an environment–behavior studies perspective, Kapila D. Silva forms a theoretical framework for the study of the concept of heritage, linking natural, cultural, tangible and intangible heritages through the theoretical concepts of Rapoport. This is likely the first time that environment–behavior perspective on heritage has been presented.Part III: Environmental Well-being demonstrates the use of Rapoport's concepts in creating culturally conducive spaces for the health and wellness of people. In Chapter 13: Ambiance á la Rapoport: Indoor environmental quality and its profiles, Ihab Elseyadi looks at indoor environmental quality (thermal, lighting, acoustics, etc.) and profiles how well different indoor environments perform in relation to cultural expectations or practices. It brings in environmental/technical aspects that are often neglected in cultural studies but critical for well-being and provides quantifiable metrics or assessments, which complement typical qualitative/cultural analyses. Chapter 14: Residential choice and fit in a Milwaukee refugee enclave by Lynne Dearborn and, Angelina Tsoukala focuses on how a community of refugees choose housing and how well the housing “fits” their cultural and social needs, examining mismatches, trade-offs and adaptations. Very relevant to cases and settings of migration, displacement and diversity, the chapter is illuminating, as refugees’ housing is often poorly connected to culture. Susana Alves and Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi in Chapter 15: People–nature interactions within activity settings: Understanding health-promoting mechanisms using Amos Rapoport's three EBS questions engage with people’s interactions with nature (green spaces, access, gardens, views, etc.), which is conceived as a system of activity settings. They show how nature-based interventions may help people mitigate climate-induced harm, recover from stress and mental fatigue, and build new coping strategies and skills—with culture acting as a mediating force. They argue for an ecological approach to perception and practice to understand how contact with nature promotes health and psychological wellbeing for people in different cultures. In Chapter 16: Aging in place: The roles of food-related activities engagement among older Indonesian women, Widya A. Ramadhani and Lynne M. Dearborn look at how engagement in food-related activities contributes to older women's experience of home, identity, and well-being, exploring the intersection of culture, gender, aging and space use.Part IV: Design Theory, Pedagogy and Practice is dedicated to examining how Rapoport’s ideas may be applied to design education and practice. In Chapter 17: Amos Rapoport on design knowledge: Enabling a theory for a trans-critical pedagogy in architectural education, Ashraf Salama explores Rapoport's thought about design knowledge and how that might inform a “trans-critical pedagogy” in architectural education that is critical, trans-cultural, reflective. Design pedagogy is often under-theorized, and thus this is a valuable contribution, helping students and educators to reorient design curriculum toward culture, inclusion and critical reflection. Hisham S. Gabr, in Chapter 18: Pedagogical implications of Amos Rapoport's theoretical views, describes several examples of undergraduate and post-graduate student work of architecture that utilized environment-behavior studies (EBS) and cultural aspects of the built environment. Chapter 19: Connecting design to education outcomes by Sean O'Donnell illustrates how an architectural design firm has committed to a research-based process, as Rapoport advocates, to assess the impact of design on the use of and satisfaction with learning environments. This created the prototypical process for on-going problem analysis, goal setting and evaluations of school settings, involving pre- and post-occupancy of those places. Sanjoy Mazumdar writes the last two chapters – Chapter 20: How does culture influence design? and Chapter 21: How does design affect culture? – to explore the reciprocal mechanisms and channels through which culture shapes architectural design (its norms, practices, values, use, policy, material choices etc.) and how design shapes culture through use, spatial behavior, identity, and possibly how built form influences cultural norms, social interaction, etc. The two chapters collectively provide a theoretical conclusion on the culture-environment–design relationship that the preceding chapters focused on.Taken as a whole, Theorizing Built Form and Culture is a strong and valuable contribution to the literature on environment–behavior studies, architectural theory, vernacular/indigenous architecture and the culture–design nexus. It succeeds particularly in showing that Amos Rapoport's theoretical constructions are still vibrant, generative and applicable in a variety of settings. It helps renew interest in his legacy and updates and extends it for 21st-century challenges. However, its impact could have been greater if there was more cross-chapter synthesis. A concluding chapter (beyond the introduction) that draws out themes, contrasts, tensions and perhaps proposes an updated or refined framework of Rapoport's theory would have helped in consolidating its contributions. Also, more explicit engagement with power, political economy, climate change, and sustainability (though some chapters touch on well-being and environmental quality) would increase its relevance in pressing global challenges. Theorizing Built Form and Culture: The Legacy of Amos Rapoport is a rich, broad and thoughtful volume. Its multi-site empirical work allied with theoretical reflections provokes new thinking. It renews Rapoport's legacy, updates it and challenges us to use it for contemporary problems of housing, environment, culture, well-being and decolonizing design.
Dilshan Remaz Ossen (Thu,) studied this question.