5. Innovations Applications of Aesthetics

The application of aesthetics in architecture and urban design comprises the following five aspects:

•  The purpose of aesthetic application (Why is aesthetics applied?)
•  The product of aesthetic application (What is applied?)
•  The process of application (How can aesthetics be applied?)
•  The factors of success or a failure (variables)
•  The measurement of aesthetic judgment (assessment and appraisal)

Common purposes of aesthetic application include the following: to beautify the environment; to express ideas as in art; to express social motivations; to market projects such as selling apartments & places such as in tourism. The purpose depends on who is applying the aesthetics such as resource managers, planners or designers, and on who is aesthetics applied to such as tourists, residents, general public or professionals.

Products of aesthetic application can be looked at based upon the following classification: Types of settings (waterfront, tourist, housing, parks, public-private spaces, etc.); Features of settings (streets, buildings, open spaces, streetscape, landscape, bridges, landmarks, historical artifacts, etc.).

The process of application involves several examples such as the following: government initiated programs; public institution involvement; community participation; collaboration between citizens and government; grassroots approach; nongovernmental organization contributions; design process such as having aesthetic standards or guidelines or principles of design aesthetics.

Some of the factors influencing the success or failure of aesthetic application are the following: responsible government; knowledgeable authorities; available funding; laws and regulations; public awareness; cultural level of citizens; human behavior; technological advancements; supporting industry; cooperative businesses; efficient management; environmental issues; contextual condition; professional education such as the training of architects and the aesthetic conventions installed into generations of graduating architects; in addition to the human/psychological factors influencing the response to visual quality.

Assessment of aesthetic judgment can take on several forms such as the following: objective measures; subjective measures; different kinds of variables to measure aesthetics; individual or technical measuring tools.

1. The purpose of aesthetic application (Why is aesthetics applied?)

This section relates to the section discussed earlier on the reasons why we study aesthetics. As mentioned before, we study aesthetics and hence attempt to apply it to beautify the environment, to express ideas as in art, to express social motivations, or improve the visual quality of our cities. Moreover, and more importantly, applying aesthetics increases the physiological and psychological benefits for human beings. In addition to the architectural benefits and humans benefits, business benefits are the third category of reasons of aesthetic applications. Aesthetics has been increasingly used for marketing products and services of all sorts in many professions and industries (Table 1).

Classification of Purposes	Purpose of Applying Aesthetics
Architectural Benefits	Enhance the visual quality of cities Express social, cultural ideas
Human Benefits	Physiological benefits Psychological benefits
Business Benefits	Marketing products and services

Table (1): Purposes of aesthetic application

The purpose depends on who is applying the aesthetics such as resource managers, planners or designers, and on who is aesthetics applied to such as tourists, residents, general public, or professionals. It is important to focus in this section on these two issues: who applies aesthetics and for whom? Some architects tend to design buildings for themselves using their own criteria for aesthetics. Some architects use criteria learnt in school as the basis of aesthetic judgment. Some architects are unaware of the impact of their buildings on the aesthetic image of the city and neighboring buildings. Others are quite sensitive to the users, the context, and the overall aesthetic values of the community. Recent trends call for a more informative, knowledgeable, sensitive, and democratic architect. These qualities can be achieved by relying on scientific evidence from investigations of aesthetics. This favors objective ideas, and not subjective and personal intuitions, for understanding features of aesthetics and aesthetic responses. Objectivity and the scientific approach become the means for informing architects on the right decisions on aesthetic issues. This does not mean however that architects will follow harsh rules, or be robot-like in making decisions, or that their creativity be jeopardized; on the contrary, informed architects will handle scientifically derived information and use creativity to create beautiful architecture that would have a better chance of being accepted by most people as beautiful.

Business benefits are other important purposes for aesthetic application such as marketing projects to sell apartments & places or marketing services for professionals. Science has proven that eye movements are related to choice-making (Glimcher, 2001); thereby pointing towards the importance of visual perception and choices. Consequently, marketing research has shown that aesthetic factors affect one's decision to purchase a home or second home (Crompton & Ankomah, 1993), or to choose to enter a shop in a mall (Uzzell, 1995), or to choose the desired tourist destination (Klenosky, 2002; Sonmez& Sirakaya, 2002). Product design and industrial design are increasingly reliant in aesthetics for product promotion and marketing, with potential higher sales. The entire field of graphic design is also increasingly dependent on benefiting from aesthetic designs in marketing products, attracting attention to billboards, marketing oneself such as when using personal cards, or drawing attention to brochures, magazines, and cards.

3. The process of application (How can aesthetics be applied?)

The process of application involves several examples such as the following: government initiated programs; solid chain of public institution responsibilities; community participation; collaboration between citizen and government; grassroots approach; nongovernmental organization involvements; design process such as having aesthetic standards or guidelines or principles of design aesthetics. I categorized these examples into four groups (Table 2).

 

Process	Examples or Comments or Types
1. Community participation	Valued opinion
	Means to participate (workshops; interviews)
2. Community initiation	Citizen groups
	Grassroots movements
	Nongovernmental organizations
	Businesses and private sector
3. Government's role	Motivator; facilitator; enforcer of laws; financier
4. Design process	Informed and scientific studies
	Codes (principles of aesthetics)

Table (2): Processes of aesthetics applications

Many experts concur that improving the state of architectural aesthetics will only succeed with the involvement of the community such as in the case of Cairo (Ebada, 2005). The process of applying aesthetic principles in city design is led by architects, urban designers and planners but it may fail if not supported by the community. How can the community contribute to the aesthetic design of cities? One relatively modern approach is community participation. Getting the community involved in upgrading certain deteriorated and aesthetically declining city districts have proven highly successful when collaboration is well managed and intentions are honorable. Community participation assumes the value of listening to the opinions of the general public, who are the “nonpaying client” that architects should design for. The means of involving the public in the design process or in getting their opinions in aesthetic-related issues involve organizing workshops or interviewing them.

Two case in Cairo show positive effects of community participation. One is the Children Park in Saida Zaynab (Steele, 1992), the other is Al-Azhar Park in Darb El-Ahmar. In the Children Park , which won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1992, the jury awarding the prize was quoted by saying:

“From the moment of its inception, the project sought to engage the residents of the surrounding neighborhood in its design and execution. The insertion of the park into this congested urban fabric has gone far beyond the original brief. It has generated a renewed sense of community by extending its presence into the surrounding streets. The residents take pride in their neighborhood as well as their park.” (Steel, 1992, p. 105).

This quote demonstrates some of the benefits of involving the residents of the project neighborhood. In the USA for example, community participation has been common practice for sometime. The International Building Code offers the means for community involvement when it comes to code revisions. All interested parties, as well as the general public are encouraged to participate in the process of code revision. The International Code Council (ICC) invites code officials, design professional or consultants, trade associations, builders or contractors, manufacturers or suppliers, government agencies, and anyone with a vested interest (ICC, 2005). Community participation not only involves adults but also children. Children have been shown to successfully participate in resolving community design problems (Chawla & Heft, 2002; Francis & Lorenzo, 2002) such as by getting involved in a design charrette, an intensive, hands-on workshop with designers (Sutton et.al., 2002). This approach has benefited younger participants' social and environmental awareness, environmental competence, and increased opportunities to influence public decision-making. Barriers in this study included the difficulties all parties experience in taking new social roles, realizing new learning modes (including the design process), and overcoming institutional hierarchies. Cable television was a tool used for getting ideas and opinions of the community for the redevelopment of a small American town (Crosbie, 1984 as cited in Sanoff, 1991). Four shows spanning a period of five months enabled around 90,000 viewers to watch them, many were able to get in feedback on project ideas, and general consensus was reached. The active involvement of the community made the process a success and helped in raising the necessary private and public funds for the range of projects actually built in the town. Now, the Internet is used as a tool in participatory techniques to get citizens particularly young people involved in the shaping of their environment, as in the case of Finland (Horrelli & Kaaja, 2002). Findings from several experiments on children's participation in urban planning in Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Italy have demonstrated that young people are sharp analysts of their settings and creative producers of ideas for planning in spite of the reluctance of the authorities to expand their top-down, expert-based mode of urban planning to include new groups, such as young people (Horrelli et.al., 2002).

Motivating forces are commonly attributed to the initiation of projects. Many of the waterfront developments discussed earlier have been triggered by one or more motivating force such as a visionary mayor/governor, passionate citizens' group, determined business community, persistent architect, or far-seeing government agency (Breen et.al., 1996). Community initiation with regards to improving the visual quality of the environment is common modern practice. Citizen groups, grassroots movements, nongovernmental organizations, businesses and private sector involvement are examples of community groups that have been getting involved in improving the visual quality of their environment. Sometimes these parties initiate action and sometimes they respond to governmental call. Alexandria , Egypt provides a successful example in this latter regard. In response to the call of the governor of Alexandria , many businesses and private sector companies or individuals have contributed design of the tram stations or funding for the sea road (Cornish Road ). Other nongovernmental organizations function in Cairo. In this case, collaboration between private and public institutions is an innovative approach to improve the aesthetics of cities.

The government's role can be an initiator as in the previously described case in Alexandria , or it can be a motivator or facilitator as well. It can finance efforts for enhancing the appearance of places such as when governorates and certain ministries spend some of their budgeted money on improving the quality of cities and towns. The government's responsibility is also to set building laws and regulations. In the USA for example, acts such as the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1974 are early examples that mandate considerations of aesthetic variables. The government's responsibility is also to enforce the adherence to building laws, codes and regulations, a practice that has proved unsuccessful in some countries. Involving the community, setting out flexible codes, proper and realistic zoning regulations, increasing the awareness of the public, reducing administrative fees, hiring competent well-paid architects to work in municipalities are some factors that have been mentioned as necessary for successful adherence to building laws.

The process of design itself as practiced by architects is equally significant. An important question is how and when are aesthetic principles incorporated in the design process? Should architects use standards and codes or just use principles that can be interpreted differently to suit each case?

One of the newest techniques called upon by some researchers to use in the design process is aesthetic programming (Nasar, 1994a). Aesthetic programming “investigates, develops, gathers and organizes information to produce an aesthetic program or objective guidelines to achieve a desirable appearance” (p.37). Architectural programmers use systematic procedures to set a mission for the project, identify design issues, set design goals and produce guidelines for achieving these goals (Duerk, 1993). Aesthetic programming is therefore a part of architectural programming in which guidelines are set for achieving design goals related to aesthetics. It is the general consensus that these aesthetic guidelines need to set criteria for guiding design solutions and not literal solutions. The International Building Code (IBC), which traditionally presents solutions, is moving towards setting guidelines for designers to follow. The most recent trend in updating the IBC is to advance the so-called performance criteria instead of the exact literal solutions often provided in the code. For example, the issue of concern is spelled out clearly but leaving the designer to suggest an appropriate solution as long as it fulfills the objectives set out in the performance criteria (Ching, 2003). This strategy would leave room for the designer's interpretation and creativity in locating a solution. Otherwise we may get into rigid-looking architecture with minimum variety, which is not desired aesthetically. These guidelines open the door for public involvement to the extent of assisting professionals picking winning designs is design competitions (Nasar & Kang, 1989). Aesthetic programming as a technique remains to be developed and applied in the practice of the majority of architecture practice.

4. The factors of success or failure (Variables)

Some of the factors influencing the success or failure of aesthetic application are the following: responsible government; knowledgeable authorities; available funding; laws and regulations; public awareness; cultural level of citizens; human behavior; technological advancements; supporting industry; cooperative businesses; efficient management; environmental issues; contextual condition; professional education such as the training of architects and the aesthetic conventions installed into generations of graduating architects.

One of the known problems in aesthetic design considerations is that sometimes they work in contrast to behavioral considerations, leading to beautiful structures that are impractical (Bell, et.al., 1998). This does not necessarily imply that aesthetic considerations would come second to behavioral ones, as research have pointed to the possibility of aesthetics playing a role in determining behavior (Nasar, 1994). Table (3) summarizes the important factors that play a role in affecting the aesthetic responses.

Categories of factors	Factors affecting aesthetic response
I. Human; psychological factors such as:	Time Past experience Memory Familiarity Emotional associations; meanings Expectations Mental images Adaptation levels Motivations Demographic characteristics Lifestyle characteristics
II. Institutional factors such as:	responsible government knowledgeable authorities available funding laws and regulations technological advancements supporting industry cooperative businesses efficient management
III. Cultural factors such as:	public awareness cultural sophistication of citizens human behavior environmental issues contextual condition professional education

Table (3): Factors affecting the success or failure of aesthetic application

A detailed discussion of how each factor affects aesthetic response is not possible within the limited space available in this course. Nevertheless, it should be noted that studying aesthetic responses without knowing the factors that could affect these responses may limit the credibility of the findings. But how can one measure aesthetic responses? This is the topic of next section.

Assessment of aesthetic judgment can take on several forms such as the following: objective measures; subjective measures; scientific or philosophical inquiries; different kinds of variables to measure aesthetics; individual or technical measuring tools.

Measurement traditions

A key issue in deciding on measuring aesthetics is to determine who has the right to decide on what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. Research has demonstrated that architects' judgments of beauty are different from laypersons' judgments (Devlin & Nasar, 1989; Groat, 1982; Stamps III, & Nasar, 1997). So who should designers follow? And is there supposed to be a role of designers in educating the general public of what is beautiful and what is not? The agreed upon consensus is that architects should design with the general public in mind. Therefore architects have to measure aesthetic responses from the general public. The “etic” approach is when architects judge aesthetics themselves; they act as outsiders or nonusers. The “emic” approach is when viewers and users judge aesthetics; they act as insiders or users. In this tradition, the “emic” approach is more favorable as it elicits more reliable data.

Generally speaking, the assessments of aesthetics use either objective indicators or subjective indicators or a combination of both indicators. Objective indicators used as a measure of aesthetics are beneficial to architects and practitioners as they provide an easier tool for design and resource management. Unfortunately, they often lack theoretical foundation and are inconsiderate to user responses. These shortcomings are remedied by the use of more subjective indicators. However the latter are also criticized for their lack of including clearly articulated physical features of the environment and are therefore less accessible to designers and practitioners. Perhaps a sort of combination may well be the answer to a comprehensive and accurate assessment of aesthetics.

A recent innovation in measurement traditions is the call for using the “historiometric” method of inquiry (Nasar, 1994a). Instead of typical cross-sectional studies where stimuli are shown to individuals and responses measured, this approach traces the development of responses to visual stimuli over time; i.e. longitudinal studies. It is considered important as time is a factor that may change the individual's response to aesthetic criteria.

Variables to measure

Several variables are used to operationalize the measurements of aesthetic judgments. How can one measure aesthetics or beauty? Research in the behavioral sciences has used many variables as measures of aesthetics. Visual preferences, visual attractiveness, visual/scenic quality, perceptions of beauty, emotional responses, affect, aesthetic experiences are examples of these variables. Each of these indicators has been used to measure aesthetic judgment or response. A discussion of the methodological implications of these indicators is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it should be noted that the operational definitions of each concept or variable is slightly different than the other. Therefore care should be exercised when findings are to be generalized or applied.

Measurement tools

Different tools exist for measuring aesthetic judgments that vary according to the scientific, expert, or artistic traditions discussed earlier. Some tools use the real environment and other use simulation techniques that resemble real world situations (Table 4). Some tools rely on subjective measures particularly if assessed from users or experts, while others are objective measures such as some environmental quality indices (Table 5).

• Classification	Measurement Tool
  Real environment measurements	Observations & record keeping
  Simulation measurements	Photo-questionnaires Photo-interviews Simulation Models Full-scale Model Workshop Lund Simulator Computer Simulation Photo Manipulation Sketching/drawing images

  Table (4): Measurement tools classified by relationship to the real environment

  Classification	Measurement Tool
  Subjective measurements	User or expert responses
  Objective measurements	Environmental Quality Index (EQI's) Perceived Environmental Quality Index (PEQI's) Environmental Emotional Reaction Index (EERI)

  Table (5): Measurement tools classified by objectivity of measured data

  Photo-questionnaires and photo interviewing are one of the commonly used modern innovations in measuring aesthetics. Pasting images in context (whether manually or by computer) is another tool to study issues such as contextual compatibility. The “best fit slide rule” is yet another tool for the same purpose. Using physical models is another tool. Manipulation of photographs and computer simulation are other tools. Observations and visual note-taking remains a much used tool. Simulation models are another tool. Full-scale Model Workshop is a relatively recent innovation used by some architects including Frank Gehry. Lund Simulator is another tool. Sketching or drawing images remain a reliable tool since its use by Kevin Lynch in the 20 th Century.

  The objective indicators include a number of environmental quality indices that assess aesthetics as part of their overall appraisal of environmental issues. Examples include the Environmental Quality Index (EQI's), the Perceived Environmental Quality Index (PEQI's) and the Environmental Emotional Reaction Index (EERI). The Environmental Quality Index (EQI's) assesses objective measurements of environmental quality such as noise levels. The Perceived Environmental Quality Index (PEQI's) assessed the perceived presence or absence of environmental quality indicators such as residential quality, scenic resources, and landscape scenic potentials. The Environmental Emotional Reaction Index (EERI) assesses people's emotional reactions to the presence or absence of environmental indicators such as assessing pleasure with scenic quality of landscapes or urban settings. As explained, these indices are not true objective indicators. The EQI is the most objective of the three yet it involves a subjective factor when it comes to judging the level of “quality” involved in the measurement. In spite of established research in this area, these indices have not been popularly used. They still provide potentials for innovative use.

   

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