May 2013 - Environmental Design Research Association

2013
MAY
01
“and”
contents
01
In this Issue
by Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, Editor
02
The Making of a Person-
Environment Scholar: Qualitative
Research in the Social Use of
Space by Galen Cranz
05
Dreamwork: Engaged Learning,
Practice and Research
by Paula Horrigan
07
Resilience Engineering: A Better
Way of Approaching Patient
Safety by Sheila Bosch &
Robert Wears
09
Book Review: Why Loiter Women
and Risk on Mumbai Streets
by Kush Patel
11
News from EDRA
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association
publication from the Environmental Design Research Association
In this issue BY TASOULLA HADJIYANNI
Ancient wisdom cannot be taken lightly; it is founded on
years and years of confirmation through lived experience.
One of the sayings I grew up hearing goes like this:
“anthropos ine o topos kai o topos gerimos,” which can
be translated into “a human is a place and the place is
neglected.” Little did I know that I would end up joining a
group of scholars and practitioners whose passion in life
lies in unraveling how the relationship between humans
and places is constructed and what that means to how
people around the world live their lives. The way the
two clauses of the saying are connected however—the
“and”—continued to preoccupy my mind and feel puzzling
to me. What does the “and” stand for What is it trying to
capture Why isn’t it simply an “or” When and how does
the “and” take effect And, what are the implications of the
“and” for us scholars of people-environment studies
The four pieces in this issue of EDRA Connections shed
light on this conundrum and help expose the defining
impacts of the “and”; its power to determine whether a
place thrives or becomes soulless at the hands of humans.
As it turns out, the “and” is about complications, it is about
problematizing the person-place interactions, pulling to the
surface all that needs to be considered in the process of
understanding and planning places.
Galen Cranz unfolds her life’s narrative for us to get a
glimpse into the experiences that shape how a person
can be transformed into a scholar who is immersed in
questions of place. To Galen, the human=place equation
is expanded among others to include scales that range
from the park to a single piece of furniture and how each
relates to people of diverse backgrounds and abilities, all
indispensable parts of the “and.” Paula Horrigan further
complicates the elements that fall into the human=place
ONE OF THE SAYINGS I GREW UP HEARING
GOES LIKE THIS: “ANTHROPOS INE O TOPOS
KAI O TOPOS GERIMOS,” WHICH CAN BE
TRANSLATED INTO “A HUMAN IS A PLACE
AND THE PLACE IS NEGLECTED.”
relationship. In her teaching, the “and” are the calls
she makes for investing in understanding the plurality
embedded in studying places and the many ways by which
relationships with places are forged and sustained. Sheila
Bosch and Robert Wears delve deeper into the implications
of the “and” in reducing harm, putting in place an approach
for developing systems that can handle expected and
unexpected challenges. Closing the issue is Kush Patel’s
review of the book Why Loiter which centers the “and”
not on the presence of humans but their absence in placemaking
and claiming of public space.
As EDRA44Providence rapidly approaches, we look
forward to continuing these dialogues in person. The
conference’s focus on “Healthy + Healing Places” will allow
us to position the story of the “and” within discourses
on physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Ancient
wisdom, it appears, helps chart new trajectories and
the “and” is simply the beginning to a long and exciting
journey.
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor
in the Interior Design program of the University of
Minnesota, a member of the 2012-2013 EDRA Board
of Directors, and editor of EDRA Connections. She
can be reached at thadjiya@umn.edu.

The making of a person-environment
scholar: qualitative research in the
social use of space BY GALEN CRANZ
2013
MAY
02
As a sociologist teaching the social and cultural basis of
architecture and urbanism, I have forged a qualitative
approach to the study of the social use of space. I
have synthesized sociology, anthropology, architectural
and spatial analysis, communication theory, material
culture, and visual studies. I use history but not to write
historical sociology or even architectural history. Instead,
like Foucault’s genealogical approach, I use history to
understand contemporaneous situations. Moreover, I
am motivated by the reform impulses of a designer who
wants to help define and create the next step for the
future. Here, I offer a personal narrative account of the
various strands in my major works, The Politics of Park
Design (1982), The Chair (1998), and my current work on
Taste and Design in the context of how I came to be a
person-environment scholar.
DISCOVERING THE SOCIAL USE OF SPACE
In graduate school in sociology at the University of Chicago
(1966-71), I reasoned that if space is a
component of social life, it could be
studied sociologically. Like money and
power, it is distributed differentially.
And, I conjectured, architects don’t
build things, as much as they make
spaces. Professor Gerald Suttles
specialized in anthropological
approaches to sociology, and he was
willing to take on my invented field,
the social use of space. His book,
The Social Order of the Slum (1968),
became a model for how to integrate
many techniques of observation,
interviewing, and even statistical
analysis.
The classics in sociology assume, but leave out, any
explicit discussion of space. The founding theorists, Weber,
Durkheim, Marx, and the more recent ones like Parsons,
Shils, or Merton, did not talk about space or place even
though actions presumably occurred in physical settings.
Because these theorists were generalizing beyond
particular places, their lack of attention to physical context
was understandable. However, the classics in sociological
field studies make a point of attending to the local and
the particular, so why were the physical settings so thinly
described Whyte’s classic Street Corner Society (1946)
even has a place type in the title, but little description of
those street corners or any other setting can be found in
that study. Tally’s Corner (1967) is also surprisingly devoid
of physical variables in the analysis of how chronically
underemployed men manage their lives.
Rather than, in sociology proper I found guidance in
two related books by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall
that have been recurrently useful to me as a student,
researcher, and teacher. In The Silent
Language (1959) and The Hidden
Dimension (1966), Hall has provided
the broadest theory to account for
the relationship between material and
nonmaterial culture--communication
theory. It is profound, simple, and
broadly applicable. Communication
theory best describes the relationship
between environment and behavior.
Moreover, it sidesteps the problem of
environmental determinism and the
problem of the direction of causality.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
At Chicago, I read George Herbert
Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (1934),
I AM MOTIVATED BY THE REFORM
IMPULSES OF A DESIGNER WHO WANTS
TO HELP DEFINE AND CREATE THE NEXT
STEP FOR THE FUTURE.
and my research on the history of urban parks in America is
where I first saw the link between symbolic interactionism
and the environment. Frederick Law Olmsted described
how an attractive and respectable public setting would
attract women, and therefore be a place where a man
could take his wife and children and see himself as others
saw him--as the head of the household. Seeing himself in
others’ eyes he would resolve not to spend his income in
the saloon or brothel, but rather on his family (Cranz, 1982).
In my career, I have unconsciously enfolded symbolic
interactionism into the communication model. Decades
later, when I reviewed Smith & Bugni’s (2006) “Symbolic
Interaction Theory and Architecture” I was surprised that I
had not recognized symbolic interactionism as the obvious
mid-range theory between general communication theory
and the concerns of architecture. The symbolic aspect
nicely covers many of architecture’s artistic and symbolic
concerns, and interactionism emphasizes the two-way
influences between the physical environment and human
feeling and behavior. In dealing with an object or place we
are actually internalizing the intentions of the designer and
having a conversation with him or her whether we accept
its use as intended or change its use. Latour (2005) has
recently gained traction making this same point about the
social being imbedded in objects.
PARK SCHOLARSHIP
After a summer job to design playgrounds in 1969, I
became particularly intrigued with the design of parks and
continued on p. 3
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The making of a person-environment scholar:
03
2013
qualitative research in the social use of space MAY
(CONTINUED)
at the suggestion of my advisor, focused my dissertation
on park design and usage. I turned to history in order
to understand the initial goals of those who established
parks. If the present-day advocates were inarticulate, I
reasoned that at the beginning, when people have to
overcome inertia, the reasons must have been made
explicit. Indeed! I found an elaborate social theory about
the purpose of the first pleasure grounds. To my surprise,
I discovered not just one constellation of ideas, but a
generation later another distinctive constellation, and yet
another, and another. I did not intend to become a historian
(even though I read hundreds of years of annual reports,
meeting minutes, newspaper articles), but rather to use
the past to understand the present. Because I was trained
to do fieldwork, I brought an ethnographer’s sensitivity to
my examination of archival documents. This meant that
I paid close attention to how people used language. For
example, the term “pleasure” was used differently than
we use it today, and eventually I began to see that it was
viewed as a desirable midpoint on a continuum between
“mere amusement,” at one extreme, and pedantic
“instruction,” at the other.
I included women’s roles as users and suppliers of park
services in my analysis of park history. While in graduate
school, I taught “Women and the City” at Columbia
College, Chicago, probably the first course anywhere
on gender and the environment. To this day, I routinely
incorporate gender considerations into my scholarship,
including The Chair (1998).
As a Kellogg National Fellow (1981-84), I went to film
school at NYU for the academic year 1982-83 in order
to consider film as a medium for environmental design
education. I felt that I could bring the same sensibilities
to images as to words, that is look for the meaning in the
relationships among things, as I had learned to do with
semantic ethnography. In The Politics of Park Design
(1982), I used photographs as evidence rather than
illustration.
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BODY CONSCIOUS DESIGN
In the late 70s, I had started taking private
lessons in the Alexander Technique, an
educational system that teaches high
quality movement for everyday life. It
helped me deal with severe scoliosis, and
I decided to enroll in a training program.
My commitment to this educational
practice was understandably passionate,
but how was I to continue teaching fulltime
and studying four mornings a week
for three years I decided to find a topic of space.
where the body, about which I was
to learn a lot, came together with the
environment, the focus of my professional and intellectual
life. Clothes, tools, and furniture immediately came to
mind, but obviously furniture was closer to architecture
and, moreover, many prominent architects have tried
their hands at designing chairs. So in the academic year
1984/85, my graduate seminar explored chair design. We
looked at social history, style and art history, ergonomics,
manufacturing, and storage. We learned a lot, but I
left feeling frustrated by the contradictions within the
ergonomic literature.
That summer, I was visiting a friend in England who had
taught English in Africa. While she showed me photographs
of the people with whom she had lived, I was evaluating
the pictures from an Alexander point of view, looking at
posture, overall coordination, and physical development.
Most of them looked like people in industrialized societies,
slightly stooped and rounded with necks cantilevered a
little in front of their spines. Two men stood out for the
perfection of their carriage and form. My friend said, “that’s
funny, the two you have picked out grew up in villages
without missionary schools, so they never sat in tables
and chairs.” Right then and there, a hypothesis was born!
It is not good chair design or bad chair design that is the
issue, but rather something about chairs themselves that
Not only do poor people
have less money and
lower levels of education
than middle and upper
class people, but also they
use, regulate, control, and
decorate smaller amounts
creates physical problems for chair sitting
people. I returned to the ergonomic and
medical rehabilitation literature with
new eyes, collecting evidence about
the problems created by chair sitting.
The evidence was everywhere, but no
one had seen it because of the blinding
cultural assumption that chair sitting is
natural and inevitable.
In thinking about the likelihood of
changing something so fundamental as
the practice of chair sitting, once again
Edward T. Hall’s idea about three different
levels of culture—formal, informal, and
rational/technical—proved useful to me. Because the
chair is part of our unconscious pattern of living (formal
culture), changing it will require profound efforts. Several
of us (Cranz, 1998; Franck & Lepori, 2000) have introduced
the body itself as an important component of the person
in person-environment relations. This was an important
corrective to the focus on the person as a psychological and
social entity. Note that we have not argued that the body
is separate from psychology or social life. To the contrary,
in The Chair, I have demonstrated how the body is shaped
by our experiences in culture, society, and groups. I view
this contribution as only a first step; my aspiration for
widespread cultural change starts with my book and the
graduate seminar I teach on Body Conscious Design, and
I would like to expand to develop a Certification Program
in Body Conscious Design at Berkeley or elsewhere, and
possibly organize conferences.
CLASS AND ENVIRONMENT
Not only do poor people have less money and lower
levels of education than middle and upper class people,
but also they use, regulate, control, and decorate smaller
amounts of space. Thus, class is reinforced both spatially
and physically.
continued on p. 4

The making of a person-environment scholar:
04
2013
qualitative research in the social use of space MAY
(CONTINUED)
I am addressing class indirectly in my next book Taste and Design: Communicating Utility, Meaning, and Aesthetics. I
acknowledge that taste is grounded in class codes as most sociologists argue, but I also see how it transcends class.
Looking at taste as a process of assembly rather than a quality of individuals or things helps resolve the paradox that
taste both transcends and affirms class position.
EDRA
I did not learn about EDRA until 1971; imagine my amazement at the synchronicity of so many people having invented
this field for themselves all over the globe in 1969! Independently, people will respond to the same social-cultural
forces and come up with similar solutions to perceived needs. The organization was and remains important to me as a
confirmation that understanding society, cities, and buildings through the medium of space and materiality is valuable
and viable. Having colleagues who share this perspective is invaluable from the point of view of career advancement,
but feeling connected to others is psychologically equally significant. I get useful feedback from colleagues at EDRA
conferences when I present the first version of my papers and book topics. Much work in EDRA is quantitative, but
there has been plenty of room for qualitative analysis as well. EDRA colleagues have acknowledged my park design
awards more than my local colleagues in architecture and landscape. I am proud that The Chair received the EDRA
Achievement Award for 2004. A friend from graduate school wrote when I received the EDRA Career Award in 2011
that he recalled how thrilled and relieved I was to have found colleagues when I attended my first EDRA in Pittsburgh
in 1971. I remain grateful to this organization for bringing us together through internet, networks, conferences,
friendships, shared projects -- across generations, across disciplines, across geography.
References
Cranz, G. (1982). The politics of park design: A history of urban parks in America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cranz, G. (1998). The chair: Rethinking culture, body and design. New York: WW Norton.
Cranz, G. & Boland, M. (2004). Defining the sustainable park. Landscape Journal, 102-120.
Franck, K & Lepori, B. (2000). Architecture from the inside out. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Hall, E. (1966). The hidden dimension. New York: Doubleday.
Hall, E. (1959). The silent language. New York: Doubleday.
LaTour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Liebow, E. (1967, 2003). Tally’s corner – A study of Negro streetcorner men. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, R. W. & Bugni, V. (2006). Symbolic interaction theory and architecture. Symbolic Interaction, 29(2), 123–155.
Suttles, G. (1968). The social order of the slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Whyte, W. F. (1946). Street corner society – The social structure of an Italian slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Galen Cranz, Ph.D. is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the recipient of the
2011 EDRA Career Award. She can be reached at galen@berkeley.edu.
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association

Dreamwork: engaged learning,
practice and research BY PAULA HORRIGAN
2013
MAY
05
Twenty years ago, when taking an unexpected phone call
from an Iroquois Seneca Chief, I felt the world stop for a
moment. He was calling and asking me to take caution
and care in undertaking a project with my students, for a
local school, that connected in theme and content, to the
area’s Native American history. In that moment, I realized
that landscape’s groundwork, the one I’d been taught and
learned, needed questioning. And in that moment, for me,
a new groundwork for landscape making and education
began to take shape and form.
Fast forward to a year ago, when I joined my landscape
architecture students at a community meeting in Utica,
N.Y.’s Cornhill neighborhood, where they were working
closely with a local group designing a park. During one of
our participatory interludes, I leaned in to listen closely to
a leader of the black community as he spoke, “Paula, you
know, I’m not inclined to write things down…my people
tell stories.” He was smiling through his words, but deep
down I knew he was sending an important message to
both me and my zealous student group, which was asking
Rust to Green Capstone students collaborating with Cornhill
neighborhood residents on the design of Kemble Park in Utica, N.Y.
(February 2012).
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folks to provide them with a written record of take-away
information generated at the meeting.
Moments like these are vivid reminders of the thickly
textured complexity of the communities and places
where designers find themselves. Design processes
catapult us into the midst of others’ lives and cause us
to ponder, consider, conceive, and often rethink the roles
we play and the approaches and directions we take. In
Utica, it meant that students would go on to conduct and
transcribe longer one-on-one narrative interviews with
individuals whose voices and stories we needed to hear.
Frequent reflections, held in real-time dialogue sessions or
chronicled in written critical incident journal entries, served
to deepen and inform the students’ design process, adjust
their behaviors and illuminate the lessons and learning
emerging in the singular community context.
As the design took shape, students adjusted their
designs for a “natural playscape” away from a “wild” mazelike
setting with tall growing grasses. This original proposal
raised fears about safety among the young mothers with
whom they shared it. Tall grasses might block the view of
their small children at play and create hiding spots for what
they referred to as the crazy and fast “hood squirrels,” the
ones “that jump you!” (Students’ Reflection Journals,
2012). This reference was met by looks of complete
bewilderment from the students, but was soon followed by
certain understanding. Such conversations opened them
to new awareness and spurred them to respond. Other
conversations directed them to seek opportunities for
park activities and sports, including handball and baseball,
reflecting the preferences and desires of residents living in
Utica’s most culturally diverse neighborhood.
Adapting their design processes and outcomes by
taking the time to truly listen and connect to community
members are important life lessons for students embarking
on future lives in community-based practice, teaching, and
scholarship.
As a student
once reflected
at the end of a
semester-long
community
design studio,
“everyone has
something to
teach you….
although you
might be the
one with the Ivy
League degree,
in the real world
Rust to Green Capstone students Eloise
Leveau and Jack Grieshober presenting
concepts for Oneida Square Arts District at
meeting in Utica, N.Y. (March 2013).
you should leave your title, degree, and egos at the door
and listen and consume knowledge from those who might
have other experiences to speak of” (Students’ Reflection
Journals, 2003).
THE PROMISE OF SERVICE-LEARNING
Scholars Jacoby and Mustascio revel in the promise
of service-learning by quoting a student proclaiming,
“Service-learning takes you to the edge of what you know
and who you are.” But, in the next breath, they caution
us to remember that service-learning can also fall short in
its contributions to those involved when students are illprepared
and community partnerships are “…dominated
by the power and privilege that institutions of higher
education possess” (Jacoby & Mustacio, 2010, p.v). In order
to attain the promise, these limitations must be carefully
addressed to ensure that the inherent gaps between
academic and community arenas do not compromise
service-learning engagements. Landscape architecture
embodies knowledge and ways of knowing upon which
continued on p. 6

Dreamwork: engaged learning, practice and
06
2013
MAY
research (CONTINUED)
designers rely for interpreting
and creating landscapes. This
knowledge is instrumental in the
design processes and landscapes
we produce, value, and represent
and can have both perilous and
positive consequences on the
communities and places we
shape and impact. Don Mitchell
alerts us to the fact that the
work of landscape—its making
and representation—is deeply
rooted in the “dreamwork of
empire,” and the corresponding
groundwork that fosters empire
building (Mitchell, 2003). He
beckons us to critically examine and expand our focus and
attention towards what he calls landscape’s fundamental
groundwork, which is deeply rooted in the needs and
wants of its inhabitants. The groundwork of socially and
environmentally “just” landscapes is the knowledge that
is needed to create, steward, and foster such landscapes
so they truly become “dreamworks.”
For me, service-learning and engaged teaching and
scholarship are fundamental to the groundwork of
making, studying, and valuing landscapes and places
that enable and foster more equitable, healthy, and
meaningful relationships between people and place. Such
a groundwork is essential to the task of seeing, conceiving
,and realizing the dreamwork of more socially and
environmentally equitable and just landscapes. Through
service-learning and engaged teaching and learning our
work becomes relevant and meaningful to the places and
people with whom we work.
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP AND RESEARCH
I’ve been teaching engaged studios for quite some time
at Cornell and connecting these studios to my engaged
Cornell Landscape Architecture senior Radhya
Adityavarman evaluating Genesee Street’s strengths
and challenges with stakeholders at community
meeting in downtown Utica, N.Y. (March 2013).
scholarship and research.
The Rust to Green NY Action
Research Project, which I’m
currently spearheading, engages
university students and faculty
in working with community
partners in NY’s most at risk postindustrial
Rust Belt cities. Rust to
Green acts as a facilitator helping
to identify, activate, connect, and
assemble community assets
where economic capital may
be in short supply, yet social
capital, need, and motivation for
change is plentiful. Such a placebased
and participatory action
research approach is in and of itself, asset building and
creates scaffolding for empowerment, experimentation,
and innovative decision-making and action.
In the Rust to Green Capstone Studio, undergraduates
and graduate students come together each spring semester
to work with community partners on participatory planning
and design projects. This semester, students are working
with Utica’s arts community, downtown district, MLK
Jr. Elementary School and the Mohawk Valley Resource
Center for Refugees. Four teams are busy working on
different projects at varying levels of development. The
service-learning studio teaches and mentors the students
in unfolding participatory community design processes
tailored to each project and its partners. Some of these
students will continue into the summer months as Rust
to Green Civic Research Fellows working with community
partners to advance projects to the next level.
Another example of the layering and sedimenting
aspect of the groundwork from which dreamwork
emerges is the Erasing Boundaries Project. This endeavor
is both a project and a network of landscape architecture,
architecture, planning, and design educators committed
to engaged teaching (service-learning), research and
scholarship. Through our gatherings and dialogue we are
creating a community network of our own, growing in
our capacity and effectiveness as engaged teachers and
scholars, and creating opportunities to share, highlight,
and represent design as community engagement, social
action, and civic professionalism (See Angotti, Doble, &
Horrigan, 2011). Erasing Boundaries has been instrumental
in starting a Service-Learning Track in the Council of
Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) conference
and its members are playing an increasing role in the
promotion and tenure reviews of faculty whose teaching
and scholarship engages with communities.
The groundwork of Erasing Boundaries, Rust to Green
and the engaged practices, methods, and pedagogies
they model and employ are, as described, very much
in the process of being plotted and cultivated. For this
educator, they are unequivocally regarded as being vital
and essential parts of the fertile and furrowed terrain from
which landscape’s 21st century dreamwork will grow.
References:
Angotti, T., Doble, C., & Horrigan, P. (2011). Service-learning: Educating
at the boundaries. Oakland: New Village Press.
Jacoby, B. & Mutascio, P. (Eds.) (2010). Looking in, reaching out: A
reflective guide for community service-learning professionals. Boston:
Campus Compact.
Mitchell, D. (2003). Cultural landscapes: Just landscapes or landscapes
of justice Progress in Human Geography, 27(6), 787-796.
Students’ Reflection Journals (2003, 2012). Rust to Green Capstone
Studio, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University.
Paula Horrigan, MLA, is an Associate
Professor of Landscape Architecture
at Cornell University and a member of
the 2013-2014 EDRA Board of Directors.
She can be reached at phh3@cornell.
edu.
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Resilience engineering: a better way
of approaching patient safety
BY SHEILA J. BOSCH AND ROBERT WEARS
2013
MAY
07
Patient-safe healthcare facility design should focus less on
preventing things from going wrong and more on ensuring
that things go right. People and things will fail—it’s how
we respond that really matters. This is not to suggest
that risk assessments and other patient safety strategies
commonly used in the healthcare industry are not
purposeful. But, perhaps there is a more proactive, more
positive approach to reducing harm that warrants attention
—resilience engineering. Although not an entirely new
concept, resilience engineering offers us fresh insights for
designing healthcare facilities.
Resilience in systems is defined as the ability of a
system to adapt and sustain key operations in the face
of expected or unexpected challenges or opportunities.
Characterized by four cardinal activities, resilience,
involves responding to the actual, monitoring the critical,
anticipating the possible, and learning from the factual
(Hollnagel, Pariès, Woods, & Wreathall, 2011).
RESPONDING TO THE
ACTUAL
In many cases, healthcare
providers develop such good
workarounds to overcome
obstacles posed by the physical
environment that little to no
effort is made to correct potential
barriers to safety. Wears & Perry
(2002) describe an interesting,
yet typical case of a 52-year old,
insulin-dependent diabetic with
hypertension who presented to
the emergency department (ED)
with a headache and “general
malaise.” He was triaged to a
resuscitation bed and transported
to the computed tomography (CT)
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The Emergency Department at Tampa
General Hospital is located on the second
floor, a decision that anticipates and plans for
possible flooding events. (Photo by Rion Rizzo,
Creative Sources Photography.)
suite adjacent to the ED. Since the resuscitation stretcher
on which he was lying would not fit through the door
between the two departments (note: staff members knew
which beds would or would not fit through the door), he
was taken the long way around through another set of
doors and down a corridor to the CT suite. The authors go
on to describe the “rest of the story,” noting how adeptly
care providers adapted to less than ideal conditions.
Although the ED had been through two major renovations
previously, the problem of the small door (or large beds)
remained. Far too often, physical conditions exist that may
adversely affect patient safety, but the appropriate actions
are not taken.
MONITORING THE CRITICAL
One advantage that the healthcare sector may have over
other types of organizations striving to become more
resilient is that healthcare providers typically collect
and monitor LOTS of data. In the ED, for example,
administrators keep a close eye on
patient throughput times (e.g., doorto-triage,
door-to-provider, door-todisposition,
average length of stay for
admitted, discharged, and all patients,
the number of patients who left without
being seen by a provider, etc.). When
minutes matter, these numbers may
mean the difference between life and
death. Oftentimes, however, we do
not focus enough attention on how
the physical environment is affecting
safety-related outcomes. A resilient
organization will focus not only on the
common metrics typically monitored, but
may investigate “hunches” or “intuition.”
For example, Hall and colleagues (2008,
p.242) conducted a study in which they
demonstrated that patients presenting to the ED with
chest pain were more likely to experience a time to initial
assessment longer than 10 minutes (a possible safety
threat) when a patient was placed in an exam room with
a solid door or one that was more than 25 feet from the
main physician work area. Armed with that data, design
teams may choose to specify doors with glazing and
decentralize the physician work spaces so that there is
greater proximity between work areas and exam rooms.
ANTICIPATING THE POSSIBLE
Another example of taking resilience engineering from
theory to reality can be found in Tampa General Hospital’s
ED. Many design strategies were implemented to
facilitate disaster response in adverse situations, such as
hurricanes and flooding. The ED is located on the 2nd floor
so that if flooding occurs, the ED is protected. There are
locked medical gas cabinets located throughout the ED in
waiting areas, conference rooms, and administrative areas
that can be opened to handle patient surges in the event
of a disaster. In the case of a major event or bioterrorism
attack, the parking garage is designed so that it can quickly
become a triage area, complete with a decontamination
shower. These strategies are in place to provide an
environment that encourages resilience on the part of the
caregivers in a disaster situation, not an unlikely scenario.
LEARNING FROM THE FACTUAL
Tampa General Hospital has also spent a lot of time
learning from the factual by examining quality and safety
metrics and studying existing care processes to identify
and implement improvement opportunities. Processes
that introduce probable threats to safety are improved.
For the most part, the physical design of the emergency
department has been flexible enough to support needed
continued on p. 8

Resilience engineering: a better way of approaching
08
2013
MAY
patient safety (CONTINUED)
process changes. When evaluating existing
and optimized processes, it is imperative
to try and identify the subtle things that
make the process work well. As Hollnagel
states (2012b, p.8), “Things do not go
well because people simply follow the
procedures. Things go well because people
make sensible adjustments according to
the demands of the situation.”
SAFETY I VERSUS SAFETY II
Fostering resilience requires taking a radically
different approach to safety. It is often called
Safety II, to contrast it to the traditional
Safety I approach (Hollnagel, 2012a). Safety
I is reactive, focused on identifying errors or
adverse events and reducing them to some
acceptably low level. Safety II, however, is
proactive and focused on increasing the likelihood that
things (every day activities) go right as often as possible.
Safety II, an approach that demands resilience, requires a
different mindset. For example, developing standardized
processes is useful, but with Safety II thinking, deviating
from the process (i.e., performance variability) is not
necessarily the enemy. Rather than eliminate performance
variability, it is important to recognize, monitor and control
it—if something is varying in a positive direction, advocate
it (Hollnagel, 2012a).
We have more tools to measure how well Safety I is
being accomplished (e.g., incident reports, root cause
analysis) and therefore are perhaps more comfortable with
these methods. Safety II, optimized by resilience, seems
a bit more difficult to evaluate. Probably our best hope
of achieving exceptional patient safety in the acute care
setting lies in using a combination of Safety I and Safety
II approaches.
Regardless of the Safety I: Safety II ratio deemed
appropriate within the hospital setting, it is crucial to include
care providers in developing safe workflows and creating a
resilient organization. If not, they may develop workarounds
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association
that are more efficient, but less safe
(Blouin & McDonagh, 2011).
PLANNING AND DESIGN
RESPONSE
The primary question for healthcare
designers is, “How can our solutions
support, or at least not inhibit,
resilience” For example, let’s
imagine that we can design hospital
rooms and treatment areas to
handle 90% of all cases with minor
modification. By designing rooms
that can be rapidly re-purposed, but
are not unnecessarily redundant,
the hospital can adapt more easily
as situations change, perhaps
improving safety and reducing
costs. As an example, Greshnam, Smith and Partners’
design (one of the final three) for Kaiser Permanente’s
Small Hospital, Big Idea competition included a Universal
Care Center which was comprised of emergent care, nonurgent
care, observation, infusion therapies, pre-admission
testing, electrocardiogram testing, and pulmonary function
testing. In this example, there are four means by which
cost savings could be realized:
• Co-use of space for services which have different
schedule requirements improves space utilization,
reducing initial space requirements.
• Elimination of barriers between services allows retasking
of space without renovation costs.
• Elimination of departmental barriers allows greater
flexibility in the use of spaces, supporting a more cohesive
and efficient response.
• Elimination of departmental barriers permits crossutilization
of staff, thereby reducing operational costs.
For more information, visit www.resilience-engineeringassociation.org
and http://www.resilienthealthcare.net.
Resilient Health Care, edited by Erik Hollnagel, Jeffrey
Braithwaite and Robert Wears, is expected in late 2013.
Waiting areas at Tampa General
Hospital feature discreet medical
gas cabinets and can be adapted to
handle patient surges during a disaster.
(Photo by Rion Rizzo, Creative Sources
Photography.)
Acknowledgement: Thanks to James Kolb, Principal/
Healthcare Designer at Gresham, Smith and Partners for
providing insight surrounding the application of resilience
engineering in healthcare planning and design.
References:
Blouin, A. S. & McDonagh, K. J. (2011). A framework for patient safety,
part 1: Culture as an imperative. Journal of Nursing Administration,
41(10), 397-400.
Hall, K.K., Kyriacou, D.N., Handler, J.A., & Adams, J.G. (2008).
Impact of emergency department built environment on timeliness
of physician assessment of patients with chest pain. Environment &
Behavior, 40(2), 233-248.
Hollnagel, E. (2012a). A tale of two safeties. Retrieved on March 5, 2013
from http://www.resilienthealthcare.net/A_tale_of_two_safeties.pdf.
Hollnagel, E. (2012b). Proactive approaches to safety management.
Thought paper published by the Health Foundation. Retrieved on
March 5, 2013 from http://www.resilienthealthcare.net/THF-TP_2_
Proactive_approaches.pdf
Hollnagel, E., Pariès, J., Woods, D. D., & Wreathall, J. (2011) (Eds.).
Resilience Engineering in practice: A guidebook. Surrey, England:
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Wears, R. & Perry, S. (2002). Human factors and ergonomics in the
emergency department. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 40, 206-212.
Sheila J. Bosch, Ph.D., LEED AP,
EDAC is the Director of Research for
Gresham, Smith and Partners. She can
be reached at sbosch@gspnet.com.
Robert L. Wears, M.D., MS, Ph.D. is
an emergency physician, Professor of
Emergency Medicine at the University
of Florida, and Visiting Professor in the
Clinical Safety Research Unit at Imperial
College London. He can be reached at
wears@ufl.edu

Book review: Why Loiter Women
and Risk on Mumbai Streets
BY KUSH PATEL
2013
MAY
09
Why Loiter Women and Risk on Mumbai
Streets by Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and
Shilpa Ranade. New Delhi: Penguin India, 2011.
280 pages.
This book is a timely fit, not just in the
spate of recent protests in the Global South
against endemic sexual violence, but also in
the ever-expanding literature on critical spatial
scholarship of value to the theory and practice of
urban design across wider social geographies.
Shilpa Phadke (Assistant Professor at the
Centre for Media Studies at The Tata Institute
of Social Sciences, Mumbai), Sameera Khan
(journalist and writer) and Shilpa Ranade
(architect and cultural theorist) set out on an
ambitious task: to challenge the normative
assumptions about the way we see and use space; criticize
the narrative of safety for women in parochial community
structures; establish how loitering might allow women
equal access to urban space; and eventually formulate a
new feminist agenda involving each of these concerns, but
inclusive of all marginal groups. Throughout, we encounter
references to the writings of 20th century urban social
theorists; read stories of everyday negotiations of access
by women of different backgrounds; and finally, come full
circle to a greater understanding of the significance of the
title question, Why Loiter
The essence of Phadke, Khan, and Ranade’s argument
is that the notion of safety has long been employed by
patriarchal institutions in which not only men but also
women participate to implicitly monitor the behavior
of other women in public space. “Safety,” they say, “is
connected not as much to women’s own sense of bodily
integrity or to their consent, but rather to ideas of izzat and
honor of the family and community” (p.53). In such settings,
women are guarded against assumed sexual dangers from
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association
less desirable groups, including
lower-class men. Due to such a
deceptive opposition between
class and gender, women are
consistently marginalized in
larger urban contexts. “Instead of
safety,” they add, “what women
should then seek is the right to
take risks …” (p.60) for it is only by
claiming the right to “chosen risk”
that they can claim full access to
public space.
By privileging access over
safety, the authors ask us to
suspend the language of danger
and embrace the pursuit of
pleasure. “Pleasure or fun,” they
continue, “is seen as threatening because it fundamentally
questions the idea that women’s presence in public space
is acceptable when they have a purpose” (p.113). Any
move away from notions of safety and danger, therefore,
raises such important questions as: What does it mean for
women to be in public space without having to manufacture
purpose What does it mean for women to just loiter It
is in this light that the authors cast loitering as a strategic
spatial practice aimed at reconfiguring the terms of access
and participation in the public realm. They view loitering
as a way to question the privileged neutral inhabitant and
enlarge the visibility of all traditionally excluded citizens
in the production of space; this against the common
perception of loitering as an undesirable activity.
The book draws on authors’ first-hand findings of
the Gender and Space project (2003-2006) at PUKAR
(Partners in Urban Knowledge, Action, and Research)
in Mumbai. Their research employed methodological
tactics such as interviews, ethnographic studies, and
mappings of places, both frequented and avoided by
Patheja, J. 2013. Blank Noise, Safe City
Pledge - Delhi. Retrieved from http://
blog.blanknoise.org/2013/03/happywomens-day.html.
women. Alongside, they held workshops with students
and intellectuals, participated in advocacy initiatives, and
examined published materials on the city. Through each
of these, the authors sought to render people of diverse
affiliations as strategic partners in their project.
As such, the book is written for a general audience,
speaking at once to the intellectual ideologies and lived
experiences of people who call this city their home. It
focuses on Mumbai to assess the popular claim that the
city offers women a limitless access to public space.
Instead, the authors reveal that Mumbai women—just like
their counterparts in other cities—feel obligated to justify
their presence throughout the city. Although the work is
Mumbai-based, they hope that their assumptions about
gender, space, and the linkages between them as well as
their faith in the radical potential of loitering might connect
with the everyday experiences of women and minorities in
other similarly globalizing cities of the world.
In terms of organization, Why Loiter consists of four
sections, each offering ways to think past our notions of
open access to public space. The first section, “City Limits,”
lays out the core arguments of the book and introduces
cultural meanings associated with key concepts such as
safety and danger, risk and pleasure, the right to work, and
also the right to play in modern city life. The second section,
“Everyday Spaces,” clarifies the authors’ view of space as
an embodied experience and connects this to not just how
men and women experience the public realm in different
ways, but also to why the design of public spaces must
take into account corporeal distinctions to facilitate wider
access. From mass transport systems to public toilets,
neighborhood parks to popular destinations, the authors
provide examples of everyday spaces in the city to at once
draw attention to the “lived messiness” of everyday life
and a general apathy of designed infrastructures.
continued on p. 10

Book review: Why Loiter Women and Risk on
Mumbai Streets (CONTINUED)
2013
MAY
10
The book ...focuses on Mumbai to
assess the popular claim that the city
offers women a limitless access to
public space. Instead, the authors
reveal that Mumbai women—just like
their counterparts in other cities—feel
obligated to justify their presence
throughout the city.
The third section, “In Search of Pleasure,” provides real accounts of city women from a broad spectrum of society, all
“having fun” by strategizing their way through the city in novel ways on a daily basis. The final section, “Imagining Utopias,”
ties together all the major discussion threads from preceding chapters and makes an expanded case for women and other
minorities to “court risk” in the name of pleasure, but without losing responsibility and respectability.
This call for seeking pleasure in the city is a long-standing socially relevant philosophical project. From Roland Barthes’ use
of pleasure as a concept to challenge the established theory of the text (1975) to Bernard Tschumi’s employment of pleasure
as a rhetorical device for disciplinary reflection (1975), from Guy Debord’s insistence on experimenting with pleasure through
playful disorientations in everyday strolls (1981) to Iain Borden’s focus on skateboarders and their reconstruction of the city
as a pleasure ground (2001), the notion of pleasure and its various iterations have time after time spoken to the practice of
transgression and its emancipatory promise.
Phadke, Khan, and Ranade too revel in this polemic, but instead of keeping alive the contradictory values of pleasure—at
once inventive and disruptive—they go on to flatten the notion by dissociating loitering from other identity markers and
ultimately framing the act as a neutral practice, shared across multiple identities. In other words, while the authors do full
justice to the question of “why loiter,” they offer little in terms of how the concept might be variously understood and practiced
for pleasure. The book begins by placing the concern of women’s exclusion from public space in relation to the more expansive
politics of prejudice against other minorities, but falls short in noting how those very groups—poor, dalits, Muslims, sexual
minorities, and their inter-formations—might loiter differently; lay claims to the city by loitering in distinct ways; and through
each of these, cultivate pleasures specific to their respective moralities.
To their credit, however, they articulate the significance of loitering and its potential for contestation in clear and tangible
terms. There is modesty and promise in their overall argumentation, which sits in gentle contrast to the exasperating
exclusiveness of so many other writings of similar orientation. The authors have produced an inspiring piece of work on public
space and social life, and I greatly welcome their contribution to the fields of architecture and urban design research. The
socially motivated reader will find their material narratives on Mumbai, methodological approach for qualitative research, and
consistent engagement with the spatialities of voice and everyday lived realities extremely rewarding.
Blank Noise is a public participatory arts project located at the intersection of space and sexuality. It seeks to confront sexual
harassment in public spaces through performance, blogging, opinion polls, and street interventions. Visit http://blog.blanknoise.
org/ to join the conversation.
References:
Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text. New York: Hill and Wang.
Borden, I. (2001). Skateboarding, space and the city: Architecture, the body
and performative critique. Oxford, UK: Berg.
Debord, G. (1981). Introduction to a critique of urban geography. In
Ken Knabb’s (Ed.) Situationist International Anthology, Berkeley:
Bureau of Public Secrets, pp. 8-11.
Tschumi, B. (1975). Questions of space: Lectures on architecture.
London: Architectural Association Publications.
Patheja, J. 2013. Blank Noise, Safe City Pledge - Kolkata.
Retrieved from http://blog.blanknoise.org/2013/01/
safe-city-pledge.html.
Kush Patel is a Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture Design Studies at the University of Michigan
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor. He can be reached at
kshpatel@umich.edu.
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association

News from EDRA
2013
MAY
11
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN RESEARCH
ASSOCIATION
1760 Old Meadow Road, Suite 500
McLean, VA 22102
p: 703.506.2895 f:703.506.3266
www.edra.org
EDRA Connections is published twice a
year by the Environmental Design Research
Association. © 2013. All rights reserved.
EDITOR
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
thadjiyanni@edra.org
2012-2013 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Mallika Bose, Chair
mbose@edra.org
Rula Awwad-Rafferty, Chair-Elect
rula@edra.org
Victoria Chanse, Secretary
vchanse@edra.org
Shauna Mallory-Hill, Treasurer
smalloryhill@edra.org
Atiya Mahmood, Past Chair
amahmood@edra.org
Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi
gowri@edra.org
Tasoulla Hadjiyanni
thadjiyanni@edra.org
Byoung-Suk Kweon
bkweon@edra.org
April Spivack, Student Representative
aspivack@edra.org
Nicholas Watkins
nwatkins@edra.org
Kate O’Donnell, Executive Director
kodonnell@edra.org
In this section, you’ll find news from EDRA Headquarters,
including conference and awards information, membership
updates, and more. Please email headquarters@edra.org with
any questions you have regarding the information below.
EDRA44PROVIDENCE
EDRA44Providence is right around the corner—if you
haven’t registered yet, what are you waiting for Building
on the theme of “Healthy + Healing Places”, we have so
much in store for you: a dynamic plenary program with Dr.
Richard Jackson from UCLA’s School of Public Health, Dr.
Aaron Wernham from the Health Impact Project, and Susan
Goltsman and Daniel Iafacono from MIG; four engaging
mobile sessions exploring Providence from the outside in;
the Healthy Rhode Island Environmental Design Summit,
where researchers, design professionals, and policymakers
converge to validate with research local initiatives, frame
questions for future studies in support of these initiatives,
and provide examples of best practices from elsewhere
that may help local action; and the Healthy + Healing Places
Exhibition, a collection of outstanding design projects that
exemplify the conference theme.
With 113 sessions approved for AIA CES and IDCEC
continuing education credits, and 78 sessions approved
for LA CES credits, EDRA44Providence offers design
professionals unparalleled opportunities to advance
their education and satisfy professional development
requirements, including health, safety, and welfare
designations.
This year we have a special program planned for
Wednesday evening to welcome our first-time attendees,
pairing them up with “EDRA Ambassadors” to help them
make the most of their conference-going experience. And,
in keeping with our conference theme, EDRA has partnered
with Breathing Time Yoga to provide complimentary yoga
classes each morning prior to the start of the day’s sessions.
For complete details, including the preliminary
program and registraiton information, visit www.edra.org/
edra44providence.
EDRA FALL SYMPOSIUM: HEALTHCARE DESIGN
AND ACCOUNTABLE CARE
As one of its strategic initiatives for 2013, EDRA is
committed to developing a series of symposia which will
be specifically focused on translational research that affects
people in design and engineering practices.
EDRA’s core mission is to engage, advance, and
disseminate environmental design research. A key
component to the fulfillment of this mission is effectively
partnering with and utilizing this research with the
individuals and organizations responsible for the creation and
management of natural and built environments. The intent
of this new series will be to further disseminate design
research in applicable ways to specific domains.
We have currently begun work in partnership with the
New York School of Interior Design (NYSID) on our first
symposium to take place October 11, 2013 at NYSID in
New York City. The focus will be Healthcare Design and
Accountable Care. Stay tuned for more information about
this seminal event!
BOARD OF DIRECTOR ELECTIONS
Thank you to everyone who participated in the election
process for the 2013-2014 EDRA Board of Directors. We are
pleased to announce that David L. Boeck AIA, IDEC, NCARB,
LEED AP, Associate Professor, College of Architecture,
University of Oklahoma; Paula Horrigan, MLA, Associate
Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell
University; and Shauna Mallory-Hill, Ph.D., M.Arch, B.E.S.,
LEED AP, Assistant Professor, Department of Interior Design,
University of Manitoba, have been elected to the EDRA
Board of Directors for a three-year term beginning August
1, 2013. Marwa Abdelmonem, PhD Candidate, Interior
Environmental Design, Texas Tech University, was elected to
the Student Representative position, and will serve a twoyear
term beginning August 1.
continued on p. 12
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association

Welcome new members! 12
2013
MAY
EDRA WELCOMED 115 NEW OR RETURNING MEMBERS FROM JANUARY 1 - APRIL 30, 2013:
EDRA ANNUAL REPORT
NOW AVAILABLE
EDRA is pleased to present
the 2012 Annual Report,
detailing our organization’s
programmatic and financial
activities for the 2011-2012
year. The report can be
found at http://www.edra.
org/sites/default/files/pdfs/
EDRAAnnualReport_2012.
University of Manitoba
Manjusha Misra
Keith A. Miller
Katie Murray
Randolph Thompson Hester
Professor Scott Crisman Sworts
D Randall
Will Green
Emily Dunn
Amyruth Stevens
Professor Wilson Florio, Ph.D.
Altaf Engineer
Natasha Hegelund Latif
Professor Deborah Y. Georg
Professor Andrew A. Fox
Nanci Weinberger
Martha Beatriz Cortes Topete
Professor Rachna Khare, Ph.D.
Dr. Fred Malven
Joanna Lombard
Kristin Maki
Kathryn P Wittner
Ryan Gerber
Dr. Stefano Serafini
Sonia Bodie
Crandon Gustafson
Andrew Hanks
Maryam Lesan, Ph.D.
Mengyuan Xu
Fahad Alhammadi
Bimal Balakrishnan
Dr. Hui Cai
Dr. Patrick John Doyle
Dr. Naoko Fujita
Nathan Heavers
Leanne Junnila
Lori McGilberry
Phillip G. Mead
David Lee Morgareidge
Richard Saravay
Timothy Walker Swan
Professor Youngran Tak
Jess Voss, Ph.D.
Rehab A. Aburas
Maren King
Masahiro Maeda, Ph.D.
Dr. Shalini Misra
Anthony Purvis
Alberto Salvatore
Fabiana Bugs Antocheviz
Xin Bai
Dr. Paula Barros
Kathrin Bueter
Dr. Victoria Derr
Dr. Eugenia Victoria Ellis
Sally Harrison
Mr. Rodrigo I. Mora, Ph.D.
Kaarin Piegaze Lindquist
Kristin Aldred Cheek
Darryl W. Booker
Fiona de Vos, Ph.D.
Dr. Jain Kwon
Sarah Little
Diana Sabouni
Erin M Hamilton
Dr. Giovanna Potesta
Amanda Zaitchik
Doug Bazuin
Robert Ericson
Dr. Kimberly Bosworth Phalen
Laurie B. Hurson
Professor William Riehm
Professor Doreen Balabanoff
Maria Cristina Lay
Dr. Carl Schultz
Dr. Hyun Joo kwon
Gretchen Leary
Chien-Chung Chen
Grace Campagna
Leah Ariel Wener
Jung-hye Shin
Jane Buxton
Julio Bermudez, Ph.D.
Professor Woo Cho
Suk-Hwan Hong
Dr. Hally El Kony, Ph.D.
Nayma Khan, M.Arch
Professor Joan Vorderbruggen
Jenifer Marley
Francoise Acquier
Dr. Stephanie Wikie
Katarzyna Malgorzata Redzinska, Ph.D.
Jung Ja Cardoso
Ben Spencer
Anne Hundley
Brandon Hatle
Claudia Lewis
Jasmine Maclin
Sonika Rawal, M.Arch
Dr. Karin Tanja-Dijkstra
Dr. Louis George Tassinary, Ph.D.
Ngoc Vo
Shan Jiang
D.J. Knauer
Professor Carlotta Fontana, Ph.D.
Erin Dora
Seunghae Lee
Leah Maureen Scolere, M.A.
Ronald F. Titus
Jan Jennings
Dr. Celen Pasalar, Ph.D.
Hunter A Isgrig
Daniel Winterbottom
Professor Evelyn Everett Knowles, Ph.D.
Yen-Cheng Chiang, Ph.D.
Professor Evrim Demir Mishchenko, Ph.D.
A publication from the Environmental Design Research Association