The Architect and the User: Investigating designer and user practices and structures in Hawaii

Abstract

This project investigates a perceived disconnect between designers and the people who use the designs. The project uses the primary research tactic of the post-occupancy evaluation (supported by tactics from environmental psychology) organized in a case study method to compare user-built housing and architect-designed housing in order to determine how architects might best serve the housing typology. Residences designed and built in the last half-century on the island of O’ahu in the state of Hawai’i were evaluated. An effort was made to measure behavioral artifacts, rather than cognitive elements. A design project, implementing the findings of the previous phase, follows the research portion.