ABSTRACT
The identification of environmental needs is central to site planning. If site planners or any other type of planner ignore human needs, they risk producing environments which alienate people. Although we are as far as ever from truly being able to identify experiential needs, the site planner has to plan and design while recognizing that an issue does exist and cannot be ignored. In the past when towns developed slowly within a local cultural context, people were able to adjust to the new with apparently little problem. Nowadays new site developments can be big and fast moving, and their form and detail organized by people with no contact with the locals; the results can be very costly mistakes. If for no other reason than economics we have to bring a consideration of human experiential needs into site planning. As the Kaplans (1982) said, ‘the role of the physical environment in human experience requires a fresh look’.
