ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the process of developing the
concept of experiential landscape by looking
specifically at experiential issues and then explor-
ing how these may be interpreted in spatial terms.
Trying to determine an experiential dimension for
people-space relations is no easy task because it
involves confronting an almost infinite breadth of
human psychological and behavioural variation
influenced by a wide range of personal, social and
cultural factors, as well as by physical and spatial
attributes of the environment. This becomes espe-
cially problematic when we start to try to
understand this in ways meaningful to the practi-
cality of shaping new settings. As we saw in the
previous exploration about the development of
theories of place, this is partly because of the
intrinsic conceptual difficulty involved in think-
ing about how to design something that we are
asked to accept consists of human perceptions as
well as spatial and material elements, a problem
made no easier when professional training has
evolved to focus on the spatial and material form
and fabric. It boils down to simple practicality.
