ABSTRACT
The concept of contextual compatibility is central to much of the decision-making entailed design review procedures. Yet despite the frequent controversies engendered by the initiation of design review procedures and or the specific decisions of such boards, relatively little research has been conducted on the topic. Thus the purpose of the research reported here was to investigate a broad range of psychological responses involved in the conceptualization of compatibility. To this end, this research investigated the perception of contextual compatibility from the perspective the major participants in the design review process: design professionals, design review commissioners, and the lay public. In broad terms, the research reveals that there are general aesthetic and perceptual principles which underlie lay preferences for certain contextual design strategies; the perceptions of design review and lay respondents run counter to many of the theories of contextual design espoused by various architects and critics; lay and review commissioners' judgments of conceptual compatibility are similar, even while their conceptualizations of the concept are often quite different; and finally, subtle but important variations in lay responses may arise due to socio-economic and place-specific factors. The implications of these fmdings for the design review process are discussed.
