ABSTRACT
When architectural critics, as they often do, report their opinion of the “artistic” merit of a building, they miss people’s experience with buildings. In contrast, a scientifi c approach gauges the feelings of occupants and passersby about the appearance of places. These evaluative appraisals (emotional responses and meanings) aff ect behavior and function. The present chapter describes how to measure such evaluative appraisals. Referring to the research and theory in environmental psychology and related disciplines, it evaluates the options and demonstrates two visual quality programming projects, one done for a city and the other done for the new headquarters for the New York Times . Designers, planners, and communities can use the existing knowledge on how characteristics of the environment aff ect emotional response and meanings, or for specifi c projects and purposes, they can use the assessment methods to create visual quality guidelines.
