A group of students and faculty at MIT are currently engaged in research aimed at an improved understanding of the often elusive interaction between characteristics of physical environments and the human activities which they house. Sponsored by the Ernest H Grunsfeld Jr Memorial Fund, the MIT Urban Ecology Program/ Grunsfeld Seminar seeks to identify the underlying structures in any society which contribute to a clearer comprehension of relationships between individuals and their physical environments and between physical form and patterns of human association. Such understanding, interesting and of value for itself, may also help guide attempts to humanize growth and change in both physical and social structure.

A basic hypothesis of the program is that physical “form and human use are neither independent of one another nor deterministically related: While the same use may be accommodated by many forms, or the same form may be used in many ways, such relationships are certainly not without limit. It is an overburden to credit the environment with determining human responses, but it is legitimate to assume that physical characteristics play a role in delimiting a range of responses, or even in some cases, in initiating responses.[1] Therefore, responsible analysis or design of the physical environment requires tools for understanding and working with its influence on patterns of use, activity and social organization.

In the pursuit of such tools we have used an evolving model of urban ecological environments which delineates spatial subsystems within the total environment according to type of use and claim exercised. In its current state our model incorporates three organizational subsystems: public space (including both publicly owned spaces and all other areas which people use or experience in the public realm); dwelling space (including not only private residences but also extensions from them for associated residential use); and occupational space (including not only industrial, office or commercial areas but all extensions which are claimed for working places). The three subsystems individually define areas in which to study a particular type of claim or use. As a composite they illustrate the often complex patterns of single and overlapping claims which may be telling factors in understanding the nature of a particular place or culture.[2]

Of the three subsystems, it is probably dwelling space which provides the most visible and comprehensible (and perhaps the most critical) manifestations of how physical environment affects and is affected by human use.[3] A house/ houses/ housing/ neighborhoods involve, for many individuals, more investment of energy and personal association than any other single environment, More sense of care, concern, control and possession is generally exercised over dwelling places, and more hurt and alienation may come from insufficient fulfillment of dwelling needs.

Dwelling Space

Most current analysis of dwelling space and its use has roots in the extensive literature dealing with the notion of territoriality. Biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, environmental psychologists and, more recently, physical planners have become aware of the spatial manifestations of certain social attitudes and have been able to observe manipulation of spatial cues which communicate limits of community and privacy in both human and animal “home” environments.

The more popularized studies in territoriality,[4] carried out by biologists and animal ecologists generally using mammal behavior as evidence, take a rather narrow and biologically deterministic attitude toward the claims which organisms exercise on physical space. They emphasize an innate drive, basic in man and animals, to defend home turf. Motives of competition, aggression, conflict and selfishness are seen as closely linked to territorial drives and an inevitable expression of territorial instincts. The very definition of territoriality in this context implies not only that an occupant will make a home area distinctive, but also that he or it will actively defend the area from other claimants.[5]

Some sociologists, in making a more rigorous application of the concept of territoriality to human behavior, have taken a much less deterministic, more choice-oriented attitude toward people’s claims on residential space. Gerald Suttles, in his books, The Social Order of the Slum[6] and The Social Construction of Communities,[7] explores the way in which age, sex, ethnicity and personal identity, as well as contractual, civil and other voluntaristic means of human distinction act as major lineaments of a community’s (and implicitly a city’s) internal structure.

In his major case study, the strongly ethnic Chicago West Side, Suttles observes, as well, the importance of proximity (or in his terms, locality) as a major factor of social structure. Rejecting both the tendency of anthropological studies to single out areal distribution as a deterministic factor and the tendency of some sociologists to focus on structural groupings (age, sex, ethnicity, etc), Suttles observes both variables working together, complementing and modifying each other.

Through Suttles’ eyes one sees territoriality as based on uniquely human traits, thought processes and feelings. Rather than being portrayed as innate and strongly deterministic characteristics of human behavior, I territorial attitudes are viewed as manipulable, changeable, flexible elements of social structure – a means by which society directs itself, expressing its values and realizing them.

Suttles also recognizes that in the case of human territoriality, especially in complex societies, competitive structures are not nearly so close to an all-or-nothing game as is true of many animal groups. Human groups share members, group mobility is frequent and coalition is common. Environmental psychologists such as E T Hall[8] and Robert Sommer[9] have taken a similar attitude toward territorial claim and distinction as a malleable tool by which society structures its relations. Both Hall and Sommer emphasize the importance for designers and physical planners to develop an understanding of the spatial mechanisms which affect distribution and organization of people. Some physical planners, such as Kevin Lynch[10] and Oscar Newman,[11] have taken on the challenge of researching and probing the precise physical means which convey messages about the structural relationships among places and among inhabitants. Lynch observes, for example, nodes and edges within the city which serve to connect and divide occupants of sectors as well as the sectors themselves. Newman notes other, smaller-scale physical cues through which urban dwellers convey information about vulnerability and protection of their homes and neighborhoods.

The Study of Dwelling Claims

It is from this context of territoriality and associated studies of physical form and its relationship to space availability and use that our own dwelling claim study grew. Oddly, it seems, even though the basis of the earliest conception of territoriality was the possessiveness which animals or people feel for their “home turf,” the studies of territoriality among humans which have grown from that original concept have dealt very little with the kind of territorial claim which focuses on one’s home. A recent article by Stanford Lyman and Marvin Scott, entitled “Territoriality: A Neglected Sociological Dimension,”[12] attempts to survey previous studies in territoriality and to condense their descriptions of territories claimed into four categories. It is curious that none of these categories is actually typified by the kind of residential claim exerted over one’s private home. What Lyman and Scott refer to as “home territories” might be extended to include one’s own residence under its broadest definition, ie, “those areas where the regular participants have a relative freedom of behavior and a sense of intimacy and control over the area.”But in the examples cited and in studies referenced it is clear that their use of the term “home territories” has more general applicability to the claim of beggars and hawkers on a particular street corner, to a youth gang’s claim on a park or playground, to the claim by regulars at a homosexual bar or to other “colonizations” of otherwise public or semipublic spaces. In general, studies of territoriality as applied to human behavior have focused their attention either on public and institutional places and the claims made on them by various groups, or on the most private body territory associated with the space immediately surrounding an individual.

It is the intent of our analysis to deal with a middle ground between these two interests. The study of dwelling claim is concerned with the common and legitimate prerogative exercised by individuals or small groups (households) on their most private dwelling spaces and extended from there, to nearby public, semipublic or shared spaces. In one sense it is an extension of the body territories or “personal space” defined by Hall and Sommer in that it is a means of protecting the intimacy and privacy of the individual. At the same time, however, it is a significant factor in determining the use and availability of public places, in that areas which are beyond private ownership but are simultaneously under residential claim may constitute a large portion of the “publicly owned” space of the city.

The core of dwelling claim is the individual dwelling space: the home, the most intimate domain of the basic social unit. Our analysis recognizes, however, that in most societies there extends, beyond this core, a complex and overlapping web of less exclusive, more sympatric claims on shared regions. It is here, spatially, that a society makes commitments about the relationship between its members; and, in many ways, it is here that life styles are both formulated and expressed.

In our analysis of the “space of dwelling claim” we are interested in the reciprocal relationship of physical and social structures within these regions of intersecting public, communal and residential claim. Key elements in the physical configuration of a neighborhood are seen as concomitant factors with economic, social, political and demographic variables in playing critical roles in the formation of community life. There is no assertion that physical factors are the controlling elements in the determination of the safety of a neighborhood or the “friendliness” of a community or the pride which residents take in their homes. Such factors are seen, however, as a means of communicating messages about social relationship and, to varying degrees, as influential elements in their own right.

We are interested in analyzing and understanding the way in which residents of different societies and different communities claim space for their own residential use and the ways in which that claim may be marked. Rule systems according to which space is structured in terms of its accessibility and usability for various individuals or groups may vary from society to society, from community to community and even from neighbor to neighbor. But some implicit structure and communication system must exist and, when ignored, will cause conflict.

Our goal has been to devise means by which architects, designers and physical planners can keep themselves aware of such implicit structures and through which they can project the impact or effect of physical growth and change. In this effort we have sought to define environmental variables which affect everyday life of residential neighborhoods by their influence on patterns of the space and nature of dwelling claims. Among such variables are the following:

1) Network/ systemic characteristics: the role of vehicular and pedestrian routes relative to the larger urban hierarchy (Major through-routes, for example, generally carry much less opportunity for local claim than lesser neighborhood connectors. Cul-de-sacs or short streets with no critical connections allow controlled accessibility and extensive dwelling claims.)

2) Housing types: single-family, duplex, row house, flat, apartment, etc

3) Parceling and setbacks: lot size and shape and distribution of built/ open space

4) Patterns of movement: location of routes and paths, relation to unit entrances , parking, activity spaces

5) Small-scale architectural features: size and location of windows, materials, existence of porches, stoops, fences, shrubs, lawns, gardens

6) Signs of occupancy or environmental personalization: “exhibits” of prized objects, elaboration of mailboxes, address markers, etc.

It is important in any particular instance for physical planners to understand, within the society or within the local setting, which of these variables are rigidly held and which are relatively malleable; which variables can or should be in the realm of control of the individual user, the local community, the architect, the planner or the larger political system; and which variables may reinforce or counterbalance one another. With such an understanding the designer can better deal with decisions for growth or change while preserving appropriate areas for current and future decisions by residents.

Mapping Dwelling Claim

As a particular design tool a technique of recording patterns of accessibility was developed to aid the physical planner in analyzing existing and projected dwelling claim characteristics. The method is very simple. It requires only a good architectural base map and a series of rather unsophisticated observations. The results, however, can often be telling through the recording of patterns of use otherwise not apparent. The coding system differentiates regions and areas according to the number of families or households which have general, frequent access to them. Accessibility is measured not only in terms of the ability to enter and use a space (physical access) but also in terms of ability to perceive and understand a space without direct use (visual access). The darkest code notation is applied to areas of strongest, most exclusive claim while lighter areas indicate shared claims. All areas subject to some form of dwelling claim receive some notation. Areas subject to no residential claim are left blank.

We used our mapping system recently in the context of a design studio as a means of analyzing a portion of an existing residential sector of Cambridge, Massachusetts, known as Cambridgeport. The area is particularly rich in the range of dwelling claim variables it exhibits. A variety of network/ systemic characteristics are exhibited among Cambridgeport streets, from regional routes (Massachusetts Avenue and Memorial Drive), to local connectors (Brookline Avenue, River Street, Western Avenue), to neighborhood connectors (Putnam Street, Pearl Street, Magazine Street, etc), to one-block double-T intersection streets (Watson, Lopez, Decatur, etc), to cul-de-sacs. On this richness is superimposed a varied pattern of land parceling complicated through history by many changes in ownership and a loose system of town controls. A wide range of housing types, including single-family houses, two-, three- and four-family houses, row houses and even a few recent high-rise apartment slabs constitute the built environment.

The dwelling claim map of a portion of Cambridgeport, roughly bounded by Massachusetts Avenue, Putnam Avenue, Magazine Street and Sidney Street, illustrates a subtle, latent order within this otherwise diverse and complex neighborhood. Widely divergent life styles are accommodated with minimal conflict within its rigorous, though not immediately apparent, structure. The larger, most heavily traveled streets are primarily given to the more public, nonresidential uses. Those dwellings which do occur are marked by abrupt barriers between public and private spaces, usually at the building wall. The local and neighborhood connector streets (Brookline, Pearl, and Magazine) collect apartments, row houses and local commercial services and are characterized by occupancy patterns reflecting minimal, formal spaces shared between individual units and the public street space. The “rung” streets in the ladders formed by the connectors, which are often only one block long and completely separated from regional circulation, are lined with one- to three-family pavilion houses surrounded by front, back and side yards allocated to varying smaller numbers of households and used to make more gradual transitions between public and private and between neighbor and neighbor. Here stoops, porches, decks and fences are also abundant, laying claim to outdoor spaces more strongly than on the more public streets. Almost every space is maintained, controlled, surveyed and perhaps even personalized by occupants in a way which distinguishes it as an area predominantly for their individual or collective use. Local children appropriate little-traveled street space for play; parking areas on streets become scenes for car washing and repair; front yards and sidewalks are maintained and personalized to express extension of the private unit. Strangers or intruders are recognized, watched and perhaps even expelled if their behavior violates the community norm.

In each of these instances, patterns of friendship and acquaintance, attitudes toward community and privacy, and even choice of leisure time activities may be affected by the availability and nature of spaces for private, semiprivate and shared use. Varying patterns of dwelling claim support and imply significantly different life styles.

Application

In the Cambridgeport case study our goal was an improved understanding of patterns of space claim which could be used as a point of departure in projecting sympathetic and contextually responsive growth along a changing edge of the neighborhood. In such complex urban contexts careful analysis is often essential if delicate ecological balances are to be maintained through periods of alteration or expansion. Tools for modeling, analyzing and simulating such structures and their relationships may aid architects, administrators, planners and community groups in both avoiding the creation of undesirable discontinuities and disturbances in existing structures, and in framing new structures which harmonize with the desires of their users.

[2] For examples of such analysis, see Stanford Anderson, “An Ecological Structure/ Energy Model of the Urban Environment” (Working Paper 2, MIT Laboratory of Architecture and Planning, 1975).

[3] For an extensive discussion of the relationship of dwelling environments to the urban environment as a whole in sociological terms, see William Michelson, Man and His Urban Environment (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1970), esp. pp 44-50.

[4] See Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative (New York: Dell, 1966); Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966); and Desmond Morris, The Naked Ape (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).

[5] See Henri Hediger, Wild Animals in Captivity (London: Butterworth & Co, Ltd, 1950).

[6] Gerald Suttles, The Social Order of the Slums (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).

[7] Gerald Suttles, The Social Construction of Communities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).

[8] See Edward T Hall, The Silent Language (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959),

[9] See Robert Sommer, Personal Space (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967),

[10] See Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1960),

[11] See Oscar Newman, Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design (New York: The Macmillan Co, 1972),

[12] Stanford M Lyman and Marvin B Scott, “Territoriality: A Neglected Sociological Dimension, “Social Problems, 15,236-249 (1967),