A New School of Environmental StudiesAuthor(s): Robert FisherSource: Area, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1970), pp. 19-21Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000440 .

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A New School of Environmental Studies Robert Fisher, University College London

During the last ten years the Bartlett School, a relatively small department of architecture at UCL, has experienced a number of evolutionary changes culminating this year in its combination with the Department of Town Planning to form a School of Environmental Studies. At the same time a new Faculty of

Environmental Studies has been created which brings together a variety of special knowledge and skills with greatly increased potential for teaching and research in the man-made environment.

When Lord Llewelyn-Davies was appointed to the chair of architecture in 1960 a new emphasis was placed on architecture as a vehicle for a broadly based education in an academic sense while at the same time preserving and enriching those aspects of it which were intended to be a preparation for professional practice. At that time this was seen to be both a return to an up-to-date style of Vitruvian whole man and a vital step to encourage the pursuit of knowledge about the needs of people, the functions of buildings and the technology of construc tion.

For the first time significant contributions to the teaching were made by non-architect specialists mainly from the social and human sciences, such as geography (Professor Emrys Jones), anatomy (Professor J. Z. Young), psychol ogy (Dr A. R. Jonckheere) and from environmental physics and physiology (Professor R. G. Hopkinson). In addition rather special kinds of architects such as Professor D. A. Turin and the late John Madge brought to the School their particular areas of interest such as the economics of construction and social studies. This development has continued and there are now in the School, besides the professors of architecture and town planning, professors of the economics of town planning, history of architecture, countryside planning, environmental design and engineering, building economics, and landscape architecture. The new Faculty includes professors of geography, traffic studies, political economy and civil engineering.

At present most students entering the School arrive with the intention of becoming architects. An increasing number, though still few, wish to become planners. However, in the educational climate of the School architectural practice is quickly seen as only one of the many interrelated phenomena which determine our surroundings. Students frequently develop particular interests and abilities in some of the more specialised subjects offered during the three year BSc degree course and are able, in their third year, to select certain options for special study and to drop others. Thus, at the end of his second year a student may elect to drop architectural studies and design altogether. This will exclude him from a professional qualification in architecture, but may enable him to pursue either a different professional outlet, such as building

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20 School of Environmental Studies

management, environmental engineering, industry or government, or a more academic career by a selection of post-graduate courses leading to an MA or

MSc and thence to other higher degrees and research. The new course unit system operated by the Faculty of Environmental

Studies gives students considerable freedom to exploit the educational choices which the Science Faculty offers. This is particularly valuable at a time when the roles in society of the traditional professions are changing and are being questioned by students, and when their particular subject areas are seen not as separate topics, but as parts of an integrated view of life as a whole.

The great educational characteristic of the first degree course is that, in addition to the taught courses, it consists of a continuous sequence of problem solving experiences in design for which there are no right or wrong solutions, perhaps not even clearly better or worse solutions. There are always many different solutions to each of which different priorities, different values, and different emphases have contributed. These must be evaluated in open discussion and we believe this process to be a powerful educational experience. It is also, we believe, good preparation for life in a complex world where typical problems are nearly always open-ended and where solutions rarely lie clearly within one discipline.

Another major change which occurred when Lord Llewelyn-Davies j oined the School was the development of research to complement and enrich the teaching. In 1963 the Architectural Education Research Unit was set up under the leadership of Dr Jane Abercrombie to study all aspects of the selection and education of architects and to monitor and advise on the educational processes going on in the School. Among the many results of this work has been the indication that there is a strong correlation between good academic perfor

mance in previous education and success in both written work and design in this School. This seems to confirm a belief that design ability is learnt rather than bestowed, and depends on the simultaneous handling of complex material from a number of different disciplines. The Unit has continued to study and advise on teaching methods and course content.

In the following year, the Joint Unit for Planning Research was established, under the directorship of Dr Peter Cowan, which contains a team of geographers, sociologists, economists and regional scientists to tackle a number of research programmes sponsored by the Centre for Environmental Studies. One of their current programmes is to study the links that exist amongst the various institu tions and activities in a city, and to reveal the effects of removing or changing them. Another project is to try to predict the pattern of urbanization in Britain over the next three or four decades. The Unit is also engaged on two other projects. The first, sponsored by the Civil Service Department, concerns the desirability of substituting electronic communications for face-to-face meetings. This is particularly relevant to the problems of decentralization in the city. The second project is sponsored by the Science Research Council and is concerned

with the problems of obsolescence in buildings. The object is to discover indices for measuring functional obsolescence, and to test the feasibility of constructing a model which will help designers when planning buildings which are subject to growth, change and ageing.

The Environmental Design and Engineering Research Unit, led by Professor R. G. Hopkinson, is carrying out projects directed at revealing the transactions and relationships between man and the environment. This Unit has established

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School of Environmental Studies 21

a laboratory of daylight study and, supported by the Science Research Council, is studying the relationships between light, space and their assessment, and the

measurement and prediction of daylight in buildings. Other work of the Unit

is a study of thermal comfort in air-conditioned rooms and the subjective effects of artificial reverberation in auditoria. The Unit is also studying the degree to which people are able to adapt to environmental discomforts such as glare, noise and atmospheric pollution on the one hand, and to environmental pleasures such as sun, quiet and atmospheric sweetness on the other. This project is sponsored by the Social Science Research Council.

Professor D. A. Turin and the Economics Research Unit, with the support of the Science Research Council, is embarked on a programme of research con cerned with studying the mechanism of response of the building and building

materials industries to the demand effectively placed on the market. The overall objectives are to fill in the main gaps in our knowledge of the mechanism of response and to assist those concerned in formulating policies for improving the

efficiency of the building process. The Unit has already undertaken work on construction statistics and the economic significance of the construction industry.

On the appointment of Lord Llewelyn-Davies to the chair of Town Planning and as Dean of the new School, the Bartlett chair of Architecture has been taken over by Professor Newton Watson. This has created an opportunity for an extension of work already begun on the interaction of man and space in buildings with special regard to factors which are conducive to the efficient use of space and to man's behaviour in it.

Geography and map libraries At the 35th Session of the International Federation of Library Associations held at Copenhagen 24-30 August 1969, a Subsection for Geography and Map Libraries was founded under the Special Libraries Section. Officers appointed for the year 1969-70

were: Chairman: Dr Walter W. Ristow, Library of Congress; Secretary: Dr Helen Wallis, British Museum; Vice-Chairman: Dr lb Ronne Kejlbo, Royal Library of Denmark.

The next meeting will be held in Moscow, 30 August-5 September 1970, and a professional session will consider the contributions geography and map libraries are making to the general conference theme, Libraries as a force in education. Visits to the Geography and Map Department of the Lenin State Library and to other map libraries in Moscow are being arranged.

As its first task the Subsection is addressing itself to the compilation of a World Directory of Geography amd Map Libraries. A questionnaire is at present being drafted and will be circulated together with details of the Moscow meeting. The proceedings of the Subsection are published in the journal of the Special Libraries Section, Inspel, edited by Dr Karl Baer. The papers read at Copenhagen have recently appeared in Vol. IV, July-October 1969. Members of the Institute interested in this periodical should note that the business office is 1625 L Street, N.W., Washington D.C. 20036

(c/o Karl A. Baer), and the annual subscription is $4. General information on the Subsection may be obtained from Helen Wallis, Map Room, British Museum, London,

W.C.1. Helen Wallis

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