Collective Actions Group, “Ten Appearances” Moscow, Feb. 1, 1981
My main argument in this brief and simplified essay is that the physical expression of design– built environments of cultural landscapes (let alone buildings)–forms only a small part of the whole domain and not the most important one. This is even the car for users: their experience of the environments and their relationships with those goes far beyond the hardware. More important, however is the implication that what most professionals need to know, understand and explain in order to be able to design validly and responsibly has little to with artefacts which presently occupy them to the exclusion of anything else. It is what cannot be seen which is clearly by far the most important part of the design process in the sense that I use it–design for users as a science based, responsible profession based on a research-based discipline.
–Amos Rapoport, “On ‘The Invisible in Architecture’: An Environment-Behaviour Studies Perspective”
