Gary writes about the social science of architecture, after being deeply involved in the design and construction of a new office building. Key quote:

Ultimately the goal of this particular $100M-plus building, and of most buildings built by universities, is not only to create beautiful surroundings but also to increase the amount of knowledge created, disseminated, and preserved (my summary of the purpose of modern research universities). . . . As such, some systematic data collection could have a considerable impact on this field. Do corridors or suites make the faculty and students produce and learn more? Does vertical circulation work as well as horizontal? Should we put faculty in close proximity to others working on the same projects or should we maximize interdisciplinary adjacencies? . . .

From another perspective, and speaking as a consumer rather than a designer of architecture, I’d be interested in a study of the incentives to architects. My completely unscientific impression is that a lot of buildings that were built during the 1960s and 1970s were poorly functional–often too hot or too cold, hard to find the entrances, hard to find your way around the building, and not making good use of the available land. Since then, public buildings have improved. Anyway, I wonder about the incentives for these architects. Do they advance in their career by building interesting but non-functional buildings? What is their incentive to build something that can work well?

Gary’s proposal, of taking lots of outcome measurements on building use, could be helpful for the reasons he states (to evaluate architectural plans) but also as a motivation, even as a reminder to builders that these outcomes are relevant goals. (Just as, by analogy, student evaluations put some pressure on teachers and remind us not to forget about the students in our classes.) Feedback is good.

Also, regarding Gary’s proposed study of office buildings, you could also make a study of private houses. This gives you a potentially huge N, and also raises issues of public/private priorities (lawns vs. parks, etc.). I’ve seen a million statistical papers on real estate prices, but little or nothing on outcomes relating to the houses as experienced by the residents..