Erwin H. Zube - Böcker

This second volume in the Advances in Environment, Behavior, and Design series follows the pattern of Volume 1. It is organized into six sections user group research, consisting of advances in theory, place research, sociobehavioral research, research and design methods, and research utilization. The authors of the chapters in this volume represent a range of disciplines, including architecture, geography, psychology, social ecology, and urban planning. They also offer international perspectives: Tommy Garling from Sweden, Graeme Hardie from South Africa (re­ cently relocated to North Carolina), Gerhard Kaminski from the Federal Republic of Germany, and Roderick Lawrence from Switzerland (for­ merly from Australia). Although most chapters address topics or issues that are likely to be familiar to readers (environmental perception and cognition, facility pro­ gramming, and environmental evaluation), four chapters address what the editors perceive to be new topics for environment, behavior, and design research. Herbert Schroeder reports on advances in research on urban for­ estry. For most of us the term forest probably conjures up visions of dense woodlands in rural or wild settings. Nevertheless, in many parts of the country, urban areas have higher densities of tree coverage than can be found in surrounding rural landscapes. Schroeder reviews re­ search that addresses the perceived and actual benefits and costs associ­ ated with these urban forests.

This tenth volume in the series addresses an important topic of research, de­ sign, and policy in the environment and behavior field. Public places and spaces include a sweeping array of settings, including urban streets, plazas and squares, malls, parks, and other locales, and natural settings such as aquatic environments, national parks and forests, and wilderness areas. The impor­ tance of public settings is highlighted by difficult questions of access, control, and management; unique needs and problems of different users (including women, the handicapped, and various ethnic groups); and the dramatic re­ shaping of our public environments that has occurred and will continue to occur in the foreseeable future. The wide-ranging scope of the topic of public places and spaces demands the attention of many disciplines and researchers, designers, managers, and policymakers. As in previous volumes in the series, the authors in the present volume come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, research and design orientations, and affiliations. They have backgrounds in or are affiliated with such fields as architecture, geography, landscape architecture, natural re­ sources, psychology, sociology, and urban design. Many more disciplines ob­ viously contribute to our understanding and design of public places and spaces, so that the contributors to this volume reflect only a sample of the possibilities and present state of knowledge about public settings.

This third volume in Advances in Environment, Behavior, and Design fol­ lows the conceptual framework adopted in the previous two volumes (see the Preface to Volume 1, 1987). It is organized into five sections­ advances in theory, advances in place, user group, and sociobehavioral research, and advances in research utilization. The authors of this volume represent a wide spectrum of the multi­ disciplinary environment-behavior and design field including architec­ ture, environmental psychology, facility management, geography, human factors, sociology, and urban design. The volume offers interna­ tional perspectives from North America (Carole Despres from Canada, several authors from the U.S.), Europe (Martin Krampen from Germany, Martin Symes from England), and New Zealand (David Kernohan). More so than any of the previous volumes, they are drawn from both academia and professional practice. While there continues to be a continuity in format in the series, we are actively exploring new directions that are on the cutting edges of the field and bode well for a more integrated future. This volume will fur­ ther develop the themes of design and professional practice to comple­ ment the earlier emphases on theory, research, and methods.