1
Child
perception in cities
Prof.dr.ir.
Taeke M. de Jong, 2005-07-09, http://team.bk.tudelft.nl
1.1 Introduction
Experiments with babies, reported by Piaget and Inhelder (1947), keep me fascinated from the first
time I read about them until now, because of the practical and design
implications of the idea. Firstly, they gave the children an object to feel by
touching behind a screen making sure they could not see it. Then they showed
the same object, making sure they could not touch it. Piaget and Inhelder
questioned at what age the children would combine these two totally different
sensory impressions into one concept. On the average it
appeared to be on the age of one and a half years old. These conclusions were
criticized later (it happens earlier) but the idea has remained the same.
Combining different sensory impressions synaesthetically into a concept of any object involved, means
more than a conditional Pavlov-reflex. Starting up your
digestive system when a bell rings does not yet mean that you can imagine them
as a concept, and they are not the same after all. It means that if you feel
the object without seeing it, you can make a visual imagination of the object
without seeing it. It is the very start of logical operations like ‘not’, ‘or’, ‘if … then’. It explains
the fascination of young children for the game of peek-a-boo or hide-and-seek: mother hides
herself and calls you. You can hear her voice, but you do not see her. You now
are looking for her, because you have the visual imagination you like to check
completing your concept.
In later investigations Piaget and Inhelder emphasized
the importance of the motoric ability for imagination capabilities and learning.
You can change your visual impression by moving physically. This possibility
causes continuous experiments by children. I remember my niece celebrating her
first birthday. Grandma held her on her lap saying ‘Quiet my darling, quiet!’.
But she stayed crying all the time kicking her legs. I had been reading Piaget
recently and said: ‘Give her to me’. Grandma handed me the child and I helped
her kicking legs to move her body up and down to see my face alternating with
the background. She started laughing! Grandma, somewhat embarrassed, thought
she loved me more then her, but I explained her the baby was experimenting
parallax: changing object
and context by moving up and down. She did not see me as
a person, she tried to understand the difference between my face and my
background first. That is why moving on a seesaw is so fascinating for children.
She should have experienced object constancy earlier: mother is not there; she appears in
the door and walks into your direction. Her face enlarges until it fills your total
scope of vision: is that large object the same object appearing as a small face
peeping around the door? You throw toys out of your box, they bring them back.
Repeating experiences like that show constancy of changing objects: different,
gradually enlarging impressions link up to one imaginable object. That is why
swings and merry-go-rounds are important. Later on you run away from
your mother and look back. She became very small and to regain your safety you
run back to enlarge her. Your mother is not yet a person, but ‘something large and
warm’, like my three years old daughters described their concept of ‘mother’
when I asked them ‘What is a mother?’. The other way round dangerous things are
‘large and cold’. A car is not dangerous when it is far away, because
it is small.
There we are. The dangerous things at home are well
known when you are three years old, because they are nearby and large, cold,
solid and hard. They can hurt when you run too fast. You learn by collision.
But once you are in the street you have to run faster to discern objects
further away than at home and it takes years to learn that there are objects
running faster than you, becoming large, cold, hard and painful very quickly.
That is why playing tag is so important. Young animals are
short-sighted to learn discerning objects nearby first by little movements
causing parallax. The vision, radius
of awareness and speed grow with the years of childhood. I think the radius of
awareness grows exponentially, but it is a hypothesis.
Which programme of requirements for a Child Street we
can conclude per level of scale?
1.2 The growing scale of perception
If the radius of awareness grows exponentially it could happen like Fig. 1 shows. The radius R should be interpreted elastically
between its neighbors (R=10m means ‘between 3 and 30m’). If psychologists would
study that relation and name the values children observe in every stage of
their growth, it would be a great help for designers to determine their legend
units and composition.
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years old |
m radius
R |
area of
awareness |
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0 |
1 |
Action space |
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1 |
3 |
Room |
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3 |
10 |
House |
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5 |
30 |
Yard |
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7 |
100 |
Neighbours |
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9 |
300 |
Neighbourhood |
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11 |
1000 |
District |
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13 |
3000 |
Town |
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Fig. 1 Hypothetical scales of awareness
by age |
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To get an idea of the realities these measures
indicate, see Fig. 2. The question is: ‘Which observable variables vary on
every level of scale?’.
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0 year: R = 1m |
1 year: R = 3m |
3 years: R = 10m |
5 years: R = 30m |
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7 years: R = 100m |
9 years: R = 300m |
11 years: R = 1000m |
13 years: R = 3000m |
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Jong, T. M. de; 5 drawings by Jan Huffener (1978) |
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Fig. 2 Growing
awareness by scale |
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Let us first try to look as a child on different ages.
I am sorry in this text it’s a boy like I was, rewrite it yourself for a girl
if you think it’s relevant.
A baby street like a room (3m)
You are one year old. The front door
opens and they put you in a buggy. Suddenly at one side, all kind of unknown
objects whiz by. Some objects on the far side stay longer. You don’t have
any influence, because they drive your car. You cannot stay to
experiment parallax properly. So, you look forward. There, all kinds of objects
enlarge, become dangerous, but they pass
aside and disappear. Suddenly your driver turns. You shake in your buggy. The
scene changes dramatically. They drive you in a dark hole. Slowly in becomes
lighter. You hear voices, but you see dresses, trousers, legs, shoes and tiles
as different colour
surfaces. Looking upward you see bodies
towering above you, faces and hands. Suddenly they shake you and drive you in a
white hole with cars whizzing by. Another shake makes your scene well-known
until they take you out of the buggy. They hold you before a wall that opens
after some jingle with a turning hand. You smell something you are used to. You
are ‘home’.
A toddler street like a house (10m)
You are three years old. You can
walk! That means, you can change the
world around you by walking through a black hole. Sometimes the hole is gone, but in the mean
time you learned to open the wall, standing on your toes and stepping back,
pulling a handle down. There are several worlds, but there is one you can open
by pulling a handle aside. In that room there is noise, wind, movement and very
much space. You may run. They often call you back. If you
fall, it’s hard. Between the tiles there are blades and ants. Sometimes there
is a drain cover with holes aside somewhat lower. But if you want to look
inside they call you back: “dangerous!”. You find pieces of soft brown
clay, but they hold you back: “dirty!”. You may not even step on it.
They take you into another room by turning a corner. Suddenly you are standing
in the sun. Here plants are huge and not standing on a windowsill, but in the
ground. So, they can not fall down if you run through them. But they call you
back: “dirty!”. Some have prickles, so you stay walking on the pavement. There
are several pavements: stepping down they are darker with
smaller stones. But if you step down they call you back: “dangerous! We said
that earlier!”. Stupid: that was the drain cover.
A young child street like a yard (30m)
You are five years old. Your father takes you
to school in the morning, your mother from school in the afternoon turning 5
corners. They moved into a house with a
garden and a gate to a path, going to a playground and to a street with cars and large trees. You may not play in the sand around that trees, it is dirty. You’ve got marbles, but there are
not much groves to play marbles. You like to go to the far side, but it is too
dangerous. You’ve got a bike, but you may not leave the pavement
with the large tiles. If you stay riding on that
pavement, going around the corner three times, you come back from the other
side! Your friend has no bike, so together you play on the playground. But it
is too childish, your little sister plays there with your mother on the
wipperchicken and the slide. My friend had a secret hut there, but they cut off plantation. So, it is not very secret
anymore. But he has a real Play station on his computer!
A child street like a school (100m)
You are seven years old. You may cross the street in front of your house. Your new friend lives there. His neighbour has a motorbike. He is repairing it in front of his house. Round the corner lives an ugly man. You ring his bell, run away and look around the corner how angry he is. Your mother takes you to her work. You never knew she has a room there as well. Your portrait is on her desk, but you cannot play there. You get a chocolate in a café with strange people. Your father showed you how to go to Grandma by bus and you got a ticket to try yourself. The driver tells you where to go out. You see large buildings where people work, but they don’t live there and there are no children.
A child street like a village or neighbourhood (300m)
You are nine years old. You may cross all the
streets until the district way. You can go to school, the sports field, the
hairdresser and to Grandma by bike. You’ve got roller skates on your birthday, but you only may skate on the skate ground at five minutes cycling. There are shops where you can buy stickers, but your new friend makes them on his
computer. He takes you to the computer shop,
but you like the car models you can buy next door. Your pocket money has doubled last year, but it is still not sufficient. If you help
Grandma cleaning her house three times you can buy a Ferrari.
A child street to explore (1000m)
You are eleven years old. You climb the old church-tower and see your house from above, your school, your swimming pool and the fields outside the city where you cycled with your friends. You see your own daily life like a bird. Apparently there are many more districts in town. The city ends somewhere. Next year you will go to high school in another district. You will loose friends of your neighbourhood and find new ones from elsewhere.
A teen-ager street to meet (3000m)
There are
students from other cities and countries in your class. In the geography class you learn countries and
cities by heart. You visit them on holiday. You are not a child anymore. You
have seen your city by night. There are right and wrong disco’s. You have got a newspaper round to
be able to pay for your girlfriend next time. You look at her lighted room from
behind a tree in the street where she lives. Where could you make an
appointment next week? She often goes to a volleyball ground hidden behind a
large office building in her neighborhood. There you can sit, beyond neon
lights, unnoticed by others, pretending to
look at the games together.
1.3 Field of vision
From
the second year on, children grow linear with their age to the adult stature of their nationality (see Fig. 4). After 10 years old they outgrow a car (Fig. 3). So, children have less overview than adults.
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http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/growth/growth_charts.htm
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Fig. 3 Growth of an average child in the USA |
Fig. 4 Adult length variation by nationality |
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Moreover,
their field of vision is smaller. So, their vision is closer to the fixation center with less attention to context. Context sensibility seems to be primarily the task of hearing. But, to determine the direction of noise is more difficult for children than for adults. Deaf
people compensate their failing sense by developing a larger field of vision
earlier.[a]
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Fig. 5 A child’s average field of vision,
and an adult’s average field of vision in degrees from center. |
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Visibility is highest in the central fixation point, declining into the boundaries of
the field of vision (see Fig. 6).
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Fig. 6 Visibility
represented by Anderson (1984) as a third dimension in the field of
vision. |
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Because of their limited field of vision children have to move their head more often than adults to build up a concept of context. Adults complain wrongly about lack of concentration then. They have to change focus themselves to understand the composition of a scene as well. Design helps to balance recognition and surprise. Too much recognition causes boredom, too much surprise chaos (see Fig. 8).
1.4 The composition of a scene
A scene
comprises components and details. To design a quickly understandable
scene we have to make larger components externally different from each
other, but internally filled with characteristic details recognizably equal to distinguish the particular component
from the other components with other characteristic details. That art is called
composition.
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Jong
(2004) |
Jong
(2004) |
Jong
(2004) |
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Fig. 7 Components |
Fig. 8 Quality as a working of variety |
Fig. 9 Design means of
variety |
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Any level
of scale mentioned in Fig.
2 needs its own composition. On any level of scale
components and details have new characteristics of categorization and
orientation. Your action space (R=1m) has hard and soft, movable and non-movable components in different colors. Your room (R=3m) has a door, corners to play, eat and store, different in
light, material and visibility. These are the legends for designing a child street like a room.
Your house (R=10m) has differences of accessibility, control, light, noise, temperature, wetness, differently suitable for playing,
personal care and rest. What could we use to distinguish the components of a
child street like a house? Your yard (R=30m) is differently covered, planted and lighted by the sun. There are components of the house
extending in the garden or the street (in-between realm). You behave differently at the
back or front side. There are formal and informal places, hard and soft places, places of recognition and surprise. What is the difference between
lawn and pavement, terrace and walk? Are there in-betweens to hesitate where to go?
Your school (R=100m) has spaces to sit and to run, compete, watch, play and learn. Your village or neighborhood (R=300m) has spaces to buy, walk and ride a bike. Your district (R=1km) has spaces of living, business, traffic and parks. Your city (R=3km) has spaces to meet and retire, atmospheres and cultures to explore.
1.5 Conclusions for urban design
A field of
vision comprises a largest measure in reality (frame, expressed as R) and a smallest visible detail
(grain, expressed as r). Both change the observed
composition if you approach an object or a scene. The distance from the
observed composition is approximately equal to its frame.
If the
frame of a picture represents a reality of radius R = 10m and the
grain a radius r = 10cm, the resolution r / R is 1%.
You will call the result a ‘drawing’. If frame and grain differ less
(say 3%), it is a rougher sketch, stressing the concept. If they
differ more, it could be a more precise blue print (0.1%). Object and details of a blue print lay too far apart to
understand the composition or concept immediately, they get their use primarily
for realization.
On every
level of scale the map you draw may have a different legend. For example, in a
drawing with a frame R=10m, you can draw tiles in the pavement (10cm), the kind
of plantation, the furniture of the street and the entries of homes. These are
adult categories. Make a sketch to group them more roughly into less
components, comprising child categories. But what do you choose as components
and their legend units in other frames? You have to dissect or group them into
components suitable for child perception on different ages. Fig. 10 gives an overview of variety per level of scale named
in this article. You could interpret it as guiding principle for design: try to
change softness every meter, light every 3m and so on. However, for example
light and shadow could be changed very successfully on other levels of scale as
well. The table is only a starting point to be extended.
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years old |
0 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
7 |
9 |
11 |
13 |
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m Radius of frame |
1 |
3 |
10 |
30 |
100 |
300 |
1000 |
3000 |
learning |
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differences
to experience: |
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hard-soft |
x |
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danger |
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movable|non-movable |
x |
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operational
abilities |
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color |
x |
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recognition |
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windows|doors |
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x |
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orientation |
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light|dark |
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x |
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imagination |
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shelter|corners |
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x |
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to escape
adult movements |
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function|time |
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x |
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every time
having its own place |
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visibility |
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x |
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hide-and-seek |
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accessibility |
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x |
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rules |
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control |
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x |
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other
people |
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noise |
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x |
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context |
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temperature |
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x |
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kinds of
clothes |
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wetness |
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x |
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hygiene |
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ceiling|shelter |
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x |
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in-betweens
to hesitate, to decide |
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plantation |
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x |
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nature |
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sun |
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x |
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nature |
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formal-informal |
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x |
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different
behavior |
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recognition|suprise |
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x |
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initiative |
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run|compete |
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x |
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ambition |
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watch,
learn |
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x |
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to learn |
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possibility
to buy |
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x |
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expensiveness |
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possibility
to walk |
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x |
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interest |
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possibility
to ride a bike |
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x |
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ride |
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urban
functions |
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x |
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exploration |
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meet|retire |
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x |
projection|identification |
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atmosphers|cultures |
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x |
identity |
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Fig. 10 Legends for design |
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A composition is not only determined by components,
but also by details directing your fixation. We only mentioned characteristic
details, determining components. But there are also marking details,
determining boundaries, connecting details determining in-betweens and striking
details labelling the whole scene.
Used literature
Anderson, D.R.
(1984) Testing the field of
vision (St. Louis) Mosby
Jong, T. M. de; with
drawings by Jan Huffener (1978) Milieudifferentiatie; Een Fundamenteel
Onderzoek (Delft) Faculty of Architecture. Delft University of Technology.
Jong, T. M. d., Ed. (2004). Sun, wind, water, earth, life and
living; legends for design. (Delft) TUD Faculteit Bouwkunde Publicatibureau.
Piaget, J. and
Inhelder, B. (1947) La representation de l'espace chez l'enfant (Paris)
Presses universitaire de France
Verhulst, F.C. (2003) De
ontwikkeling van het kind (Assen) Koninklijke Van Gorcum
Internet: http://team.bk.tudelft.nl, http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/growth/growth_charts.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height, http://www.shef.ac.uk/personal/l/lgf/visiondeaf/, http://home.zonnet.nl/jcamps/gezichts.htm, http://www.msac.gov.au/pdfs/reports/msacref13.pdf