EVIROMENTAL STRESS: AN ECOLOGICAL AFPROACH WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HOUSING.

Abstract

When elements of the total design process acquire an existence independent of man, objectification, the personalization of the environmental elements, may lead to alienation. The sources of alienation in the environmental setting are the states of over control and under control The condition of over control arises from extreme inflexibility, inadequate recognition of design problems, over-emphasis on efficiency, or a demand for individual conformity. The condition of under control emerges from a lack of realism in the relationship between the designed environment and life activities or from the isolation of the individual from his environment. Host present treatments of the man-environment Xglagionship do not offer a realistic solution to the alienation Problem; they force a passivity upon the individual which is contrary to the processes of human consciousness. Realism in the design process can be raised as environmental adequacy. Environmental adequacy (provisions for the dynamic characteristics of life activity) can be achieved only through the recognition of the dialectics of meaning-value-need. An individual’s total conception of meaning emerges from consciousness, retrospection, ‘and the historical social process. Value is determined to be a cultural.