Lecture:
Save Design
17:30h
Day three, Sunday 11 September
Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo

 

Miriam Losse is senior researcher at knowledge centre Living Environment of Saxion University of Applied Sciences. She has expertise on safety & design and manages the projects on safe design of the built environment. Miriam Losse has a master in Public Administration at Twente University. Since 1996 she runs an entreprise on research design and developed an allround track record as a research coach. Since 2005 she developes research curricula for Saxion and other universities of applied sciences, trains lecturers in research design and wrote various publications about research skills. Since 2010 she is specialized in crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) which provided her to develop a new Saxion research minor on safe design of the built environment. In the projects researchers, clients and students work together with an integral approach that consists of three fields of content: 1. safety by spatial planning and redesigning the built environment; 2. safety by social interventions; 3. safety bij security. By means of environmental psychology the projects focus on a natural approach. The portfolio with projects is allocated to develop adequate research methods and analysis of environmental design.

Safe Design
Social safety concerns the threat initiated by people or peoples conduct. It refers to the level of protection or the feeling being protected against personal suffer caused by offences and misdemeaner. In order to improve social safety several angles exist for explanation and corresponding parameters. Sociology focuses on social cohesion and belief systems; criminology focuses on relatively distant causes of criminality, partially leading to various corrective approaches to cure (potential) offenders; environmental criminology focuses on the circumstances of crime and intends to prevent for crime in a specific place. The environmental perspective is based on three premises: criminal behaviour is significantly influenced by the nature of the immediate environment in which it occurs; the distribution of crime in time and space is not random; understanding the role of criminogenic environments and being aware of the way that crime is patterned are powerful weapons in the investigation, control and prevention of crime (Wortley and Mazerolle, 2008). Environmental psychology offers a versatile grasp of relevant parameters in safe environmental design: how do we experience colour, scent, sound, waste, mess, chaos? What do we remember of where we have been? When do we feel responsible for public and private space? How do we orientate? How do we percieve darkness? The communication of space and the built environment is of major importance to influence the crucial dimensions for safe design: visibility, spatial unequivocality, ownership and attractiveness. Safe design is about implicitly influencing human behavior: how can we encourage desireable behaviour and discourage undesirable behaviour by design? In the tradition of Jeffery, Newman and Crowe we search for adequate situational approaches for safe design, which coincides largely with the search for a better functionality of public and private spaces. In the presentation we will explain the appraoch of a new research minor. We will illustrate the environmental approach with several cases, which include a study of: business areas; a residential district; work conditions in domiciliary care; and a parking lot area nearby a central station.