Gibson once suggested that his ecological approach could provide architecture and design with a new theoretical basis. Erik Rietveld takes up this suggestion—the concept of affordances figures prominently not only in his philosophical and scientific work but also in the design practices he is engaged in. However, as Gibson introduced affordances as a functional concept, it seems ill-suited to capture the many dimensions of our lived experience of the (manufactured) environment. Can the concept of affordances also take on the expressive and aesthetic qualities of artifacts and buildings?
BeekP.de WitA. (1993). Affordances and architecture. In RuttenJ. A. G. M.SemahJ. (Eds.), The third exile (pp. 29–44). Arti et Amicitae.
2.
BenediktM. L. (1979). To take hold of space: Isovists and isovist fields. Environment and Planning B, 6, 47–65.
3.
CostallA. (1995). Socializing affordances. Theory & Psychology, 5, 467–481.
4.
CuttingJ. E. (1982). Two ecological perspectives: Gibson vs. Turvey and Shaw. American Journal of Psychology, 95, 199–222.
5.
GibsonJ. J. (1982). Notes on affordances. In ReedE.JonesR. (Eds.), Reasons for realism: The selected essays of James J. Gibson (pp. 401–418). Erlbaum. (Original work published 1976)
6.
GibsonJ. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin. (Original work published 1979)
7.
ReedE. S. (1988). James J. Gibson and the psychology of perception. Yale University Press.
8.
RietveldE.KiversteinJ. (2014). A rich landscape of affordances. Ecological Psychology, 26, 325–252.
9.
RietveldE.RietveldR. (2011). The paradox of apontaneity and design: Designing spontaneous interactions. Productive Uncertainty. Indeterminacy in Spatial Design, Planning and Management, OASE, 85, 33–41.
10.
WithagenR. (2018). Towards an ecological approach to emotions and the individual differences therein. New Ideas in Psychology, 51, 21–26.
11.
ZeviB. (1957). Architecture as space. Horizon Press.
