The Built Environment and Spatial Form

Abstract

which we live and work, but the appeal is not limited to examples from our own familiar surroundings. During the last several decades anthropologists have been increasingly joined by others in taking a more careful look at the built environments of nonl iterate societies, and especially the shelters they construct and occupy. The questions posed are broad: Why are there differences in built forms? What is the nature of these differences and what kinds of social and cultural factors might be responsible for the variation? Design practitioners, including architects, land­ scape architects, and planners, have become involved in debating these questions, as have behavioral and social scientists concerned with human interactions with the environment. At the same time, recent social theory has begun to focus anew on spatial as well as temporal dimensions of human behavior. These developments suggest that attention to the topic of this review is timely. Our purposes in reviewing the relevant literature include defining the major areas of research in the field in terms of issues and