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Microenvironments: towards a socio-spatial understanding of territorial expression for urban design

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Abstract

This paper aims to develop a concept of microenvironments building from research focused on the territorial perceptions of people with learning disabilities. The research highlighted the communicative and interactive significance of an innate territorial awareness in people to distinguish between what is understood as mine, yours, theirs and ours (MYTO). This is found to share aspects of commonality with socio-spatial concepts in urban design discourse, whilst also offering an accessible and inclusive means to communicate territorial experiences in ways that can overcome exclusivity often associated with specialist terminology. MYTO contributes to this wider arena of discourse by providing foundations for developing a concept of microenvironments through integration of social, spatial and material dimensions of human–environment interaction. The microenvironments concept enables the collective sense of MYTO to mediate and attribute territorial significance to particular forms of social and spatial relationship furthering understanding of small-scale human–environment interactions in ways relevant to urban design theory and practice.

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Notes

  1. Details of how the seven stage communicative toolkit was developed and applied can be found in Thwaites, Mathers and Simkins (2011, pp. 154–167).

  2. Details of how the Experiemic Process was applied in the project can be found in Thwaites, Mathers and Simkins (2013, pp. 182–191).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Kevin Thwaites, James Simpson, Philippa Heath, Alice Mathers & Ian Simkins

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  1. Kevin Thwaites
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  2. James Simpson
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  3. Philippa Heath
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  4. Alice Mathers
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  5. Ian Simkins
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Correspondence to Kevin Thwaites.

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Thwaites, K., Simpson, J., Heath, P. et al. Microenvironments: towards a socio-spatial understanding of territorial expression for urban design. Urban Des Int 28, 272–284 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-022-00208-7

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