Towards a user-centred theory of the built environment

The building user's experience is explored as the basis for constructing a theory of the built environment. The first postulate of a user-centred theory is that the built environment exists to support the activities of users that it shelters. This theory, therefore, indicates ways in which we might learn more about this complex relationship; it also provides tools for measuring the degree to which the built environment in use is successful. Ways of approaching the users' experience of built space, and ways of measuring it to ensure that knowledge of the user-environment relationship grows, are described. Challenges to implementing such an exploration include defining users, agreeing on the meaning of experience, and organising if not delimiting what is included in the notion of built environment. The temporal dimension of space use is also a consideration. Drawing on extensive research on space-use in office buildings, a viable user-centred theory is developed in the context of one type of built environment. The user-centred theory enables links to be made between knowledge accumulated both at the micro scale of the users' experience and at the macro perspective of how the built environment is produced and delivered.