Doctoral Dissertation Research: Studying the Relations between Social Science, Institutions, and Design

Princeton University, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

The dissertation shows how institutional environments in the period between 1963 and 1974 acted as laboratories where architects, psychologists, sociologists and criminologists studied the use of the built environment to govern the behavior of populations. These collaborations resulted from government-funded programs that sought to redesign psychiatric facilities, prisons, and public housing in order to economically and humanely manage patients, prisoners, and residents. This dissertation investigates a series of research programs in the United States, each concerning a different typology of institutional environment: mental health centers, prisons and public housing. Using archival sources and interviews with architects and other key actors, the research demonstrates the rise of social scientific scholarship on the "permeable institution", the maturation of the theory of the new mass institution, and the major turning point in institutional design caused by the popularity of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design research. The dissertation also analyzes the impact of that turning point, which was a split between ongoing environmental psychology research by organizations such as the Environmental Design Research Association and a reaction against social science in the discipline of architecture as the field turned to critical theory, literary criticism and other humanities to guide work and design. The dissertation contributes to earlier studies of the movement of psychological and sociological expertise out of the laboratory and into society in the 20th century, showing an intermediate step wherein institutional environments acted as a site of experiment into social behavior as well as an application of science to a social problem. The research demonstrates how social scientific knowledge is used in the United States (beyond the academy); it shows the direct impact social science has on identity, behavior, and space. Critical investigation of these experimental institutions adds to a broader understanding of the relation between science and society by reinforcing the argument that neoliberal philosophies of governance tend to favor the use of psychology and sociology to govern more "softly" by diffusing control in the environment.