Implicit psychological concepts in architects' knowledge — How large is a large room?

Architects create environments for human behaviour. Therefore they need — in addition to technical and design knowledge — some sort of “psychological” knowledge of the effects of their planning decisions on the occupant. The structure of this knowledge, which is only touched upon during architectural training, is the subject of an empirical study. Experts (experienced architects) and novices (students of architecture in their first or second year) were asked to judge the quality of the floor-plan layout of a four-room flat under three different conditions. From the expert-novice comparison, it is possible to gain insight into how professional experience shapes the knowledge of occupant needs and occupant behaviour. The results show remarkably few differences between the two groups. One possible reason lies in the special structure of architectural practice, which, due to a lack of feedback, makes it difficult to accumulate knowledge by evaluating experience.