Reviewing the evidence for good planning and design

Post-occupancy evaluations are becoming common in architecture and also in landscape architecture, but these are usually of single sites or buildings, not a large selection of projects. While in those scientific disciplines which publish results in peer-reviewed academic papers (e.g. the natural or social sciences), it is relatively easy to carry out a review since the evidence has been quality controlled (through peer-review) during the publication process. Planners and designers are clearly aware of the need to make such places attractive, iconic, accessible, safe and easy to maintain and to offer as close a contact to water as is possible given practical and other constraints. Compared with photographs, which just record everything without discrimination, the analytical sketching/drawing method enables us to be selective when looking at a specific place. Sketching also uses a visual language to support the numerical rating assessment and the verbal description.