Robert Sommer b. 1929
The Environmental Psychologist and author Robert Sommer’s
writing includes research in mental hospitals, libraries, classrooms, and
living spaces. He is best known for his work on the influence of the
environment on human activities and has consulted on the design of bicycle
paths, residence halls, geriatric housing, airports, offices, prisons, farmers’
markets, and other facilities. Realising that patients preferred to keep
certain distances between themselves and others, Sommer came to coin the term
‘person space’ distinguishing between this and territory - notably that
personal space is carried around while territory is relatively stationary. We
mark the boundaries of our territory, whilst our personal boundaries are
invisible. Like animals, humans are primed to respond if our space or territory
is intruded upon uninvited.
Read Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design
(1969) (Spectrum Books)
