Architectural Criteria
It has been suggested that the public view of architecture is chaotic, conservative and resistant to change. In a recent study it was found, however, that the public in San Francisco (and elsewhere) preferred newer design high-rise than the older style high rise (Stamps, 1994). Furthermore, there was a high degree of consensus indicating that public affective evaluations are not chaotic. This suggests that the public are w illing to accommodate modern designs, but that design should be appropriate to function and context. Stamps and Nasar (1997) have also found that people prefer residential architectural styles that can be accommodated within their knowledge structure, the issue is, of course, what are the features of houses that facilitate or prevent accommodation within the knowledge structure? If the function is appropriate to its form it will then be evaluated positively (Groat, 1994). This suggests that for a building to be evaluated as visually appropriate by the public the form need not make its function obvious, but the design should be seen as suitable for the use. Groat has found that visual appearance features (versus site organisation and massing) are noticed most often (Groat, 1985). For all groups windows, materials, colour, apparent age, roofline and style were the most frequently
liked features. Disliked features were less consistently mentioned especially by experts, however case study re