What brand is my building? Mapping out the mental model of a building

The ability of the built environment to powerfully communicate values and influence behaviour has led to the recognition of its potential use for branding. There is a threat that assumptions from marketing research in regard to branding the environment will begin to have a greater impact on the designed environment, but without having any architecturally oriented studies to orientate the processes or outcomes. This paper outlines the process for mapping the consensus mental model of a building, and a way of reading the mental model to understand the brand feel of the building. Understanding the ability of architecture to communicate messages in terms of ‘brand feel’ need not need be a fearful element of future building developments. In fact, by placing market value on architecture as a form of communication can lead to real consideration of its effect on the end users. This method for mapping mental models may also be informative for other fields of design.

Keywords:
Mental models; Architectural design; Workplaces; Qualitative research; Branding.

For full details of this paper, presented at the DRS2008 conference, please contact the author direct.