Journal of Environmental Psychology (1984) 4, 265-281 Social Design: Creating Buildings with People in Mind. By Robert Sommer. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1983, 198 pp. $7.95 paperback, $16.95 cloth. Reviewed by Judith Sixsmith, Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 5XH, U.K. " Robert Sommer is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Consumer Research at the University of California, Davis. He has published extensively in Environmental Psychology, including the books Personal Space and Tight Spaces and has worked as a consultant with private architectural firms, state and federal agencies on various design projects. Judith Sixsmith is a research student in Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey. Her interests lie in researching purposive activities in complex environments. The basic thesis of Sommer's book is summarized as follows. 'Social design is working with people ... involving people in the planning and man- agement of spaces around them; educating them to use the environment wisely and creatively to achieve a harmonious balance between the social, physical and natural environment; to develop an awareness of beauty, a sense of responsibility ... to generate, compile and make available information about the effects of the human activities on the biotic and physical environment, including the effects of the built environment upon human beings. Social designs cannot achieve these objectives working by themselves. The goals can be realized only within the structures of larger organizations, which include the people for whom a given project is planned. (p 7). With this concept in mind, Sommer charts the context of social design. The achievements and inherent difficulties involved in communication of information between designers and social scientists benefit from this relationship, the former from humanizing architecture and the latter from elaboration of conceptual models. and methodologies in application to real world problems. Sommer describes User Needs Analysis (UNA), Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) and direct participation as necessities of a truly social design. Surveys, consultancy or user advocacy ensure a user perspective is present, although certain difficulties are present. For example, users may be unavailable and their needs difficult to ascertain or express. Thus, user education in the nature of the design process may well be part of UNA or POE. Having identified user needs, this knowledge must be translated from a conceptual level to design solutions. Sommer advocates standardized methods, analysis and formatted and published reports as a step in achieving this difficult translation process. In this way time-consuming and costly research may be minimized. The information gain could form the basis of a data bank accessible to all designers and social scientists. The question is, who would foot the bill? Sommer concludes that social design has not fulfilled its initial promise to become an independent field, but has, nevertheless, fed into design education and training. The principle that user needs are important, can be measured and evaluated, and