Kevin Lynch

Kevin Lynch (1918–1984) was an American urban planner and author whose research on how people perceive and navigate cities established wayfinding as a design concern.

Core ideas

• Mental maps: people form cognitive maps of their environment organized around five elements — paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. These elements structure how people understand where they are and how to get where they want to go [@lynch_ImageCity_1960].
• Imageability: the quality of a place that makes it easy to form a clear mental image of. High imageability means the environment is legible — its structure can be grasped and remembered.
• wayfinding: the process by which people orient themselves and navigate through space. Lynch’s analysis of urban wayfinding has been applied to information environments, including websites and knowledge bases.

Notable works

• The Image of the City (1960)
• What Time Is This Place? (1972)
• A Theory of Good City Form (1981)

Related

• wayfinding — the design concept his work established