本篇文章共分 A-G 6 大段，從城市交通規畫的現況、失敗的設計案例、中世紀的對照，推演出編舞者在肢體應用以及取得反饋的方式可以做為城市工程師的借鏡，並展望未來的可能變化。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Could Urban Engineers Learn from Dance? 都市工程師能否師法舞蹈？

1. 都市出行的重要與目標

   The way we travel around cities has a major impact on whether they are sustainable. Transportation is estimated to account for 30% of energy consumption in most of the world’s most developed nations, so lowering the need for energy-using vehicles is essential for decreasing the environmental impact of mobility. But as more and more people move to cities, it is important to think about other kinds of sustainable travel too. The ways we travel affect our physical and mental health, our social lives, our access to work and culture, and the air we breathe. Engineers are tasked with changing how we travel round cities through urban design, but the engineering industry still works on the assumptions that led to the creation of the energy-consuming transport systems we have now: the emphasis placed solely on efficiency, speed, and quantitative data. We need radical changes, to make it healthier, more enjoyable, and less environmentally damaging to travel around cities.

   我們在城市中的出行方式對城市是否可持續發展有很大影響。據估計，在世界大多數最發達的國家中，交通占能源消耗的 30%，因此降低對耗能車輛的需求對於減少交通對環境的影響至關重要。但是，隨著越來越多的人搬到城市，考慮其他類型的永續旅行也很重要。我們的出行方式影響著我們的身體和精神健康，我們的社會生活，我們的工作和文化，以及我們呼吸的空氣。工程師的任務是通過城市設計來改變我們在城市中的出行方式，但工程界仍然依據導致我們現在所具有的耗能交通系統的前提而運作：只強調效率、速度和定量資料。我們需要徹底的改變，使我們在城市中的出行更健康、更愉快、對環境的傷害更小。

2. 舞蹈帶來啟發

   Dance might hold some of the answers. That is not to suggest everyone should dance their way to work, however healthy and happy it might make us, but rather that the techniques used by choreographers to experiment with and design movement in dance could provide engineers with tools to stimulate new ideas in city-making. Richard Sennett, an influential urbanist and sociologist who has transformed ideas about the way cities are made, argues that urban design has suffered from a separation between mind and body since the introduction of the architectural blueprint.

   舞蹈可能有一些答案。這並不是說每個人都應該用跳舞的方式來工作，不管它可能會使我們變得多麼健康和快樂，而是說編舞者用來實驗和設計舞蹈動作的技術可以為工程師提供工具來激發城市建設中的新想法。理查．塞內特（Richard Sennett）是一位有影響力的城市學家和社會學家，他改變了關於城市形成方式的想法，他認為自從建築藍圖的引入以來，城市設計一直受到身心分離之苦。

3. 中世紀著重實踐

   Whereas medieval builders improvised and adapted construction through their intimate knowledge of materials and personal experience of the conditions on a site, building designs are now conceived and stored in media technologies that detach the designer from the physical and social realities they are creating. While the design practices created by these new technologies are essential for managing the technical complexity of the modern city, they have the drawback of simplifying reality in the process.

   中世紀的建築工人通過他們對材料的深入瞭解和對現場條件的個人經驗來進行即興創作，而現在的建築設計是通過媒體技術來構思和存儲的，這些技術使設計師脫離了他們正在創造的物理和社會現實。雖然這些新技術創造的設計方法對於管理現代城市的技術複雜性至關重要，但它們的缺點是在這個過程中簡化了現實。

4. 失敗的都市規劃案例

   To illustrate, Sennett discusses the Peachtree Center in Atlanta, USA, a development typical of the modernist approach to urban planning prevalent in the 1970s. Peachtree created a grid of streets and towers intended as a new pedestrian-friendly downtown for Atlanta. According to Sennett, this failed because its designers had invested too much faith in computer-aided design to tell them how it would operate. They failed to take into account that purpose-built street cafés could not operate in the hot sun without the protective awnings common in older buildings, and would need energy-consuming air conditioning instead, or that its giant car park would feel so unwelcoming that it would put people off getting out of their cars. What seems entirely predictable and controllable on screen has unexpected results when translated into reality.

   為了說明這一點，塞內特討論了美國亞特蘭大的桃樹中心，這是 20 世紀70 年代流行的現代主義城市規劃方法的典型發展。桃樹中心創造了一個由街道和塔樓組成的網格，旨在為亞特蘭大打造一個嶄新的行人友善市中心。根據塞內特的說法，這失敗了，因為它的設計者太過於信賴電腦輔助設計來告訴他們街區將如何運作。他們沒有考慮到特製的街頭咖啡館在沒有老式建築常見的保護性遮陽篷的情況下無法在烈日下經營，而是需要耗費能源的空調，也沒有考慮到其巨大的停車場會給人一種不受歡迎的感覺，從而使人們不願下車。在螢幕上看起來完全可預測和可控制的東西，在轉化為現實時卻有意想不到的結果。

5. 英國失敗的交通規劃

   The same is true in transport engineering, which uses models to predict and shape the way people move through the city. Again, these models are necessary, but they are built on specific world views in which certain forms of efficiency and safety are considered and other experience of the city ignored. Designs that seem logical in models appear counter-intuitive in the actual experience of their users. The guard rails that will be familiar to anyone who has attempted to cross a British road, for example, were an engineering solution to pedestrian safety based on models that prioritise the smooth flow of traffic. On wide major roads, they often guide pedestrians to specific crossing points and slow down their progress across the road by using staggered access points divide the crossing into two – one for each carriageway. In doing so they make crossings feel longer, introducing psychological barriers greatly impacting those that are the least mobile, and encouraging others to make dangerous crossings to get around the guard rails. These barriers don’t just make it harder to cross the road: they divide communities and decrease opportunities for healthy transport. As a result, many are now being removed, causing disruption, cost, and waste.

   在交通工程中也是如此，它使用模型來預測和塑造人們在城市中的移動方式。同樣，這些模型是必要的，但它們建立在特定的世界觀上，其中考慮了某些形式的效率和安全，而忽略了城市的其他經驗。在模型中看似合理的設計，在用戶的實際體驗中卻顯得與直覺相反。例如，任何試圖穿越英國道路的人都會對護欄感到熟悉，它是基於優先考慮交通順暢的模型對行人安全的一種工程解決方案。在寬闊的主幹道上，它們通常引導行人到特定的過街點，並通過使用交錯的通道將過街點分為兩個—每條車道一個—來減緩他們過街的速度。這樣一來，他們讓人覺得過馬路的時間更長，引入了心理障礙，大大影響了那些行動不便的人，並鼓勵其他人做出危險的穿越馬路來避開護欄。這些障礙物不僅使人們更難過馬路：它們分割了社區，減少了健康交通的機會。因此，許多障礙物現在正在被拆除，造成干擾、成本和浪費。

6. 編舞家的親身實踐

   If their designers had had the tools to think with their bodies – like dancers – and imagine how these barriers would feel, there might have been a better solution. In order to bring about fundamental changes to the ways we use our cities, engineering will need to develop a richer understanding of why people move in certain ways, and how this movement affects them. Choreography may not seem an obvious choice for tackling this problem. Yet it shares with engineering the aim of designing patterns of movement within limitations of space. It is an art form developed almost entirely by trying out ideas with the body, and gaining instant feedback on how the results feel. Choreographers have deep understanding of the psychological, aesthetic, and physical implications of different ways of moving.

   如果他們的設計師有工具能用他們的身體來思考—像舞者一樣—並想像這些障礙物的感覺，可能會有更好的解決方案。為了從根本上改變我們使用城市的方式，工程界需要對人們為什麼以某種方式移動以及這種移動如何影響他們有更豐富的瞭解。對於解決這個問題，編舞似乎不是一個明顯的選擇。然而，它與工程學一樣，都是為了在空間的限制下設計運動模式。它是一種藝術形式，幾乎完全是通過嘗試身體的想法，並獲得對結果感覺的即時回饋來發展。舞蹈編導對不同運動方式的心理、美學和身體影響有深刻的理解。

7. 未來展望

   Observing the choreographer Wayne McGregor, cognitive scientist David Kirsh described how he ‘thinks with the body’, Kirsh argues that by using the body to simulate outcomes, McGregor is able to imagine solutions that would not be possible using purely abstract thought. This kind of physical knowledge is valued in many areas of expertise, but currently has no place in formal engineering design processes. A suggested method for transport engineers is to improvise design solutions and instant feedback about how they would work from their own experience of them, or model designs at full scale in the way choreographers experiment with groups of dancers. Above all, perhaps, they might learn to design for emotional as well as functional effects.

   認知科學家大衛．科什在觀察舞蹈家韋恩．麥格雷戈時，描述了他是如何 「用身體思考」的。科什認為，通過使用身體來模擬結果，麥格雷戈能夠想像出用純粹的抽象思維無法實現的解決方案。這種身體知識在許多專業領域都很有價值，但目前在正式的工程設計過程中還沒有地位。建議交通工程師採用的方法是，即興設計方案，並從他們自己的經驗中即時回饋這些方案的運作模式，或者像編舞家與一群舞者進行實驗那樣，對設計進行全尺寸建模。最重要的是，也許他們可以學會為情感和功能效果而進行設計。