摘要：Describing the physical layout and accoutrements of public welfare offices is useful not only for what it corroborates or eludicates about data collected by other methods, but because it sheds particular light on the significances of explicitly and implicitly arranged spaces, of tools and equipment, of staged objects (including gifts received and exposed), in short, on the general working atmosphere particular to this kind of space... The varying arrangements of five public welfare and health centers located in Geneva, Switzerland, tell us something about the way in which the institution, its employees and its users (beneficiaries) think and live public assistance. Tools and office equipment express a form of pedaggy in the service of training for personal and civic autonomy. Objects also demonstrate the possibility for relations of friendly assistance, and act as symbols of recognition and signs or reflections of competence.
