End of Semester Process
I figure I might write a bit about how the Urban Planning Concept has matured in the time spent since my last post. (But be sure to keep in mind that while it has been a few weeks in chronological time, I only had three days to work on this due to other schoolwork.)
Judging from the feedback I received last time, I knew that my idea needed a better foundation. I dived back into my research to find out what it was about this idea that made it stand out to me. I took this bundle and began to filter, sort, and edit. This is what remained:
- City literacy
- Interactions meaningful to a specific location
- Many small actions leading to a big change
- Side-effect interaction
- 25% of NYC is covered in streets
- The city, calling out to the resident
- Doorways and thresholds
- Psychogeography: the effects of geographical setting, consciously arranged or not, acting on the mood or behavior of a person
- Synechdote: the part representing the whole
- Macroscope: something that helps up see what the aggregation of many small actions looks like when added together
As part of my research, I looked back on what I thought my thesis was going to be early on. In an email to my department chair dated in April of this year, I said:
I'm interested in the ways people are shaped by the built and natural environments that surround them.
To that end, I’ve been thinking about urban planning. As far as I can tell, there are two main schools of thought: top down and bottom up. Top down is about imposing design upon a place. Bottom up is about letting design follow the need. Things seem to be trending towards bottom-up at the moment.
I had been previously focused on making a better map, but know I believe that direction to be not quite correct. I think that my thesis can be more successful if I find a way to make maps work better for people.
I also knew that I wanted to get away form the concept as a website. Websites simply exist, and are only available where people can spend the time to reach them. The barrier of entry for getting someone to visit a site is pretty high. A screen in the environment itself, however, is there. It is much more prominent, and its location on the corner lends it some amount of credibility and authority.
And I wanted to use that authority to educate. I don’t expect that people will be lining up to use this interface to type in messages or enter in their personal information. I do think it could be a place for teaching people as they pass by or wait for the light to change.
