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Sensory Urbanism Proceedings 2008
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Sensory Urbanism Proceedings 2008
CONTENTS PAGE
CitySpinning: Frameworks for a Collective Reinterpretation of the 5
Ambient Possibilities of Public Spaces,
Prayas Abhinav & Yashas Shetty
My Kind of Town 20
Robert Brown
Sensible Forms 47
Andrew Conio
Transit Spaces 72
Wael Fahmi
3
Sensory Urbanism Proceedings 2008
CONTENTS PAGE
Designing a Notation for the Senses 137
Ray Lucas
4
CitySpinning:
Frameworks for a Collective Reinterpretation of the Ambi-
ent Possibilities of Public Spaces
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
CEMA, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Ban-
galore
5
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
stakes of different communities on the land The interest in the late 90s of builders to
on which they live. Bordering the airport, it build malls all across India led to a boom
is a city within acity. Numerous researchers, in the retail industry, multiplexes and fast
journalists, photographers have spent time food, a large number of malls exist to day
there trying to understand the flux on the in Mumbai,Bangalore, Ahmedabad and
ground. many of them enjoy a lot of walk-ins. But
this boom has gone unchecked, with many
In Bangalore with the IT industry driving malls coming up on the same street leading
most of the growth, high-value jobs and to an over-capacity and a need to convert
global interest in the city, a powerful lobby many of these nearly-completed and under-
has taken shape. This lobby has pressurized construction malls to commercial buildings
the government numerous times to look af- offering office-space instead of retail-space.
ter its interests. These demands have mostly Other glitches were witnessed in the rapid
been for stable business infrastructure, like rise and subsequent disappearance of bowl-
flyovers, roads, electricity, WiMax which ing alleys and pool tables in many Indian
helps them increase their business efficien- cities in the 90s.
cy. They have largely been successful in get-
ting specific commitments from the govern- If there is an ongoing conversation between
ment. The government is too conscious of the users of cities (that is the citizens) and
hurting its image of being India’s leading IT the planners, builders and architects, such
outsourcing hub amid the competitive bids expensive glitches might be avoided. In this
from Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi. paper I will explore different dimensions of
this possibility.
In contrast let us look at the garment ex-
port industry in Bangalore. It employs a
much higher [figures] number of people but
contributes substantially less to the city’s 3. Public-spaces
gross turnover and so obviously doesn’t
have clout to demand anything for itself or “Cities were invented to facilitate exchange
its workers. Manyof the workers in the in-– the exchange of ideas, friendships, mate-
dustry live in one of the 700 slums aroundrial goods and skills. How good a city is at
Bangalore. Slums marked as ‘shadow areas’ facilitating exchange determines its health –
in government plans. Shadow areas are de- economic,social, cultural and environmen-
fined on the basis of water supply level and
tal. Public space forms a vital conduit in this
the number of teachers for the area. (The exchange process, providing platforms for
Two Bangalores, Menon, 2005) everyday interaction and information flows
– the basis and content for the public life of
The way these cities are shaping and the cities.” (People Make Places: Growing The
way the governments are Public Life of Cities, Demos, 2005)
taking decisions about the trajectories theyBefore cars changed the meaning of lo-
should take are not transparent. They ac- cation and distance in cities,public spaces
commodate the needs of only some groups like plazas, parks and playing grounds were
of people residing in these cities. The voices
about people from different ethnic and class
and opinions of a vast majority are not even
backgrounds meeting and exchanging ideas,
registered. expressing world-views, forming groups and
enriching themselves in other ways. One of
This “one-sided deafness” creates some-
the attractions of living in a big metropo-
times amusing urban glitches. For example:
6
City Spinning
lis was the possibility of this socialization. cities where the project is exhibited are
(Safdie & Kohn 1997, pp 12-13) (Intellectual shown using robotically controlled projec-
Property: The Attack on Public Space in Cy- tors. However,the portraits only appear in-
berspace, Besser, 2001) side the projected shadows of local passers-
by [...]” (McQuire, 2005)
Scott McQuire writes in The Politics of
Public Space in The Media City: Scott McQuire suggests that Lozano-
henner’s work involves strangers to suspend
[...] the rise of the suburbs was positioned habits and try to figure out the interface and
as the nemesis to the public space of the interplay of the project through experimen-
modern city. [...] Daniel Dayan and Elihu tation. He uses this work as an example to
Katz (1992) defined the ‘media event’ large- describe the ways in which social inter-min-
ly in terms of the privatization of the public gling and interaction is beginning to happen
sphere: events once experienced collective- again in public spaces in the “media-city”
ly in public space were increasingly con- and predicts that such projects “could be-
sumed by greater numbers of people who come important tools for rethinking the sub-
watched from the privacy of their individual mission of urban space to commodity spec-
homes. (The Politics of Public Space in The tacle and surveillance, and for forging new
Media City, McQuire, 2005) ways of engaging with others in public.”
So, across the last half of the 20th century Ashok Sukumaran, an architect and artist
with the rise of suburbs and the commuting however argues that Lozanohenner’s later
culture we have seen public spaces fall out works and increasingly also of many other
of favour of planners and others who have artists influenced by it “could be described
had a say in shaping the city. And people [...] as the connection of any
seem to have no time to just hang out in
parks, plazas etc. There has been a trend to input/sensing device to an arbitrary output
think in terms of productivity and function- format.” He says that “audiences just begin
alism. to expect one or the other form of benign
media to appear, in response to their pres-
In the urban layout the erstwhile role of ence” and the works fail to actually deal
public spaces is now played by private- with the “publics” in meaningful ways.
ly owned “pseudo-public-spaces” like (Venice Biennale Part II: On Rafael Lozano-
malls,multiplexes and fast food outlets. These Hemmer’s Work, Sukumaran, 2007)
privately owned shared spaces have been
able to exert controls which public spaces With physical computing and code-based
had great difficulty in exerting. Controls art dominating a lot of the buzz around
on free speech, political action(distributing public space interventions, media art and
leaflets, doing demonstrations), appearance interactive art in the last few years, artists
(dress code), language (everything being in are increasingly asking questioning the en-
English) filter our undesirable and unwanted thusiastic use of computing and its effects
elements and create a “sanitized” environ- and are now seeking more human, involv-
ment. The “rights of admission are reserved.” ing and rooted ways of using tools like ardu-
(Besser, 2001) inoboards, wiring, picocricket and the vast
range of possibilities which electronics and
In BODY MOVIES, an art project by Rafael computing offers.
Lozano-hemmer “transforms public space
with [...] interactive projections. Thousands Numerous artists such as The Space Hi-
of photoportraits taken on the streets of the jackers, Reclaim The Streets,kraut, Wochen-
7
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
klauser, Bed By Night, Krzysztof Wodiczko, tions of the terrain and the encounters they
MichaelRakowitz, Ashok Sukumaran use find there.” (Definitions, The Situationist In-
interesting “public” approaches. I will de- ternational, 1958)
scribe some works by these artists later in
the paper. They were interested in the “specific effects
of the geographical environment (whether
consciously organized or not) on the emo-
tions and behaviour of individuals.” Broadly
4. Dreaming Up Spaces this process was called “psychogeography”
by the SI.
The Situationist International (SI) was a
group of artists,filmmakers, writers and oth- In Another City for Another Life, Constant
ers active mostly in Paris from 195x-197x. describe the city as they imagined it.
They have influenced the way artists, archi-
“[We] envisage covered cities in which
tects, writers and othersimagine and narrate
the layout of roads and separate buildings
their cities. Words like psychogeography,
will be replaced by a continuous spatial
derive,detourement, unitary urbanism have
construction elevated above the ground,
become a part of the vocabulary used to talk
including clusters of dwellings as well as
of cities.
public spaces [...]. Since all traffic, in the
The approach called unitary urbanism pro- functional sense of the term, will pass on the
posed a “combined use of arts and techniques ground level below or on overhead terraces,
as means contributing to the construction of streets can be eliminated. The multitude of
a unified milieu in dynamic relation with different traversable spaces of which the city
experiments in behaviour.”(Definitions, The is composed will form a complex and vast
Situationist International, 1958) social space.” (In Another City For Another
Life, Constant, 1961)
They held the position that contemporary
city-planning has made people blind to “a Some urban interventions by artists and
living critique of this manipulation of cit- others, which re-imagine cities in radical
ies and their inhabitants, a critique fuelled and sensitive ways are described below.
by all the tensions of everyday life. A liv-
The Space Hijackers: The Space Hijack-
ing critique means setting up bases for an
ers (TSH) describe themselves as anarchists,
experimental life where people can come
“[...] we oppose the hierarchy that is put
together to create their own lives on terrains
upon us by Architects, Planners and own-
equipped to their ends.” (Basic Program of
ers of space. Through the events that we
the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism, Kotanyi
hold and the objects that we produce we
and Vaneigem, 1961)
are attempting to corrupt the culture of ar-
For them being sensitive to spaces, listening chitecture, and destroy the hierarchies that
to what the city had to say was very impor- exist.”(Website, The Space Hijackers)
tant. They practised a form of walking / wan-
Some of their notable projects have been:
dering around the city called a “derive.”
Circle Line Party: “On the 10th March
“In a derive one or more persons during
1999, the Space Hijackers held our first ma-
a certain period drop their relations, their
jor event. This involved the Hijacking of a
work and leisure activities, and all their oth-
London Underground Circle Line Train, for
er usual motives for movement and action,
the purpose of turning it into a moving dis-
and let themselves be drawn by the attrac-
8
City Spinning
9
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
perhaps literally with ideas of distance, in- “Proverbially the problems are pushed to a
sulation and the act of refusal, o rblockage.” side and whenever possible removed entire-
(Website, Sukumaran, 2007) ly. the focus of the interest is on the city as a
product.” (A Material That Never Comes To
Rest, Haydn,2006)
Although the importance of the nature of We live in an age called “the age of the
a city’s public spaces in the life of citizens creative amateur” by many. Unlike the
is commonly accepted and acknowledged, .com boom (1999 -9999) the present Inter-
there is no effort for public engagement on net boom (also called web 2.0) is fuelled by
the part of the municipalities. user-generated content. Much of this con-
tent is licensed under an open-content li-
“Town-planners and architects still tend to cense (from the creative commons family of
think in terms of the four functions of the city licenses) and is freely usable and modifiable
as defined by Le Corbusier in 1933: living, by anyone under conditions defined by the
working, traffic and recreation. This over- author.
simplification reflects opportunism rather
than insight into and appreciation of what Free Culture a book by Lawrence Les-
people actually want today, with the result sig (Stanford University Law Professor and
that the city is rapidly becoming obsolete.” founder of the Creative Commons project)
(New Urbanism, Constant, 1966) gave thrust and momentum to the remix or
mash up culture, a practise of creating works
10
City Spinning
based on multiple existing works to draw tween the relationships between these two
new meanings and new contexts or state- players, due to the failure of existing rela-
ments. Building upon existing work is an tionships to come up with successful prod-
established traditional (as described in Free ucts.
Culture) which modern copyright laws have
tried to impede. Using one of the Creative The .com boom (1995-2000), a phe-
Commons licenses, creators can be explicit nomenon which saw the rapid rise and
about the freedoms they allow their uses/au- then subsequent fall of the value of Inter-
dience on their work so that unintentionally net companies is often seen in the light of
all the restrictions of the copyright law are the relationship between “moderators” (or
not assumed to apply to their work. This has producers)and “users” which existed at the
been seen to create vibrant platforms of us- time. Internet consumers were looked at as
er-created content on the web, notable plat- passive consumers of content largely pro-
forms are Jamendo, Flickr, Wikipedia etc. duced by professionals hired by companies.
As highlighted above, besides constraining
In the early days of the Internet, the po- the growth of individual projects, this led
tential growth of cyberspace was thought to only marginal contributions of any kind
to be impeded by the huge cost of creating from the users. So besides content, even the
content. With the vindication of that con- applications and the software was designed
cern in recent years it has been understood with numerous assumptions about the tech-
that there are numerous motivations for nological capacity, time and the perceptions
people to create and share their creations. of users. No effort was made to get users
And commercial or professional gain is not to communicate what features or design-
the only motivation. Socialization, finding elements they preferred. So, the first boom
an audience, bonding, the cathartic / heal- saw the failure of Internet businesses on the
ing power of telling stories, belonging and count of having sparse content, unfamiliar
numerous other motivations drive people to and difficult-to-use interfaces, bandwidth-
share their work on the web, under open or intensive technologies (remember the time
closed licenses. was before broadband was as popular as it
is today) and lack of features which were a
With the rise in prominence and the pop- priority for the users.
ularization of such networks,a dynamic
bottoms-up field condition is at play in our In the present model of the city and the way
lives. Cities being hubs and nodes for the it takes shape, the relationship between the
flow of capital, labour and material goods “moderators” and the “users” can be seen to
as well as information and cultural goods, be in a similar flux. We have seen the expen-
this new field conditions leads to the pos- sive glitches which the “one-sided deafness”
sibility of looking at the city as an “informa- in this relationship is producing. In this re-
tion space,” as another node in the global lationship again the user, that is the citizen
networks which facilitate the flow of signs or the city-dweller here, is again seen as a
and symbols. passive participant with noting substantial
to contribute to the process of the shaping
As an “information space,” it be- of the city. In a democracy, voting is thought
comes interesting to draw some paral- to be the ultimate act of participation for the
lels between the relations between the citizens, but it is anything but that. Voting
“moderators”(municipalities and the plan- in any kind of elections or referendum be-
ners) and the “users.” The Internet and the comes a game of polarization and coercion
software world saw a partial opening-up be- by the majority, and not a process of accom-
11
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
This paper looks at the possibility of some- “[...] life is presented as an immense accu-
thing akin to the “iterative city,” a city con- mulation of spectacles. Everything that was
tinually responsive to the collective dynamic directly lived has receded into a representa-
of the needs, demands, requests and prefer- tion.” (Chapter 1, The Society of the Spec-
ences of its users. tacle, GuyDebord, 1967)
Artists and activists do temporary interven- This world of spectacle and representation
tions of all kinds (some are described in this can understand/see only entities defined in
paper). Some of these interventions are done terms of the spectacle. All else is invisible.
with permission and by invitation and some So a TAZ can be really invisible to the State
are done either way without any kind of per- as there are no points of intersection and ex-
mission. These small, spontaneous actions ist for varied periods. (Bey, 1991)
are free expressions of temporary claims
over public spaces. These temporary claims The tactic of the TAZ is a process of seek-
and their expressions demonstrate different“ ing “cracks and vacancies” in the suppos-
concepts for the use of the city.” edly omnipresent, omnipotent State with its
many mechanisms for surveillance and con-
The imagined temporary spaces create so- trol of experience.
cial knowledge and offer opportunities for
active participation, rather than temporary “We are looking for “spaces” (geographic,
spaces for an event-based leisure society. social, cultural,imaginal) with potential to
(Haydn, 2006) flower as autonomous zones--and we are
looking for times in which these spaces are
These interventions also bring “utopian sit- relatively open,either through neglect on
uations” into the realm of the tangible real- the part of the State or because they have
ity even though for a limited time. somehow escaped notice by the mapmak-
ers, or for whatever reason. Psychotopology
“[...] the TAZ is in some sense a tactic of is the art of dowsing for potential TAZs.”
disappearance.” (Temporary Autonomous (Bey, 1991)
12
City Spinning
The tactic of the TAZ has been interpreted never meet any of the strangers around us
and cited by many including The Cacopho- ever again. One could easily “get lost in the
ny Society and many in the early 1990s rave crowd”. This is true at least for unfamiliar or
culture. The Cacophony Society (a loose alien neighbourhoods. But with surveillance
collective of artists,pranksters, performers) by video cameras and I-card now being very
organized trips to “the zone” called “trip common even in Indian cities,that anonym-
to the zone” or “zone trip” or “field trips to ity is being lost and is being replaced by a
the fringe.” In 1990 it popularized and gave perpetual self-consciousness which is not
birth to (as zone trip # 4) the annual festival very helpful for free self-expression or inter-
form of a human effigy burning event held mingling with other people.
at the Baker Beach (SF,USA) from 1986-89.
This festival became famous as The Burning What many have attempt to do is attempt
Man festival and the zone became known to take on an avatar or an alias and use it as
as The Black Rock City. The Black Rock City much as possible. But this approach creates
is a temporary city which comes up across a schizophrenic rift in the juggling game of
the six-day festival every year and follows managing multiple identities: one on the ID,
the philosophy of “leave no trace,”[glossary] another which is assumed, another which
and attempts to establish and demonstrate one carries over etc,
a space forfree-expression, sharing and self-
reliance. (Wikipedia and The Burning Man In the “paranoid city” anonymity is auto-
website) matically associated with danger, shadiness
and illicitness. Experiencing autonomy of
The festival has supported and popular- whatever measure without anonymity or
ized an art form that is, “immediately avail- pseudonymity poses difficulties for many
able to large numbers of people.” Art that people.
is“ collaborative and it breaks down barriers
between audience and art work. It’s based
upon participation — it’s radically interac-
tive —and it contemplates the facts of life.”
Larry Harvey’s (the founder of the Burning
Man festival) comments also strongly reso- 6. Collective Reinterpretation
nate with what Scott McQuire has observed of the Ambient Possibilities of
and proposed earlier about art in public
spaces of the “media city.” PublicSpaces
6.1 Earlier Projects
5.2 Anonymity and Public In 2006 I worked on a short film called, “A
Place To Stay.” The film tried to map the kids
Spaces of temporary sleeping places the homeless
in Mumbai are able to work out. I found it
“Public space protects us from an excess of
hard to believe that everyone slept on the
intimacy. [it] is a space of great anonymity.”
street, or on the railway station, I was sure
(Haydn, 2006)
that there existed lots of safe but secret en-
There was a common perception that we claves that homeless people would be us-
can get away with any action,behaviour ing. The idea wasn’t to get to know of the
in public, because no one recognizes us spaces and then
or knows us and most probably we will
13
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
reveal them but just to understand how public garden or the neighbourhood coffee
in dense and strictly-regimented cities like shop from their mobile phone or computer.
Mumbai people still seek out spaces they When people start carrying more of their
need. lives into the outdoors, they will definitely
want to configure outdoors to their taste and
Not everyone uses cities the way they are preference. At that point a kind of collective
planned to be used and the organic growth chemistry will need to be evolve as there
of cities provides important insights into the will be multiple demands from individual
needs of the people using them and living in spaces.
them. The dynamism of cities emerges from
the fact that there so many concurrent fac- City-based chapters of the CitySpinning da-
tors at play that individuals often feel so tabase would allow a space for speculation
small an insignificant that they are able to and dreaming about how different neigh-
be spontaneous and be as they choose. bourhoods should shape. Interventions are
called spins at CitySpinning.
The city is a process. (Castells, 1996)
“Cities are like urban laboratories – they
solve their own problems of growth.” The
Creative City In The Third Millennium, Peter
6.2 CitySpinning Hall, 2005.
The database of proposals would be like Common Food (CF): CF is an effort to seed
a massive Central VersioningS ystem (CVS) a community of urban farmers. I plan to use
of the source-code of the city. Available for public spaces, unused spaces, street-side
compiling and executing by any crew which spaces, gardens of volunteers, spaces under
feels excited by it. flyovers and bridges to grow easy-to-cook
and nutritive vegetables. The project will
“Somebody finds the problem, and some- have a map-based web-interface which any-
body else understands it. ”Linus Trovoids. one can navigate to understand the range
(As quoted in The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and location of the crop and to add or log
Raymond, 2000) some now plantation effort. The idea is to
compile maps of regular and stable crops
With Wifi and mobile Internet access be-
in print form and work with organizations
coming more and more common in the out-
to make the maps available to the range of
doors, a kind of merger of indoors and out-
migrant and temporary labour force and the
doors in happening. People sit and blog or
homeless in Bangalore (initially). The objec-
run their businesses from the comfort of the
14
City Spinning
15
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
Jeannée, P., & Others. (1993). Wochen- Parfyme (Artist Collective). (2000). Retrieved
Klausur (Art Project). Retrieved from http:// from http://parfyme.dk
www.wochenklausur.at/projekte/menu_
en.htm Pogoreutz, M. (2006). Urban Intelligence.
In F. Haydn & R. Temel(Eds.), Temporary
Kohoutek, R., & Kamleithner, C. (2006). Urban Spaces, Concepts for the Use of City
Temporary Uses, Deregulation and Urbani- Spaces(pp. 75-80). Brikhauser.
ty . In F. Haydn & R. Temel (Eds.), Temporary
Urban Spaces,Concepts for the Use of City Ray, C., & Others. (2002). Conflux Festival
Spaces (pp. 25-38). Brikhauser. (Psychogeography).
Kotanyi, A., & Vaneigem, R. (1961). Raymond, E. (2000). The Cathedral and the
Programme élémentaire du Bazaar.
Bureaud?Urbanisme Unitaire. Internation-
ale Situationniste, (6). Reclaim The Streets! (Art Project). Retrieved
fromhttp://rt.gn.apc.org
Kowalkowski, J., Myers, T., Thomas, M., &
Zerkel, M. (1996). LuckyPierre (Art Collec- Schuda, S., Schmeiser, F., & Koger, P. (2004).
tive). Retrieved from http://www.luckypi- Kein Geld (ArtProject). Retrieved from http://
erre.org www.keingeld.at
Krasny, E. (2006). Spaces for Action and Sukumaran, A. (2007). Venice Biennale Part
for Laughing Too. In New Editor 0 & R. Te- II: On Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s Work. 0ut.
mel (Eds.), Temporary Urban Spaces, Con- in. Retrieved from http://0ut.in/news.php
cepts for the Use of City Spaces (pp. 81-96).
Temel, R. (2006). The Temporary in The City.
Brikhauser.
In F. Haydn & R. Temel(Eds.), Temporary Ur-
Lage, C. (2004). Kraut (Art Project). Re- ban Spaces, Concepts for the Use of City
trieved from Spaces(pp. 55-66). Brikhauser.
Biographies
Prayas Abhinav is post-graduate student
at the Centre for Experimental Media Arts
(CEMA) at Srishti School of Art, Design and
Technology, Bangalore. He has been a film-
maker (documentaries, shorts), communi-
cations consultant, a web strategist, copy-
writer, photographer, painter and publisher.
He has worked with organizations like Ox-
fam, Centre for Media Studies, CHETNA and
Darpana Academy. He helped in the launch
of the Creative Commons India project in
January 2007. He was a Sarai fellow in 2005
and a part of the design business incubator
at NID in 2004. Much of his work is docu-
mented at http://prayas.in.
18
City Spinning
19
My Kind of Town:
a study in (re)presenting the city
Robert Brown
School of Architecture and Design, University of Plymouth
20
Robert Brown
questions their work raised. haptic qualities. Both text and model tan-
talise, making explicit our innate desire to
engage with the world through touch. Ra-
chael’s model hints at the nature of what she
Measured Responses found in Dubrovnik; a number of jewel-like
pieces are contained within a box perforated
The ritually polished marble-paved squares with small openings, their tactile qualities
glide you through the heart of this small prompting an urge to caress them. Yet this
town…Narrow steep cobbled streets feed container limits what we can see and pro-
off the linear main promenade drawing you hibits us from completing the picture; only
into a maze of rich vibrant lanes…High by opening the box and touching the pieces
overhead the tall streets are decorated with directly can we know them intimately.
washing hung up out of the timber louvered
windows, small gardens squeezed onto aged Rachael’s representation evokes Pallasmaa’s
window sills and fragile iron balconies… discussion of engaging with the ‘eyes of our
Dubrovnik is a far more intricate town than skin’ (Pallasmaa 2000). Such engagement
it first appears, compiling both physical and is presented as more heightened and sen-
metaphorical layers of history, culture, ma- suous than mere sight, affording a ‘…sense
terials, authenticity, intimacy and density… of interiority and tactile intimacy.’ (Ibid, 80)
Pallasmaa further suggests that ‘…haptic
and multi-sensory architecture makes the
experience of time healing and pleasurable.
Dubrovnik: Rachael Browne This architecture does not struggle against
time, it concretizes the course of time and
makes it acceptable. It seeks to accommo-
date rather than impress…’ (ibid) Rachael’s
discussion of the fragility of elements, of the
patina acquired through age and inhabita-
tion, recognises change and age as things to
be celebrated for giving richness to a place,
and not merely as obstacles in a vain at-
tempt to create a timeless architecture.
bedded themselves within the walls of the city frowns on such narrow logic, instead
surrounding buildings tinting the walls with it presents choice, the structure rejects the
hints of colour…the familiarity of the subtle single path, always twisting and turning…
smells, fine changes in colour and varying So much happens here; so much that is
scales, provide the visitor with knowledge reminiscent of a liquid state. Everything
of place. This faintly and unintentionally has a flow; if you pause, the energy of the
maps the town, which at first glance ap- city passes you by in waves. Currents ebb
pears to be a fusion of unidentifiable spaces, and tides ascend and recede in ways which
formed from the negative of one solid mass. are highly reflective of the seasonal changes
Yet subconsciously it defines itself clearly, which here carry so much value.
providing knowledge and awareness of lo-
cation through a journey of understanding
and belonging.
Tokyo – Jim Morris
22
Robert Brown
Jim’s text is equally elusive; it hints, it en- lect, but as a fundamental and trustworthy
tices, without explicitly defining the place part of what it means to be human.’ (Tanaka
in the concrete terms that we might expect. and Tanaka 1998, 187) Jim’s text and mod-
It creates a place not through defining its el communicates not only something of
physical structure, but rather through the his own personal experience of Tokyo, but
emotional and physical feelings of move- equally reveals local sensibilities towards
ment and initial instability felt in the place. place while challenging us to reconsider our
own existing attitudes.
Inherent in Jim’s discussion is the sense of
proprioception – that is, a sense of one’s sur- An intimate respect for the delicacy of land-
roundings in relation to one’s own body. Our scape and the local people’s contingent rela-
movements and spatial location, whether tionship to place has enriched their culture
front or back, up or down, position us, af- with a sense of identity and citizenship, re-
fording us an awareness of the three-dimen- spect and responsibility that is miraculously
sional space exterior to our body. Our body still alive and vibrant…The physical discon-
thus becomes charged as we physically and nection of the cityscape from the cultivated
psychologically take possession of the envi- surrounding landscape reinforces the strong
ronment. The valuing of the body, and the cultural definitions and distinctions of the
emotional-psychological experience of the local people to these spaces. Nature is not
three-dimensional world this engenders, is manifest as symbols of countryside used in
reminiscent of Bloomer and Moore’s discus- parks to make the cityscape more bearable,
sion of the body and spatial perception: or as a timeless painting of countryside, but
is understood innately in seasonality, food
The heart of the distinction we are making and its cultivation. Landscape is instinctive-
between the “feeling” of space developed ly linked to the people’s place and identity.
by the whole body and the objective space
described through mathematical and graph-
ic measurement is that objective space does
not require the existence of a centreplace. Italian hill towns – Richard
Body spatiality, by contrast, refers to an in-
ternal world which is not only distinct from Bower
and within an external world, but which
is centred around “landmarks” and bodily  Richard’s discussion explores a symbi-
memories that reflect a lifetime of events en- otic relationship between landscape and
countered outside the psychic body bound- settlement and the way that the inhabitants
ary.(1977, 45) identify with their environment, expressed
and celebrated daily through rituals of the
It is fitting that Jim’s representation of To- growing, gathering, selling, preparation
kyo evokes a discussion of body awareness; and eating of food. His text reminds us of
though in the West we are more preoccu- Norberg-Schulz’ discourse on the phenom-
pied with visual engagement, in Asia there enology of place, which argues that place
has long been a valuing of learning through should not be understood only in terms of
the body. While we privilege the eyes and the settlement itself, but concurrently with
intellectual judgements based on this sense, landscape. (Norberg-Schulz 1980, 11) Rich-
in Asia, philosophical tradition gives em- ard’s discussion recalls Norberg-Schulz’s
phasis to the body and feeling. Indeed, the (ibid, 19) emphasis on man understand-
human body is not understood as something ing his place in the world not only through
that ‘…distorts the judgement of the intel- orienting himself but also more critically
through identifying with his environment, to
23
My Kind of Town
know not only where he is but also how he down, metaphorically feeding into a centre
is. as gathering place, where again vertical ele-
ments (the same ones coming through from
Richard’s discussion is also reminiscent of the other side) have seemingly collected.
Girardet’s concerns over the abandonment These vertical elements are moveable, al-
of traditional ways of life and the adopting lowing a direct relationship between the two
of (universal) urban culture. In applaud- sides – pushing in or pulling out the dowels
ing the direct and visceral relationship the on one side correspondingly lengthens or
inhabitants of these places have with their shortens the same dowel on the other side.
milieu, he argues against the disconnected
metabolic relationship cities today have Richard’s work recognises the reciprocity
with the environment that supports them, inherent in the environment. It is also a re-
and instead for an indigenous culture ‘…de- minder of the need for balance; as we move
fined by sustainable adaptation to their lo- ever towards an increasingly urbanised
cal environment.’ (Giradet 2000, 17) world, do we continue with the out-of-bal-
anced consumption-oriented model into
Richard’s model is reflective of the land- which our urban centres are increasingly
scape - settlement relationship he advocates, evolving, or do we consider models that are
in which he sets up a dialectic between two based on a more benign symbiotic relation-
sides of his model. One side seems a literal ship between mankind and nature?
representation of an Italian hill town, with
contours stepping up to a cluster of vertical
dowels in contrast to the surrounding hori-
zontal lines. The other side presents some- Shared Themes
thing of a reverse, with contours stepping
Viewed collectively, the work represented
here (along with their colleagues’ work not
shown) raised a number of shared themes.
This is despite the purposefully open-ended-
ness of the project, which was intended to
prompt work of a discursive nature and thus
expose a number of attitudes towards the
city and ways of representing it. What sur-
faced however, perhaps not unsurprisingly
given some common experiences and val-
ues between them (e.g., they had all chosen
to study at Plymouth because of its particular
ethos), were some very consistent and chal-
lenging attitudes which resonated across
individual discussions. These included a
challenging of more conventional models of
urbanism, a movement away from more tra-
ditional techniques of representation, and a
valuing of memory and prior experience.
‘Weak Urbanism’
24
Robert Brown
Through their text and models (and the dis- of representation that date back over several
course these recall), the students positioned hundred years. While these conventions are
an alternative to more conventional para- useful as tools for study and communication,
digms of an object-oriented architecture. they are suspect in their inherent emphasis
In stark contrast to a visually-biased per- upon architecture as visual art object; draw-
spective, the students moved beyond such ing techniques (e.g., plan) typically utilised
a mono-dimensionality to consider and to represent architecture convey this inher-
discuss place through a broader sensory en- ent bias. (Bloomer and Moore 1977, 18)
gagement. Their discussion is not panoptic,
iconic, overly-formalised or overly-abstract- In contrast, the students’ work relies not so
ed as one might expect from much current much on a literal representation, but rather
architectural rhetoric, but rather multi-sen- their meaning is communicated more sub-
sual, personal, and more intimate. liminally, through the suggested, the im-
plied and/or the evoked. Their work benefits
In positing this, the students’ discussion from not trying to recreate an actual city or
echoes Dovey (1993) and others’ arguments specific place in its formal structure, but
for ‘lived space’ over ‘geometric space’. This instead through evincing something of its
discussion is also reflective of what has been emotional and tactile experience, notably
proffered as ‘weak urbanism’. In referring to through prompting us to engage with their
this Pallasmaa (2000, 82) contends that the work not just visually but instead multi-sen-
urban design principles which have tended sually. Through their writing and physical
to predominate are based on strong strate- representation, they do not state explicitly
gies and form, which reinforce the primacy and thus limit our engagement; rather they
of the eye. In opposition, weak urbanism refer and allude to, triggering our memory
gives rise to ‘…the haptic townscape of inti- and imagination, transporting us to a place
macy and participation.’ (ibid) In their own and time in our experience. Moreover, their
work the students privilege the first-hand ex- representations challenge us to engage with
perience of the inhabitant accreted through senses other than just the visual, notably the
time and interaction, over the distant and haptic. They encourage us to break down
abstracted conceptions of the designer or the metaphorical wall that exists between a
planner. While they value the iconic land- drawing and us, which limits us from devel-
mark and highly-structured order immedi- oping a greater understanding of the experi-
ately perceived, they value even more cities ence of what that drawing is depicting.
which open up a greater sense of themselves
only through exploration and discovery of
the hidden and fragmented.
25
My Kind of Town
work, and/or draws upon their personal ex- dents in this project raise some interesting
perience. Whether in Rachael’s longstand- possibilities about urbanism and multimod-
ing interest in materiality and collage, Nick’s al experience. Central to the students’ work
agrarian upbringing, Jim’s engagement with is what it suggests about how they experi-
spatial awareness, or Richard’s on-going ence, relate to and interpret the city. In con-
work with landscape, each reflects that they trast to the contention that a visual emphasis
have brought with them their existing con- typically guides the planning and represen-
cerns, beliefs and values. Their work sug- tation of urban space, their work speaks of
gests our a priori attitudes and experiences a multi-sensory engagement grounded in a
inform how and with what we choose to en- sense of inhabitation, and reflects a much
gage when encountering a place, and how broader construct of the city than is depict-
we interpret the meaning of that place. ed in much current rhetoric. Yet it also raises
further questions.
The role of memory in this is crucial;
throughout our lives we engage with new The construct of weak urbanism prompts
places and new experiences. With each images of a more humane townscape, fos-
encounter, and through attrition over time, tered around interaction between both in-
we discard some as no longer meaningful habitants and between people and place,
or significant, while others we (re)synthe- enabled by a more intimate and sensual
sise into our developing world view. These environment. Yet what validity does a mod-
memories become a frame of reference by el which cites the medieval townscape as
which we engage with the world. No mat- reference point have in the post-industrial
ter how tantalising the notion of an innocent landscape of our cities in present-day Eu-
eye, enabling us to encounter the world rope, much less in other parts of the world?
anew free of the baggage we have brought How does such a pattern, developed in re-
with us from prior experience, we need to sponse to very different cultural, economic
recognise the role of memory in the experi- and social needs, begin to be adapted to
ence of place. As Downing posits: 21st Century aspirations? How does it facili-
tate the massive shifts of people on a daily
Each individual memory evolves and helps basis that many would argue are intrinsic to
select perceptual phenomena to add to the contemporary life?
arsenal of knowledge and meaning built
over time through idiosyncratic experience The development of more multimodal
and human will. A person is not simply a ta- forms of representation would be a much-
bula rasa, as past conceptualizations of our welcomed development to supplement the
relationship to the world suggested. As non- techniques we have inherited. Yet even a
self impinges upon self, the self makes de- cursory glance at what is being produced
cisions, values some experiences over oth- in practice and architectural education evi-
ers, reconstructs experience, and produces dences architecture’s visual bias. The devel-
a “will” that acts upon the non-self world in opment of computer-based graphics that has
a creative and ongoing interaction. (2000, enabled the production of very sophisticat-
14) ed images, not to mention the allure of vir-
tual reality-based experience of space, only
further reinforce this, posing a challenge for
experimentation with and development of
Concluding Thoughts more multi-sensory forms of representation.
The shared themes revealed by the stu- These are questions that cannot be an-
26
Robert Brown
swered within the context of this paper. In- 27-37). Architecture and Urbanism Special
deed, this paper and the work underlying it Issue.
are merely some early steps forward; and as
future work strives to address these ques- Pallasmaa, J. (2000) Hapticity and time –
tions, it will reveal even further questions Notes on fragile architecture. Architectural
to be pursued. The seeming evasiveness of Review, May, 78 – 84.
this pursuit is however not quixotic; to infer
from Kahn (2005), the working, testing and Pallasmaa, J. (2005) The eyes of the skin –
discourse involved are in essence aimed not architecture and the senses. Chicester: Wi-
at producing a singular reality, but rather are ley Academy.
intended to enable thought in formation.
Tanaka, S. and Tanaka, S. (1998) The tea
ceremony. Tokyo: Kodansha.
27
Drawing out Experience; Between Media & Place
Vincent Canizaro
University of Texas at San Antonio
28
Vincent Canizaro
29
Drawing out Experience; Between Media & Place
as prominently in these findings.(6) The un- which is the desire. A concern for people can
derlying suggestion is that both a designer’s only come from the recognition that people
purposeful intent and non-purposive inten- are the most important element.” With both
tional stance effect the course and outcome there is reference to something more funda-
of the design process. Intentions guide the mental than intending and speaks of an in-
process and serve as a way of maintaining tentional stance directed towards a concern
consistency throughout the place-focused for design as something to be inhabited not
processes that are the subject of this inqui- only looked at. Those who made the stron-
ry. gest claim for intentionality felt that place
was more than a desire but rather was an
From interviews, it was clearly recognized assumption.
that to intend in the deliberate sense was
beneficial. One respondent summarizes this
view this way: “…place intentions are good
because as architects we have to intend a 3. Skill and Comfort
kind of place. The intend part is important
for us as designers. Ideas move us along but Both a certain degree of skill and comfort
are not the prime motivator, place intentions with the use of any medium by the designer
are.” For this respondent and others, design can have a profound effect on how that de-
in terms of place was felt to be something signer engages place concepts in design.
the designer needs to be motivated for and
have a desire to do. – “your energy needs to Designers who gain skill in the use of a
be into it.” Another commented that a de- medium or whom are comfortable with its
signer needs “to have ideas about how one use are able to deal more effectively with
is to live in the world and how your work place concepts. Ease of use serves to con-
contributes to a renewed vision and desire nect to the work at hand. The more skilled
to live a particular way by your client. It is and comfortable I am with a tool, such as a
about order, site, context, culture, materials tennis racquet, the more engaged I am ca-
and the heightening of emotions in that par- pable of being in the game. The first time I
ticular place.” picked up a tennis racket a swing was dif-
ficult and thus the game was impenetrable.
Place intentionality is also linked impor- Learning how to hold the racket, to keep my
tantly to “memorable reference” through its eye on the ball, to move my feet, adjust my
role in establishing one’s more basic inten- weight, and swing the racket while keep-
tional stance. Many comments pointed to- ing the face open to the ball opened up the
wards how having a poetic imagination and/ game through opening my ability to play.
or assumption to design in terms of “people Walter Ong refers to this pattern of growth
in places” made more difference than the with a tool as the increasing “interiorization
selected medium. In reference to the most of the technology.”(7) Through this process,
powerful computer she can imagine, one he claims new options of expression and
stated that, “having the right machine is not understanding arise.
the key to place-making - having a poetic
imagination is - the poetic imagination that With drawing, modeling, digital design,
is born out of memorable experience.” Simi- and design-build, if one does not have what
larly another, while discussing that one’s in- one respondent referred to as “transparency,”
tent can mitigate the effects of media, states they will fail to gain a sense of inhabitation.
“the most important factor in the making of Or “without the skill the designer is unable
places is a combination of things foremost of to draw out their ideas in order to work with
30
Vincent Canizaro
them.” Any designer who can neither see More direct to the question of place, the im-
what a medium is showing or manipulate portance of multiple media was specifically
the medium is effectively blind. This effect is discussed: “Drawing place requires many
visible at two levels. On one, the designers different types of media”; “Through a broad
are hampered through a general difficulty drawing process, by using a lot of different
of reading through an image. At the other, media is how I come to know the quality of
they are also precluded from dealing with the place.” As to the potential difficulty in
the more specialized focus on place – the dealing with multiple and mixed media one
ability to read the medium empathetically respondent commented that “you find ways
and gain a sense of what it might feel like to to sum it all up.”
be within what is being imaged. Sagely one
respondent stated, “I think your design will More complex are the ways in which this
be only as good as your mastery of the me- mixing and combining of media were car-
dia you use to represent the ideas. So, learn ried out in practice. I was able to construct
them all, but master only a few.” three categories of increasing complexity.
The suggestion is that the multi-faceted phe-
nomenon of place is most effectively dealt
with by multi-faceted means.(10)
4. Multiple Means
The use of multiple forms of media and the
mixing of different media result in a more 4a Multi-media Practices
multivalent sense of an emerging design,
and is therefore suited to the multivalent Perhaps the most obvious, multi-media
character of place. practice is the combination of different
forms within the same medium such as
Perhaps the most prominent pattern to drawing. A multi-media practice of drawing
emerge in the course of this study was the would use plans, sections, and elevations in
necessity of using more than one medium design. The Beaux-Arts analytique and the
in order to adequately develop a sense of process of collage are also examples of this
place in the design setting. The basic notion practice by combining projection systems
is that by mixing and/or employing multiple and ways of depicting things within a 2-D
media, the inadequacies of each singular graphical format. Most common among the
medium are foiled by their combination responses regarding the conceptualization
with others. To mix media here, means to of place was the use of plans and sections,
combine something into some sort of hybrid in conjunction with perspectives.
which was rarely discussed. More common
was a concurrent use of different forms of a David Leatherbarrow has made much of
media or otherwise, different styles of me- what he calls the process of “alternation”
diation. With both what has been called that commonly takes place with multi-me-
“resourceful patching” was the modus ope- dia practice.(11) This is often a dialectical
randi to the practices.(8) Those interviewed process in which multiple drawings are con-
stated that they work with any and all me- sulted in order to ascertain a more complete
dia as a matter of course as is captured in understanding. The perspective “allows vi-
this comment: “I am pretty happy to work sion to roam around within it, as if the view
with whatever is out there… There’s a ton of were enclosed by the space... The develop-
media out there and I use most of it.” Oth- ment of a design always involves some alter-
ers saw it as a part of “a balanced practice.” nation between these types....”(12) Andrea
31
Drawing out Experience; Between Media & Place
32
Vincent Canizaro
form. Site visitation was described as the as an outsider. What is key is that the medi-
best way to get and maintain “a grip on the um is the agent which “draws” out that em-
sensory experience of that place.” This par- pathetic sense.(20) The strategies outlined
ticular respondent continued by saying, “It below exemplify this search for those quali-
is important to get a feel of the wind, a sense ties which engage the sense of inhabitation
of how the place smells, the views, and the and empathetic insideness and thereby the
sounds that are there if you want to design in conceptualization of place.
terms of the place.” Exemplifying this prac-
tice, she stated that designers should always
bring both their models and drawing to the
site to work on and reinterpret them there. 5a. The Human Figure as
The other primary variation on this theme
was the power of visiting surrogates in order Guide: Motion and Inhabita-
to understand the feeling of one’s own de- tion
sign as inhabited. These were described as
similar but different environments that more The human figure is not an uncommon ele-
powerfully convey the sense of a place, its ment of inclusion in architectural media but
ambiance, that is difficult to represent. it is certainly underutilized. It has been used
in a variety of ways and has always played
an important role in the development of
design ideas. Its inclusion seems to figure
5. Innovation and Empathy largely in all “representative” forms of me-
dia and is implicitly important in the prac-
Through adaptation, augmentation, and tice of design/build through the designer-
innovative use, any medium can be made builder’s own physical presence on site. The
more engaging and therefore conducive to variety of employment of the human figure
design in terms of place. extends from their use as indicators of di-
mension and depth, akin to a ruler, to aid in
Also important necessary to adapt and/or getting a sense of inhabitation.(21) For those
otherwise work with a media in personal surveyed the human figure acts as a sort of
ways in order to enhance their conceptu- empathetic “ambassador” who participates
alization of place. Common to all of these in the space of the drawing or model for the
idiosyncratic strategies is an attempt to en- designer. By drawing, building, or rendering
gender a feeling of inhabitation and thereby these human figures, which are thought to
design according to that heightened sense. “illustrate the effect of architecture in every-
(18) Phrases such as “feeling through the day life,” the designer gets a more complete
media,” “living in the drawing,” going “into sense of the possible lived inhabitation.(22)
the spaces in my drawings,” and “being able
to understand the building as if I were there,
and “running simulations in my mind about
the place, about how it would be used” are 5b Recognizable and Mean-
all examples of what these strategies were
aimed at achieving. ingful Phenomena
Edward Relph’s notion of “empathetic in- The second of these strategies is the utiliza-
sideness” is helpful here.(19) It refers to the tion of familiar or recognizable phenomena
sense of taking in a place in such a way as in the designers medium of choice. The de-
you understand it both as an inhabitant and pictions of objects, such as a familiar piece
33
Drawing out Experience; Between Media & Place
of furniture or artwork can act in a similar concepts could be dealt with through that
fashion to figures by both communicating a medium more effectively than with others.
sense of scale and allowing the designer to
insert themselves into the depicted environ- One respondent suggested that the effec-
ment. tiveness was accomplished because place
concepts involve an inherent experiential
aspect that is often not conveyed through
overly determinate media. This is a senti-
5c Realism and Materiality ment echoed by many theorists on media.
Alberto Perez-Gomez, Kimberly Dovey, and
Realistic depiction also accomplished Susanne Langer have each unequivocally
a sense of immersion within the designed stated that the senses of place requires a sort
place. Here, however, through the inclusion of imaginative freedom – one that is as open
of realistic and phenomenally rich materials as poetry is to suggest more than is directly
and objects the designer is somewhat more stated.(23) Their specific example is the use
free to deal with the represented thing and of drawings based on descriptive geometry.
not the representation itself. Thus, the focus For them, such media describes what they
is on a minimizing of distortion which en- depict in an overly definite and mechani-
ables a more unencumbered presentation cal manner, which would be akin to reading
of an environments materiality and phe- poetry only as so many words. Both these
nomenal presence. By not distracting the theorists and my respondents suggest that
designer through an overly “graphical” im- the multivalency and complexity of place
age, the promise of empathetic insideness is concepts require a medium capable of two
achieved through transparency. things: One, being open enough to allow
exploration, and two, being ambiguously
structured enough to present place con-
cepts in their incompleteness. Goldschmidt
6. Freedom and Ambiguity has shown that sketching makes possible to
the open-structured dialectical process of
Media and styles of mediation that are felt design.(24)
to be more openly structured and which fos-
ter ambiguity in their communicative inter- Design Processes which were similarly
action with the designer are important to a “definite” and overly structured were dis-
place-focused design process. cussed as impediments to the conceptual-
ization of place. In one particularly powerful
The character or quality in a medium also example, a respondent told of an important
enhanced the place-focused process – that step in his own method. When asked about
feeling being one of openness and freedom. any specific processes he felt were condu-
By freedom they referred to the sense that a cive to place he responded:
medium allows a great deal of idea explo-
ration. “The situation that is conducive to If I were to break it up.... when I visit the
place-making is freedom to draw a lot, and site I do it alone. I ask not to be disturbed
to use a lot of trace,” was one respondent’s . And when it is possible, I do this without
way of summing up the issue. For another, it knowledge of the program and the issues I
was a freedom that comes from inexactness, am being asked to solve... It is good because
“wherein I can feel free to make mistakes.” A I am able to analyze the site without the spe-
few others felt that if a media could generate cifics of the problem influencing me...In this
a sense of ambiguity and openness, place way I get to know what the influences that
34
Vincent Canizaro
exist on the site are without the constraints Finally, the relationship rests on interpreta-
of a program being brought to it. When one tion. In this, it rests with the abilities of the
does look at a site without a program many architectural designer at work on a design.
possibilities present themselves that would The tools, or “implicit media” they bring
not with a program in hand. with them in the form of remembered plac-
es, intentions, and skills therefore matter the
most in the end. If we logically work back
up through the text, we will find that first off
7. Conclusion we need the architect to be interested in the
conceptualization of place and concerned
The relationship between the phenomenon with the inhabited aspect of buildings. Next,
of place and architectural design media is one who is unconstrained in the use of a
based primarily upon the achievement of medium and has the skill to “see” or “feel”
a particular mode of engagement; one in through it. Lastly, one capable of interpret-
which the designer is able to get beyond the ing place imagery, through written and vi-
sense of working through simulations and sual clues, and the other sensory stimuli that
come as close as possible to having a direct make it possible.
experience. This type of engagement is fa-
cilitated in four interrelated ways. The first is Distilling all of the findings down to their
through the involvement of body’s sensory essence yields three distinctly salient and
input, thus getting beyond a sole depen- informative points about the relationship
dence on the visual system for the assess- between media and place. They are:
ment of a design. The second is through the
forging of a connection between the design- 1. The phenomenon of place is not directly
er and the physicality of a proposed place. represented by design media, it is therefore
This can occur through a connection to the dealt with indirectly in architectural design.
actual site of a design, through the convey- Thus, the relationship between media and
ance of imagery that corresponds to physi- place is indirect.
cal reality, through imagery that evokes an
2. Design media, despite the individual dif-
embodied view, or through the approxima-
ferences in effectiveness, are as a whole am-
tion of physical form. The third is through
biguous in favoring the conceptualization of
any aspect of mediation that affords a sense
place. Thus, the relationship between media
of the spatiality and/or physical movement
and place is variable.
that might occur in the designed place. The
fourth is through an aspect of mediation 3. Key to the conceptualization of place in
which presents no impediments to any of architectural design is gaining a sense of in-
the above aspects. It is characterized by the habitation of the emerging work. Thus, the
promotion of possible ideas, the exploration relationship between media and place is de-
of those ideas, and a general sense of open- fined by empathetic insideness.
ness to broad and multiple forms of know-
ing.
35
Drawing out Experience; Between Media & Place
two.”
Endnotes
7. Walter Ong, “Writing is a Technology that
Please note that for brevity I have not cited
Restructures Thought,” in The Written Word:
the many references made by and about re-
Literacy in Transition, Wolfson College Lec-
spondents. They remain in my files.
tures 1985, Gerd Baumann ed. (Oxford:
1. One of those interviewed for this work Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 32.
considered this point to be so obvious that
8. I borrow this phrase from Kathryn Hen-
it would be ridiculous to discuss it in the
derson in her On Line and On Paper: Visual
course of our interview.
Representations, Visual Culture, and Com-
2. F. Downing’s “referents.” puter Graphics in Design Engineering (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 167. Her
3. Frances Downing has made this claim in implication is the same as mine, that both
a number of places. See note above for ref- are inadequate for the task at hand. For the
erences. Also. Marc Trieb in his “Place De- task at hand each provides a patch for the
scription: Written; Rendered,” in the Journal other.
of Architectural Education 36, No. 1 (Fall,
1982): 2., he discusses how memories of 9. Bruno Latour similarly speaks of a “the
places condition how a designer under- cascade of images.” In his “Visualization
stands what is in front of them, whether it is and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and
a drawing or real place. Hands,” Knowledge and Society: Studies
in the Sociology of Culture Past and Pres-
4. A similar point is made by Dodds and ent 6 (JAI Press, 1986): 1-40., he argues that
Frascari, “Miming a Manner of Building, pp. political and economic power are manifest
396-401. They show how physical experi- through the use of images that influence
ence can be translated into drawing through through multiplication. Images allow one
an analysis of the work of Carlo Scarpa and to see something, and the multiplication of
Valeriano Pastor. those images should therefore allow one to
see more. An extension of Latour’s ideas is
5. Paul Laseau in his Graphic Thinking for discussed in Henderson, On Line and On
Architects and Designers (New York, Van Paper, p. 74.
Nostrand Reinhold, 1993); William D. Coo-
per’s “Drawing, Touching and Moving,” 10. James Corner makes a similar point.
Journal of Architectural Education 35, No. “Ideational immersivity” and “synaesthetic
3 (Spring, 1982): 9-13;.and this point serves imaging” are multiple media which “com-
as the impetus for Norman Crowe and Paul municate a different sense allowing the
Laseau’s Visual Notes for Architects and De- designer to attain “ideational immersivity.”
signers (New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, “Operational Eidetics: Forging New Land-
1984). scapes” in Harvard Design Magazine, Fall
(1998), p. 26.
6. Richard B. Oliver, “Talk,” in Akin, Omar
and E. Wienel, eds., Representation and Ar- 11. David Leatherbarrow, “Showing What
chitecture. (Silver Spring, MD: Information Otherwise Hides Itself: On Architectural
Dynamics, 1982), p. 220. States that: “there Representation,” Harvard Design Magazine
remains a necessary relation between what (Fall, 1998): 50-55.
one intends to build and how one expresses
that in a drawing. There is an intimate and 12. Leatherbarrow, “Showing What Other-
quite functional relationship between the wise Hides Itself,” p. 55.
36
Vincent Canizaro
37
Ambience Formers in Built Environment:
An Experimentation with Sound and Motion
Grégoire Chelkoff
CRESSON, Ecole Nationale Supérieure D’Architecture de
Grenoble.
The visual dimension of space tends to urban ambiences, we aim to articulate both
erase other sensory dimensions (like sound physical dimensions (construction and en-
for example) in our culture of design al- vironment) and the human one (sensitivity,
though they are so important in everyday practice, cultures).
life. To make more operative all the senses
that architecture involves, our researches Many works have shown how architectural
and experimentations investigate sensory spaces and social uses interact, but the role
approaches of urban ambience in a phenom- of ambient factors is not really taken into ac-
enal and ecological direction. This direction count, and it is often through the category of
of research get back to the experience of ob- judgment (pleasant, unpleasant, bad, good,
jects and spaces in usual conditions. etc.). Our approach does not aim at showing
the effects of environment on judgments or
In this paper, after a short “flashback” about behaviours. In order to inflect our projectual
our laboratory, I will show an experimental thinking, we try to understand the modali-
research, which have particularly explored ties by which the reciprocity between man
the relationships between sound and mo- and environment is experienced in different
tion. architectural situations.
38
Grégoire Chelkoff
39
Ambience Formers in Built Environment:
what is rather static in architecture (material, make the hearer’s immediate sonic milieu
permanence of space) to what is dynamic drift. This scale of design induces working
(sounds, light, motion) when we use a space on the proximity of walls and on the mini-
or an object. For example an « angle » is a mal movements implying modifications in
geometrical concept, a morphological ele- the relationship to the ambient milieu and
ment : but how can it be felt through sound others. It incites us to imagine what one may
or through gesture ? What makes it « ac- do with one’s sonic environment, or more
tive » in our sensory experience and what globally, with one’s ambience. Some of our
kind of use it could inflect ? The notion of researches - in housing, working places or
former invites us to question what it means public spaces, and especially around trans-
to think, in a sensitive way, for example, a portation system- had shown us that inhab-
door, a corridor, a passage, and a courtyard itants are not only passive, they create theirs
? Of course this kind of question deals with own environment to improve the listening
all sensitive potentials and the categories of of others, direct vocal communication or
space. simply remain waiting, sitting or standing.
That is why I explore a kinetic approach in
This way of thinking could modify the cog- public spaces and study how forms offer op-
nitive design attitude in a multisensory way portunities of uses relating to atmospheres.
integrating the opportunities of action that It is in order to test spatial compounds and
are suggested. So a new way of research potential of uses that we have build models
have been improved to test sensory inten- at the scale of the moving an earring human
tions in design and to evaluate an architec- body.
tural device. After several works which aim
to highlight the sensory characteristics of
different urban structures, it was necessary
to study to a micro morphology scale, that is 4. A Kinetic Approach
to say to the scale of body motion and per-
ception. These experiments can participate Space and sound are linked by motion.
to the development of a “sensitive ecology” In the ordinary uses of space, we talk and
of architectural devices. hear in motion. Moving uses are, for a few
of them, linked to their sonic environment.
Sometimes, it is intentional : we move to
improve the listening of something, or we
3. An Experimental Approach: move to talk to somebody. This evidence
strongly influences our reflection about the
the Body Scale of Design sonic design of space. That’s why, we have
In this perspective, we are interested in to take into account the dynamic relations
working at the space scale of those ambi- which couple listening and acting in ordi-
ent architectural compounds that involve a nary uses. These uses are based on the skills
direct interaction with the human body. We of each inhabitant to act in different sonic
think of ordinary urban objects such as doors, situations. This active dimension is quite
places to sit or to wait, shelters. Around important to design spaces with sonic in-
such minimal spaces, a whole array of mov- tentions. It is to be preferred to the passive
ing modalities linked to the use of voice and conception of hearing in the sonic environ-
hear are identified : bypassing, sitting or ment, which is usually considered in order
leaning modalities going through, crossing to understand how it is appreciated or how
a sonic area, rotating. This array of actions, it is “identified”.
which come close to, the will of movement
40
Grégoire Chelkoff
41
Ambience Formers in Built Environment:

42
Grégoire Chelkoff
they felt the holes, the apertures in the ele- limit where sound increases.
ment thanks to the sound when they passed
in front of them.
44
Grégoire Chelkoff
A corner offers another form of inclusion in The emptyness between surface is to eval-
the room, the body is settled in this corner uate with the body if one can pass through
to speak on the phone. the empty space (affordance of passability)
and if one can feel the thickness of the wall
This man stays inside the passage be-
tween the sides of the wall during all the It can transform the sound which is audible
phone conversation, the head is orientated when one approach to the void : when the
perpendicularly to the sides void is a little one, as we know, only high
frequency are deviated but it is an important
All these attitudes show diversity but also part of information
the kind of observation we can do to under-
stand how this “micro architecture” affords Porosity in light and sonic environment are
places to hear or to talk and how its sensi- interesting to filtrate events, ot make them
tive structure is revealed. less present.
45
Ambience Formers in Built Environment:
References
AUGOYARD J. F & TORGUE H. (Eds., Ou-
vrage collectif CRESSON), A l’écoute de
l’environnement - Répertoire des effets so-
nores, Marseille, Parenthèses, 1995. (traduit
en anglais : Sonic experience : a guide to
everyday sound, à paraître)
46
Sensible Forms
Andrew Conio
Department of Fine Arts, University of Wolverhampton
47
Andrew Conio
ground of the new age of Empire. What is this ‘I’ or mind thinks of itself as separate
so profoundly significant about the modern from the sensations or phenomena of the
world’s conception of a subject arrogantly world, but of course is made up of exactly
standing dominant over all that ‘he’ surveys, that same materials as the world. At what
is the planetary climatic calamity soon to point does ‘thinking about’ become the
overwhelm us. same as the thing that is thought about?!
Until they are identical, thought is always
Husserl was the founding figure of a phe- at some remove from the world, and its
nomenology that in essence can be under- own flesh.
stood as giving foundational status to the
consciousness of the subject. In his late 3. Additionally, we cannot know the
work he moved away from his concern whole as we cannot see beyond the lim-
with a ‘transcendental ego’ and sought to ited horizon of knowledge.
resolve the problem of Descartes cogito
and the division of the world into knowing 5. A ‘self’ cannot stand inside and out-
subject and perceived world. Husserl starts side of its own thought at the same time.
by asserting that the world as matter needs
to be bracketed out as unknowable to man 6 And, each time the self develops a
and consciousness. The famous reduction. conceptualisation of itself this notion is
The bracketed world of brute matter is al- disabused by the fallacies of its own sens-
ways irredeemable an outside of thought es.
and therefore remains outside of the scope
7. And, finally, there is always more to
of consciousness. However, in his famous
an object than its definable properties.
call to ‘things themselves’, Husserl posited
You cannot overcome the ‘thingness’ of
that the world can be understood in terms
the world.
of its appearance as phenomenon to man,
can be studied to provide insights into the
structures of consciousness and the inter-
mingling of subject and object which was Various dimensions and derivations of
lost in all dualistic philosophies. However, these misrecognitions and irreconcilabili-
Husserl’s phenomenology retained a im- ties provide the loam for the theories of der-
plausible theorisation of the presence of a acination and deferral of Heidegger, Lacan,
subject who stood apart from this intermin- Blanchot, and Derrida. Whereas Heidegger
gling, a subject of pure presence to itself, may mourn the loss of a primordial open-
able to be both subject and object. This is ness to being, at least Lacan enjoins us to
the incipient modern humanist subject. enjoy our oscillations between real, imagi-
nary and symbolic orders,
Whether theorised by Descartes or Husserl
this self-knowing subject is a deeply prob- We turn now to Merleau Ponty and what
lematic notion. makes Merleau Ponty such an interesting
figure is his attempt to resolve these prob-
1. The first question is how did this ‘per- lems with a degree of sophistication that is
son’ or mind arise, could we conceive of able grasp hold of intangibles, give form to
a starting point which is ahistorical (only paradoxes and retain a sense of the open
perhaps in the manner of Blanchot) This is and the tangential. Beguilingly Merleau
a mind that uses sensory faculties in order Ponty says:
to have a view of the world!
‘there is no inner man, man is in the world,
2. The very obvious problem is that
48
Sensible Forms
and only in the world does he know him- all; to overcome the various doubles; em-
self’. pirical/transcendental, thought/unthought,
flesh/thought.
It is useful to look in detail at one particular
point to find a constitutative moment upon In sum; the example of seeing as Lux and
which an argument can turn [1]. Merleau Lumen is a way of understanding Merleau
Ponty makes a distinction between Lux and Ponty’s (and Bergson’s claim) that perception
Lumin. Lux is light. Only the most tra- is active. But much more importantly is his
duced and impoverished accounts of vi- more general proposition that the structural
sion see seeing as merely the reception of dimension of perception is an aspect of the
light hitting the back of the retina and being perceived, seeing is integral to the world it-
translated by the mind into images. This is a self.
realist epistemology of the ‘outside specta-
tor’ somehow seeing what has already been The content of the thing, and the structure
seen through structures that are wholly inde- of seeing exist in the same continuum – they
pendent of his constitutive powers’ [2][3]. are part of the same order of signification.
A continuum, which he called natural per-
Lux implies a world that is always ‘already ception. The idea of a presubjective natural
there’ before reflection beings - as an in- perception provides much of the attraction
alienable presence endowed with the sta- of phenomenology to the unreconstructed
tus of the empirically ‘known’ or knowable: ‘romantic’ school of art criticism in search
somehow ‘out there’ somehow facing the of a being-in-the-world, which somehow in
human being. Merleau Ponty explicitly crit- greater accord with our natural faculties and
icised this approach ’to return to things in natures.
themselves is to return to that world which
precedes knowledge.[4] Something that is directly relevant to the
theme of this conference; Merleau Ponty’s
As well as lux we can look at lumin. ADD work amounted to a critique of representa-
DETAIL Perception is not something that tion, because the natural order is a primor-
happens once information is received but is dial order of signification. Prior to empirical
actually integral to seeing. Seeing involves and rational ways of signifying and compre-
distance, space, air and geometry. As the hending the world is a repository of ‘an-ex-
eye is physically structured as part of the act’, “sub-representational” knowledge.
world (there is an horizon to see because we
can see, there is figure and ground because Contrary to the most common and worst
figure and ground precedes vision it) is ac- appropriations of Phenomenology this per-
tually impossible to see without perception pectivalist dimension of all seeing does not
and therefore the divisions of the gaze are lead to solipsism. Instead the ‘thing’ (the
integral to seeing. thing that contains the perspective) creates
a shared perception. Perceptual experience
Also, it is a staple of phenomenology that founds a shared physical nature, an ecstatic
seeing is not distinct from other senses, the intersubjective decentring of the subject.
human is naturally synaesthetic.[5] Senses
of smell and sight, hearing and touching are Being imbued in the life world the subject is
only arbitrarily distinctive. able to conceive of itself as part of something
larger than itself, a ‘coexistence of which ‘I’
The phenomenologist famously attempts to is not the unique constituent’. Therein lies
understand the rules or structures of thought the root of Merleau Ponty’s Marxism.
according to which thought is possible at
49
Andrew Conio
50
Sensible Forms
of capital is that Capital cauterises us, we are ‘Percepts are no longer perceptions; they
subjugated by the repression of our natural are independent of a state of those who ex-
desire to affect and be affected, the power of perience them. Affects are no longer feelings
affect is the power to be deluged in the great or affections; they go beyond the strength of
wash of mankind and life. those who undergo them. Sensations, per-
cepts, and affects are beings whose validity
lies in themselves{ and exceeds any lived.
They could be said to exist in the absence of
man because man, as he is caught in stone,
3. Percepts on the canvas, or by words, is himself a
compound of percepts and affects.
In the same way as affects need to be dis-
tinguished from affections, percepts should Out of these affects and percepts are formed
be differentiated from perceptions. We have sensations and artworks are composites of
already established that the eye has to per- affects and percepts formed into blocs of
ceive in order to see. Deleuze removes per- sensation. This is the logic of sense.
ception from the intentionality of the sub-
ject as it is not dependent upon an interior In this radical revision of the phenomeno-
subjective vision. logical order of things Deleuze displaces the
subject into the world which is why, whilst
Percepts are the abstract forms through we earlier found that flesh was one of the
which the world is understood, the dimen- most productive of Merleau Ponty’s terms,
sions of relationships between different mo- for Deleuze it is a fundamental misconcep-
dalities of thought and experience. A per- tion.
cept is the making perceptible the forces
that populate the world. Percepts need to Deleuze refuses to yield to the lure of a ‘nat-
be understood first and foremost as ‘inde- ural perception’ embodied and entwined in
pendent of the state of those who undergo an expansive flesh of the world. The lived
them[10]. body is a paltry thing in comparison with
a more profound and almost unliveable
When Cézanne paints hillsides, he is mak- power[13] of life . The massive, ubiquitous
ing perceptible the forces of nature in land- multidimensional charge of life itself can be
scape, when Bacon wrestles blood and sin- discovered only going beyond the organism
ew from paint he is making perceptible the and open to the world itself.
becoming-animal of man. When we think
that we perceive a landscape and horizon, When Deleuze talks of new subjectivities
depth and distance, figure and ground, and autopoiesis it is not only the subject but
these percepts do not belong to us but pre- also the autopoiesis of world, of banks, cor-
cedes us, they are impersonal perceptions poration, games, medias, cinema, airlines,
into which we are thrown.[11] cultures, electronics: the autopoiesis of the
machine.
ings and passages. Filters and most impor- work was, I contend, a significant step for-
tantly thresholds. ward from Husserl’s residual Descartian ves-
tiges of a transcendental subject. However,
Phenomenology does ultimately reinforce,
in deed enhance a notion of the intentional
5. Summary subject because it’s subtly, indecidability,
and porousness lends to that subject the
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari theorise forces of the world thus greatly expanding
a subject that has an ‘exo-subjectivity’ that the subjects domain over the world [16].
is transindividual or transversal in place of
phenomenological and psychoanalytical ‘a world forms itself around me and begins
[15] accounts (that, as much as they might to exist for me’ [17]
displace the consciousness into life and
world) it is still to be found in the normalcy Codicil. Deleuze provides an account of
of natural perception. individuation, because we are affective cen-
tres of experience, but humans are only one
Both Merleau Ponty and Deleuze cast of things that are individuated. Deleuze
aside all the divisions, the bipolar opposites says, what we are interest in ‘are modes of
between subject and object, self and other, individuation beyond those of things, per-
human inhuman, man and nature. But sons, or subjects; the individuation of a time
the phenomenological subject grasps these of day, a region, a climate, a river, or a wind,
fluctuations out of the air and clings to them of an event [18]. Divested of the habits and
shouting ‘this is me’ they re me’, giving itself seductions of subjectification the individual
a propriety identity in an attempt to make is able to give up the arrogance of thinking
itself the Centre of it’s world. the world is an object in order to enter into
the rhythms and flow of life, undifferentiated
For Deleuze, the organism is not what sus- instantiations of life and living.
tains life but what imprisons it. Subjectifi-
cation stops the subject from diving into the Finally, I believe if you restore life to life,
great wash of mankind and it causes block- we might just have a chance of no longer
ages and impoverishment to this flow. The being unworthy of nature [19] and seek to
subject has to be evacuated, deterritorialised end the destruction of the planet and all
and that which is claimed as its own, reterri- species including Mankind.
torialised into the fabric of the world. Think
instead of life in terms of ubiquitous mum- ‘Phenomenology grounds itself on the nor-
mers or swarms, multiplies of multiplicities, malcy of natural perception; it gives natural
unbridled intensities. Of de-and re-territo- perception a privilege which makes move-
rialisation. Twisting, writhing, infinite and ment relative to ‘poses’. Bergson’s signifi-
dammadbly finite. Instead of a clamour for cance, on the other hand, for Deleuze, lies
onanistic being or clearing might we instead precisely in his refusal to yield to the lure
conceive of a thousand folds or a Thousand of natural perception. According to him,
Plateaux. the starting point is a world of continuously
changing movement-images – a world of
This conference asked speakers to address matter in constant flux, with no anchorage
the multimodal forms of representation in or assignable points of reference. In the
an urban sensorium. I have selected those case of phenomenology, natural perception
philosophers that deal most directly with and movement imply the notion of the sub-
the question of sensation. Merleau Ponty’s ject. In the case of Bergson, movement is
not subordinate to a subject which performs
52
Sensible Forms
it or undergoes it. Where light diffuses it- 8 Clair Colebrook. Gilles Deleuze. Rout-
self with a minimum of resistance or loss, ledge Critical thinkers. London. 2002.
the eye is inside things. The lines of (f)light pg 38/9
do not yet appear to anybody, because (f)
light has not yet been arrested or refracted. 9 Bogue, Ronald. Deleuze on Music
We are dealing here with a ‘pre-human’ or painting and the Arts. Pg 164.
‘inhuman’ world having a privilege over the
human-all-to-human world of phenomenol- 10 Deleuze Gilles. What Is Philosophy pg
ogy, where consciousness is the search light 154; 164)
summoning up things from their native ob-
11 ‘this virtual colour imposes my vision
scurity. For Deleuze-Bergson, things are lu-
on me as a continuation of its own sover-
minous with nothing but themselves to light
eign existence
them. It is consciousness that constitutes the
opaque blade without which light would go 12
on to diffuse itself forever’.[20]
13 Deleuze Gilles, Francis Bacon. Pg 32
14 Deleuze
End Notes 15
1 This discussion of lux and lumin follows 16 ‘I am the absolute sourse, my existence
Martin Jay’s line of thought In Downcast does not stem from my antecedents, from
Eyes: the denigration of vision in Twenti- my physical and social environment; in-
eth-Century Thought. University of Cali- stead it moves out towards them and
fornia press 1994 sustains them, for I alone bring into be-
ing for myself (and therefore into being in
2 the only sense that the word can have for
me) the tradition which I elect to carry on,
3
or the horizon whose distance from me
4 Merleau Ponty, Maurice. (1962) Phe- would be abolished - since that distance
nomenology of Perception. Routledge is not one of its properties - if I were not
Kegan Paul. London and Henley. pg ix there to scan it with my gaze.”
5 There is no such thing as sight not inter- 17 Merleau Ponty, Maruarce. (1962)
grated with the real. The real is distance, Phenomenologyof Perception. Routledge
space, air, atmosphere, geomentry. Sight, Kegan Paul. London and Henley. pg ix
in other words has to be intergrated with
18 Deleuze Gilles Negociations pg 26
the other senses in order for us to ‘make
sense’ of our experience of the world. 19 St PIERRE Elizabeth, Adams. Deleu-
zian concepts for Education: the subject
6
Undone. Educational Philosophy and
7 This line of argument is more fully Theory: Deleuze and Education. Vol 36
worked out in Steven Zepke’s Art and No 3. July 2004. Blackwell Publishing.
Abstract machine: Ontology and Aesthet- P 291
ics in Deleuze and Guattari. Routledge
20 Constantin V. Boundas. Deleuze-Berg-
2006
son: an Ontology of the Virtual. Deleuze:
53
Andrew Conio
Biography
Andrew Conio is Senior Lecturer in Fine
Art at the University of Wolverhampton and
a PhD student at Wimbledon College of Art.
He has exhibited art works and films in Lon-
don galleries and recently published work
in the New Internationaller magazine. The
film created together with Judy Price, Refin-
ing Memory, was premiered at the Museum
of London in 2005 and subsequently shown
at a number of locations around London
including the Whitechapel Gallery, Curzon
Soho and London’s City Hall. It was select-
ed as a critics’ choice by London’s Time Out
magazine.
54
Approaching Urban Space Through Drawing:
the garden and the neighbourhood
Helena Elias & Maria Constança Vasconcelos
CICANT, Lusófona University, Lisbon
(Centro de Investigação em Comunicação Aplicada, Cultura
e Novas Tecnologias – Centre for Investigation in Applied
Communication, Culture and New Technologies), Lusófona
University
1. Abstract theorized and experienced space in differ-
ent ways and some the fruition of the ur-
Encouraged to reflect on art education ban space in quite revolutionary views. This
programmes, particularly drawing for de- means to incite students to go beyond just
signers, we tried to develop methodologies technical responses to design considering
and strategies that enhance the potential of the importance of conceptual frameworks.
drawing for the needs of future designers. By contacting directly through drawing with
Through reflexive practice this paper deals concrete places, students achieve not only
with the approach taken for the 3th year of a richer understanding of places and ambi-
drawing related to space and its relation- ences, but also reveal to be more prepared
ship with man and human activities. Using for innovative interventions.
project work methodology we argue that
drawing can enlarge its capacity as a tool Key words: reflective practice; drawing in
for creativity, thinking, research, problem the “expanded field”; sensorial experience,
solving and self-expression. Using students’ creativity; place identity
examples, we will describe two projects (a
garden and a neighbourhood in Lisbon) in
which, contents of drawing were integrated.
The metaphor “escape and permanence” 2. Introduction
(two sensorial attitudes to space) to illus-
trate garden paths, works as a catalyst for Facing great changes in society related to
the project of the garden. The incorpora- the new technologies and globalization,
tion of abstract ideas from other fields, ex- the Bologna process argues that education
ercises creative thinking, enhances senso- should move to a paradigm shift that stresses
rial awareness and encourages students to long life learning skills instead of acquisi-
see things from different perspectives. The tion of traditional knowledge. According to
project of the neighbourhood begins by ex- Norman (2001) the paradigm shift needed
ploring through drawing qualities and the includes transformations in the educational
character of the site. The second part deals process that range from: Instruction to con-
with a reinterpretation of concepts from ar- struction (the reinforcing of making and do-
tistic practices that reflected urban experi- ing in a way related to personal interests and
ence. Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Futur- needs that make the learning experience
ism, Situationism were chosen since they memorable); from linear to hypermedia;
55
Helena Elias & Maria Constança Vasconcelos
from teacher centered to learning centered judgment, drawing can contribute to visual
(empowering students to take responsibil- intelligence and perceptual awareness. It is
ity of their learning process and outcomes); also portrayed as a powerful instrument of
from absorbing material to learning to learn; creativity helping to stimulate the right side
from teachers as transmitters to teachers as of the brain (perceptive, non verbal, intui-
facilitators; from learning to school to learn- tive, interpretive) essential to creativity and
ing for life (involving skills needed to relearn working in pair with the left side (verbal, lin-
continuously). ear, sequential, logical). Garner (1989) con-
cludes based on case studies that drawing
Design occupies a very specific position appears to facilitate creativity in the most
in art education because it is an area that fundamental sense since it develops capaci-
uses different modes of reasoning such as ties associated to imagination, intuition, vi-
rational, scientific, creative and subjective. sual and spatial thinking. It is much accept-
Combining functional and beautiful, de- ed that it is especially during the phases of
signers work for people producing objects, sketching that drawing has a central role in
images and systems that should contribute creativity in design activities since “dense-
to quality of life. When talking of designer ness” and “ambiguity” of freehand sketches
skills needed nowadays, aspects such as cre- allow multiple interpretations and identifi-
ativity and innovation, intellectual and cre- cation of problems stimulating new design
ative flexibility, constant relearning, critical alternatives. According to Do and Gross
awareness and capacity of working in teams (1996) through the act of drawing and look-
are enhanced. With these ideas in mind we ing designers find visual analogies, remem-
were encouraged to reflect on art education ber relevant examples, discover new shapes
programmes, especially drawing for design- in previously unrecognized geometric con-
ers, trying to articulate needs of future de- figurations in their sketches. Drawing as a
signers with the potential of drawing. tool for thinking, exploration of ideas and
manipulation of information has an impor-
tant role in the comprehension of ill defined
problems (Garner 1989). Problems emerge
3. The role and contributions in pair with solutions in the design process
through drawing (Lawson 1990).
of drawing
There are in literature many references
and reflections about the importance of
drawing in education through the develop- 4. Drawing, sensorial aware-
ment of fundamental skills. Aspects related ness and application in pro-
to the improvement of visual intelligence
and literacy, to creativity, drawing as a tool grammes
for thinking and problem solving, draw-
ing as a mean of self-expression and com- Drawing is an activity requiring a multi-
munication are commonly referred. Being sensorial approach independently of the
an effective way of learning to see by the kind of drawing produced or even presented
enhancement of perception, drawing has as a process. Although the result of a draw-
always been considered an important tool ing comes to be, in most cases, expressed
to better understand the world and giving visually, justifying the great dependence on
it a personal meaning. Through the promo- sight, several authors have claimed that not
tion of capacities of observation, analysis, only other sensorial dimensions are involved
selection, comprehension, memory and in the act of drawing but that sight is not suf-
56
Approaching Urban Space Through Drawing:
58
Approaching Urban Space Through Drawing:
59
Helena Elias & Maria Constança Vasconcelos
61
Helena Elias & Maria Constança Vasconcelos
through a reflexive attitude represents new As future problem solvers students need to
possible approaches to innovative propos- develop creative self expression, visual and
als. This means to incite students to go be- sensorial intelligence to avoid a “design by
yond just technical responses to design guidelines culture” centered on functional-
and consider the importance of conceptual ity, but also feel that approaches taken must
frameworks in their work. be rooted conceptually and not arbitrarily.
By contacting directly with existing places
In both exercises (garden and neighbour- and atmospheres, students achieve not only
hood) they used conventional drawing tech- a richer understanding of places and ambi-
niques (sketching, life-drawing) and mixed ence but also reveal to be more prepared for
media (collage, analogical and digital draw- innovative interventions.
ing, printing, painting, and 3D modeling).
References
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hard Richter, Atlas the Reader. London:
Whitechapel
EDWARDS, B. (1970) Drawing on the Art- SPEED, H. (2004) (1913) The Practice and
ist Within: How to release Your Hidden Cre- Science Of Drawing, http://www.gutenberg.
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berg E-book: December 6, 2004 [E-Book
GARNER, S. W. (1989) Drawing and Design- #14264]
ing: Exploration and Manipulation Through
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pp 43-50 lines of contemporary art. London: I.B. Tau-
ris & CO Ltd.
GOLDSMITH, G. (1992) The Dialectics of
sketching. In Design Studies Vol 4 pp123- VASCONCELOS, M & ELIAS, H. (2006) O
143 Campo Expandido do Desenho e Suas Práti-
cas Criativas. In Caleidoscópio, pp 67-80.
KOVATS, T. (2005) The Drawing Book, a sur- Lisboa: Universidade Lusófona
vey of drawing: the primary means of ex-
pression. London: Black Dog Publishing VASCONCELOS, M & ELIAS, H. (2007)
Questioning Drawing for Designers. In
KRAUSS, R. (1979) Sculpture in the Expand- Wonderground, Design Research Society,
ed Field. In October, Spring 1979, 8, pp 30- International Conference, 2006, Lisbon
44
WEEKS, R. (2004) Quest International: How
LAWSON, B (1990) (2nd ed) How Design- smells can enhance a place. In SENSORY
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Acknowledgements
Hugo (Fig 1); Joana Lemos (Fig 2); Sónia
Zacarias (Fig 3); João Machado (Fig 4); Ana
Silva, Joana Francisco and Joana Couto (Fig
5); Carla Dembo and Ana Pereira (Fig 6).
Biographies
Helena Elias & Maria Constança Vascon-
celos Lecturer at the Lusófona University,
Department of Sciences of Communication,
Arts and Technologies, Lisbon, teaching
drawing in design courses.
64
“Blacktop: A story of the washing of a schoolyard”
Suzanne Ewing
University of Edinburgh
Of course a second preoccupation of the the 4th in a series Bach called ‘Claview
Eameses work was communication, and en- Ubung’ (keyboard practice). The inscription
gagement with the newly emerging US con- of a frontispiece says “ composed for con-
sumer. Kirkham has pointed out that much noisseurs, for the refreshment of their spir-
of their wider film output was in the genre of its” (wikipedia). The form of the 30 Varia-
sponsored films (IBM, Herman Miller, West- tions is:
inghouse, ABC, Boeing, Polaroid), - Black-
top is an exception- and that Charles and Aria (statement) 2 sections of 16 bars,
Ray Eames’ work as communicators and each repeated
educators was of equal importance to their
design and architecture. “Indeed it was their Variations following bass line (fundamen-
desire to transmit to others their passion for tal bass)
ideas and objects that led them into film,
Canon (following ascending pattern)
multi-media presentations and exhibition
design.” (Kirkham p3) Genre piece (baroque dance, fughetta,
French overture, ornate aria)
Over their working partnership of 40 years,
they made 80 films and amassed 750,000 Arabesque
images, mostly slides, now held in the Li-
brary of Congress, as part of the Eames Of- Quodlibet (earthy folk songs ‘animated
fice. In wider context, in the 1950s in the US rustic feel’)
television was expanding, and movie cam-
eras becoming available. The Eameses being Aria da capo e fine
in LA also had contact with studios and the
movie industry. Genres such as sponsored
films were very popular- in 1959, 54000
were made in the US, while just 223 feature Variation 13 has been identified as ‘sub-
films were made. They wrote little about lime’, and an ‘emotional turning point’.
their work, and discouraged others to write
about them. Paul Schrader’s article “Poetry
of Ideas: The Films of Charles Eames” was Angela Hewitt (www.goldbergvariations.
a rare article published in their lifetime- in com) writes:
Film Quarterly in 1970; Neuhart + Neuhart
published a catalogue of their work 1941- “[ Its character and rhythm is] that of a
78 in collaboration with Ray Eames after dignified, stately sarabande, full of tender-
Charles’ death; Pat Kirkham’s “Charles and ness and poise. It is highly embellished in
Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Cen- the French tradition- meaning that the orna-
tury” (19 ) developed a fuller critique of their ments are an essential part of the melodic
work, also positioning a feminist critique, line, not optional extras…. Bach builds a
drawing out Ray’s more marginalised role. magnificent edifice that is beautifully pro-
Recently Beatriz Colomina has critically portioned and astonishingly varied.. There
looked at their work, the Case study house, is a strong visual component- thanks to the
and their multi media presentations. An spectacular hand-crossings- that makes it
Eames Film Festival ‘Design within Reach’ fascinating to the spectator…It is certainly
was held in the US in November 2006. one of the most therapeutic pieces of mu-
sic.”
Bach’s Goldberg Variations – for 2 manual
harpsichords, were published first in 1741, “Of all the films, Blacktop is the one most
66
“Blacktop: A story of the washing of a schoolyard”
orthodoxly in the mode of the short ‘art on the existing spaces and networks of a
film’. Its main appeal lies in the rare visual home, or destination city (an embankment
poetry of abstract patterns changing in time highway in the case of Paris-Plage).
to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The Eames
stated that their aim in making it was ‘to see The success of Paris-Plage, first held in
what happens when you put one variation 2002 on the right bank of the Seine, caught
over another, visual form over musical ones, the intersecting imaginations of European
and the result was quite extraordinary…” city dwellers and legislators enough for this
constructed displacement and suspension of
“to see ordinary things aftresh- to offer a ‘everyday’ urban rules to be repeated. Urban
new vision of an everyday object or event. beach ‘events’ (projects? theatres? parks?)
The Neuhart’s point out that ‘Blacktop was have been mimicked elsewhere in France-
a “live action-extension of the [still pho- Toulouse, Lyons, also along the Quai des
tographic] studies of the seashore Charles Péniches in Brussels, the Parco Sempione
made in his first years in California…to re- in Milan, in Budapest, Prague, Berlin, and
cord close ups of tide pools and the natural have been proposed for London.
textures of the water and the sand.” They had
an interest in how as well as what the eye These are (hetero) topoi of ‘sites of tempo-
saw, and in recording images. “You must be rary relaxation’ (Chaplin summarises Fou-
committed to the subject, to the discipline cault: “Heterotopias which have the power
of the concept involved, not to the medium. of juxtaposing in a single real place differ-
In the process you may make a good film.” ent spaces and locations that are incompat-
(An amateur using 16mm Cine-special cam- ible with each other. Foucault cited theatres,
era- adjusting parallax technically tricky). cinemas and gardens.
68
“Blacktop: A story of the washing of a schoolyard”
did what was expected of them, what had In the case of Paris-Plage and the spawned
been planned. urban beaches across mainly Northern Eu-
rope, this southern/ Mediterranean attrac-
They propose that by extension Paris Plage tion is evident.
is an actualisation of a new special city
where “every place would belong to ev-
eryone”. By erasing a critical aspect of the
reality of the developed twentieth century “Blacktop: A story of the
city -cars, expressway link, and critically the
feeling of being a constant consumer, they washing of a schoolyard”
argue that it is possible to overlay a new city
of some sort on the edited existing. Some thoughts about the relevance of the
film: (the Eameses would probably hate
In an interesting exploration of the unique any analysis, though musicians comments
character of Mediterranean cities, Henri would be interesting)
Lefebvre and Catherine Régulier draw atten-
tion to the lack of homogeneity of Mediter-
ranean shores, noting that they essentially
Time- temperature
have a primarily solar rhythm (as opposed to
lunar, tidal ones in oceanic situations) . “If Variations- refreshment
it is true that Mediterranean cities are solar
cities, one can expect a more intense urban Diversity water, cleansing (hot
life than in lunar cities, but also one richer climate setting)
in contrasts inside the city itself” They ques-
tion what is specific to M cities? “It seems to Heterogeneity collective civic agree-
us that in these, urban space, that is public ments- cleansing/edu
space, becomes the site of a vast scene-set- cation/work
ting…. Rituals, codes and relations become
visible and are acted out. A city where ‘ac-
tors and the public are the same in the mul-
tiplicity of their roles and relations’…a free- Watching this film (even without orchestral
dom that depends on “being free in the city score) does, I feel infer a sense of the above
outside the State” “The citizen resists the qualities: as well as experimenting with the
State by a particular use of time. A struggle notion of variations of form, it is a work of
therefore unfolds for appropriation in which physical and mental refreshment.
rhythms play a major role. Through them
social, therefore, civil, time seeks and man-
ages to shield itself from State, linear, uni- While not deviating from the literal docu-
rhythmical measured and measuring time. mentation and observation of soapy water
Thus the public space, space of represen- on the asphalt surface of a particular neigh-
tation, ‘spontaneously’ becomes place of bourhood schoolyard, it creates a sophisti-
promenades, encounters, intrigues, diplo- cated space for the material and narrative
macy, trade and negotiation, theatricalizing imagination. The attentiveness to the small
itself. Time is hence linked to space and to part seems to require an infilling of the qual-
the rhythms of the people who occupy this ities of the surrounding environment, the
space”. John Urry notes that ‘going south’ temperature of the air, of the water, the ma-
is associated with sensuality, decadence, terial qualities of surfaces and edges. What
glamour, contrasts with a ‘spiritual’ north. is absent is the sound of actual brushing,
69
Suzanne Ewing
swishing, slopping, buckets, body (bodies) London & New York, 2000: Routledge
working. It is certainly specifically sited in
time- the methods (brush and body labour Sarah Chaplin ‘Heterotopia Deserta: Las
to hoses and machines?) and surfaces may Vegas and other spaces’ Chapter 12 pp203-
have changed in 55 years (blacktop, paint 220
and mesh to soft rubber and plasticized
metal), and will of course have an impact M. Christine Boyer The city of collective
on the frequency and duration of the act of memory. The historical imagery and archi-
washing. 11 edited minutes of film footage tectural entertainments, Cambs., Mass.,
is surely a small proportion of the actual 1996: MIT Press
time it took to wash the schoolyard.
Joan Copjec, Michael Sorkin ed. Giving
The focus on the everyday – literally often Ground. The politics of propinquity, Lon-
overlooked- surface of the ground, and an don, 1999: Verso
everyday or weekly or whatever) event is of
Ariella Azoulay, ‘Save as Jerusalems’ Chap-
course heightened by the camera angle, re-
ter 4 pp131-161
inforcing the subject of washing, rather than
playing noisily as we would expect of a Rosalyn Deutsche ‘Reasonable Urbanism’
schoolyard, and by the overlay of the ‘high’ Chapter 6 pp175-206
music of Bach. The local neighbourhood
playground has the potential for civic en- Michèle De La Pradelle, Emmanuelle Lalle-
counter and participation. The film takes us ment, Paris Plage: “The City is ours” in Being
to imagine other hidden spaces and times in Here and Being There: Fieldwork Encoun-
the city ‘out of hours’/ beneath the surface. ters and Ethnographic Discoveries. Special
It is assumed that the time of day is early Editors: Elijah Anderson, Scott N. Brooks,
or late, the temperature therefore perhaps Raymond Gunn, and Nikki Jones. The An-
cooler, the asphalt less hot than mid- day- nals of the American Academy of Political
time, the air quieter, the soapy odour etc. and Social Science. Volume 595, pp134-
The removal of actual sound from the film is 145, September 2004
significant- allowing all other senses to syn-
thesise and interrelate in the imagination, or Michel Foucault The Order of Things. An ar-
perhaps heightened at various points in the chaeology of the Human Sciences, London,
music. It excludes and therefore the abstrac- 2000: Routledge (Let mots et les choses first
tion and enjoyment of pattern, form, state- published Paris 1966: Editions Gallimard;
ment, Variation, Juxtaposition, overlay, Col- English edition first published 1970, UK:
lage etc is conversely more convincing and Tavistock)
durable.
Kurt Iveson ‘Justifying Exclusion: the politics
of public space and the dispute over access
to McIvers ladies’ baths, Sydney’, Gender,
References Place and Culture, Vol. 10, No.3 pp215-
228, September 2003
Sara Ahmed Strange Encounters. Embodied
Others in Post-Coloniality, London & New Charles Jencks Heteropolis. Los Angeles.
York, 2000: Routledge The riots and the strange beauty of hetero-
architecture, London, 1993: Academy Edi-
Iain Borden, Jane Rendell ed. Intersections. tions
Architectural Histories and Critical Theories,
Lawrence Kritzman, ed. Michel Foucault.
70
“Blacktop: A story of the washing of a schoolyard”
71
Transit Spaces
Inside-Out (side) Moscow’s Metro(scape)
Wael Salah Fahmi
UDERS, Helwan University, Cairo
provides a visual ‘cinematic’ experience “The flâneur is still on the threshold, of the
of moving landscape images to the travel- city as of the bourgeois class. He seeks ref-
ing spectator. Larsen (2001) argues that a uge in the crowd. No matter how protective
contemporary pleasure of leisurely automo- the crowd can be, the flâneur is still a loner,
bility is related to the vehicle’s flexibility someone abandoned in the crowd” (Benja-
and the imagined freedom that set in mo- min 1973: 55).
tion the motorised flâneurie (neo- flâneurie)
. The neo- flâneur is therefore subjected As the nineteenth century Baudelairean
to changing visual experience of mobility street walker / urban drifter ( flâneur) is dis-
which imposes a specific viewing position, placed by the post-pedestrian and metro
and hence, way of seeing with respect to train navigator (neo- flâneur), the paper as-
tourists’ landscape. sumes a sensory post-tourist navigation in-
side-out of transit spaces within Moscow’s
Nevertheless in a territory where non-place post-soviet Metro(scape). This represents a
(Augé, 1995) and space of flow (Castells, spatio-temporal narrative through the urban
1996) prevail, a new category of landscapes spectacle of Metro’s socialist realism and
‘in transit’ are experienced by ‘post-tourists Moscow’s post modern landscape.
on the move’ as they cross ‘in-between
metro stations’, providing the possibility By walking in a city dominated by time-
of a more situational location of the ur- space compression with conspicuous glob-
ban self within global mobility. ‘Trains’ us- al landmarks, the flâneur derives the sensual
ers’ or ‘transit people’ do not fully engage pleasure from the dazzling urban spectacle,
their senses in the landscape experience but shifting social spaces and interpersonal en-
reduce the physical interaction to a remote counters. What he sees is montage, one snap
gaze. De Certeau (1984) refers to a hetero- shot after another with the dream world of
topian state as ‘traveling incarceration, im- urban spectacle offering the flâneur no com-
mobile inside the train, seeing immobile plete narrative, but a series of fragments .
things slip by’. Therefore a train is an ex- The flâneur, defined by his/her ‘incognito’
traordinary bundle of relations “because it and narratives , relies on a fetishistic identi-
is something through which one goes, it is fication with the camera’s lens. This is com-
also something by means of which one can mensurate with the flâneur’s eye-swiping of
go from one point to another, and then it the urban landscape for creative material
is also something that goes by” (Foucault (Sinclair 2002). Simultaneously, eye-swiping
1986). suggests the act of appropriation, saturating
the text with proliferation of visual informa-
tion as Sinclair (2002) refers to the camera to
eye-swipe the detail, to log the sights which
The Neo-Flâneur will later be translated into words (Seale
2005). As photography presents itself as the
According to Benjamin (1973), the Baude- ideal technology for eye-swiping, Sternberg
lairean flâneur is a figure/object (for inter- (1997) and Garlick (2002) discuss the role
pretation) that embodies ambivalence: one of photography in determining the authen-
who always borders on leisure, joy , mel- ticity of the post-tourist experience through
ancholy, alienation and familiarity, resulting an array of representations and images. It is
from the fragmentary nature of city life. The the type of filter that Baudelaire stressed was
gaze of the flâneur can be compassionate, essential to the flâneur’s depiction of urban
invested, and inquiring and at the same time life.
detached, alienated, and passive.
73
Transit Spaces
In the current study, representation of post (Figure 1). The Metro, which represented the
-soviet Moscow’s Metro(scape) provides se- most grandiose architectural phenomenon
quence of narratives in the journey along of the Stalinist era, signified the ideological
East-West transition. Walking through Mos- and artistic shifts that characterised the So-
cow’s gentrified urban spaces and post-so- viet State during the post war period. From
viet Metro(scape) dominated by time-space the vast forces marshaled for its construction
compression, the neo-flâneur is engulfed in to the shelter it provided for Moscovites dur-
signs of global flows within GUM Mall (near ing World War Two, the Metro had evolved
the Red square in Moscow) (the aesthetic from a monumental public work project and
cocoon, Leach 2001), witnessing the fetish- a rapid mass transit into a hybrid of palace,
ism of commodification and aestheticisation basilica and fortress.
of postmodern consumption.

75
Transit Spaces
Figure 3. Neo-Flâneur’s Sensory Navigation within Figure 4. Neo-Flâneur’s Sensory Navigation be-
Metro’s Transit Spaces (corridors and halls ) tween Metro’s Transit Spaces (platforms and trains)
Moscow’s Metro lines are represented by concerns related to movement and people
symbolic language for orienting passengers, after regime shift. These stations have be-
in the form of signs and symbols , with some come places where ‘transition’ was most
stations having distinctive exterior designs visible to inhabitants of Moscow, with the
(pavilions) that allow them to function as Metro being considered both a background
visual landmarks. New artworks, as well as to local narratives about social order, and
fragments of ‘Stalinist’ spatial monumental- a place-setting in contesting ontologies
ity further down the Metro platforms , reflect of society in ‘transition’ as related to the
the postmodern rejection of a unified pub- emergence of new consumer class (Lemon
lic sphere. This exemplifies the contestation 2000).
that occurs when Metro stations are com-
modified and imagineered into spaces of 
marketable characteristics (shopping malls)
whilst being devoid of their socio-cultural
contexts (Deutsche 1996).
76
Wael Fahmi
Arbatskaya Metro stations and Vozdvizhen- narratives (such as renaming of streets and
kaya Ulitsa street. places). Postmodern landscape of contested
East-West transformation was observed,
As Deutsche (1996) points out that the when Moscow’s Mayor Luzhkov, embarked
prevalence of commerce as a public func- on a major development program. The
tion, reinforcing the role and dominance of capital has seen a remarkable program of
consumption spaces, has led to the privati- reconstruction and restoration of historic
sation of public spaces. With postmodern structures such as the Victory Memorial,
transformation challenging the modernist the Gostinny Dvor (guests’ court), Kazan-
notion of public space, and with the sepa- skiy Cathedral and Resurrection Gates at
ration between various central stations and Red Square (Vinogradov 1998; Glushkova
commercial spaces diminishing, the recog- 1998 cited in Lang 2004 ), together with
nition of these stations as public spaces have the newly constructed statue of Peter the
declined, particularly with the introduction Great. Whilst Moscow’s Kremlin and Red
of shopping activities aspiring to the gentri- Square were designated as UNESCO World
fication of Metro transit spaces. Rather than Heritage sites in 1990, a wider program of
separate/ demarcate spaces that correspond historic preservation and revitalisation was
to rationally defined roles, Metro stations launched including museums and nine rail-
have recently become an extension of the way stations dating from Tsarist times (Luz-
space of commercial transactions and part kov 1998, cited in Lang 2004) There was
of the shopping experience . the downtown development of large, new
postmodern hotels and office and apartment
Nevertheless spatial variations ranging buildings, often funded by foreign consor-
from suburban Metro stations and Cen- tia, which have impinged on such historic
tral Moscow’s gentrified stations reflect the areas as the Arbat, a major tourist area near
scene of the sharpest contestation between the Kremlin.
traditional street markets and the exigencies
of the changing high commercial develop-
ment. Open air and covered markets, stalls Spaces of Consumption
and kiosks, as part of the informal sector
During the 20th century, Moscow acquired
often controlled by different ethnic groups,
a limited number of downtown shopping
were located on large expanses of vacant
center spaces, mostly in the form of high-
land within high-rise residential areas (mik-
profile fashion galleries such as the 35000
rorayons) of Moscow’s periphery.
square metres (376,670 square foot) Manezh
Square near the Kremlin, the 63000 square
metres Smolensky Passage; and the 10000
square metres Petrovsky Passage. A sym-
Neo- Flâneur ‘s Navigation bolic sign of the times was the conversion
within Moscow’s ‘Post Soviet’ of the famous state department store GUM
(State Universal Store, Gosudarstvennyj
Public Spaces Universalnyj Magazin) , a Moscow shop-
ping tradition since 1887, which is now a
Since 1990s Moscow’s promotional tour-
30000 square metres mall arcade with 185
ism strategy was launched to establish a new
specialised retailers, including many West-
place image and foster a new reinvented
ern high street brands.
identity, exploring discourse on the future of
post-soviet urbanism, whilst recounting the The ‘bazaarization’ of Moscow was the
erasure of ‘Stalinist’ past from its historical main agent of structural change during the
78
Wael Fahmi
79
Transit Spaces
Graeme, G. (2005). Changing Symbols: The Rojek, C. & Urry, J. (1997). Transformations
Renovation of Moscow Place Names . The of Travel and Theory. In C. Rojek & J. Urry
Russian Review, 64 (3), 480-503. (Eds), Touring Cultures: Transformations of
Travel and Theory (pp. 1–23). London and
Larsen J. (2001). Tourism Mobilities and the New York: Routledge.
Travel Glance: Experiences of Being on the
Move . Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality Rudolph, R. & Brade, I. (2005). Moscow:
and Tourism, 1( 2), 80-98. Processes of Restructuring in the Post-Soviet
Metropolitan Periphery. Cities, 22 (2), 135–
Lang, M.H. (2004). Red Moscow: Capital 150.
of the Revolution or a Revolution in Capi-
tals. In CD-Rom proceedings of 11th Inter- Seale, K. (2005). Eye-swiping London: Iain
national Planning History Conference IP- Sinclair, Photography and the Flâneur. The
HS2004, “Planning Models and the Culture Literary London Journal, 3 (2). http://www.
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July. ber2005/seale.html Accessed 25th Octo-
ber 2007.
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hs2004/pdf/109_p.pdf Accessed 18th July Sinclair, I. (2002).London Orbital: A Walk
2007 Around the M25 . London: Granta Publica-
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Leach, N. (2001). The Aesthetic Cocoon.
OASE, 54, 105-121. Soja, E. (1995) Heterotopologies: a remem-
brance of other spaces in the citadel-LA. In:
Leach, N. (2002). Erasing the Traces: The Watson, S. and. Gibson, K. (eds) Postmod-
‘Denazification’ of Post-Revolutionary Ber- ern Cities and Spaces. Blackwell, Oxford,
lin and Bucharest. In N. Leach (Ed.), The Hi- UK, pp. 13–34.
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encing the Modern Metropolis (pp. 80-100). Sternberg, E. (1997). The Iconography of the
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search, 24(4), 951-969.
Lemon, A. (2000). Talking Transit and Spec-
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Berdahl, M. Bunzl & M. Lampland (Eds), Al- Travel in Contemporary Societies. London:
tering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Sage.
Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
(pp. 14-39). Ann Arbor : The University of Vinogradov, V.A. (1998). Meaning of the Ar-
Michigan Press. chitecture Heritage. In Y.M LUZKOV. Mos-
cow and the Largest Cities of the World at
Luzkov, Y.M.(1998) (Ed). Moscow and the the Edge of the 21st Century (p104). Mos-
Largest Cities of the World at the Edge of the cow: Committee of Telecommunications
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communications and Mass Media of the ment. (Cited in Lang (2004)
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(2004). Ward, S. (2005) The passenger as flâneur?
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81
Transit Spaces
Acknowledgement
The study visit to Moscow was funded by a
grant from the Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation
in Germany as part of the Bauhaus Kolleg V
– Transit Spaces Programme 2003-2004.
Biography
Wael Fahmi is an Associate Professor of Ar-
chitectural Design and Urbanism at Helwan
University in Cairo. He was trained as an ar-
chitect at Cairo University and is a visiting
academic at The University of Manchester
(UK) where he received his PhD in Plan-
ning and Landscape. Through Urban Design
Experimental Research Studio (UDERS), he
explores deconstructive experimentation
within urban spaces, postmodern spatiality
and representation of city imaging employ-
ing narratives, digital photo images, video
stills and architectural diagrams.
82
A Proposed Structure for a Programme of Urban Sound-
scape Research
Mike Fedeski
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
83
Mike Fedeski
In the U.K., prominence has recently been (1994) and Blesser and Salter (2007).
given to this shift through an RGS-IBG An-
nual Conference in September 2005 Urban Improving this situation must involve at
Sustainability: Rethinking Senses of Place, least three parties, each with different per-
at an RTPI EPP Network event in September spectives: the public who use cities, the de-
2005, Planning for Soundscape Quality, and signers who shape them, and the research-
an EPSRC Ideas Factory in January 2006, A ers who study them (Raimbault & Dubois,
Noisy Future. Positive soundscape design 2005, pp 340-1). Collaboration between
has even reached urban planning policy in them is required, which for all should pro-
London (Greater London Authority, 2004, mote a shift from basic hearing to enhanced
p.207). listening.
The research structure outlined here is All three parties have different modes of
coloured by a number of ambitions. It contact with the urban environment. Pub-
wants the results of soundscape research lic users have direct experience of environ-
to assist urban design. The overall objec- ments that exist, moving through them and
tive that it hopes to serve is to help design- interacting with them. The sonic environ-
ers plan for enjoyable, beneficial, and posi- ment is ever present and changing for them,
tively engaging sonic environments, rather although they often do not attend to it. Re-
than merely tolerable ones. It expects the searchers can study existing sonic environ-
creation of such environments to involve ments, but these are often limited to samples
the public, and it sees a place for creative and abstractions which, whilst close to user
“composition” using the material of urban experience, are restricted in compass. De-
soundscapes. signers have to be content with representa-
tions of future environments that they have
The sound we hear in cities is an outcome imagined. The sonic environment is often
of activity in the city, activity in which the simply absent from these representations, as
city’s inhabitants take part. Sound carries are activities that give rise to it.
a great deal of information about this activ-
ity, concerning what it is, and where, when, Communication between these parties is
and for how long it is happening. It can be necessary: users need to understand what
understood, correctly or erroneously, to in- designers intend, researchers need to under-
fer the motivation of the people producing stand what users value, and designers need
it, and this can arouse marked emotional re- to understand what researchers have discov-
sponses in the hearers. The spatial reach of ered. But with each type of user occupying
sound is greater than that of the visual field, a different world of experience, there are
and the information it contains tells more difficulties in sustaining a dialogue between
than can be learned from looking alone. them on the subject of sonic environments.
Channels of communication need to be
The soundscape has the potential of en- opened and a commonly understood form
riching our interpretation of city life and of representation needs to be made avail-
our collective experience of being a part able. This problem will be the subject of
of it. Yet urban sound receives little atten- discussion in this paper.
tion from the public or city planners unless
it gives rise to complaint. The full panoply
of sound within the city lives at the edges of
our attention. The case for giving it closer
attention is argued persuasively by Schafer
84
A Proposed Structure for a Programme of Urban Soundscape Research
85
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
around the idea of “sound effects”. works.net). But we are a long way from
having a comprehensive reference archive
Existing ways of representing sonic data of soundscapes for use by researchers and
visually are limited. In principle, the com- designers.
plete data set can be illustrated graphically
by showing the changing pressure of air
presented to the listener’s ear as a linear
sequence. However, this could not be in- 5. Challenges that face de-
terpreted without analysis. A more articu-
lated graphic representation that existing signers
software can generate is the sound spectro-
gram (or sonogram), which locates the data Urban designers have traditionally used
in frequency, amplitude and time dimen- drawings, often supplemented with physi-
sions. But it fails to evoke an impression cal models, to represent their designs prior
of complex urban soundscapes, principally to construction so that their patrons can see
because the various sound sources are diffi- what to expect. Drawings and models have
cult to distinguish. This can be illustrated by also been used by specialists as the basis
applying the method to the sound of an or- for calculations to predict performance in
chestra performing a classical composition transport, lighting, drainage, structural sta-
(e.g. Winckel, 1967, p. 76, which shows the bility, and so on. More recently, computer
opening of Beethoven’s 8th symphony). It is models have been used for simulating future
difficult to identify from the sonogram either performance, but their output is also often
the instruments used or the composition. presented using drawings or animations to
make it more explanatory.
In contrast, traditional musical notation
enables practiced readers to hear the sound The primacy these methods give to vision
in their heads. There have been attempts to over hearing, discussed, for example, by
develop analogous graphical notations for Hedfors (2003, pp. 17-18 & 21-22), ham-
soundscapes. They generally begin by iden- pers their ability to represent the sonic en-
tifying the separate sources to be notated. vironment in urban design. They can hint
One approach is then to characterise their at expected soundscapes through the use of
qualities, e.g. attack, pitch, grain, dynamics, labels and pictograms, but this does not give
decay (e.g. Schafer, 1994, pp. 134-139), and an impression that is in any way adequate to
another is to chart their duration and their the needs of the designers or the public.
apparent variation in loudness (e.g. South-
Moreover, visual presentations emphasise
worth, 1969, fig. 4).
acoustic enclosures rather than sonic sourc-
Direct access to aural records has been en- es. They show the proposed building fabric,
hanced by the Internet. It has always been but not the active life that will eventually in-
possible to make sound files available by habit it, although this latter is as important
post on request, but on line they can now in defining the soundscape. Whilst the par-
be integrated with research papers. Sound ticulars of what happens in a city from day to
files can be attached, say, to maps that lo- day are outside the control of the designer,
cate sampled sound geographically (e.g. the generic activities anticipated in spaces
Sound-Seeker at www.nysoundmap.org/), are the subject of design, and so could be
or to GPS tracks that record the journeys shown, if the medium were available, bear-
their collectors make as they record them ing in mind that they too change over time.
(e.g. Experiencing Issun-Boshi at www.field-
An obvious improvement would be to add
86
A Proposed Structure for a Programme of Urban Soundscape Research
aural information to the visual presenta- evaluation of sonic data from cities and the
tion, and in this respect computer terminals, exploration of this data in the laboratory
which give access to sound as well as vision, by working with new soundscapes. The
open up a promising, though under-exploit- process is expected to increase awareness
ed, opportunity. However, standard presen- of soundscapes amongst the public and to
tation for acoustic modelling in urban design assist urban designers in creating positive
is still numerical and graphic; current meth- soundscapes.
ods are reviewed by Kang (2007, pp. 107-
174). Acoustic software that enables sound The following objectives for the methodol-
environments to be auralised has been de- ogy can be specified, relating to the discus-
veloped, but for simulating the acoustic in- sion above:
teriors of buildings, so that it retains a focus
on the building envelope and simple inte- to persuade urban inhabitants to shift from
rior geometries. To simulate sonic futures basic listening to enhanced hearing;
at an urban scale, the models would need
to discover what the public value in their
to be populated with sound sources, whose
sonic environment, not just what they find
nature, diversity and variation are critical to
intolerable;
the outcome. Suitable sound sources, asso-
ciated with the generic activities proposed to capture sonic data together with its
for the city, and programming techniques for associated meta-data, attributes and per-
using them, are only beginning to emerge. ceived values;
Kang discusses techniques for auralisation
on pp. 134-142. to substitute aural for textual and visual
representation in propagating research re-
Such computer enhancements do not pro- sults;
vide designers with methods of represent-
ing soundscapes that they can work with to enable aural data to be manipulated in
directly, or that lend themselves to deeper order to increase understanding of sound-
exploration and evaluation, or that supply scapes;
archive material to work on. This paper
suggests alternative ways of representing to investigate representation of the long-
soundscapes to help researchers character- term character of soundscapes;
ise soundscapes and archive them for future
reference, and to help designers envisage to enable soundscapes to be appreciated
improved soundscapes, such that the syn- at an aesthetic level;
ergy between research and design could be
improved. to discover and define new soundscapes
that can inform urban design;
89
Prayas Abhinav and Yashas Shetty
sible when the BlackSpace is not. that they will employ have been used by oth-
ers to realise similar components, although
WhiteSpace some refinement and adaptation is needed
for them to serve the objectives stated here.
The WhiteSpace “turns on the lights”. It is There are several alternative ways of doing
a public event curated to demonstrate the this which need to be explored, but what is
results of the research to the public, and featured in this paper is the proposed rela-
to complete a “research bargain” with tionship between the components, which is
subscribers. It may take place in a gallery believed to be novel. This provides a con-
or be integrated into the area of a city be- tinuum for handling aural data in sound-
ing investigated. scape research: capturing, storing, studying,
reproducing, and disseminating. Its stages
It adapts the technology devised for the
make important links between investigating
BlackSpace for public presentation.
the public’s preferences and advising urban
Sounds from the city - known, forgotten,
designers, in a practical cycle that serves the
unheard, recreated, imaginary - will be
objectives for soundscape research listed
located geographically in the space. Tex-
earlier.
tual commentary on the sounds from con-
tributors will be available to participants A research programme structure of this
on their mobile phones. kind opens channels of communication
between urban citizens, planners and re-
Exploring the database in the BlackSpace
searchers and provides incentive for using
will drive curatorial questions for the
them. It maintains a collaborative environ-
WhiteSpace. New soundscapes will be
ment in which the parties can make discov-
composed for potential use there. On oc-
eries interactively and share results. It can
casion, live contributions will be invited
receive from the public streams of live sonic
from the Network, to modify these com-
data, semantically tagged, capture them in
positions, filling gaps, adding layers, alter-
an aural buffer for research, and deliver the
ing sounds, and extending the commen-
outcome back to the public aurally in an
tary. Over the time span of a WhiteSpace
unfolding interpretation of the city’s sonic
exhibition, it is anticipated that the origi-
fabric. It addresses the question of how the
nal compositions would be transformed,
public experience and interpret sonic place.
to reveal emergent patterns that will help
It offers a method for experimenting aurally
understand the public’s interpretation of
with new urban soundscapes which can in-
soundscape.
form urban designers.
The WhiteSpace offers a new curato-
It subverts the issue of finding a commonly
rial method for practice-based research,
understood form of representation for son-
which is resonant with the increasing
ic information by presenting it aurally, but
trend for exhibitions to become less pas-
coding it digitally in a system that allows for
sive, to involve the public, and to reach
the aural database to be explored and asso-
into the city.
ciated with semantic comment. The sound
samples and soundscapes are replicable,
8. Conclusion and, given the proposed laboratory set-up,
their aural presentation is immersive. For
There has not been space in this paper to users who do not have access to the set-up,
discuss the technology proposed for each the information can still be made available
of the components. The recent advances in on display screen analogues of the Black-
digital representation and communication
90
A Proposed Structure for a Programme of Urban Soundscape Research
Space (and WhiteSpace), although in a sim- Greater London Authority, (2004). Sounder
plified way. city: The Mayor’s ambient noise strategy.
London: GLA.
Benford, S., Seager, W., Flintham, M., An- Hedfors, P. (2003). Site soundscapes: Land-
astasi, R., Rowland, D., Humble, J., et al. scape architecture in the light of sound.
(2004). The error of our ways: The experi- Doctoral thesis; Uppsala, Swedish Univer-
ence of self-reported position in a location- sity of Agricultural Sciences. Retrieved with-
based game. Proceedings of Ubicomp 2004, out attached papers from http://diss-epsilon.
6th International Conference, pp70-87. Ber- slu.se/archive/00000325/.
lin, Springer, 2004.
Hedfors, P., & Berg, P. G. (2003). The sounds
Blesser, B., & Salter, L-R. (2007). Spaces of two landscape settings. Landscape Re-
speak, are you listening? Experiencing aural search, 28(3), 245-263.
architecture. Cambridge, Mass: MIT.
Hornecker, E., & Buur, J. (2006). Getting a
Burke, J. A., Estrin, D., Hansen, M., Parker, grip on tangible interaction: a framework
A., Ramanathan, N., Reddy, S., & Svrivasta- on physical space and social interaction.
va, M. B. (2006). Participatory sensing. First Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on
Workshop on World-Sensor-Web: Mobile Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp
Device Centric Sensory Networks and Ap- 437-44. New York: Association for Comput-
plications. At the 4th ACM Conference on ing Machinery.
Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sen-
Sys’06). Retrieved from http://repositories. Hull, R., Clayton, B., & Melamed, T. (2004).
cdlib.org/cens/wps/140/. Rapid authoring of mediascapes. Proceed-
ings of Ubicomp 2004, 6th International
Dubois, D., Guastavino, C., & Raimbault, Conference, pp125-142. Berlin: Springer.
M. (2006). A cognitive approach to urban
soundscapes: Using verbal data to access ev- Kang, J. (2007). Urban sound environment.
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tica united with Acustica, 92, 865-874.
Kansal, A., Goraczko, M., & Zhao, F. (2007).
Dunlop, M. D., Morrison, A., McCallum, Building a sensor network of mobile phones.
S., Ptaskinski, P., Risbey, C., & Stewart, S. Proceedings of the 6th international confer-
(2004). Focussed palmtop information ac- ence on Information processing in sensor
cess combining starfield displays with pro- networks (IPSN’07) pp 547-548. New York:
file-based recommendations. Mobile and Association for Computing Machinery.
Ubiquitous Information Access; Proceed-
McGregor, I., Leplatre, G., Crerar, A., & Be-
ings from Mobile HCI 2003 International
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Pichler, M. (2004). Enabling communities in Wozniewski, M., Settel, Z., & Cooperstock,
physical and logical context areas as added J. R. (2006). A framework for immersive au-
value of mobile and ubiquitous applica- dio performance. Proceedings of the 2006
tions. Mobile and Ubiquitous Information Conference on New Interfaces for Musical
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International Workshop, pp 43-53. Berlin: CAM, Centre Pompidou.
Springer.
93
City Identity and Presence:
form furnishing events
Marie Frier, Nanna Gram Thomassen, and Anna Marie
Fisker
Dwellab, Department of Architecture & Design and Depart-
ment of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Denmark
94
Marie Frier, Nanna Gram Thomassen, and Anna Marie Fisker
95
City Identity and Presence
97
City Identity and Presence
first journey and hereby also a framework walkways, and palazzos are narratives of
for her emergence. a mysterious and fascinating past, a sensu-
ous experience of form long forgotten in the
modern asphalt city. Thus, Venice as artefact
came to represent a number of shaping po-
4. NoRA tentials when a mapping of characteristics
of the biennale site; light, shadow and flow
The mobility and flexibility demanded by of people became digitally translated into
the pavilion called for a small scale col- polar forces, pushing and pulling shaping
lapsible unit able to set roots at different the initial sketch(see Figure 1). This volume
locations, attracting and communicating became the outset for developing the spe-
its presence by unfolding a place in the ur- cific pavilion, an artistic approach which
ban interior. Hereby a radical point of de- allowed for an ensuing discussion and de-
parture was taken in relation to the theme velopment of the specific potentials of the
proposed at the biennale mentioned in the form as artefact. By optimizing the geometry
introduction. NoRA would never become of the pavilion in relation to programming,
a grand scale vision for the future city, but functionality, entrances, furniture etc., a
a potential for her to express an alternative crystalline formal language for the pavilion
strategy developed; a small scale approach developed. Likewise a number of character-
of encounter. The group of supervisors and istics; an ear, a bottom, a mouth, a number
students working on the design were of dif- of smaller satellite volumes surrounding the
ferent fields of study, architecture, industrial pavilion, and the name NoRA developed
design, urban design and digital design, (NoRA is short for the maiden name Elea-
which was reflected in the design process. nor, which means light and shining). Thus,
The complex programme, the multiplicity the digital emergence of NoRA became a
of applications (cooking events, exhibitions, narrative for the pavilion, both in terms of
concerts, workshops etc.), locations and shape and functionality, as the satellite vol-
design approaches demanded for a com- umes started to unfold potentials for NoRA
mon point of departure, Venice became that as an urban structure occupying a large area
point. despite its limited size.
98
Marie Frier, Nanna Gram Thomassen, and Anna Marie Fisker
99
City Identity and Presence
100
Marie Frier, Nanna Gram Thomassen, and Anna Marie Fisker
Biographies
Anna Marie Fisker, b. 1957, is Architect
maa. from The School of Architecture, Århus
in 1984 and PhD in “Food and Architecture”
from Aalborg University, Institute of Archi-
tecture and Design in 2003. Anna Marie is
today Associate Professor at Aalborg Uni-
versity Institute of Architecture and Design,
Project Manager in the Networkconsortium
Food College Denmark and Head of Devel-
opment at Culinary Institute of Denmark.
101
Haptics and Vision in Architecture:
designing for more senses
Jasmien Herssens and Ann Heylighen
University College of Hasselt & Belgium 2 Katholieke Uni-
versiteit Leuven
1. Abstract 2. Introduction
Architecture is experienced in a multisen- Although the built environment is experi-
sory way. Moreover, human capacities to enced in a multisensory way, architecture
perceive architecture are highly diverse. Un- evokes for most people visual associations.
fortunately the emphasis in designing and
creating architecture lies in large measure These associations are stimulated by the
on the visual representation. Other senses visually marked Western society (Classen
are hardly represented or even considered 1998; Bowring 2007) and the fact that archi-
during the design process. Because of this, tects, like other designers, tend to practise
the resulting building does not always com- design mainly in a visual way (Cross 1982).
ply with the human needs. This paper re- Campbell (2007) wonders whether archi-
ports on a research project that calls in the tecture results in a visual sport. Our cultural
experience of people who are blind to re- history gave rise to this visual predilection.
store the multisensory qualities in the built The ancient Greeks already adored the eye
environment. These users/experts are more as the primary sense and this adoration led
attentive to other senses. Their spatial ex- to what is called the field of optics, study-
perience relies mostly on the haptic sense, ing light and vision and used by the Romans
which appears to be the foundation for cog- too. In the Renaissance, this visual adoration
nitive spatial representation. In this paper revived and new insights contributed to the
we point out the differences and similari- scientific rise of perspective. This develop-
ties between visual and haptic perception ment was very far-reaching for visual domi-
related to architecture. This should allow to nance as it stimulated working in a new vir-
identify design parameters which create the tual visual world (Herssens 2004); moreover,
opportunity for architects to take the haptic at that time, the arts favoured painting.
sense into account during the design pro-
cess. In this way the paper hopes to point Western culture is dominated by ocular-
out the potential contribution of Design for centrism, the hegemony of the eye. The
All for improving the multisensory quality of appearance of museums and zoos further
the built environment. elevated sight to the position of the pre-emi-
nent sense (Bowring 2007). This visual dom-
inance lives on to the twentieth century and
peaks during Modernism (Frampton 2001).
102
Jasmien Herssens and Ann Heylighen
Visual dominance is striking and it disguises the expertise of people who are congenital-
the importance of the other senses. ly blind, some turn out to be relevant for all
of us.
In view of this, our research aims to ques-
tion the visual dominance in architecture,
and, to find ways to restore the multisensory
qualities in the built environment. After all 3. Objective and approach
we should not adapt ourselves to the envi-
ronment; the environment should be adapt- In questioning architecture’s visual domi-
ed to us. This view fits in with the principles nance, this paper compares the visual per-
of Design for All (DfA)—also called Inclu- ception of architecture to the haptic, the
sive Design or Universal Design—a recent focus of our research. Just as vision is the
design paradigm aiming at handicap elimi- psychological science of the optic input,
nation in the environment so as to establish haptics is the science of what is tangible
a more inclusive environment for everybody. (Kennedy & Juricevic 2003). The term “hap-
Ultimately, our research hopes to contribute tic” refers to touchable experiences and de-
to the realization of this design paradigm. rives from the Greek word “hapthai”, to lay
hold of . When comparing the haptic and
Increasingly disability is viewed no longer visual sense, caution is necessary in order to
as a (physical or mental) characteristic of the avoid generalising sensory perception (Hel-
individual, but as resulting from the inter- ler 2003).
action between individual and unadapted
(social or physical) environment (Devlieger For this comparison, insights from literature
et al. 2003). By consequence, designers, are complemented with in-depth interviews
producers and constructors are responsible with people who are congenitally blind.
for handicap elimination in the built envi- Interviews with 10 people with congenital
ronment (Froyen 2002). To realize DfA we blindness have been conducted and analy-
use insights from Design for Special Needs sed (8 male and 2 female with an average
(DfSN), which focuses on adaptations for age of 44 years). Each interview took place
people with certain impairments. at the participant’s home and started by an
open discussion on living patterns based, re-
Our research relies on the abilities of peo- corded on a dictaphone. We asked the par-
ple who are congenitally blind because they ticipant to give a guided tour throughout the
are more attentive to other senses than sight residence, while filming their movements
(Warren 1978, Hollins 1989, Heller & Ken- and asking to demonstrate how they orient
nedy 1990, Froyen 2002). The age of five themselves in the dwelling.
is critical with respect to loss of sight: “If
people keep their vision up to this age, they Spontaneously they started talking about
seem to retain some sort of visual memory (mis)fits in their environment. Afterwards we
(... )” (Fjeldsenden 2000). Because spatial transcribed the interview and made a plan
representation of people with visual im- of the residence with annotations of (mis)fits
pairments is so diverse, we work with one and guiding lines. For each participant we
specific group: users/experts who are con- filled in a filing card with the coordinates,
genitally blind and have no residual vision, personal data and medical information. This
because they cannot rely on a visual refer- paper verifies findings from literature con-
ence system (Warren 1974). Moreover we cerning the similarities and differences be-
focus on the haptic sense in the exploration tween visual and haptic perception of archi-
of space. Although the insights are based on tecture with examples from the interviews.
103
Haptics and Vision in Architecture
After !"#$%&'$(')(*+,-)$.&*('
briefly discussing the importance of haptic experience. Even as the eye touches
haptics in architecture, we zoom in on the and the gaze strokes distant outlines and
/&*+0$1&*2*1+'2,(+,1($-3$+&'$(+,456,7
haptic perception process through Révész’s contours, our vision feels the hardness, tex-
classification of principles (Section 3). We ture, weight and temperature of surfaces.
!"#$%&'()*'+*%+,($-%'.),+*/'()*'$%0-#1,($-%'-%'2"$34$%&+',%4'+.,5*+'#*5*$6*4'()#-"&)'-"#'
+*%+*+'4$00*#+7'8)*#*,+'6$+",3'+*%+,($-%'-%39'#*3$*+'-%'(:-;4$1*%+$-%,3'$%0-#1,($-%/'57<7',%'
close by defining haptic design parameters Without the collaboration of touch the eye
$1,&*/'),.($5'+($1"3$',#*'()#**;4$1*%+$-%,3'$%'()*'0$#+('.3,5*/'2"('5,%'2*'0*3(',+'(:-;'-#'()#**;
as tools to obtain more haptic qualities in would be unable to decipher space and
4$1*%+$-%,3'4*.*%4*%('-%'()*'+5,3*'-0'()*'*%6$#-%1*%(7'=-#'*>,1.3*/'-%*'$%(*#6$*:**'#*0*#+'
architecture (Section 4). depth, and we could not mold the mosaic of
(-')$+'.$,%-',+'1-+('$1.-#(,%('?!'#*0*#*%5*'.-$%('$%'()*')-"+*7'8)*%'1-6$%&'()#-"&)'()*'
sensory impressions into a coherent contin-
)-"+*/')*'-#$*%(+')$1+*30'29'#*0*##$%&'(-'()*'.$,%-/'+"&&*+($%&'(),(''$%'),.($5+'0"#%$("#*'$+',+'
uum. The sense of continuity unites isolated
$1.-#(,%(',+'()*'2"$34$%&'$(+*307'@A6A+B'CDEFFG'5,33+'()$+'()*',5($6*;.,++$6*':,9'-0'+*%+,($-%'-#'
sensory fragments in the temporal continu-
()*'+(*#*-.3,+($5,3'.#$%5$.3*H'$('$+'-%*'-0'()*'1-+('0"%4,1*%(,3'.#$%5$.3*+'-0'),.($5+/'2*5,"+*'
4. Feeling what architects ity of the sense of the Self.”
:*'3$6*':$()',%'$%+($%5('(-'(-"5)'$%'-"#'()#**;4$1*%+$-%,3':-#347'
I%4**4'()*'),.($5'+9+(*1'$+','4$#*5('+*%+*J'),.($5'.*#5*.($-%'-55"#+'$%'#*,3'($1*',%4'
see #*,3'.3,5*7'I%'2-()'),.($5',%4'6$+",3'.*#5*.($-%/'()*'+($1"3$'#*39'-%'1,(*#$,3'C(*>("#*/'
This process from sensation to representa-
(*1.*#,("#*/'4*%+$(9G',%4'+.,5*'5),#,5(*#$+($5+'C0-#1/'.3,5*/'-#$*%(,($-%/'3*%&()G'CK,(:*33'
tion is a human way of perceiving and simi-
LMM?G7'N*(/'()*'),.($5'+9+(*1'#*3$*+'0,#'1-#*'-%'1,(*#$,3'.#-.*#($*+/',%4'()*'%,("#*'-0'()*'
4.1 Haptic experiences in ar- lar for vision and haptics. Nevertheless, in
0*,("#*+'$%'2-()'+*%+*+'$+'4$00*#*%('CO3,(BP9',%4'Q*4*#1,%'LMM?G"$8),(':*'3--P'0-#'
the perception process, the type of and way
,#5)$(*5("#,339'$+'+$1$3,#'$%'2-()'+*%+*+/'2"('()*'*1.),+$+'-%'()*'+($1"3$',%4'()*'+($1"3$'
chitecture of gathering information differs between
()*1+*36*+'4$00*#/':)$5)'1,P*+'()*'#*.#*+*%(,($-%'4$00*#*%(7'R)"+'()*':,9'-0'*>(#,5($%&'
$%0-#1,($-%'$%'2-()'$+'4$00*#*%('(--7$
both.
Imagine your environment without ever
having felt the texture of wood, the tempera- In relation to the environment, the term
8-90$+&'$.2-1'(($-3$(')(*+,-)
ture of steel, the sharpness of a corner, the “haptic” was first introduced by Révész
!*.*%4*%('-%'()*'0$*34'-0'+("49'-#'+5$*%($0$5'$%(*#.#*(,($-%/'),.($5+'$%6-36*'4$00*#*%(':,9+'-0'
verticality of a wall,
+*%+,($-%7' or without ever having (1950) and further investigated by Piaget
'8*'5,%'+*%+,(*'()*'),.($5',5($6*39'C,5($6*'(-"5)$%&G/'.,++$6*39'C(,5($3*'(-"5)'-#'
moved2*$%&'(-"5)*4':$()-"(',%9'.#*5*4$%&',5($-%G'-#'49%,1$5,339'C(-"5)'29'1*,%+'-0','(--3G7'S-1*'
on a ramp. Space is determined by and Inhelder (1956). Révész investigated
haptic+5$*%($+(+'4*0$%*'),.($5'(-"5)',+',5($6*',%4'(,5($3*'(-"5)',+'.,++$6*'(-"5)7'T()*#+'1,P*'%-'
sensations, as subscribed by archi- the spatial perception of people who are
tect and critic Juhani Pallasmaa (2005): “The blind and considered spatial experiences
4$00*#*%5*',%4'"+*'(,5($3*/'(-"5)',%4'),.($5',+'+9%-%91+7'@*3,(*4'(-',#5)$(*5("#*':*'$%(*#.#*('
mental experience of the city is more a hap- as the central problem of the psychology of
tic constellation than aK*#++*%+;K*93$&)*%J'U,.*#'S*%+-#9'V#2,%$+1'.7WXE
sequence of visual the blind (Révész 1955). He defined the –in
images; impressions of sight are embedded his view– key principles for haptic percep-
in the continuum of the more unconscious tion: the stereoplastical, the successive, ki-
104
Jasmien Herssens and Ann Heylighen
a very closed feeling, those have been there experience of space is still very difficult to
once, but we didn’t remove them, they were observe visually. Purely haptic spatial forms
already removed…(…)” even exist only for people who are congeni-
tally blind. Moreover, research shows that
Haptically we perceive every part sepa- the process of form perception for haptics
rately (Révész 1955). This is reverse to the as well as vision refers to the same dimen-
visual process: we start by seeing a whole, sions of differentiation (Pick & Pick 1966)
but do not see the structure immediately. We and pays attention to the same complexities
can find structure by analysing the whole. (Brumaghin & Brown 1969; Owen & Brown
Révész compares this process to sketching. 1970). For example, scale, symmetry and
If you start drawing you first receive an over- complexity are aspects people rely on when
view, but during the sketch process you gain using vision as well as haptics to identify
insight into the structure. This confirms that, objects (Garbin & Bernstein 1984; Garbin
for haptic perception, structure and materi- 1990). Haptic spatial objects even work as
als are the most important aspects. Material haptic triggers, which can provide recogniz-
characteristics are first perceived, while in able information.
vision (Klatzky & Lederman 2003) space
characteristics as form, depth and the basic For people who are blind or visually im-
principles of perspective are ruling. For ex- paired, haptic triggers are considered as re-
ample, the estimation of corners is more ac- warding recognition points. Haptics in space
curate in visual perception than in haptics are positively experienced when space is
(Appelle 1971). not
The differences between the haptic and that large so that one is still surrounded by
visual puzzle of perception result in a dif- haptic triggers, but not too small as move-
ference of representing space: visual per- ment is sill required to perceive haptically.
ception leads to form observation, whereas
haptic representation provides a form im- Interviewee:
pression. The process works reversely.
“euhm but the largest advantage for me
Révész distinguishes between three kinds is that it is all very small in here and in
of haptic spatial impressions or haptic im- fact you can move yourself very easily
agery: haptic space, concerning the spatial from one tactile point in the house to the
experiences of haptics; haptic spatial form, other. Like this you’ll never be on a place
standing for the representation of forms re- where you won’t know where you are in
lated to touch; and haptic spatial objects, the house. (…) ” Researcher: “Do you feel
covering the recognisability of haptics yourself at ease in this house?” Intervie-
thanks to the recognition of things and ma- wee: “mmm yes but there wouldn’t be
terials. Those three impressions all support much more (furniture) in this interior…
the haptic experience of space. otherwise you got such a closed feeling”
"-,((-/(@"-3+&:9-/C!]#$-,!?-/(5,3!^,4#/&()!$>O_M
Haptics and Vision in Architecture
system can be perceived. For example, if we tance of haptic (he uses the term tactile) per-
eliminate vision while exploring space, we ception in the exploration of the environ-
first start moving through space and experi- ment and the fact that this sensory source is
ence the environment through the floor and universal in the animal world.
walls which lead us to the windows. “Infor-
mation from movement output thus plays an
important, and probably crucial, role in tac-
tual recognition” (Millar 1994). We measure 5. Towards haptic design pa-
space with the help of our own body (Révé-
sz 1955: metrical principle) and our body rameters
gives us information about spatial as well as
Strikingly, the architectural concepts for vi-
material properties (Hatwell 2003). Vision,
sual and haptic representation tend to rest
on the other hand, can be considered as re-
on similar categorisations of mental maps.
mote perception providing spatial informa-
In his book “The image of the city”, Kevin
tion simultaneously. Visually we perceive
Lynch (1960) analysed the city and its rep-
the architectural puzzle as an image and no-
resentation. Focussing on visual perception
tice the structure afterwards. Form overrides
he divided the visual mental map into five
structure. This aspect contributes to the con-
categories of networks: paths, nodes, land-
sideration of vision as the primordial sense
marks, districts and edges. Judging from the
for perceiving space as less time is needed
interviews with people who are congenital-
to explore space visually. While visually
ly blind, these categories even exist in the
we start with a holistic (Streri 2003) form to
haptic mental map. For example, they make
be analysed into a structure, haptically we
use of haptic landmarks in their orientation
perceive in a constructive-analytical way
process.
(Révész 1955) an impression of the structure
which evolves into a whole. Due to this dif- This is an interesting point for architecture:
ferent way of gathering information, some if we want to implement haptic aspects into
scientists conclude that haptic representa- the design process, we can make use of rec-
tion is less sensitive to the laws of Gestalt. ognizable architectural concepts. This offers
(Hatwell et al.1990, Lakatos & Marks 1999). a clue for translating haptic experiences in a
In haptic representation the whole is only useful architectural language.
perceived as a unity by accident.
However, because of the distinct character-
An interviewee refers to the usefulness of istics of the haptic sense, haptic landmarks,
passages instead of a void, which gives him edges, paths, nodes, districts will likely dif-
the feeling he is lost. The walls give struc- fer from the visual categories. For example, a
ture to the space and a feeling of safety and large tower can be an excellent visual land-
comfort. Another interviewee refers to the mark in the city, but when walking sightless
structure he made with the help of little car- around the tower, you cannot feel the differ-
pets in his living room. Details and structure ence with a 2 storeys high building. This is
are important in haptic perception and, of illustrated by a funny story about blind men
course, there must be a haptic stimulus in who gave two completely opposite answers
the first place, otherwise there is no haptic to the question “What is an elephant?” after
perception. We should not forget that we touching one. The one who touched only
once learned to give meaning to our envi- the animal’s leg replied “It is a tree”, while
ronment thanks to the interaction between the one who touched only the animal’s body
visual and haptic sense (Piaget & Inhelder, replied “It’s a wall” (Kusajima 1970).
1956). Burton (1993) subscribes the impor-
108
Jasmien Herssens and Ann Heylighen
109
Haptics and Vision in Architecture
Fjeldsenden, B. (2000) Blindness and cog- (2000). Touch, representation, and blind-
nitive structures. Access on: www.svt.ntnu. ness. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
no/psy/Bjarne.Fjeldsenden/Articles.html,
20-02-2006. Heller, M.A.& Kennedy, J.M. (1990). Per-
spective taking, pictures, and the blind. Per-
Frampton, K. (2001). Moderne architec- ception and Psychophysics,
tuur: een kritische geschiedenis. Nijmegen:
SUN. 48. pp. 459-466.
Froyen, H. (2002). Universal Design Educa- Heller, M.A. (2003). Haptic perceptual il-
tion. In Dua, I. & Dujardin, M. e. (2002). lusions. In Hatwell, Y., Streri A. Gentaz, E.
Universal design education. Brussel: Konin- (2003). Touching for Knowing. Amsterdam/
klijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
wetenschappen en kunsten. Company. pp.161-171
Garbin, C.P. & Bernstein, I.H.(1984). Visual Herssens, J. (2004). Virtualiteit in architec-
and haptic perception of tri-dimensional tuur-(re)presentaties.-een ambiguïteit. Leu-
solid forms. Perception and Psychophysics, ven: K.U.Leuven.
36, pp.104-110. In Hatwell, Y., Streri A. &
Gentaz, E. (2003). Touching for Knowing. Hollins, M. (1989). Understanding Blind-
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins ness. Hillsdale/N.J.: Erlbaum.
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Kennedy, J. M. & Juricevic, I. (2003). Optics
Garbin, C.P. (1990). Visual-touch perceptual and haptics. Access on: www.semioticon.
equivalence for shape information in chil- com/virtuals/multimodality/kennedy.pdf,
dren and adults. Perception and Psychophys- 24-05-2008.
ics, 48, pp.271-279. In Hatwell, Y., Streri A.
Klatzky, R., Lederman, S., & Metzger, V.
& Gentaz, E. (2003). Touching for Knowing.
(1985). Identifying objects by touch: An “ex-
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
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Publishing Company. pp.123-159
37, pp. 299-302.
Hatwell, Y., Orliaguet, J.P., & Brouty, G.
Klatzky, R.L. & Lederman, S.J. (1995). Iden-
(1990). Effects of object properties, atten-
tifying objects from a haptic glance. Percep-
tional constraints and manual exploratory
tion and Psychophysics, 57, pp.1111-1123.
procedures on haptic perceptual organiza-
tion: A develpmental study. In Bloch H. & Klatzky R. & Lederman S. (2003). The hap-
Bertenhal B. (Eds.). Sensory –Motor organi- tic identification of everyday life objects. In
zation and development in infancy and ear- Hatwell, Y., Streri Arlette; Gentaz, & Gen-
ly childhood. Dordrecht: Klumer Academic taz, E. (2003). Touching for Knowing. Am-
publishers. pp.315-335. sterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub-
lishing Company. pp.105-123.
Hatwell, Y., Streri Arlette; Gentaz, & Gen-
taz, E. (2003). Touching for Knowing (v. 53). Kusajima, T. (1970). The World of the Visu-
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins ally Handicapped. Karlsruhe: G. Schindele
Publishing Company. Verlag.
Heller, M.A. (1983). Haptic dominance in Lakatos, S. & Marks, L. (1999). Haptic form
form perception with blurred vision. Per- perception. Relative salience of global and
ception, 12, pp. 607-613. In Heller, M. A. local features. Perception and Psychophys-
110
Jasmien Herssens and Ann Heylighen
Pallasmaa, J. (2005 (1996)). The eyes of the Zelek, J. S. & Bromley S. & Asmar D. &
skin. Chichester: Wiley-Academy. Thompson D. (2003). A Haptic Glove as a
Tactile-Vision Sensory Substition for Way-
Pallasmaa, J. (2005). Encounters. Helsinki: finding. Journal of Visual Impairment &
Rakennustieto Oy (Building Information Blindness, 97(10 October), 621-632.
Ltd). Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1971 (1956)).
The child’s conception of space. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pick, A.D. & Pick,
H.L. (1966). A developmental study of tac- Acknowledgements
tual discrimination in blind and sighted
children This research is funded by a PhD grant from
the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation
and adults. Psychonomic Science, 6, pp.367- through Science and Technology in Flan-
368. Révész, G. (1938). Grundlegung der ders (IWT-Vlaanderen). The authors would
Haptik und der Blindenpsychologie. Den like to thank Kim Bols, Blindenzorg Licht en
Haag: Nijhoff. Révész, G. (1950). Psychol- Liefde, Spermalie, de Markgrave, and espe-
ogy and art of the blind. London: Longmans cially the participants for sharing their time
Green (partly) Révész, G. (1955). Blind- and insights.
enpsychologie. In G. Révész & W. Zeeman
(Ed.), Het persoonlijke en sociale leven
111
Haptics and Vision in Architecture
Biographies
Jasmien Herssens studied architecture at
the university college of Ghent, WENK, Sint-
Lucas where she graduated in 2001. After-
wards she went to the Catholic University
of Louvain to take a MAMA in architectural
sciences. She started her internship at Ante-
architecten in Saint-Nicolas. After 6 months
she finished the internship and started to
work at Wim Goes Architectuur in Ghent
where she had worked for 3 years. In 2005
she began teaching architectural design at
the University College of Hasselt, where she
also does research in Design for All. Her cur-
rent phd-project aims at finding new haptic
design parameters with the help of people
who are congenitally blind.
112
Design and Communication in a Multi-sensory Environment
Peter Howell and Julia Ionides
Dogrose Trust
ments for people with sensory impairments. Mabey in his book ‘Fencing Paradise’ which
relates to the Eden Project wrote:
A significant part of our work is design and
supervising the manufacture and installa- ‘For all its overlay of cultural associations,
tion of tactile and audio signs. Although the smell is the most direct of our senses. The
situation is changing slowly and through the odour molecules fly straight to the receptor
Disability Discrimination Act and general cells at the back of the nose. And there is
humanitarian pressure people are becoming no way, except in the very short term, we
more aware of the need for universal com- can close scent down, in the way we can
munication and we look at new technolo- sight. To stop smelling we would have to
gies to fit the situation. stop breathing. Smells continue to operate
below the level of our consciousness’.
So far very little deep thinking has gone into
the design, modern manufacture and con- Anthropologists have found that many
temporary use of tactile forms for everyone, groups of people, unlike us, have cultures
particularly in the open environment and that take into account the sense of smell.
interesting tactile experiences are rare. A
recent research project where we produced We have used smell in our guides where
tactile fish in a range of materials such as possible and it can be used as wayfinding
glass, stainless steel and ceramic which are too with certain food shops for example.
very promising. Another example is the damp smell of an
undercroft in a cathedral.
The list, based on Aristotle, is as follows: In simple terms the actual design process
follows the three steps given below.
Analysis
VISION
Synthesis
TOUCH
Evaluation
SMELL
These operations recycle almost continu-
HEARING ously during the design process. It is a sim-
ple problem solving model. However, the
TASTE analysis depends on the definition of the
problem or event that generates change that
is central to the first step and indeed our
All of these headings have physical and judgement of the evaluation which is the
physiological characteristics that can be last step. Without these definitions we can-
considered in design but all have unknown not effectively use the model.
regions as we have demonstrated with smell.
But we think that in the consideration of
However, the real problems in the consid-
the design model there is a vital factor gen-
eration of our senses in design occur when
erally missing. The missing factor in simple
the signals get to the brain where it becomes
terms is human need. This need may be real
exceedingly complex but the processing is
or imaginary but is necessary. Real or imagi-
slowly being researched and understood.
nary because advertising often dictates and
To be more serious about this, we as the interprets our need in a way that benefits the
human race seem to have lost the full use advertiser rather than us.
of our senses. Our developing knowledge of
Considering the analysis of the problem
the broader sensory world in, for example,
there is a story about a very well known sci-
bats and insects is beginning to demonstrate
entist who stood up at a meeting and said
what we have lost. We in the Trust have been
‘tell me the problem and I will solve it’, and
fortunate to work with many blind friends
all the other scientists present fell about
who have been teaching us about touch and
laughing! Solving problems is far easier than
listening. There is something to be learned
defining them.
from everyone.
There are consultants who carry out what
For historical reasons our own work has
has become known as ‘usability testing’ and
been aimed at those who have problems
mostly this is product specific, but the tech-
with perception and cognition. However,
nique is worth consideration.
we believe that the techniques that we are
using could perhaps, with suitable research, This technique is very focussed and useful
be used to form general design techniques. but it does not go far enough. Generally, as
This does not mean that we know all the an- designers we are commissioned by a client
swers but at least we have had to design us- and paid to do what we are told, but is this
ing all our senses. This is not simple. Indeed, our total responsibility? We feel there are
the more we work the more we see a need certain basic factors that we must for moral
for design groups that should contain spe- reasons include.
cialists from every discipline.
115
Peter Howell and Julia Ionides
Writers like Philip Thiel, as set out in his touch and sound, using an interactive sys-
book ‘People, Paths, and Purposes – Nota- tem. Dorcas was our friend, Eric Sayce’s
tions for a Participatory Envirotecture’ begin late guide dog who was part of our research
to look at the way people are in relation to team. We received a Millennium Product
an environment in a cooperative way which Award from the British Design Council for
is good. Further he refers to ‘Envirotecture’, this, one of a thousand products that were
design and organisation of the whole envi- thought to be outstanding in Britain.
ronment, which is a concept that we find
relevant. If one takes into account all the One of the most popular methods of in-
senses then it begins to add up. terpretation is a three dimensional model,
either of a building, city or outdoor environ-
Human needs are complex but one as- ment. Designing a tactile model, especially
pect that is always a problem is ‘Wayfind- a costly bronze one, of a complex historic
ing’, which is the necessary understanding city such as York is not easy from any point
of the environment. Some of you may be of view.
aware of the book by Arthur and Passini en-
titled ‘Wayfinding’ and also the work of Reg In order to design the general layout of
Golledge. Considering the overall concept the model we carried out a telephone sur-
of ‘Envirotecture’ it is almost overwhelming vey of blind and partially sighted people in
and it is the real problem in front of us. But York and asked them what routes they took
this is just the beginning! and what features were important to them;
it was essential to make routes clear and the
As part of the understanding of an environ- model must be designed in such a way that
ment we need to have an image of it in our the fingers could follow them. Special key
mind and it does not need to be visual. For buildings were modelled in more detail.
a blind person this is difficult and in order to Of course all these help sighted people as
enable them to do this we have made many well.
tactile plans and three dimensional models
to help form this image. All the signs that we Models are obviously three dimensional
make are both visual and tactile and so are and there seems to be little problem with
suitable for everyone. the tactile interpretation of these, but simple
raised images or plans, that is ‘two and a
Materials used vary according to use: often half D’, such as the one above, are not easy
model are outside and not protected so the to read and many blind people find them
most satisfactory material is bronze which is difficult to interpret. They need to be care-
expensive but bomb proof and repairable. fully designed and we test them out with
For interior use wood is adequate, but our swell paper, that is, special paper on which
experience with the model we made for the the images can be raised by heat. Where
Palace of Westminster suggest that is will be possible we provide an audio description of
damaged however it is protected. the images. It takes some time for even an
experienced touch reader to make out the
images.
With the advent of the mobile phone we had the unfortunate experience of feeling a
have another way to communicate images plastic door that has moulded onto it the im-
and information and we are doing this for itation shaping that would have been origi-
Transport for London. nally created by a moulding plane. While
we can interpret such a tactile image it does
We are scripting and recording descrip- not have relevance any longer since few
tions of places and routes and placing these traditional doors are now used. With the
on a relay station and so when you key in a machines that we can now use more excit-
pin number you hear the description or in- ing tactile shapes can be generated and the
formation you need on your mobile phone. door could be something quite different.
The scripts have to be suitable for everyone
including those without sight. A five axis milling machine can make very
exciting shapes and so can moulded plas-
Consultation is necessary for all projects. tic.
For the replacement panel in London, a
group of people met with us to give their Thus, we suggest that we need to consider
advice which was very; consultation also all our senses because this is what we are
took place at for a model of Downpatrick and defines our perceived ‘envirotectural’
Museum, Northern Ireland. world. Each of our senses has its own char-
acteristics and consequently we must devel-
Some organisations have developed clear op for each its own design technique. There
statements on inclusion: “Coventry City is some progress here but not as much as
Council states that: Our aim is to work with we need.
the people of Coventry to explore and cel-
ebrate the creativity and cultural heritage of All environments have the same problems
all our communities.” in their appreciation: the sound environment
might be as it was in the past - for example
The Trust was involved with the Coventry in a bazaar in Istanbul or the choir of an
disability access committee and as part of English cathedral. Or it might be unaccept-
our work on this committee we produced able where the pattern of the old roads can-
tactile plans of the sections of the city that not cope with heavy modern vehicles and
were being redeveloped so that the mem- have become dangerous as the traffic noise
bers with visual impairments could take part blots out the natural and acoustic environ-
in the discussions. These plans were well ment.
tested and were available from the internet:
it is possible to print these, photocopy them
and make a raised copy from this suitable
to take on site. The same basic forms were 6. Spatial Hearing in the En-
used for one of the city centre signs, in the
manner of this example. vironment
Although touch is necessary to read tac- Much of our appreciation of space is by
tile images, this sense also applies to a the interpretation of reflections of sound and
much broader experience and context and this is often produced initially by the person
we must remember that the whole body is who is trying to appreciate the space. How-
equipped with sensors. ever, if we were trying to destroy somebody’s
appreciation of a painting we would pour
Many conventions such as the surface of a engine oil all over it. This is exactly what we
door need to be reconsidered. We have all do with the sound environment; vehicles
117
Peter Howell and Julia Ionides
produce nasty, oily sounds that override ev- flower stall; bold easily seen landmarks such
erything else. Few environments are com- as large interestingly shaped trees or colour-
pletely without background sound, but if ful seats or murals with tactile details. Listen
there is no background sound then there is to the sounds such as clocks striking to give
an opportunity to carefully introduce sound orientation, footsteps that might sound dif-
in a meaningful way. If there is meaningful ferent in various places, trees that the wind
sound then the situation is more complex blows through. We are starting on a survey
but could be very exciting. of Ludlow right now in order to produce a
sound picture and a tactile booklet.
But, there are places where the unhappy
by product of the internal combustion en- In the Avalon Marshes in Somerset we
gine does not penetrate and cover the world worked on panels, a tactile booklet and a
with a nasty noisy cloud. An example of this sound guide which included oral history
is the Greek island of Hydra which has no from the older members of the communi-
motorised vehicles on it and Venice where ty and contributions from local experts in
the sound of bells is enhanced by the ab- history, trees, mythology and natural his-
sence of the constant hum of cars. tory. Wind-up audio units have been placed
around the site.
This kind of quiet, changes our way of hear-
ing the sound of an environment. Venice is We need to encourage designers and ar-
another example of a place with a quite dif- chitects to include sensory icons in their
ferent kind of sound and here we have made projects – the sound of water is an obvious
over one thousand recordings of this envi- sound icon to navigate by, different textures
ronment. We find that these ‘unclouded’ en- underfoot provide tactile clues, especially if
vironments allow us to see the environment there is a difference in the sound of the ma-
through our ears. Sometimes, it might not be terial used; handrails by steps can have mes-
a romantic ideal environment but it is real. sages built into them in Braille and images
It is important to remember that sound is an – I am sure you can think of many more.
important way of communicating in all situ-
ations. If we believe in multi-sensory design as a
component of a new world which will al-
Surveys of Rural England show that the low communication with everyone then we
sound of traffic slowly but surely is eating have to watch information flow concepts
up the space between roads and in only one very carefully, otherwise we will be firmly
or two counties there are still small areas locked out from the development of a world
where there is no noise from vehicles except that considers control and profit more im-
from the occasional passing tractor or car. portant than people! In other words a world
that follows human greed rather than hu-
Our town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England, man need!
it is a good example of practical sensory ur-
banism with its feast of historic buildings for We have talked about various techniques
the eye, the sound of the rushing river, the and concepts in relation to the creation of
smell of the food shops and the taste of the communication systems to connect people
many award winning cafes. There are also with the urban environment and to design
sensory clues around the town: the cobbles for people. It is vital in this consideration to
underfoot for example; tactile clues such as realise that there are real people out there.
railings and statues; open spaces where the The human race is very varied in experience,
wind blows through more than sheltered language and sensory ability. It is important
corners, smells such a baker or brewery or a to realise that they, that is human beings, are
118
Design and Communication in a Multi-sensory Environment
the essential aim of the design programme. eryone, and in particular people with visual
Sadly this is often overlooked! impairments, to access all environments, es-
pecially heritage sites and museums.
Biographies
Julia Ionides, M.A., is an art and architec-
tural historian with a special interest in the
18th and 19th centuries. She is the author
of Thomas Farnolls Pritchard of Shrewsbury,
Architect and Inventor of Cast Iron Bridges
(1999) which she published with her hus-
band, Peter Howell, under their own Dog
Rose Press. Other books published by the
Dog Rose Press are Memories by Luke Ion-
ides, with an Afterward by Julia Ionides and
Victorian Days in England by Anna Maria
Fay with Additional Material by Julia Ionides
and Peter Howell. Also The Old Houses of
Shropshire in the 19th Century by Julia L
Ionides and Peter G Howell. Work is pro-
gressing on a book on the Poor Law in the
Ironbridge area and a book on Shropshire
Churches based on water colours by Ed-
ward Williams.
119
Awakening the Blinded Sensation
Min-Feng Hsieh
University of Edinburgh
pressed other senses and restricted “the missing dimension needed to be revealed
way architecture was conceived, taught and and restored in the way we understand and
critiqued”(Pallasmaa 2005). construct the world.
While celebrating the advances and pros- To emancipate from these sensory bias
perities that modern architectural and urban and conceptual constraints in the course
culture had brought to us, the negative de- of reconstructing the missing layers of the
velopment of architecture and city has been way we experience, understand, and create
overlooked. As Pallasmaa states that “the in- space, this paper will try to adopt a phenom-
humanity of contemporary architecture and enological approach in reorienting our con-
cities can be understood as the consequence ception of sense and perception. Through
of the negligence of the body and the sens- utilizing the notions of perception derived
es, and an imbalance in our sensory sys- from the theories of musical experience in
tem” (Pallasmaa 2005). As a consequence, exploring the spatial experience, an experi-
architecture and cities were created through mental observation and its musical transla-
Cartesian conception and abstract thinking tion will be presented and discussed as an
which appeal to the disembodied visual ap- attempt to reveal the blinded sensations we
preciation and intellectual eyes and eventu- encounter in a lived space.
ally ”push us into detachment, isolation and
exteriority”(Pallasmaa 2005).
121
Awakening the Blinded Sensation
Figure-1
Figure-3
A crossroad at Portobello in Edinburgh. vertical scanning co
1. Acrossroadhasbeenchosenasthesitefor-
samplinganurbanepisodebyvideo record-
ing.
3 HighC is a graphical music creation tool. It is a synthesizer, a sequencer and a mixer. Its goal is to ma
composition as simple and direct as sketching.
2
g analysis of the kinetic disposition detected by MaxMSP , a
rhythmic-graph was produced in graphical music composition software HighC , which was
inspired by Xenakis's UPIC work of the mid 80's.
5. By assigning sonic parameters, this rhythmic-graph has been transformed into a musical
passage as a translation of the kineticMin-Feng Hsiehof a spatial episode.
experience
Figure 4: A rhythmic-graph created with HighC ate the perceived sensorial episodes as an
Figure-4 a rhythmic-graph created with HighC
embodied ‘Experiencescape’ in which we,
the perceivers, transform the physical space
into a ‘phenomenal field’ and perform the
Derived from this observation and musi-
2 Max/MSP is a realtime visual programming environment fordynamic multimediaperceptual landscape
and control that's in ourabout
great for learning inner
cal translation, there are several points to be
digital signal processing, exploring new music-making ideas,subjectivity. In short, this ‘Experiencescape’
hardware interfacing, and more.
elaborated and extended: The translation of
emerges in a body-subject and requires ac-
spatial perception via a musical agency is a sequencer and a mixer. Its goal is to make music
3 HighC is a graphical music creation tool. It is a synthesizer,tive and creative performance of perceptu-
an attempt
composition to divert
as simple the perceptual
and direct as sketching. interac- alization with all senses. It also dynamically
tion away from visual mode, which is a rela-
evolves itself, and is fluctuant in nature.
tively passive and focus perception, to aural
mode, which requires active and peripheral6
perception. Through this perceptual trans-
mission from one sense to the other, the cor-
relations between all the alternative sensa- 4. Think and Experience
tions reshuffle themselves. In this reshuffling Rhythmically:
process, the visual sensation concedes and
the aural sensation takes the center stage. Towards a Music-phenomenological ap-
proach to Multimodal Perceptualization of
While listening to this musical passage with Space
a perceiving mind, our attentive perceptual-
ization of the heard sensorial episode can Extending from the previous discussion,
be considered as an embodied performance I would like to conclude this paper by re-
of experiencing the rhythmic fabric which flecting upon the wonder of how rhythm
dynamically evolves itself in a lived space. could be utilized as a musical agent and
This perceptualization is an active perfor- as a phenomenological conception, and
mance which perceptually structures the by proposing, at the same time, a music-
sensed by constant shifting and prioritizing phenomenological approach of multimodal
the multimodal sensations we engage. perceptualization of space.
In the way and process of our experiencing, In the framework of spatial experience,
perceiving, and confronting these felt and rhythm, in its implicit dimension, only exists
lived perceptual encounters, the perceiver in an attempt to grasp the temporal relation
acts not just as a passive receiver but an ac- as a kinetic pattern among instances happen-
tive performer and creator. By and through ing simultaneously. The kinetic relation can
the perceptualization conducted, we recre- only be perceived through an act of relating
125
Awakening the Blinded Sensation
and integrating the felt sensations in an ac- the apparent disorder currents...”Through
tive way. In this sense, while we are attend- these “accidental or determined encoun-
ing to the rhythmic context of a given situa- ters”... ”The Rhythmanalyst thus knows how
tion, the process is executed by correlating to listen to a square, a market, an avenue”.
the available multi-modal sensations in real He asserts that “what Rhythmanalyst does...
time which utilizes rhythm as a ‘perceptual is to increase the reader’s sensibility to the
coordinator’ in searching for a kinetic rela- diverse, multiple rhythms of everyday life”
tionship in a given spatial episode. Instead (Lefebvre c2004).
of being a kinetic pattern to be grasped, per-
ceived, and experienced, rhythm, in its ex-
plicit dimension actively regulates and mod-
ulates the related felt sensations by which References
it shapes, changes, and dominates the per-
ceptual experience when the perceiver’s in- Clifton, T. (1983). Music as Heard: a Study
terior rhythmic impulse (biological and psy- in Applied Phenomenology. New Haven;
chological rhythm) is over powering its felt London, Yale University Press.
exterior counterpart. In other words, rhythm
plays its role in our perceptual experience Langer, M. M. (1989). Merleau-Ponty’s Phe-
as a ‘performative modulator’ by which the nomenology of Perception: a Guide and
‘Experiencespace’ of a lived space is shaped Commentary. Basingstoke, Macmillan.
and reshaped from within.
Lefebvre, H. (c2004). Rhythmanalysis:
By conceptualizing and utilizing the dual Space, Time and Everyday Life. London,
facets of rhythm inwardly as an implicit per- Continuum International Publishing Group.
ceptual coordinator and outwardly as an ex-
plicit performative modulator, this approach Pallasmaa, J. (2005).The Eyes of the Skin:
not only suggests the necessities and impor- Architecture and the Senses. Chichester,
tance of taking both aspects into account in Wiley-Academy.
understanding the rhythmic perception, but
Reimer, B. andJ. E. Wright (1992). On the
also points out the potential of using rhythm
Nature of Musical Experience. Niwot,
as an ‘experiential device’. It allows us to
Colo., University Press of Colorado.
articulate the richness of our lived spatial
experience through organizing the kinetic
patterns and relations between the multi-
modal sensuous catalyzers which are allo-
cated and to be composed in the process of Biography
experiencing and designing our space.
With a background of 12 years of training in
All of which has been brought out give us classical music, I was offered recommended
some confidence in believing that adopting admission with full scholarship by National
these views in investigating spatial percep- Board of Special Education to continue my
tion will potentially direct us to a new ap- music study at Tunghai University. A year
proach to reconsider the way we experience later, I transferred from Music Department
space and create architecture and our urban to Architecture Department to start a five
environment. As Henri Lefebvre declares year architecture course and obtained my
that “rhythms surrounds us, if only we pay BA degree in architecture in 1990. In 1993,
attention, with all our senses...” an order I graduated with a Master degree of archi-
will “reveal themselves through rhythms in tecture from the University of California at
Berkeley, USA.
126
Min-Feng Hsieh
127
Aural Wallpaper and Music of the City
Laura Lewis & Harvey Ward Turner
Mugstain Design
This begs the question, are public Squares Conversation in Russell Square 67
of less value to us in the winter? Do these ur-
Average conversation 50 – 60
ban places have a kind of seasonal effective-
ness? And what is the function of a Square; Threshold of outdoor noise level 50 – 55
on a summer’s day; in the grey of winter? To
gain a clearer insight into the aural quality
of Russell Square and its potential effect on
our experience, decibel level readings were Pedestrian crossings adorn each side, al-
taken at three specific points; the periphery, lowing access to the Square and providing
the interim and the centre of the Square. brief respite from the acceleration of vehi-
cles. When traffic pauses to let the pedes-
Location trians cross, the hum of the bite reads 65 dB
towards the periphery of the square, at the
dB outermost footpath loop. When accelera-
tion resumes, the average reading of traffic at
Periphery 65
the same point is 72 dB, 75 dB if motorbike
Periphery – acceleration 72 – 75 traffic. At the top of the hierarchy of noise is
the emergency vehicle’s siren, heard but not
Periphery – emergency sirens 78 – 80 seen, so evidently not even that close, push-
ing 78, 79, 80 dB. These noises are shrill,
Interim 62 unwelcome, intrusive.
5. Types of noise…
Fig. 3. Illustration: Russell Square noise source
The noises within the café however, as
loud – louder! – are friendly, welcoming,
allowing the comfort blanket of anonym-
ity. Incessant chattering reads an average of Although our own inherent decibel reading
69 dB, with the clattering of cutlery up to ears recognise that it is a little quieter in the
76 dB. But these sounds; these immediate centre, the hostility created by the exposure
sounds, do not offend. Decisions are made to the elements registers with our minds that
subconsciously, and a taxonomy of noise we are no more protected. Additionally, the
acceptance is created. eye can’t see the vehicles; the machines and
their noise become nothing more than wall-
Back in the Square… paper, but the mind’s eye creates a picture
based not only on the noise, but also on the
It was assumed that the further one got smell and taste of the car fumes. A visual
away from the noise source, in this case the equivalent is created. Note, the associations
traffic in the neighbouring roads, and to the are visual, but the original source is not.
centre of the Square that the noise would
lessen. This was barely the case. Yes, there Back to the 2003 restoration…
is 3 dB difference between the periphery
and the centre, but only 3 dB. It became The restoration however was largely, if not
immediately apparent that the greater the solely, geared towards a visual aesthetic.
distance from one noise source, the closer The Square is Grade II registered by English
the other three became. Russell Square is Heritage, and the restoration was designed
violated by noise from all sides. to replicate the original plan of 1805, rather
than to produce a contemporary interpre-
tation. In fact, the official information for
Russell Square states that the restoration
was designed “to return the garden as far as
possible to its appearance in the 1800s.”
pedestrians follow the exact same route as to be designed-in, and formulas for urban
before? Yes. Can they do it with the same design and landscaping created, so as not to
feeling of escapism from city life? No. mar the visitor experience.
Can the aim of any restoration project be In 2005, in a progress report of the Mayor’s
purely physical at the absolute detriment Ambient Noise Strategy, it was noted that
to the original intended function of urban “recent transformation in the visual qual-
space? Here, due consideration has been ity of new buildings and public spaces has
given to the arrangement of plants “accord- not always been matched by a similar atten-
ing to Regency horticultural principles”, tion to sound quality.” The proposed solu-
but not according to the creation of noise tion? More water features in urban parks
management. Additionally, “ornamental” and squares; masking intrusive noise with
planting has taken precedence over stra- acceptable noise.
tegic planting to control traffic noise. Ar-
chaeological research has it that the inner The contemporary water feature at Rus-
horseshoe-shaped path was lined with “a sell Square reads 65 dB when on high. This
cloister-like tunnel of lime trees” originally. is little competition for the traffic noise, let
To replicate this as closely as possible, a alone enough to mask it completely.
pergola has been erected in its place; the
effects of its complimentary planting are yet So what is an effective solution? How
to be seen. do we provide refuge from intrusive noise
and create ambient urban parks that really
Commendable as this regimented ap- do achieve Repton’s original intention, and
proach to planting and the preservation of become, “a space for the wider communi-
past methodologies may seem, inconsisten- ty, and… a welcoming escape from a busy
cies then arise with the built aspects of the city.”
Square. A pick ‘n’ mix mentality is adopted
as a contemporary water feature is intro-
duced; and a reclaimed 1960s café is used,
retaining nothing of the visual integrity of 6. Conceptual Proposal; be-
the 19th century concept.
ing for now more question
If such compromises can be made at lei- than answer!
sure, then surely here is an opportunity for
the introduction of structural elements to Where is refuge when on the streets?
enhance the aural experience of the city Where is refuge for the pedestrian traveller,
stroller. This does not have to be at the ex- the promenader, the city wanderer, the fla-
pense of symbolic or historic references, but neur, the urban voyager, the stroller, drifter,
with average decibel readings of 62 dB at somnambulist? Convention, represented
the core of the Square sentimentality can by Kennington Park and Russell Square, is
hardly be afforded. for soft landscaping and the laying of paths
that direct the pedestrian away from the ma-
The development in transportation over the chines of noise; creating distance as much
last 200 years, and all that this brings with it, as the situation might allow.
has been ignored throughout the restoration
project. As with many urban spaces; the Our proposal, our area of exploration and
Coliseum, the Eiffel Tower; Russell Square thought, leads us to perhaps think otherwise.
has become a busy roundabout. Compen- Our proposal is for the very opposite. In the
sation for this progression in transport needs lee of the machine, if not quiet, is at least a
132
Laura Lewis & Harvey Ward Turner
quieter place. In its very shadow is refuge! Let us for the moment conjure in the imagi-
nation what we might for ease of clarity call
full-height vertical interventions across an
open space, especially at the periphery. The
boundaries, the physical enclosure (of Rus-
sell Square for example) provide the occur-
rence of horizontal diffraction.

Might this offer a quieter zone up against Fig. 5. Illustration: Horizontal and Vertical Diffrac-
the vertical intervention? And might there tion
be correspondingly less quite zones moving
away from the intervention?
And if there are zones of variation, might The traditional approach to designing-in vi-
these be given visualisation through mate- sual relief to these perhaps fairly long struc-
rials so that the pedestrian passing through tures might be to provide breaks through
or wishing to remain for a while, might which site-lines sit, and where pedestrians
consciously make a choice about the sort pass through from one place to another. But
of auditory experience they want to engage what if the placing of these breaks were gov-
with. The focus for us is not the science; it’s erned not by a visual aesthetic, but an aural
the idea, as designers, as conceptual think- one!
ers who are always willing to explore every
possibility. This again requires an act of open mind-
133
Aural Wallpaper and Music of the City
7. Visualising the Concept An entire space may come alive to the ac-
tivities of both the natural world and human
The ‘Square’ becomes a vessel for slowing activity. These membranes may be varied so
down and containing human activity. The as to include the potential for active engage-
Urban Design Group reminds us that roads ment; a climbing wall, a bird wall, a basket-
are corridors and squares are rooms; and ball wall; plants climb, shadows climb, light
that research reveals pedestrians slow their falls and fades, colours brighten then pale,
pace when entering and crossing a square surfaces reflect brightly then dull; the physi-
and then speed up again as they exit into a cal spaces between skins being constantly
road. The removal of walls succeeds only divided and reformed by shifting condi-
in widening corridors rather than enlarging tions. These sensory interstitial boundaries
rooms. creating a seamlessness between notions of
inside and outside. The idea of what com-
In attempting to give visualisation in our prises the ‘pedestrian’ square might shift to
minds eye to the concept being outlined, encompass pavements on the opposite side
we all no doubt conjure an image of a laby- of the roads that define the parameters of
rinthine maze of walls as a low-rise exten- the square.
sion of the surrounding built environment; a
series of interconnecting brick rooms open In thinking about the Aural Wallpaper of
to the sky. Open views across a space sac- the City, it’s characteristics and the mecha-
rificed for a view across a room. Expansive- nisms that might be required to make cre-
ness replaced by closed views. Multi-sen- ative and inventive use of it, we are lead to
sory engagement not only connects us to re-adjust our view of other senses and how
place, but awakens a wish to belong – to in addressing the one, we see possibilities
dwell; as Heidegger says, “to feel inside a in the others. Through creative use of ma-
place and to be at home.” He continues terials, visualisation can be given to ‘zones’
that human existence is inseparable from a of differentiated auditory experience so that
sense of place; the spirit of a place. the aware pedestrian could negotiate their
own auditory experience across a space.
In this time of extraordinary material in-
ventiveness, and without neglecting the au- In visualising the ‘zoning’ of aural spaces,
ral integrity of design, we cannot ignore that we are led to consider the notion of turbu-
any instrument or structural addition to a lence. Turbulence takes place immediately
space has a visual implication. in front of an intervention and immediately
after diffraction when both vertical and hori-
What if, instead of vertical hard-landscap- zontal diffractions collide.
ing consisting of heavy impenetrable and
dense materials we were to consider ques- Turbulence always takes place immediate-
ly adjacent to an area of greatest calm.
134
Laura Lewis & Harvey Ward Turner
Further research leads us to investigate not How desensitised is our hearing when it is
only the potential placement of physical required to engage and respond without un-
boundaries but also other important condi- due focus, perhaps randomly, to such subtle
tions. Decibel level readings reveal those encounters? For attentiveness “unlocks a
conditions to have an effect on the outcome sphere of reality that no one suspects.”
of the data. These include weather, volume
at source, composition of wave frequency, How much control can be applied to such
fluctuations in sound level and distance; ad- an apparently uncontrollable energy?
ditionally so too in regard to the nature of
the intervention; its physical characteristics, And on the question of aural intervals; as
dimensions, positioning and shape. pedestrians we move at a moderate pace.
How effective and meaningful might these
However there are some general proposi- intervals be, for, if the distance between
tions that can be claimed: them is too small, the overspill (diffraction)
from vertical edges may mitigate any per-
A simple vertical intervention can reduce ceptible aural recognition of ‘difference’
decibel levels by 2 to 5 points. and further, if the interval is too wide, any
sense of connection with the interval imme-
Closer to the source is better for a clearer diately preceding may be lost.
aural definition of difference.
8. Interim Conclusion
There are questions, many questions.
135
Aural Wallpaper and Music of the City
Biography
Harvey Ward Turner BA (Hons) MA. Fine
Art, Visual Culture, Applied Arts (Architec-
tural Metal Working). Mugstain Design.
Lecturer in 3 dimensional design, North West
Kent College (Spatial Design & Visual Stud-
ies). 1995 Torridon Design. 1982 IDEAS
spatial design.
136
Designing a Notation for the Senses
Dr Raymond Lucas
University of Strathclyde
‘If you desire only to possess a graceful visual senses in our experience of urban
accomplishment, to be able to converse spaces. We then intend to design tools to
in a fluent manner about drawing, or to allow for crafting urban environments to re-
amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I spond to these other senses.
cannot help you: but if you wish to learn
drawing that you may be able to set down Understanding the role of the non-visual
clearly, and usefully, records of such things senses is difficult, as there is at present no
as cannot be described in words, either recording medium for the olfactory, gustato-
to assist your own memory of them, or to ry, tactile or even aural environment which
convey distinct ideas of them to people; is useful to the practice of urban design. In
if you wish to obtain quicker perceptions any case, recording has a different aim from
of the beauty of the natural world, and to drawing and notation. The reason for this
preserve something like a true image of rejection of recording technologies can be
beautiful things that pass away, or which understood through the following observa-
you must yourself leave; if, also, you wish tion by Jorge Luis Borges:
to understand the minds of great painters,
and to be able to appreciate their work ‘The taste of the apple... lies in the contact
sincerely, seeing it for yourself, and loving of the fruit with the palate, not in the fruit
it, not merely taking up the thoughts of itself; in a similar way... poetry lies in the
other people about it; then I can help you, meeting of poem and reader, not in the
or, which is better, show you how to help lines of symbols printed on the pages of
yourself.’ (Ruskin, J. 1971:25)[1] a book. What is essential is the aesthetic
act, the thrill, the almost physical emotion
that comes with each reading.’ Borges, J.
L. Foreword to Obra Poética cited in Pal-
lasmaa, J. 1996:6 [2]
Introduction
When using audio recording equipment,
This paper is drawn from the work of the
all one records is the sound that the micro-
Multimodal Representation of Urban Space
phone technology can pick up. Even when
research project for the UK’s AHRC and
using equipment that mirrors the position-
EPSRC under the Designing for the 21st
ing of human ears such as binaural micro-
Century stream of projects. The aim of the
phones, it is clear that many of the effects of
project is to understand the role of the non-
137
Ray Lucas
aural perception are not replicated. These factors by virtue of their denial or absence.
differences may include memory or atten- Each of these qualities is nested within the
tion functions of perception, meaning that artifact, coexistent with, and essential to
situations such as the ‘Cocktail Party’ effect each other [3].
where one picks up on your own name be-
ing spoken across a noisy party are not fully
replicated by recordings.
‘Because a plan is a drawing, with lines
This all moves us away from a record- and angles subject to continuous varia-
ing technology to a more prosaic solution: tion, the first guess would be that it is
drawing and notation (although this still technically a sketch. But on the plan
constitutes a technology, of course). This is are measurements in words and figures.
also important methodologically, as it places This suggests that we have here a com-
our proposal firmly in the realms of creative bination of sketch and script. But I think
practice rather than scientific understand- this again is wrong. In the first place, the
ing. As such, we are not looking to collate drawing is used only to indicate the re-
the responses of a wide variety of respon- lataive location of elements and measure-
dents (although this is possible within the ments. Careful drawing to scale is merely
system developed) in order to find a com- for convenience and elegance; a rough
mon understanding of a place, but to rely and distorted version with the same let-
upon the observations of a designer in mak- ters and numerals, qualifies as a true copy
ing informed decisions. There is a crucial of the most precisely drafted blueprint,
role for community engagement of course, prescribes the constitutive properties as
but this comes at a different stage of the de- rigorously, and has the same buildings
sign process. as compliants... Thus although a drawing
often counts as a sketch, and a measure-
ment in numerals as a script, the particu-
lar selection of drawing and numerals in
1. What is Notation? an architectural plan counts as a digital
diagram and as a score.’ (Goodman, N.
Dividing up the various forms of inscrip- 1976:218-219)[4]
tive practice is a difficult task, defining the
difference between sketches, drawings,
drafting, notation, diagramming and map-
Nelson Goodman’s work on Languages of
ping is an activity fraught with blind alleys,
Art (a title that Goodman is somewhat em-
problems of definition and intent. Rather
barrassed by, given the connotations of lan-
than see each of these as a different subset
guage as a term) describes in great detail the
of inscriptive practice, I have come to un-
distinction between scripts, sketches and
derstand each as a potential property of any
scores as creative activities. These defini-
inscription, so that an architectural draw-
tions are particularly useful in terms of ac-
ing, for example, can be said to have the
tivities and practices rather than completed,
interplay of white space and line inherent
crystalline objects [5].
to drawing, the instructional quality of nota-
tion, the scale and ruled quality of drafting, In Goodman’s system, sketches are work-
and the pictorial representation of a sketch ing documents, but not in any language sys-
all within the same set of marks on paper. tem, rather being in an internalised system
Many other qualities can be found within without semantic or syntactic differentiation
this drawing, and others can be said to be (Goodman 1976:192). It is the relationships
138
Designing a Notation for the Senses
of the elements pictorially that are of prima- solution: it cannot exist without the creative
ry concern in a sketch, and, unlike a score, practice being engaged in, as decisions and
where some elements of the inscription are modifications are so open and constantly in
redundant, none of the pictorial elements of flux that the temporality is inherent in the
a sketch can be discarded as irrelevant. Fur- result. The speculative problem is absolute
thermore, the sketch is a work rather than and has a right and wrong answer defined
something that determines a later perfor- as the possible rather than multiple poten-
mance. tial solutions, as is found in the creative pro-
cess. In this context:
‘In short, the sketch–as a sketch–differs
from the score not in functioning as a ‘the possible is only the real with the ad-
character in a language of a different kind dition of an act of mind which throws its
but in not functioning as a character in a image back into the past, once it has been
language at all. The notational language enacted.’ (Bergson 1992:100)
of musical scores has no parallel in a
language (notational or not) of sketches.’ This project seeks to find a notation for
(Goodman 1976:193-194) the sensory experience of urban environ-
ments for these very reasons. Rather than to
Score and notation are conflated by Good- draw the senses, we aim to produce scores
man, who states that the score is a ‘character for the senses, scores that allow for creative
in a notational system’ (1976:177). Scores replication through a common code or ru-
are understood to have performances com- dimentary language. This is to allow for the
pliant to them: scores are to be enacted and essential design activity of both understand-
acted upon, suggesting that a notation is a ing and recording phenomenological expe-
set of instructions. This performance is un- riences, and then to establish patterns from
derstood to be an artwork in its own right, as these recordings that can be used to form
is the production of the score, as Goodman new design solutions.
cites Sir George Thomson’s views on experi-
mental science:
his work on perception, and is borne out ‘For him, nothing is invisible. He hears
by architects such as Peter Zumthor [10] in the wind, the rain, storms; but if he con-
describing the manifesto for his architecture siders a stone, a wall, a trunk, he under-
as the creation of atmospheres. In this ex- stands their slowness, their interminable
tended essay, a number of the challenges to rhythm. This object is not inert: time is
our project at large are given form. not set aside for the subject. It is slow
only in relation to our time, to our body,
As well as these holistic approaches to com- the measure of rhythm. An apparently
plete sensoriality, a number of texts draw immovable object, the forest, moves in
upon one sense, particularly an alternative multiple ways: the combined movements
to vision, which is given a place of priority, of the soil, the earth and the sun.’ (Lefeb-
a place that is ripe to be usurped. The most vre 2004:20)
likely candidate to overthrow vision is hear-
ing. Sound is uniquely developed as a field Lefebvre’s method encourages a certain
thanks largely to the pioneering work of R aloofness, like an early detached ethnogra-
Murray Schafer on the Soundscape. Schafer pher. The site of observation is suggested as
is, of course, only the first, and a field of a balcony, with a good view of the area in
sound design and appreciation of the urban question. Our method would critique this
environment has developed across a variety part of Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis, preferring
of disciplines. Rather than give a survey of to place the notator in the action of the ur-
this work by the likes of Blesser [11], Augo- ban environment. I would even suggest that
yard [12], DeNora [13] and Bull [14], I shall the action of memory in recalling an event
instead consider taking the aural as a start- soon after its happening would be prefer-
ing point for the other senses. able to the aloof method proposed by Lefe-
bvre here. Despite this problem, there is a
This may at first seem to be replacing the vi- great deal to recommend Lefebvre’s theory
sual bias with another, but is intended pure- of rhythm. The phenomenological basis of
ly as an exercise in thinking and perceiving. the work is clear, to the point of incorpo-
Were the other senses to be considered in rating one’s own bodily rhythms into the
terms of sound, a series of other qualities are process: an awareness of the heart rate and
revealed. Foremost amongst these is the im- pumping of blood around the body, the ac-
permanent and fleeting nature of sensation. tion of breathing.
Rather than fixed, total and permanent as vi-
sion might suggest, the senses (and I include There is a great deal more to say about
seeing in this) are contingent to a large num- Lefebvre than we have space for here, the
ber of factors such as season, weather, time concept of social dressage, for example, in-
of day, social and cultural events, and many forms which gestures are encultured into a
more temporal and rhythmical variables. city. This can be particularly important as
in examples such as subway and metro sys-
This focus on the temporal recalls the work tems where the spatial configuration is very
of Bergson once again, where everything similar from London to Paris, New York,
can be understood through duration. It Moscow or Tokyo. The dressage of the par-
also suggests a more useful theoretical text ticipants in these quotidian events are how-
by Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis [15] in ever, completely different from one city to
which Lefebvre posits rhythm as an alterna- another.
tive concept to that of geometry. As a char-
acter, the rhythmanalyst is described thus: ‘Observe the street, from time to time,
with some concern for system perhaps.
141
Ray Lucas
Apply Yourself. Take your time. You must write about out it more slowly,
almost stupidly. Force yourself to write
Note down the place: the terrace of a café down what is of no interest, what is most
near the junction of the Rue de Bac and obvious, most common, most colourless.’
the Boulevard Saint-Germain (Perec, G. 1997:50)
The auditory Listening Mechano- Cochlear Orienting to Vibration in the Nature and
system receptors organs with sounds air location of
middle ear and vibratory events
auricle
The haptic Touching Mechano- Skin (including Exploring of Deformation of Contact with
system receptors and attachments many kinds tissues, the earth,
possibly and openings), configuration of mechanical
thermo- joints (including joints, encounters,
receptors ligaments), stretching of object shapes,
muscles muscle fibres material states,
(including solidity or
tendons) viscosity
The visual Looking Photo-receptors Ocular Accommodatio The variables of Everything that
system mechanism n, pupilary structures in can be specified
(eyes with adjustment, ambient light by the variables
intrinsic and fixation, of optical
extrinsic convergence structre
muscles, as exploration (information
related to the about objects,
vestibular animals,
organs, the motions, events,
head, and the and places)
whole body)
142
Designing a Notation for the Senses
mind, I return to the various taxonomies derstanding and theory of the movement of
of the senses, and in particular the work of the human body onto how it is represented.
James Gibson in The Senses Considered as This is no different to the way in which any
Perceptual Systems. This work is widely cit- form of inscriptive practice imprints some
ed in Malnar & Vodvarka’s comprehensive form of accepted understanding onto what
work on Sensory Design and offers a model it represents: no form of inscription is neu-
of the senses which considers them as ac- tral.
tive modes of attention. This rejects many
of the assumptions of psychological studies One feature of Laban notation of particular
of the senses, where experiments are con- interest is the effort and shape matrix. This
ducted on passive subjects robbed of any is one small part of Laban[19] which is used
context for the sensations experienced. This to depict qualities of a movement, where
lack of context is essential for the scientific the main notation scripts the direction and
method to operate, but it misses several of specific parts of the body in motion, the ef-
the fundamental features of perception: that fort matrix tells the dancer more detail on a
it is attentive and active, and that it is always given instruction.
within a specific context. We see in places
and spaces, we perceive in the environment The matrix notation is particularly elegant
and are always a part of it. and efficient as a means for giving this infor-
mation, depicting a series of axes of opposed
These attentive systems of perception are terms, the notator draws only the elements
arranged slightly different to the traditional of the matrix required for that instruction.
notion of five senses we have in the West:
Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell and Touch. In- The first attempt I made to design a notation
stead, Gibson gives us the Basic Orienting for the senses drew heavily upon this system,
System, Auditory System, Haptic System, establishing a matrix for each sense and re-
Taste-Smell System and the Visual System. lating these phenomena to a plan drawing.
Each is given a mode of attention, receptive The spatial extent of each sensation was de-
units, anatomical details of the organ, the picted through a variation of Kevin Lynch’s
activity of the organ, the stimuli available famous Imageability [20] symbols which
and an account of what external informa- describe urban spaces in terms of paths,
tion is obtained. nodes, landmarks, districs and edges (Lynch
1990:18)
in Allan Jacobs [21], the serial drawing of record a route by taking a reading at either
Gordon Cullen [22], the play of public and each traffic intersection or at specific timed
private space or even the Situationist Drift of intervals. The second notations are static re-
Guy Debord [23]. cordings of a fixed places such as a square.
Several sites around this place are recorded
and plotted on a plan.
144
Designing a Notation for the Senses
Descriptor: use a word from the list given The next step is to place a descriptor word
to characterise each of the six perceptual on each of the six perceptual systems em-
systems: visual, aural, olfactory/gustatory, ployed by the notation. These are chosen
tactile, thermal, kinaesthetic. from a restricted and carefully selected list
of words for each sense. The terms are cho-
sen for their clarity and lack of metaphorical
content. This precision of language finds its
By locating the site on a traditional draw- roots in Laban notation’s Effort and Shape
ing such as a plan or section, the notation- matrices, where a very tight use of language
al scheme can be understood as a layer or helps to describe quite complex movements.
transparency added to traditional modes of Similarly, a lesser known system of move-
depicting urban spaces. This is an important ment notation, Saunders Notation (Hutchin-
step, as it identifies the process as part of the son-Guest 1989:xx). Additionally, names of
traditional toolkit, rather than completely things causing particular sensations such as
alien to it. Additional information such as traffic or wind may be added if the notator
time, date and weather conditions are nec- feels it necessary.
essary for the future usefulness of the record,
as the sensory data vary widely depending The third step in the notation is the main
upon the time of day or the season. graphic step: priority. This step is subjec-
tive by its very nature, but it offers a strong
145
Ray Lucas
picture of each environment as well as sug- what makes this trail unique in character.
gesting immediate ways in which the envi- Similarly, the static locations can be re-
ronment may be changed. This step consists viewed and understood, particularly where
of deciding which senses are strongest, most a body of people have taken a record of the
affective and prominent. The senses are then same place under similar conditions.
ranked in order of priority. This is drawn in
an order of priority rather than introducing These observations are collated, so that
artificial constructs such as the percentage patterns may emerge. These patterns are
of the sensorium devoted to that sense. The understood in the same way as Christopher
Radar chart is drawn with numbers from 1 Alexander’s Pattern Language with a differ-
to 6, outside to inside. The highest prior- ent slant: the sensory experience of place.
ity is placed at one, the least at six. There Of course, Alexander’s work has been de-
is flexibility within this, of course, allowing ployed differently by a variety of academic
some senses to be placed at the same rank disciplines over the years. One example is
as each other, or the gulf between two per- the adoption of his work by computing sci-
ceptual systems to be depicted as larger or ence as a model for how creativity and de-
lesser as appropriate. sign works. This is a false picture, however,
and is attractive to that discipline precise-
The next, optional step, is to depict the ly because it is easily understood through
corroboration between the senses by using computational models. Other uses have
curved, dotted lines between the different included rather reactionary movements in
senses. These lines can contain a variety of urbanism which use Alexander’s patterns as
data about this relationship, but the main a justification for pursuing a purely histori-
thrust is to efficiently describe where these cist agenda, rejecting everything the 20th
overlaps occur without overloading the dia- Century and Modernism had to offer. This
gram. is not to devalue Alexander’s approach of
course, as it certainly has its place and is
The final step recognises the temporality of of intense interest. A new pattern book is
the senses, and adds indications to the main being assembled using the Sensory Nota-
Radar diagram lines of the quality of time in- tion method, not as absolute models, but as
herent to that sense. This can be persistent, suggestions and examples to be played with
repetitive, singular, rhythmic or intermittent. and designed with freely, but in an informed
This notation is not necessarily timed using way. Patterns will include public squares,
chronological time, but rather recognises fountains, gardens, thoroughfares, boule-
the phenomenological basis of the notation. vards, arcades, steps, subway entrances,
The conceptualisation of time in this regard and many more.
is experienced time rather than the clock
time of the physical sciences. These patterns can be used as given or
adapted freely as required by the designer.
The diagrams are collected and analysed The patterns give help to designers looking
in a number of different ways. The route no- to create urban spaces, offering short-cuts
tations can be layered, showing the progress and opportunities for designing richer mul-
along a path through transparency. This al- timodal environments. The notation can be
lows the route to be understood in terms of used to record existing sites and diagnose
how the senses change from one position problems with them, or offer rich descrip-
along the path to another. This can aid in tions of desirable places for the construction
identifying the prominent sensory stimuli of completely new sites. The toolkit shall
on each route, where there are deficits, and be distributed in printed form and consist
146
Designing a Notation for the Senses
of the Sensory Notation system and Sensory 11. Blesser, Barry and Salter, Linda-Ruth.
Pattern Book [24] as well as detailed essays 2007. Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?
on the importance of the senses in urban de- Experiencing Aural Architecture. Cam-
sign. bridge Massachusetts: MIT Press.
10. Zumthor, P. 2006. Atmospheres. 19. Dell, Cecily.1977. A Primer for Move-
Basel: Birkhäuser. ment Description Using Effort-Shape and
147
Ray Lucas
148
The Play’s the Thing
Geoff Matthews
Lincoln School of Architecture
150
The Play’s the Thing
because it deals with the ambiguity and flu- how the design process functions through
idity of things in the process of becoming, drawing and a range of necessary supple-
representation works with metaphors rather ments in writing, speech and gesture.
than absolutes. The most important facility
offered by the iconic image is access to the
rich array of associations that authors and
audiences have in their minds. It can ‘point 5. Representional tools:
towards original resemblances, whether of
quality, structure or locality, of situation, or, towards a heterogeneous design tool kit
finally, of feeling’ (Ricoeur, 2003, 224) but
to arrive at some shared meaning everything I have selected work by artists, designers,
must be played out in conversation. This choreographers and composers (but not ar-
sense-making activity is interminable, how- chitects) hopefully to attend to the less obvi-
ever, individuals and groups do not have an ous. The trajectory of many contemporary
unlimited capacity to cope with representa- artist’s technique is rather unpredictable.
tions. In practical situations complexity is Very often the ‘art’ is not in the mastery of
contingently attenuated to some degree or particular media but in the invention, filter-
another; not only do we work with meta- ing and transformation of new means of ex-
phor, these naturally agglomerate into work- pression.
ing myths (Carter & Jackson, 1984, 523 &
528). The coincidence of synaesthetic compe-
tences and programmatic interests produces
Ashwin argues for a semiotics of design many interesting results. For example, Ralph
drawing starting with the observation that Steadman’s expressive model of the set de-
‘iconicity does not provide a comprehen- sign for ‘Crashed Car’ utilizes unexpected
sive account of drawing in relation to de- model-making materials to signal a layer of
sign’ (1989, 201). Design drawing tends to sensory meaning that would be missing in a
elaborate a hybrid sign system by combining more orthodox presentational scale model.
elements of indexical, iconic and symbolic Its emotive functionality elicits haptic sen-
quality. In design specification drawing sations just from looking; one can almost
tends to be conventional and monosemic in smell the accident (Goodwin, 1989, 187).
intention. But design exploration is more
broadly communicative and associated Another innovative technique achieves
drawings are more or less polysemic. Ash- a more extensive sensory simultaneity. It
win discusses drawing in terms of six func- involves layering disparate conventional
tions of communication; it may have a refer- elements to produce a hybrid document.
ential, emotive, conative, poetic, phatic, or In temporal terms Tom Phillips libretto for
metalinguistic function or function in several ‘Othello’ does this to intensely poetic effect
of these ways. Presentation (not representa- by combining musical score, script, stage
tion) implies unambiguous and persuasive direction and visualization (Hall & Burnett,
communication, a compromise between 1999, 8), yet it also succeeds in combin-
referential and emotive functions combined ing referential and conative functions, and
with the conative. The multi-functionality in relation to the original musical score,
of design drawing, its dynamic polysemic a metalinguistic one. In spatial terms Lev
qualities, and its hybridity as a sign system, Nusberg’s ‘Plan for Kinetic Environment for
make a semiotics of drawing a complex but the Seaside Area of Odessa’ (1970) presents
potentially subtle means of analysis. The an event landscape persuasively by insert-
primary interest I wish to explore here is ing indications of movement, sound, texture
151
Geoff Matthews
and smell into a conventional plan drawing Some theatre designers make extensive
(Henri, 1974, 131-2). use of storyboards. Typically a sequence of
sketches, that represent the whole stage as
Sometimes the artist will subvert the con- seen from the best seat in the house, is anno-
ventions of a drawing system to better tated with information about sound, smell,
communicate an idea. For example, Juan movement, special effects and lighting. Bob
Downey’s ‘With Energy Beyond These Walls’ Crowley finds that he gets a more collabora-
(1971) connects the elements of an installa- tive response from those involved creatively
tion like components in an electronic cir- in a production using storyboards rather
cuit. Although referential in function and than a model. The sketch storyboard of the
closer to specification than presentation, ‘The Plantagenets’ (1988) shows how rapid
the drawing is more openly polysemic than and dynamic the process can be (Goodwin,
one might expect; it dispenses with coher- 1989, 55). Michael Spencer’s storyboard for
ent perspectival space in favour of a looser ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (1993) em-
diagrammatic connectivity and combines phasises action and atmosphere (Burnette &
visual representation of physical things, in- Hall, 1994, 60). Multifunctionality is appar-
visible fields and sensory elements with de- ent in these examples as conative function
scriptive annotation (ibid, 73-4). combines alternately with the referential
and the emotive.
Most theatre designers use model making
to facilitating creative dialogue. The empty Model and storyboard facilitate devel-
stage is recreated to scale and its interior opment of the overall stage design. Oth-
used to develop ideas in full colour and er techniques are used to focus on detail.
naturalistic detail. This iterative process in- Character development, for example, relates
volves director, writer, actors, lighting tech- closely to costume, props and set decora-
nicians and others directly in discussing and tion. For ‘Street of Crocodiles’ (1993) Rae
manipulating physical content. Andrew Smith used close observation of rehearsals
Storer’s design for the ballet Romeo & Juliet to fix characters and generate a sense of set-
(1990) shows the result of collaboratively re- ting (ibid, 86). The annotated sketches are
fining the orchestration of space, movement, emotive in the sense that they record the de-
sound and light (Burnette & Hall, 1994, 70). signer’s aesthetic and intellectual responses;
In the earliest stage of the process emotive they are phatic in that they signal to the
function may predominate as the designer company that something designerly is hap-
makes broad interpretative gestures with ex- pening. They are also metalinguistic insofar
pressive materials but this quickly turns over as they supplement and clarify costume de-
to a referential-conative function as ideas of signs and model details. The same interpre-
structure, space, movement, light, sound, tation works for the ‘character bible’ Anna
period feel, etc. begin to emerge. Richard Asp builds for each principal cast member
Bidgland’s sets for Resident Evil were de- in a movie production. Each character in
signed as composite structures and built in ‘The House of Spirits’ (1993), for example, is
the hanger-like space of a film studio stage captured in a montage of textures, colours,
(Anderson (dir), 2002). Simpler white-card patterns, fragrances, flavours, photograph-
models were used to focus the team’s cre- ic images, found objects, and natural and
ative attention on manipulating form, struc- synthetic materials (Ettedgui, 1999, 116-
ture and space. Arguably their key function 17). The construction of these very specific
is metalinguistic because they supplement identities compares with the outcomes of
and clarify ideas initially visualized in and psychographic studies. For example, the
annotated on storyboards. design of the Bluewater retail complex was
152
The Play’s the Thing
informed by an extensive programme of fo- use the system for recording and analysing
cus groups designed to reveal the richness movement because very detailed aspects of
of consumers’ lifestyles (Baker, 2000, 19- posture, dynamics and interaction can be
20). This created, in effect, a cast of prin- described. Labannotation embodies similar
cipal characters with which the developers, principles. The key differences are that it
retailers and marketers could orchestrate the uses a vertical three-line stave and a palette
Bluewater experience. of geometric symbols (website: Labannota-
tion). Both systems are available as software
In Alison Chitty’s drawings for ‘Turandot’ packages.
(1997) annotation refers to the embodiment
of quite visceral sensory experience in the In the second half of the 20th century some
design of physical elements (Burnette & composers were particularly inventive in
Hall, 1999, 90). Welfare State’s community- dispensing with the regulated soundscapes
based participatory methods similarly realise of the symphony orchestra and chamber en-
the potential of place through the embodi- sembles. Stockhausen’s ‘Kontakte’ for elec-
ment of site-specific ideas. For example, in tronic sounds (1959), for example, explores
‘Fragile Gift’ the location, a traditional in- spatial distribution and (real and apparent)
door market hall, informs a critical reflec- movement of sound sources (Smith Brin-
tion on the commercialisation of Christmas dle, 1975, 95). Improvisation and chance
shopping (Burnette & Hall, 1994, 117). operations were important in some avant-
garde work and this gave rise to innovative
Conventional systems used in choreograph- notation. Morton Feldman’s ‘Intersection
ing martial arts and dance can be by turns 1’ (1951) and Gyorgy Ligeti’s ‘Volumina’
openly polysemic and monosemic. They (1961-2) are examples of simplified notation
are very flexible when developing ideas for designed to create scope for interpretation
movement and very precise when recording within a precise framework for the ensem-
action as it happens and analysing move- ble (ibid. 67 &71). Some scores resemble
ment captured on video. The Carter Fergu- abstract diagrams or maps and are more in-
son system is a simple accurate way of plan- determinate still. J Levine’s ‘Parentheses’, for
ning swordplay and hand-to-hand combat. example, harks back Renaissance part songs
It is referential and conative. Four-column in layout and evokes the graphics of elec-
tabulation, a list of letter codes and conven- tronic circuitry and set theory: associations
tional annotation is used to describe two that are quite deliberate on the composers
combatants’ movement and contact (web- part (ibid. 90). Guisepe Englert’s ‘Aria for
site: Fightdirector). Tympani’ reads like the map of an eventful
journey across the instrument’s membrane,
Benesh Movement Notation and Labanno- which is precisely the intention (ibid. 83).
tation are the two common notational sys- There is a clear connection here with Stans-
tems for dance. The Benesh system uses a field’s propositions for ‘physical scores for
horizontal five-line stave for each performer. engagement’ (2008).
It represents the vertical division of the body
into zones associated with the feet, knees, The concept of the ‘sound map’ is current
hips, arms and head, and is favoured for in technical applications and Web 2.0 cul-
choreographing classical ballet. Symbols ture. Colour-coded mapping of the noise
representing specific body and limb move- environment is a service available from orga-
ments are supplemented with a range of ex- nizations such as Cambridge Environmental
pression marks (website: Benesh). Anthro- Research Consultants (website: Noisemap).
pologists, clinicians and physiotherapists The Danish Wind Industry Association pro-
153
Geoff Matthews
vides an on-line design tool which calcu- areas signifying zoning of content, can be
lates noise levels in and around wind tur- layered over the basic drawing to present
bine arrays (website: Windturbine). There the experiential dimension of the design.
are many participatory web-based projects In the design of the ‘Restoration and Con-
based on the idea of hyperlinking location- servation’ exhibition at Ludwigsburg Palace
specific recordings to Google Earth maps (2004) Bertron, Schwartz & Frey utilized a
(website: Soundseeker). One can, for exam- range of layering techniques to explore and
ple, find time-dated recordings of animals present the zoning of light, sound and hap-
and ambient sounds (website: Wildsanctu- tics (2006, 95).
ary), and linguistic surveys of dialects and
regional accents (website: Soundsfamiliar). Some exhibits use smell for very obvious
reasons, such as the Perfume exhibit pro-
Finally I want to look at work by exhibi- duced by the Museum of Art and Design in
tion designers’ because they often produce Hamburg in partnership with International
multi-sensory, multi-media, communicative Flavours and Fragrances (Website: IFF). In
environments. Neal Potter’s first drawing for others, however, fragrance is ambient and
the Agit Prop Train exhibit at the Museum designed to condition the audience in quite
of the Moving Image (1988) is annotated in specific ways. This is very difficult to do be-
the top-right corner: ‘Evocative sounds of cause there are cultural differences in the
the train running. Smells of the laborato- interpretation of smells. That Samsung’s
ry. Train on rockers to simulate movement’ flagship electronics store, on the upper
(Matthews, 2007, 29). The reference here to west side of Manhattan, smells like Honey-
aural, olfactory and haptic elements broad- dew Melon is evidence of very subtle and
ens the referential capacity of the draw- detailed brand design management (Trive-
ing and limits its polysemic qualities. The di, 2006). In the ‘Scents of Space’ exhibit
drawing represents at least three stages in (2002) Usman Haque specifically focussed
a collaborative process. Initial discussion on the potential for communication through
between designer, project director and his- the orchestration of fragrances in time and
torical consultant inspired the exterior per- space. The drawings of the exhibit describe
spective. The interior sketch, drawn on a a three-dimensional space within which
separate piece of paper, was collaged onto each fragrance and duration of exposure
the sheet much later; it adds detail to the ex- is presented using colour-coded blocks of
periential aspects of the exhibit. A research- varying size and interval (Responsive Envi-
er added the annotation during a creative ronments book XXXXXX).
session. The techniques are simple and very
adaptable.
154
The Play’s the Thing
155
Geoff Matthews
Gray (ed.) The Cyborg Handbook, London: Featurette on the DVD release.
Routledge, 1-14.
Bahr, Fax. & George Hickenhooper (dirs)
Henri, A. (1974) Environments and Happen- (1992) Hearts of Darkness: a Filmmaker’s
ings, London: Thames & Hudson. Apocalypse, documentary film, ZM Produc-
tions.
Jackson, N. & P. Carter (1984) ‘The Attenu-
ating Function of Myth in Human Under-
standing’, Human Relations, 37:7, 515-33.
Filmography Biography
Anderson, Paul. (dir) (2002) Resident Evil, Geoff Matthews holds a doctorate in man-
Constantin Film Production, Set Design, agement systems and sciences from Univer-
156
The Play’s the Thing
157
Factor Analysis of the Pedestrian Number in a Downtown
Area Using Visibility Indicators:
A Case Study of the Sakae-South District, a Downtown Area
of Nagoya
Akira Ohta, Rim Meziani, Yuta Sugiura
and Toshiyuki Kaneda
Tokyu Land Corporation, Nagoya Institute of Technology and
Nagoya City Office
large cities is now a widely studied subject. For this study, factor analysis of the hustle
Ohtsu
and bustleAvenue
is important;into a pedestrian
the visibility mall.
analysis research of the UCL Group that a.m. to 9:00 p.m.) sectional pedestrian traf-
approaches such “hustle and bustle” or high pedestrian activity from the viewpoint offic volume measured at 61 points located in
spatial configuration is well-known.
In our research, based on a case study of
pedestrian lanes and streets.
the Sakae-South district, a thriving and
dynamic area in the heart of Nagoya City, in order to carry out factor analysis of the
Case Study
accessibility to the nearest station; (2) intensity of land use (a floor-area ratio of
commercial and office space); and (3) a visibility indicator. In addition, by using 2005 by the Minami-Ohtsu Street Shopping
District Promotional Association, and ad-
regression equations, trial calculations were made to assess the impact of converting the
Nagoya City has a population of 2,200,000 justments for the weather and missing data
whole of Ohtsu Avenue into a pedestrian mall.
★ Department Building
160
Akira Ohta, Rim Meziani, Yuta Sugiura and Toshiyuki Kaneda
161
Factor Analysis of the Pedestrian Number in a Downtown Area Using Visibility Indicators
commercial use and building-to-land ratio Accessibility -24.960052 -0.340815 -1.98489 0.05206
of commercial use on the ground floor was Visibility Indicator 0.328639 0.138604 1.27462 0.20771
0.840. Each of the correlations was strong; Commercial Land Use 686.315117 0.259769 1.48235 0.14385
on the ground floor were rejected. Pedestri- We used Equation 1 to make a forecast of the pedestrian number. Trial calculations
were carried out for the case of a whole roadway section of Ohtsu Avenue, the main
an lane width also showed a strong correla-
6. Test Calculation for Convert-
thoroughfare that passes through the case study district from north to south is converted
tion with the visibility indicator, which was to a pedestrian mall (Fig. 4 (b)).
In this case, the visible sector expands; therefore, based on the increase of X4
0.739; therefore, it was rejected too. ing the Whole Ohtsu Avenue
(visibility indicator), the increase of Y (the pedestrian number) was calculated. When
we examine the distribution rate obtained by dividing the pedestrian number at each
into a Mall
point by the total pedestrian number at all points, the distribution rate at each point
changes after conversion to a pedestrian mall.
By using the change in the distribution rate, the rate of increase of the pedestrian
5.3 Examination with Multiple pedestrian number in the whole district; and a 20% increase in the pedestrian number in
the pedestrian number. Trial calculations
the whole district due to conversion to a mall.
Linear Regression Analysis With no change in the pedestrian number in the whole district, in sections where
were carried out for the case of a whole
pedestrian lane s are invisible the pedestrian number dropped by a uniform 4% and at
by the total pedestrian number at all points, case of no change in the pedestrian number
the distribution rate at each point changes in the whole district, there was a uniform
after conversion to a pedestrian mall. drop of 4% in sections where pedestrian
lanes are invisible, and there was a maxi-
By using the change in the distribution rate, mum increase of 13% at those points where
the rate of increase of the pedestrian number the mall can be seen; and in the case of a
was calculated at each point for two differ- 20% increase in the pedestrian number in
ent scenarios: no change in the pedestrian the whole district, there was a 15% increase
number in the whole district; and a 20% in sections where pedestrian lanes are in-
increase in the pedestrian number in the visible and a 36% increase at those points
whole district due to conversion to a mall. where the mall can be seen.
With no change in the pedestrian number For visibility analysis, many reports have
in the whole district, in sections where pe- been presented for closed system spaces and
destrian lanes are invisible the pedestrian it has been considered that such analysis is
number dropped by a uniform 4% and at not suitable for application to open system
points where the mall can be seen, the pe- spaces; however, by establishing borderlines
destrian number increased to a maximum of the research enabled the application to an
13%. With a 20% increase in the pedestrian open system space. This is a key characteris-
number in the whole district, in sections, tic of the research.
where the mall cannot be seen, the pedes-
trian number increased by a uniform 15% In addition, for a visibility indicator, con-
and at points, where the mall can be seen, nectivity attaches great importance to an
the pedestrian number increased to a maxi- unobstructed view, and regardless of the dis-
mum of 36%. tance, all points within a visible sector are
regarded as equal. However, in reality, from
the perspective of human vision, objects at
a distance look smaller and objects that are
7. Conclusion closer look larger; therefore, a future project
is to create an indicator that takes into ac-
With the Sakae-South district in Nagoya count the actual distance from a point.
City as the subject, the research analyzed
factors that have an effect on high pedestri-
an activity. As a result, it can be considered
the main factors that affect the pedestrian References
number and create the hustle and bustle of
Sakae-South district are in order of impor- Batty, M. (2001) Exploring isovist fields:
tance: accessibility from the nearest station, space and shape in architectural and urban
intensity of land use (floor-area ratio for morphology, Environment and Planning B:
commercial and office space) and the visi- Planning and Design, Vol. 28, 123-150.
bility indicator. However, it cannot be stated
that the results of the regression equations Desyllas, J. and Duxbury, E. (2000) Planning
are statistically significant. for movement: measuring and modeling pe-
destrian flows in cities. RICS Conference,
With regard to the forecast where the London, 2000.
whole street was converted into a mall by
the application of an equation, the results Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1984) The Social
of trial calculations were as follows: in the Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
163
Factor Analysis of the Pedestrian Number in a Downtown Area Using Visibility Indicators
164
Pictorial Fictions:
A Borgesian Reading of Guillermo Kuitca’s Sonorous Geog-
raphies and Opera Houses
Malca Mizrahi
Bartlett School of Architecture
165
Malca Mizrahi
entirely different nation, and in the instal- two apparently fixed places on the map. His
lation Untitled 1992 European road maps movement has a trajectory which is not only
are painted onto mattresses that become a spatial but temporal because it has duration.
metaphorical image of spatio-temporal voy- The passing of time, both at the place he left
aging, placing them in the realm of fiction and at the place of arrival, is also consid-
and imagination. While there is no internal ered, for neither origin or destination are
narrative to the maps, their reading invites passive places, ‘they are an intertwining of
the viewer-voyager to imagine one, turning ongoing trajectories’, and when he steps out
the bed-map paintings into a territory to re- of the train he becomes entangled in the sto-
think the notions of place, experience and ries that began before his arrival. To open up
memory. I start here looking at them as spa- space to this kind of imagination is to think
tio-temporal tools, to show how their spatial space and time simultaneously, Massey says;
aspect includes time. it is not travelling across space-as-surface
but across a multiplicity of stories. Move-
Although other art critics and writers have ment here is a process of change, and here
already traced Borgesian references in Kuit- is not a place on a map, it is an intersection
ca’s paintings, I will define here where that of trajectories and of stories of place, ‘…
influence resides and what its effect is. The Every here is here-and-now, and space has
analysed paintings will be read not as illus- time within it.’ The map we imagined when
trations of the literary but as visual works in- we embarked on our journey is a represen-
fluenced by those spatial ideas and devices tation of our trajectory, and captures time
with which Borges imagines space and acti- and space.
vates the fiction.
From the idea of a map as an intersection
The second series discussed here, ‘Acoustic of spatiotemporal trajectories, I propose
Mass’, examines his painting as investiga- another journey, an epic one through an
tions of space and language. I will show in unknown territory where the line of the tra-
what way a change of scale, the inclusion of jectory is traced on Afghanistan (1990). The
the body and the incorporation of architec- time of the journey is unknown, but it has
tural references act as place-making tools. duration. Unlike other paintings I will dis-
Even though the spatial container itself is cuss later, Afghanistan still suggests a collec-
generally absent, the paintings transform tion of coherent trajectories. It was painted
the opera houses into images of resonance; before 9/11, and at the time the place did
they portray the event of music taking place not have the connotations it has now.
in the concert hall, materializing visually an
audio-spatial experience. The bed-map series, including the maps of
Europe and Asia, represent ‘a kind Oriental-
ism, but in reverse’, the painter says. As a
result, the series evokes the unknown, what
2. The map as a representa- is distant and different: they are a collection
of sonorous geographies which do not in-
tion of both time and space clude anything familiar. For the painter, ‘the
in one names in Afghanistan or The Song of the
Earth are just names, pure topography, pure
Doreen Massey’s essay, Some Times of geography: ’the places didn’t represent any-
Space, invites us to imagine an everyday thing I knew, saw in films, nor read in books;
journey from Manchester to Liverpool, and they are just sound and resonance’. Led by
to picture the voyager travelling between sound, the quality that is sought in the map
166
Pictorial Fictions
is not only visual but sonorous, eroding any tions to a mixture of existing and invented
reference to the familiar to achieve abstrac- texts, and the use of many of Borges’s real
tion. friends as characters in the plot. If in Borges,
maps, encyclopaedias and the names of real
San Juan de la Cruz, a pictorial fiction: The people and places are the way to persuade
map as a failed navigational instrument the reader of the veracity of his stories; in
Kuitca’s paintings names are there to dislo-
Kuitca’s interest in cartography is shared cate, to subvert the fictional character of the
with Borges: ‘The map is one of the most maps. By creating a mixture of real places
fascinating forms of spatial representation’, and fictional geographies, the collection of
he says. San Juan de la Cruz is the paint- painted maps supports invention through
ing where the map subverts the principle the juxtaposition of reality and fiction in the
of cartography, transforms the geography, same way as Borges achieves verisimilitude
and turns into the opposite of a navigational through fictional intertextuality and false at-
tool. It is the instrument for getting lost: its tributions to real people.
purpose is not to identify where you are, but
to show where you are not. Here the tra- The second device is what Beatriz Sarlo
jectories are organised as if one place is all calls ‘mise-en-abîme’, a spatiotemporal pat-
places: the city of San Juan arbitrarily re- tern applied to both narrative and spatial de-
places all major cities of Poland, suggesting sign. Borges’s ‘mise-en-abîme’ builds upon
a terrifying journey in which all roads return a spatial paradox that lies on the superior-
to different points but which are the same ity of images over reality, a baroque type of
place. The labyrinthine itinerary of San Juan space. In her essay ‘Tropes of Fantastic Lit-
de la Cruz (1992) is also a recurrent spatial erature’ she explains how this type of spatial
characteristic of Borges’s stories. The image paradox compels us to experience infinity
of the map is the representation of a world as in a finite space; according to the principle
organised and complete as Borges’s ‘Death of endless inclusion, it modifies our belief
and the Compass’ (1942) for example, but in the truth of our perceptions and sets a
also as nightmarish. Moreover, Kuitca’s tension between what we can conceive
map is also trespassed by a referential ab- logically and what can be concretely, ma-
erration, i.e. the constant recurrence of the terially or sensorially perceived. In Borges’s
same place, and represents visually Freud’s Tlön there is no spatial continuity, space is
uncanny: ‘…after having wandered about by definition discontinuous, and a place
for a time without enquiring my way, I sud- or an object in space is never the same if
denly found myself back in the same street, considered from the point of view of time.
where my presence was now beginning to ‘Identity, according to this conception, is un-
excite attention. I hurried away once more, imaginable, because no substance extends
only to arrive by another détour at the same its being through time’. The painting San
place yet a third time. Now, however, a feel- Juan de la Cruz, as the structure of an imagi-
ing overcame me which I can only describe nary geography with no spatial or temporal
as uncanny…’ continuity, proposes a visual presentation of
a geography where space is discontinuous,
Two more fictional devices are there in the where the same place can appear in a map
paintings that suggest Borges’s influence. again and again, transgressing the concept
The first is the use of the Borgesian method of identity: as objects and places multiply
of verisimilitude. In the story ‘Tlön, Uqbar, in Tlön, the city of San Juan multiplies in
Urbis, Tertius’ (1949) for example, verisimil- Kuitca’s map.
itude is achieved by combining false attribu-
167
Malca Mizrahi
168
Pictorial Fictions
and colour the effect that the act of listening terns that do not suggest dynamism or dra-
has upon the painter. In a similar manner, ma per se. Imagining the experience of the
Borges’s ‘The Aleph’ is the story that tells space that geometry suggests, i.e. the space
the experience of seeing oneself inhabiting perceived when the concert hall is filled by
a paradoxical space. Therefore, and as a re- music, is what induces the idea of spatial
sult of the necessity to make experience per- drama. Equally to Borges’s characters fac-
manent, both stories and paintings are here ing spatial paradoxes, Kuitca’s paintings are
to prevent experience from disappearing in experiential accounts, and both visual and
Berger’s sense. literary expressions attain lyricism through
the representation of experience.
169
Malca Mizrahi
Biography
Malca Mizrahi is an architect and writer.
She graduated from the Faculty of Architec-
ture, University of Buenos Aires and has a
Masters Degree in Architectural Design from
The Bartlett School of Architecture. She is
currently undertaking graduate research at
The Bartlett, working with contemporary art
practices which engage with the production
of space and architecture.
171
Adjacency, Permeability & Inter-Visibility:
micro scale spatial analyses tools for revealing the private -
public space relationship and its impact on urban safety
Akkelies van Nes
Department of Urban Renewal and Management, Faculty of
Architecture, Delft University of Technology
172
Akkelies van Nes
town centres instead of creating new out variations of urban functions in new areas.
of town settlements. The idea is that high However, the degree of inter-connectivity
diversity and density of various kinds of and the topological shallow public-private
land use, functions and cultural activities interface is often forgotten.
will contribute to vital lively urban areas
and economic growth. As stated in most
policy documents, the density of the built
mass should be high without loosing good 3. Micro Spatial Relation-
living qualities (Nota Ruimte 2004:71, Rog-
ers 1999:45). The compact city is used as ships
a model for urban renewal for enhancing
A method describing micro scale spatial
growth in existing centres instead of urban
variables in urban studies aims at defining
sprawl for promoting sustainable develop-
the inter-relationship of buildings or pri-
ment. How this must be realised is, how-
vate spaces and adjacent street segments.
ever, never demonstrated in recent policy
The focus is on how dwellings relate to the
documents.
street network, the way buildings’ entrances
What is striking is how project developers constitute streets, the degree of topological
promote new housing areas in urban central depth from private space to public space,
areas. In their glossy brochures, full of pic- and inter-visibility of doors and houses
tures of traditional urban street life with a across streets. As Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl
large variation of cafés and individual small argue, many entrances and windows facing
shops and enterprises, they sell it as “ur- a street is one formula to ensure urban live-
ban living.” Often the intention is to create liness (Jacobs, 2000; Gehl, 1996). The chal-
lively and diverse urban areas. However, lenge is to quantify these kinds of spatial
when it comes to the final product, the ur- relationships. Only then it will be possible
ban street life inside these areas is missing to gain a genuine understanding on the spa-
– even though the integration of the street tial conditions for vital street life and urban
net is high. safety.
173
Adjacency, Permeability & Inter-Visibility
for each segment. The results of the micro where the entrances to each apartment are
spatial registrations were put in a database connected, while others have a closed main
together with various macro scale variables entrance where visitors have to use a call-
derived from the space syntax analyses of ing system. During registration the degree
the street and road net and the number and of permeability was used. Where a flat’s
characteristics of residential burglaries and front door or main entrance was permanent-
thefts from cars for each street segment. ly locked and provided with a doorbell or
calling system, it was registered as a private
space from thereon. When flats have open
main entrances, the number of semi-private
spaces was counted up to the apartments.
174
Akkelies van Nes
Each side of a street segment is registered Figure 4 shows some examples on consti-
separately. There are many streets where en- tuted and un-constituted streets. The two
trances are directly connected to the street entrances on the top are constituted streets.
on the one side, while there is a flat with In both cases the entrances are located only
an upper walk gallery on the other side. If at one side of the street. The example on the
a street segment’s side has several depth left is a street dating from 1600 and the ex-
values between private and public spaces, ample on the right is a street from the 1970s.
the average value is used. The diagram in Both two streets below in figure 5 are un-
figure 2 (top) illustrates various types of rela- constituted. No entrances are directly con-
tionship between private and public spaces. nected to these streets. The example on
The black dots represent the private spaces, the left is a street located in a high rise flat
while the white dots represent semi-private area from the 1960s. One has to go into the
spaces. semi public side streets in order to reach the
flats’ main entrances. Regards the example
A street’s degree of constitutedness de- on the right, dating from the 1990’s, all the
pends on various degrees of adjacency and apartments are located adjacent to the street.
permeability from buildings to public space. Even though the street is highly visible from
When a building is directly accessible to a all the apartments’ windows, all entrances
street, then it constitutes the street. Con- are located at the buildings’ backsidesand
versely, when all buildings are adjacent to a from the underground parking garages.
street, but the entrances are not directly ac-
cessible, then the street is un-constituted. A Figure 5 visualises the difference between
street segment is constituted when only one constituted and un-constituted streets in
entrance is directly connected to the street. Gouda. Un-constituted street segments are
If the entrance is hidden behind high fences marked with a grey colour, while the con-
or hedges, or has a large front garden, or stituted ones are in black. Most intruded
located on the side of the buildings, then homes (presented as dots) are entered from
the street is defined to be un-constituted. un-constituted street segments. The points
The diagram in figure 2 (below) illustrates of entry into dwellings are marked with a
the differences between constituted and un- line from the street or back alley to the dot.
constituted streets. The number and density
of entrances are not at issue. The degree The more entrances connected to a street,
of constitutedness is about the number of the higher the probability that someone
entrances connected to a street divided by comes out from a private space into public
the number of buildings located along that space. However, high density of entrances
street. connected to a street does not always imply
high inter-visibility. There is a distinction in
the way entrances constitute streets and in
the way they are inter-visible to each other.
The way entrances and windows are posi-
tioned to each other influences the probabil-
ities for social control and street life. Figure
6 shows some diagrammatic principles on
the relationship inter-visibility and density
of entrances.
The street form describes the mode of trans- Figure 7: Examples on 0% inter-visible streets.
When a burglar is inside these fences or hedges, he
port suitable for the street as well as the spa- can operate without being noticed by neighbours or
tial possibilities for a perpetrator’s escape. In people in the street.
line with Shu (Shu, 2000), street form was
categorised as: through carriage ways, cul-
de-sac carriage ways, pedestrianised street,
cul-de-sac driveways, throughfootpaths,
cul-de-sac front footpaths and cul-de-sac
back alleys.
5. Combinations of Micro
and Macro Spatial Measure-
ments
A combination of various micro spatial
measurements makes it possible to gain
 Figure 5: A visualisation of the constituted and quantifiable spatial data for testing on socio-
un-constituted streets in Gouda.
economic data and provide understanding
on the spatial conditions for safe and vital
urban areas. For example, a street with
few connections to its vicinity (macro scale
analyses) can still be full of social activities
if a high density of entrances constitutes
the street and when there is high visibility
176
Akkelies van Nes
between public and private spaces (micro trol, and entrances are hidden away from
scale analyses). The reverse can be seen in streets and visible neighbours.
un-constituted streets with a low number of
entrances and low inter-visibility, but where Urban areas located close or adjoining to
the connections to other streets are high. main routes tend to have entrances directly
Independent of cultures and architectural connected to public streets. The streets are
styles, micro spatial measurements make frequented by visitors as well as by inhabit-
it possible to describe the spatial set up of ants. The inhabitant wants to be a part of the
built environments on a local scale level. urban street life. Often dwellers contribute
to street life by sitting outside on a chair or
As the results from the spatial analyses in the staircase in front of their homes. From
Gouda and Alkmaar show, both micro and their windows, dwellers keep an eye on
macro spatial variables are highly inter-de- what is going on outside. In many integrated
pendent for de-scribing areas’ degree of live- areas, inhabitants like to contribute to the
liness (López & Van Nes 2007). Especially urban living by displaying their interiors to
the topological depth of a street segment in the view of passers by.
relationship to its nearest main route gives a
detailed description of the spatial set up of The more segregated a street segment is,
the area. Most micro spatial variables turn the more mono-functional the adjacent
out to be related to the macro scale vari- buildings tend to be. Topological deeply
able local angular analyses. This variable located street segment usually only have a
identifies the main routes through cities and residential function, since offices, shops and
shows strong correlations with the micro- public buildings tend to locate themselves
scale variables. The following results were along the main routes. The semi-private
obtained (figure 8). segments are among the topological deep-
est and segregated streets. Row housesand
The further away a street segment is from flats tend to be located along topological
the main routes net, the greater the topologi- shallow street segments, while maisonettes,
cal depth between private and public space. vertical separated dwellings and detached
Along the main routes through urban areas, and semi-detached houses are located at
most entrances are directly connected to the the areas edges.
street. When changing direction two times
from the main routes, the average topologi- The further a street segment is away from
cal depth for entrances is 2 while it is 3 in all the main routes, the lower the values of spa-
street segments that are located more than tial integration and constitutedness. Homes
six topological steps from the main routes. located along unconstituted streets deeply
located inside urban areas with low inter-
Visitors usually frequent main routes, while visibility from windows tend to have a high
only inhabitants frequent highly segregated risk of being burglarised (L´opez & Van Nes
streets in which gives neighbourhoods a 2007). The un-constituted back alleys tend
desolated atmosphere. Dwellers inside to be the most segregated street segments.
these areas often prefer to protect their pri-
vate life from insights from neighbours.
When the streets are too much occupied by
neighbours and there are almost no visitors 6. The Urban Street Plinth
around, the social control from neighbours
can be too present. Therefore curtains and Micro spatial relationships play a crucial
high hedges are used to prevent social con- role in the socio-economic life of human
177
Adjacency, Permeability & Inter-Visibility
beings. Often the concept “bringing back city debate. This is not only important for
the human scale” is used in urban policy urban studies, but also for the design and
making. It is referred to the metrical proper- planning of our cities.
ties of space. Maybe a more genuine un-
derstanding on urban vital street life can be
pro-vided through a topological approach
on urban micro scale level? In particular, References
urban renewal projects, modern housing
areas and new large-scale urban develop- Alford, V. 1996. “Crime and space in the
ment projects often tend to lack adjacency, inner city”. Urban Design Studies,No. 2, pp.
permeability and inter-visibility between 45-76.
buildings and streets. This has negative ef-
fects both on street life and degree of safety Gehl, Jan. 1996. The life between buildings:
of these areas. using public space. Copenhagen: Arkitek-
tens Forlag.
High value on the floor-space-index is not
always a condition for safe and lively streets. Hillier, Bill. 1999. “Centrality as a process:
A “vertical city” like Hong Kong has several accounting for attraction inequalities in de-
examples of new housing projects not well formed grids”. Urban Design International,
connected to the street. Even though the vol. 4, no. 3 and 4, pp. 107-127.
number of apartments is high, there is little
street life at the street plinth (Hwang 2006). –––––––––––1996, Space is the machine,
Often stacking apartments can contribute to Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
vertical sprawl, but it seems to depend on
Hillier, B., Penn, A., Hanson, J., Grajewski,
how these flats’ entrances are connected to
T., and Xu, J. 1993. “Natural movement: or,
the street.
configuration and attraction in urban pedes-
However, the degree of inter-connectivity trian movement”. Environment and Plan-
and the topological shallow public-private ning B: Planning and Design, 1993, volume
interface is often forgotten. All these activi- 20, 29 - 66.
ties depend on how the spatial configura-
Hillier, B. and Sahbaz, O. 2005, “High
tion is on the plinth or built up street sides.
Resolution Analysis of Crime Patterns in
Therefore, there is a need to bring micro
Urban Street Networks: an initial statistical
scale spatial relationships on the research,
sketch from an ongoing study of a London
policy making as well as the design agenda
borough” in: A. van Nes (ed), Proceedings
in the urbanism discipline.
Space Syntax. 5th International Symposium,
As the study of 1.168 street segments clear- Delft: TU Delft, Techne Press.
ly shows, the micro spatial conditions of the
Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. 1984. The So-
street segment are inter-related to the macro
cial Logic of Space, Cambridge: Cambridge
spatial conditions of the cities’ street net-
University Press.
work. The definition and operationalisation
of the micro scale conditions is, however, Hwang, I. S. Y. 2006. “When does stack-
still in a preliminary phase and an area that ing become vertical sprawl?”, in: Mander,
can be improved upon in the near future. U, Brebbia, C A & Tiezzi E, The Sustainable
At least, some concepts useful in urbanism City IV. Urban Regeneration and Sustain-
are introduced and bring significant aspects ability, Wessex: WIT Press.
into the urban sustainability and compact
178
Akkelies van Nes
179
Night City and “Schizophrenia”
Julien Richard
Charles University in Prague, Czech Republick
“Many of the surrealists were nightwalk- pm, you’re walking alone in the street... Sud-
ers, specialists in an exercise through denly your hear steps behind you, someone
which they laid their own particular claim is running. A dose of adrenalin spills into
to the city“ (Krauss, 1981, p.13 as cited in your body. Yet, nothing more will happen.
Zardini, 2005). What would it be if it was happening at 11
am? Absolutely nothing, not even a dose of
adrenalin, because you wouldn’t even real-
ize that someone is behind you.
180
Julien Richard
saying that „much of what we perceive has In the lighted night, the human eye is either
value for us, for biological survival, and for in scotopic vision or in mesopic vision, but
providing certain satisfactions that are root- never in photopic mode. Mesopic vision is
ed in culture (ibid.).“ a combination of photopic vision and sco-
topic vision, in low lightning situations.
It appears clear that a keyword of percep-
tion is sense, not limited to the five classic By saying that Man is predominantly a visu-
senses, but also according to the sensitivity al animal, Tuan affirms that the human being
of each to perceive for example changes in is more dependent on sight than on the oth-
humidity or in atmospheric pressure, or also ers senses to locate himself in space (Tuan,
with an acute sense of direction, as explains 1990, p. 6). Moreover, people “equipped“
Tuan (ibid., p. 6). But the most obvious with the five senses probably fear the most
change between day and night is the con- the loss of sight rather than another one.
trast between lightness and darkness. This is Our “visualocentrists“ contemporary West-
perceived by means of our eyes. ern societies seem not to reverse the trend.
Day is directly associated with lightness, The geographer Paul Rodaway affirms it:
night with darkness. At day-time, our per-
ception of the place is essentially visual, “To be blind is to be lost in space, it is as-
sight is the main sense. In daylight indeed, sumed“ (Rodaway, 1994, p. 119).
the sensitivity of the human eye is highly ca-
pable, and technically called photopic vi- Between night and day, the most obvious
sion. It allows us to see the original colors contrast occurs in the visual perception. As
of the light. our eyes get at night less information, we get
less information to locate ourselves in space.
In the dark, the sensitivity of the human eye Without sight we loose our marks and with-
is slightly different and called scotopic vi- out marks we are subject to panic. To avoid
sion. Scotopic vision does not enable color panic, we will concentrate ourselves on our
sensors, we thus only perceive brightness others senses in order to locate again.
image, which consequently means that we
do not see as far as during day time. Once “In total darkness sight is useless. The blind
deprived from our main sense, we tend natu- have no use for eyes“ (ibid., p. 107).
rally to rely more on our other senses. In cit-
In order to not give in panic without sight,
ies however, since the apparition of artificial
man tends to be overconcentrated on his
lightning during the 19th century (Schlor,
others senses. Urban lightning reduces but
1998), the contrast between day and night
doesn’t erase this phenomenon. This signi-
is less flagrant.
fies that through our senses, whether it is
“Even the night, traditionally a time of night or day, we perceive differently. Con-
darkness [...] has slowly been colonized cerning these others senses, the further quo-
by the eye. We have been able to cross tation describes well what is happening:
the frontier of darkness with the help of
„[...] only through darkness, through the
artificial lightning, which offers us an il-
temporary blindness produced by the fad-
lusory sense of security. So dependent are
ing of the light that enables sight, are we
we on vision that it is only by prolonging
able to recapture the experience of the
it into the night that we feel secure in our
other senses. In the darkness, noises are
ability to understand and control our sur-
suddenly amplified, odours are intensi-
roundings“ (Zardini, 2006, p. 44).
fied, and we even rediscover the sense of
181
Night City and “Schizophrenia”
touch“ (Zardini, 2006, p. 45). paper, or wood […] The fundamental na-
ture of the sense of touch is brought home
Taste as well is amplified. It is one major to us when we reflect that, without sight
argument of blind restaurants where people a person can still operate with a high de-
have dinner in a total darkness, their food be- gree of efficiency in the world [...]“ (Tuan,
ing served by blind waiters. But this example 1990, p. 7).
doesn’t concerns directly the night flâneur
we are. Concerning hearing, a city at day- Unfortunately, touch remains a sense of
time is more known for its noise than to be high proximity, and restricts our field of ac-
quiet. Of course, this depends on where we tion.
are. It seems is very hard, even impossible
to trust this sense when located in an urban „[...] on occasion the senses may give
area, except for people who have the expe- conflicting information and so undermine
rience, like the blind. The blind are highly clarity of environmental perception“
sensitive to the masking of sounds and the (Rodaway, 1994, p. 36).
confusion of myriad sounds, especially in
complex soundscapes such as a city street Finally, except tactile sense which allows us
[...] (Rodaway, 1994, pp. 103-104). to perceive only close to the body; in urban
areas, our others senses, smell and hearing,
At night, time of rest and relative quiet, one when not confused by many kinds of para-
can then think that our sense of hearing is sitic factors like traffic noise or a higher at-
more trustworthy. However according to the mospheric pollution, remain obsolete when
further quotation in Yi-Fu Tuan’s Topophil- it is about to locate ourselves in space, es-
ia (1990, p. 9), it seems to be wrong once pecially concerning distance and direction
again. because they do not allow the precision one
can have with sight or touch. At least from a
„[...]a world that seems to have lost its point of vue of a non-blind person.
dynamism appears less demanding and
nervous; it induces a feeling of detach- Tactile sense appears then to be the only
ment and peace, as happens in a pleas- sense that can inform us precisely on our lo-
ant way when the sounds of the city are cation, at both night and day. Unfortunately,
muffled […]. But soon the silence, the se- touch remains a sense of high proximity,
vere loss of information, induces anxiety, and restricts our field of action. We just said
dissociation, and withdrawal in the deaf“ that in order to locate our body in a place,
(Knapp, 1948, pp. 203-222 as cited in we tend then to be overconcentrated on our
Tuan, 1990). other senses and try to build either from our
memory of the place or from our imaginary
Smell, as well as hearing is definitely not of the place which is rooted in our culture,
trustworthy to get located in space. A deli- both regarding the degree of habit and ex-
cious smell of freshly baked bread indicates periences to that place.
there might be a bakery in the vicinity of
where we are. However we are not informed „While the night comes to the city, remov-
of its distance. At last, tactile sense appears ing dust from its remembrances and its
to be the only sense which can inform us phantasms, each of us is able to indulge
precisely, at both night and day, in order to in singular associations“ (Bureau, 2005,
locate ourselves in space. p. 119)*.
„blindfolded […] a man can nevertheless The same author mentions then,
tell the difference between plastic, metal,
182
Julien Richard
„[...] the cold and pasty night of the of its territory, particularly where the sight is
homeless sleeping on the pavement, the not clear. Our senses play tricks on us and
night filled with the nice smell from the we get contradictory signals. Some of them
backup kitchen of a restaurant, the stu- come from our territory, others are totally
dious night of the student dreading the unknown. At night, our senses create then
exam, the pert night of clubs and pubs, parasites on our territory.
the frightened night of the one who hugs
the walls, the long and somnolent night of We have introduced the notion of imagi-
the night watchmen, the boisterous night nary concerning the perception of night ter-
of the party man, the conniving night of ritory. It has also seemed to us interesting
gangsters and murderers, the reassuring to go into detail about mind mechanisms
night of closed shutters […]“ (ibid.)*. relating to territorial perception at night.
The perception being the link between man
 and place and is defined to be both the re-
sponse of the senses to external stimuli and
purposeful activity. Our territory at night is
retracted and threatened by the unknown.
Deleuze and Guattari define this unknown
by „chaos“ and use the example of the child
striken by fear in the dark singing a melody
in order to reassure himself. By singing, the
child creates territory in the „chaos“.
ny is for Samis what is the little song for the  As a consequence, the individual enters
child: a way to create at night territory in the in territory conflict with himself, he is at the
unknown. The human behaviour at night same time landlord and intruder of his ter-
is a question of territory. At night we feel ritory. All of this results a territorial duality
more threatened mainly because our senses explaining a strange behaviour of the schiz-
create „parasites“ on our territory. We get oid, a feeling of fear or aggressivity and a
contradictory signals: some are known and non-certitude to control his thoughts (ibid.).
remind us our territory, others are totally un- A non-certitude to control our thoughts, fear
known and thus appear threatening. and aggressiveness, this remind us the case
of man at night. We can so notice that this
“I don’t want one touching me, I grum- man has a similar behaviour to the schizo-
ble if one enters into my territory [...] It’s phrenic individual.
about to keep at distance the forces of
chaos knocking at the door“ (Deleuze & That would enlighten us about shrinking
Guattari, 1980, p. 395)*. territory, contradictory signals and moving
frontiers. These causes of disorder are the
Territoriality, as explains the geographer John same in both cases for schizoid and man at
R. Gold (1980) is a central principle of etho- night: conflict of territory or territorial dual-
logical theory. Considering the ethological ity. Causes and consequences are the same.
point of view, unknown signals appear clearly We can then think that disorders endured by
threatening. António Bracinha Vieira (1974) the schizoid and the man at night are from
in his ethologic approach of schizophrenia the same family.
notices that the schizophrenic individual has
a conflict of territory similar to the behaviour Schizophrenia is defined to be a long-term
of an animal whose territory retracts and who mental disorder involving faulty percep-
feels threatened by intruders. The schizoid tion, inappropriate actions and feelings, and
gets contradictory signals which can belong to withdrawal from reality into fantasy and de-
his territory, some are known and reminds him lusion.
his territory, others are totally unknown to him
and thus appear threatening. He acts like if an The man at night seems to be subject to a
unknown vector was moving incessantly the kind of schizophrenia.
frontiers of his territory.
Indeed, the paranoid delirium and the dis-
sociation are components of the discordance,
which is itself a fundament of schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a delirium. Thus, the man –
human beings – delirate places at night? Jan
Patocka (1975), philosopher, defines (as cit-
ed in Halik article, 2001) that the night is an
other horizon of sense that doesn’t impose to
man and to the world the rationality, seen as a
source of power and manipulation.
*Bureau, L. (1997). Géographie de la nuit. Zardini, M. (2005). Sense of the city; an al-
Montréal, QC, Canada: L’hexagone. ternate approach to urbanism. Baden, Swit-
zerland: Lars Müller Publishers.
*Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1980). Mille
plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2. *All necessary translations have been done
Paris, France: Les éditions de minuit. by the author of this paper.
CCTV camera, absent from the descrip- 4. Space and place in sensory
tive signs to (visual) sites and areas. But
research on soundscapes has highlighted research
the creeping control reaching its tentacles
into this sphere (DeNora, 2000). The use Defining and engaging with the concepts
of music to shape buying moods and the of place and space continue to provide a
consumption experiences, the sounds major challenge right across the social sci-
projected into the public spaces of clubs, ences but it is geographers in particular have
pubs and cafes as they spill out onto the sought to distinguish between them suggest-
pavements and sidewalks, the design of ing that they are ‘related but distinct con-
sites to elevate (or minimise) the chat- cepts’ (Hubbard, 2005, 41). Crucial here is
ter from customers and users (eg internet the tradition of humanistic geography that
cafes; eating spaces in bookshops) have emphasises the ‘sense of place’ or a largely
gradually changed the control and gover- unselfconscious feeling of belonging to one’s
nance of space. place immanent in different in different set-
tings. This definition of place is supported
by Paasi (1986, 111) who states that:
c) Soundscapes and sound ambient envi- ‘[In this way] place is based on the lifeworld
ronments and everyday actions of the individual. It is
a perpetual, personal interpretation of the
The challenge to ocular-centricism has in- meanings emerging from time-space specif-
cluded the rapid growth in auditory stud- ic situations in one’s everyday practices.’
ies, including acoustic ecology, cultural
studies and musicology research. In hu- In other words the concept of place en-
man geography, since Smith’s (1994) in- ables one to depict the context – to speak
fluential reflections on the soundscapes specifically about sensory urbanism – in
of social, political and cultural life, re- and through which the multimodal qualities
search has progressed – covering not only of urban space are experienced.
links between music and space (Smith’s
initial call) but more widely musical lis- By contrast space tends to refer to larger
tening practices and the timing and spac- territorial units including regions and na-
ing of memory (Anderson, 2004), music tions. For scholars including David Harvey
and citizenship (Revill, 2000) and music and Henri Lefebvre space is implicated in
practices transgressing hegemonic spati- the production and consumption of wider
ality (Kong, 1995). social relations. In his history of space Lefe-
bvre (1991) implies that conceiving (design-
Such brief accounts can, of course, be ing) space as absolute reinforces the repro-
contested and do not represent the diver- duction of revitalised abstract space (i.e. the
sity of activity being undertaken. Rather, space of capitalism). In other words, space
each has been chosen to illustrate how that emerges under urbanisation is intimate-
sensory dimensions have often been add- ly linked to the city building process that in
ed to conventional areas of analysis in turn has implications for associated sensory
urban design and architecture or where experiences (both perceived and lived). In
novel (as in soundscapes research) have sum, spaces are not places but neither can
tended to call on traditional methods of places be spaces (see Hubbard, 2005).
analysis.
As the call for papers illustrates, sensory ur-
banism has given more emphasis on ‘space’
188
Beyond the visual
– both in terms of its relative location, and consciously” dramatized interplay of relay
its experiential components. In seeking to points and obstacles, reflections, references,
further clarify the terminology deployed and mirrors and echoes…’ (p. 210). He goes on
also as a starting point for greater discussion to suggest that the perceptual relations of
over the nature of space:place relations in ‘sensory-sensual space’ circumvent social
opening new avenues for research, we offer relations proper in the relations of produc-
here a brief resume of how, from a geograph- tion. On the basis of this circumvention,
ical perspective, different notions of space Lefebvre subsequently argues that there is a
and place have emerged. It is the approach need to decode ‘sensory sensual space’ as
of Henri Lefebvre thinking – that is one that ‘one layer or element in the stratification and
we wish to highlight today. This approach interpenetration of social spaces’ (p. 212).
has oft been cited as representative of the
neo-Marxist accounts of space:place rela- As a means of decoding ‘sensory-sensual
tions. Under this ontology, ‘abstract space’ space’ Lefebvre (1991) proposes a concep-
has colonised social life through spatial tual triad (see below) that we suggest may
practices and representations of space and also be useful for critically engaging with
it is through resistance and (re-)capturing of multimodal qualities of the urban design
such spaces in opposition to the colonising process. Lefebvre suggests that because
tendencies of capitalism that place (con- ‘sensory-sensual space’ tends to establish
crete space) can be signified. Let’s explore itself within the ‘visible-readable sphere’,
this further. it ‘…promotes the misapprehension of as-
pects, indeed the dominant aspects, of so-
cial practice: labour, the division of labour,
the organization of labour and so on’ (p.
5. Theoretical framework: A 211). However, by the same token if ‘sen-
sory-sensual space’ does not recognize its
Lefebvrian approach own non-visual sphere then other represen-
tations of the multimodal qualities of urban
In this section we suggest that Lefebvre’s space may not be achieved during the design
idea of the city as a ‘place of encounter’ of- process (see Raimbault and Dubois, 2005;
fers a useful launch pad from which to ask Zhang and Kang, 2007). Notwithstanding,
critical questions about sensory urbanism we want to suggest at this stage that Lefeb-
and the multimodal qualities associated vre’s conceptual triad is potentially instruc-
with the actual design of city spaces. For tive for deepening our understanding of sen-
us, a Lefebvrian approach does not simply sory urbanism:
involve delving into the hidden abode of
space itself but rather goes beyond the fe- Representations of space – associated with
tishisms of observable appearances (the vi- the ‘order’ that defines the relations of pro-
sual) to trace the inner dynamics of sensory duction, including planners, bureaucrats
urbanism. and architects. This space is always abstract
since it is conceived rather than directly
The work of French theorist Henri Lefeb- lived. What is of particular relevance to
vre (1901-1991) and his reading of Marxism sensory urbanism here is the ways in which
have been picked up and popularized right the design of ‘public’ spaces has the poten-
across the social sciences (see Gottdiener, tial to but doesn’t always satisfy
1993; 2000; Merrifield, 1993; McCann,
1999; Unwin, 2000). In his seminal text The
Production of Space Lefebvre (1991) defines
‘sensory-sensual space’ defined as ‘an “un- Representational space – space that is di-
189
Robert Rogerson and Gareth Rice
190
Beyond the visual
to be a particular set of suppositions about a) What are the codes (and in turn the de-
people and place that serves some form of sign codes) which capture the sensory rep-
vested interest and through this any genu- resentations of place and what are the re-
inely moral geography is constantly subvert- lationships with other sensory components?
ed for particular purposes and groups. Whilst soundscape research, for example,
has offered a corrective to the imbalance in
the past on visual aspects of place, it has
also created new boundaries in its analysis.
7. Moving forward the re- In particular the focus on ‘noise’ (and espe-
cially its negative connotations and associa-
search agenda tion with traffic) has unhelpfully constrained
analysis.
What then can a moral geography approach
and Lefebvrian conceptualisation of spatial whose morality, and whose sensory no-
representation add to our understanding of tions are privileged? Such questioning in-
sensory urbanism? We offer a number of cludes asking about the basis of the search
possible avenues and research questions; for an apparently rigorous system of mea-
each of which we see as starting points for surement of sound (noise) to give credence
further cross disciplinary dialogue. to the (moral) judgement of being unaccept-
able and an annoyance, and then justifica-
First, these approaches challenge the no-
tion for the interventions made by others .
tion of a ‘singularity’ to the positive senses-
Further, should communities have inputs to
cape and caution against the search for the
the designing process – and if so does this
identification of desirable sensory compo-
reinforce existing prejudices (eg. divisions
nents. Just as there is a diversity of repre-
on basis of religious sensory symbols, age).
sentations on ‘noise’ and what contributes
positive attributes of a sound ambient en- how can space be represented at a gen-
vironment, there remains a risk across all eral level and what methods of capture can
sensory urbanism research of an underlying be employed to assist our understanding of
assumption that either a suitable balance these dimensions of space? And embedded
can be achieved between such perceptions in this is a deeper question of which the
or that a judgement can be made on what privileging of the ‘urban scale’ appropriate.
is acceptable. In focussing on moral geog-
raphies and spatial practices, the search for Together, these reinforce the potential rich-
such a singular position is questionable. ness of viewing the city through multiple
Further, such approaches open up spaces to sensory nodalities, but at the same time
explore what is absent from (rather than the highlight the journey still to be taken.
unwanted presences of) sensescapes – and
also highlight the (often marginalised) views
of citizens.
191
Robert Rogerson and Gareth Rice
Bentley, I., Alcock, A., Murrain, P., McGlynn, London and New York: Taurus.
S. & Smith, G (1985) Responsive environ-
ments: a manual Sevenoaks: Butterworth Kitchin, R. (1998) Out of place, knowing
one’s place: space, power and the exclusion
Craddock, S. (2000). ‘Disease, social iden- of disabled people. Disability and Society,
tity and risk: rethinking the geography of 13 (3), 343-56
AIDS’. Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers 25(2) 153-168 Kong, L. (1995) Music and cultural politics:
ideology and resistance in Singapore. Trans-
Cresswell, T. (1999) Embodiment, power actions, Institute of British Geographers, 20,
and the politics of mobility: the case of fe- 447-59
male tramps and hobos. Transactions, Insti-
tute of British Geographers, 24, 175-92 Lee, R. and Smith, D.M. (Eds.) (2004). Ge-
ographies and Moralities: International
Cresswell, T. (2005) Moral geographies. In Perspectives on Development, Justice and
Atkinson, D. et al. (eds.) Cultural geography: Place. Blackwell Publishing, MA.
a critical dictionary of key concepts. IB Tau-
ris, London. pp. 128-34 Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of
Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
DeNora, T. (2000) Music in everyday life
Cambridge: CUP Lynch, K. (1960) The image of the city MIT
Press, Cambridge MA:.
Dubois, D., Guastavino, C & Raimbault, M.
(2006) A cognitive approach to urban sound- McCann, E. (1999). Race, protest, and pub-
scapes: using verbal data to access everyday lic space: contextualizing Lefebvre in the
life auditory categories. Acta Acustica, 92 U.S. city. Antipode 31(2), 163-184
(6), 865-74
Merrifield, A. (1993). Place and Space: a
Gottdiener, M. (1993). A Marx of Our Time: Lefebvrian reconciliation. Transactions of
Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space. the Institute of British Geographers, 18,
Sociological Theory, 11, 129-34. 516-531
Gottdiener, M. (2000) Lefebvre and the bias Miethe, T. (1995) Fear and withdrawal from
of academic urbanism: what can we learn urban life. Annals, American Academy of
from the “new” urban analysis? City, 4(1), Political and Social Science, 539, 14-27
93-100
Paasi, A. (1986). The institutionalization of
Gottdiener, M. (2003). Recapturing the Cen- regions: a theoretical framework for un-
ter: A Semiotic Analysis of Shopping Malls. derstanding the emergence of regions and
In Cuthbert, A. (Eds). Designing Cities. Criti- the constitution of regional identity. Fennia
cal Readings in Urban Design Oxford: Ox- 164(1), 105-146
ford University Press.
Philo, C. (1987). ‘Convenient centres and
Howes, D. (2006) Charting the sensorial convenient premises: the historical geog-
revolution. Senses & Society, 1 (1), 113-28 raphy of England’s nineteenth-century idiot
asylums’. Working Paper No. 3 Department
Hubbard, P. (2005). Space/Place. In At- of Geography, University of Hull.
kinson, D., Jackson, P., Sibley, D. & Wash-
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Critical Dictionary of Key Concepts. I.B. soundscapes: experiences and knowledge.
192
Beyond the visual
193
Physical Scores for Engagement:
Aerial (Brass) & Object Scores
Kirsty Stansfield
Duncan of Jordanstone, University of Dundee
194
Kirsty Stansfield
195
Physical Scores for Engagement
different form of engagement with our urban or context, group of musicians etc, and will
and domestic spaces - one which affords a therefore never be the same twice. Indeed,
more exploratory, interpretative and active John Zorn states he wants to work with the
way of inhabiting the built environment. experiences that people bring to the situ-
ation, and by creating an appropriate and
A conventional musical score represents interpretative system for engagement - a set
a predefined musical event which is fixed of parameters in effect, the rest will follow
in advance to some degree by the compos- (Zorn 2004). The more politicised Cardew
er. Of course musicians may still interpret “rejected the traditional score for support-
some elements of how the piece is played, ing a hierarchical division of labour that re-
but what is played is defined in advance. quired performers to subject themselves to
This more conventional type of score can the will of the composer” (Cox and Warner
be considered a kind of blueprint which 2004). Both Zorn and Cardew proposed that
has the end result inscribed within its form. the process of rehearsal familiar in musical
This is analogous to an architectural blue- performance be replaced by one of training,
print, which while responding to its context which implies the process of preparing for
and brief, and being open to negotiation something which is not entirely known.
between a client and the architect, it none-
theless defines an “expert” and somewhat While the graphic score is representative of
singular vision in advance of being placed a musical or sonic idea in the first instance,
in its final context. its output can be said to be distributed
through the relations it establishes within
A visual or graphic score, on the other the physical and social setting in which it
hand, defines a context for the event to be finally exists. In short, its final form evolves
performatively realised. It requires the mu- through the deeper and active engagement
sician to interpret the material provided by of the people involved in its creation through
the composer. The ‘structure’ might be pro- a process of improvisation. This improvisa-
vided by visual stimuli, such as a collage or tory process dissolves the notion of a sin-
drawing, or a more clearly methodological gular author (Bailey 1992) as it becomes a
system for the musicians to apply, such as shared and communal experience which is
is the case with John Zorn’s piece Cobra. reliant on a heightened awareness of others,
While the composer’s ideas are represented and a heightened auditory sense.
in some form, the nature of those forms is
deliberately open, either as in The Scratch A parallel form of practice within archi-
Orchestra’s “scratch books” which com- tecture which is based on relations rather
prise collages, drawings, text etc, or, as John than form is Christopher Alexander’s Pattern
Zorn’s Game Pieces which use filing cards Language (Alexander, Isihikawa et al. 1977).
comprising scenes, sounds and instructions. Alexander’s Pattern Language encourages a
A graphic score is essentially interpretative type of active and participatory engagement
and sets a more dialogical process in ac- involving a process in which people can be
tion – a conversation, in fact, between the directly involved in designing the environ-
original intention of the composer, the mu- ment in which they will live and work. The
sician, between the musicians themselves language has been developed out of local
and between the musicians and the audi- building traditions and provides a frame-
ence, and of course between the musicians work which people can shape and adapt to
and the space in which they are performing. their own situation.
The interpretation of that material evolves
over time in response to a particular space
196
Kirsty Stansfield
Their mediation is tempered by distinct In response to this work with elderly peo-
spatial and social factors, such as counter- ple, the installation Object Scores was de-
balance, shifts in weight, a heightened sense veloped. This focused on hand movements
of listening and an awareness of others. In around an oversized table structure which
other words, the physicality of these envi- acted as a bridge similar to that of a cello,
ronments is represented through active sen- to two piano wires stretched through its sur-
sory engagement and through a process of face. This installation was a further explo-
non-verbal communication. People chose ration of how sound can mediate people’s
not to speak in these environments. The relationship to physical form.
shared and intuitive generation of sound es-
tablished an intuitive process of non-verbal
communication and collaboration between
the people engaging with the installation. 7. Conclusion
The installation Object Scores developed The installations outlined here present
out of a participatory project working with physical propositions to an “audience” - a
frail elderly people living in a continuing physical score, similar in intention to the
care ward in a hospital in Glasgow. A series graphic scores employed by The Scratch
of studies were carried out with participants Orchestra or Earle Brown. These physical
to explore how sound can mediate people’s propositions intentionally present interpre-
relations to each other and in response to tative situations, not only in an aesthetic
intimate physical form. A prototype suite of sense, as all art is considered interpretative
interactive sonic sculptures, or “sound ob- at least at the point of reception, but in a
jects” were made which when moved, ex- more dialogic sense in which the objects
posed to light or had applied pressure, con- themselves are not the intended end result.
trolled sound samples held on a computer. Instead the relationships generated within
Studies were carried out with participants these environment are the desired outcome.
197
Physical Scores for Engagement
References
Alexander, C., S. Isihikawa, et al. (1977).
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Con-
struction. New York, Oxford University
Press.
Biography
Kirsty Stansfield is PhD researcher at the
School of Television and Imaging, Duncan
of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Uni-
versity of Dundee.
198
Stockholm, Slowly, Still
Naomi Stead
University of Technology, Sydney
The urban tourist has a quite particular recent innovations in writing space, place,
sensibility, mode of behaviour, and way of and experience, in testing a new mode of
seeing and sensing the city. This is often the representing the city.
result of mediation and negotiation between
tourist media, specifically the tourist map, It is nine o’clock in the morning on Satur-
and the actual lived terrain. But this gap - day the fifteenth of December, 2007. The lo-
between an abstract cartographic represen- cation is Stockholm. The temperature is zero
tation, and an embodied sensory experience degrees centigrade, which I know because
- is not the void or lacunae it is sometimes you have just excitedly pointed it out, on
made out to be. In fact it is sketched through the thermometer mounted outside the din-
and mediated in a number of ways - through ing room window. It would be possible to
the taking of photographic records, through specify the barometric pressure as well, and
the commercialised regulation of the tour- the wind speed, but that would be pushing
ist gaze, and through the materiality of the the point, as though this technical detail
map itself, as an artefact, one which tears, could convey a certain facticity, as though
smudges, frays, and becomes worn with specificity itself offered truth, veracity, veri-
use. similitude. But of course that’s not what we
are about here, not at all.
This paper proposes to use experimental
writing practices to attempt a new mode of I am feeling delicate. We were up talking
representing and narrativising urban expe- late into the night, catching up, and since
rience, between map and territory. Written we haven’t seen one another for a long time
from the point of view of an embodied, re- the conversation was rollicking, kaleido-
flexive tourist, it will also be an experien- scopic; we were delighted with being here,
tial and impressionist observation of tourist in this strange cold place, now. I was drink-
behaviour in practice. Using both the writ- ing red wine. We talked about Sydney, our
erly form and scholarly content of Eeva Joki- hometown, about its reputation as a beau-
nen and Soile Veijola’s seminal essay, ‘The tiful, superficial, libertine city, well suited
Body in Tourism,’ as a point of departure, to the mores of international tourism. We
and drawing upon the author’s own experi- talked about how hot it is there now, how
ences as a tourist in the city of Stockholm, people will be engaging in the minor trans-
the paper will attempt to bridge between the gression of minor taboos – excessive drink-
theoretical discipline of tourism studies, and ing, sex, shopping. We know a number of
199
Naomi Stead
people from here who are on holiday there looking at them. But for today we are leav-
right now, including the colleague whose ing the books in the bag, we are going out
apartment we are borrowing for the week- to walk and talk and be tourists ourselves.
end. It’s obvious what they are doing there: We are taking just one essay with us: Veijola
escaping the cold, they have gone to expose and Jokinen’s ‘The Body in Tourism’, heavily
and revel in their own bodies, to be tourists annotated and underlined, dog-eared and
in a place where there is less of a discrep- beginning to escape from its staples, it is
ancy between the comfort of the flesh and the touchstone for what we want to do here,
the condition of the world. and thus something to be kept close, used as
another kind of guidebook and map for the
You were more moderate than me last day’s rambling discussions.
night, and now you are as full of beans as I
am feeling blurry. I swallow some painkill- In their paper Veijola and Jokinen imagine
ers and we talk about how to spend the day. taking their scholarly texts with them to Mal-
The point of meeting here in Stockholm is to lorca, destination for a particularly Scandi-
discuss this paper we have agreed to write navian ritual of package tourism, taking the
together, to give in Glasgow in January; to texts there, ‘to see what they would tell us
plan it out and talk it through, but also to in the time and space of tourism, instead of
walk around and be tourists ourselves in the here, in the time and space of sociological
city that is its subject. I plod into the bath- discourse [2].’ I had an idea that we might
room. reverse their trajectory, going from a beachy
summer in Sydney to the winter urbanism of
While I brush my teeth you are poking Stockholm, to reinscribe the touristic body
through the bookshelves, pulling things out and its senses in the city. Admittedly this
and reading at random. You quote Alexis does not seem too promising, on the face of
Pontvik, it, in this climate – swaddled and wrapped,
we might seem to be exactly the mobile eye
The ability of cities to speak to the senses on a stalk that tourism theory supposes. The
varies. Stockholm’s frigid beauty is well pre- principle of prophylaxis, installing a barrier
served. The missing sensuality reveals a ma- between the (vulnerable, warm) body and
terialistic mentality. Built form in Sweden is the (harsh, cold) world would seem to bring
for the most part seen as “property,” a ques- a level of numbness, of literal anaesthesia,
tion of so many square metres [1]. the loss of sensation. But I am enthusiastic
about a phenomenology of cold, of the ice
But, you ask loudly over my tooth scrub-
and frost that is so novel and exciting to us
bing, is there really a ‘missing sensuality’
both. You tuck Veijola and Jokinen’s essay
here? Isn’t it a bit too easy to equate cold
into one coat pocket and the tourist map
with frigidity, with a lack of sensation, feel-
into the other, and we prepare to leave the
ing, desire, just as it is too easy to equate
apartment.
heat with rampant hedonism? I emerge,
clean-mouthed, and am pondering a re- The sky is a dull low grey, the light dim.
sponse when I am stopped short by the sight There is no sign of sun, or of snow. Step-
of your suitcase, lying open on the floor, ping out of the lobby we are suddenly and
next to the couch where your sheets are still shockingly submerged in cold. It is strangely
scrunched. This suitcase is stuffed full of the intimate, its chilly fingers reaching down the
books you have brought to inform our think- neck and through the folds of your coat. It
ing: theoretical texts and cultural analyses, doesn’t seem enough to say it is cold, the
urban studies and sociology and tourism abstraction of that, its bald lack of evoca-
theory. I feel a queasy lurch of anxiety just
200
Stockholm, Slowly, Still
tion. And anyway, to the Swedes this doesn’t written representation, about the conven-
even rate, zero is quite warm. But for me it tions of academic writing as themselves an
is a shock, this cold which is so much more object of examination. We could seize the
enveloping than you could ever suspect first person pronoun, attempt to render the
from looking out through the window of a scholarly text opaque and explicitly con-
warm and tightly insulated apartment, the structed, rather than the (supposedly) trans-
strange double-glazed silence of which gives parent, unmediated and universal voice of
a feeling of absolute distanciation from the the third person monologue text. But I have
world. To someone from another climate, it fallen silent. This is new work for me and
seems like such cold should be something I’m nervous, it seems that there are so many
you could see from afar, or smell, or taste, ways to get it wrong: too self-consciously
not the strangely abstract quality that you clever or cute, too contrived or too ficti-
know by looking up the weather forecast on tious, too fruity or too trivial.
the internet. My nose immediately begins to
run. We pass a young father wheeling a child
completely wrapped up in a puffy red suit,
We start to walk, turning right on Asoga- only the face visible, and that face is also
tan towards the area south of Folkunsgatan red, and emits a piercing wail. I think about
known as SoFo. the vertiginous feeling I suddenly had yes-
terday when a colleague referred to her
I notice that the cars sound different here – ‘winter coat.’ Where I come from that is a
they are fitted with tyres that will grip on ice, tautology; every coat is a winter coat. It was
which make a continuous clicking, crush- disorienting to realise that here there is a
ing sound as each small metal stud hits the whole gradation of coats, a phenomenology
road surface. We cross Gotgatan and pass of gloves and mittens, distinctions between
vendors setting up a stall to sell Christmas ‘good’ hats and ‘bad;’ a culture of cold that
trees, and through a farmers market, smoked is strange to us.
meats, bread, cabbages.
I am wearing two jumpers, a jacket, and
I have prepared a self-conscious little a long woollen coat, as much clothing as I
speech for you about my preliminary ideas have ever worn in my life. I feel like a deep-
for the paper, and begin haltingly: it seems sea diver, or an astronaut. Fine motor skills
to me there is a hinge between the delib- are lost and small tasks become clumsy. I
erately constructed subjectivity of feminist have to turn my whole torso to see whether
writing practice, the rise of an ‘agency of a car is coming, or to speak to you, walk-
mapping’ in critical cartography, and the ing beside me. Bodily gestures are exagger-
thread of tourism theory which focuses on ated. But I also enjoy the monastic aspect,
embodiment, both of people doing tourism of walking, hooded; the bowed head, the
and people observing and theorising them. clasped hands. The many layers do not al-
My idea for our project is to reinsert and re- ways prevent sensation – for instance the
present the sensory elements that official feeling of the thermal leggings beneath my
cartography, and tourism theory, both tend jeans has a strangely prosthetic effect, as
to omit, but which remain in traces in both though I have a new layer of hypersensi-
tourist maps, and in experimental ficto-crit- tive fabric skin. While some of the faculties
ical writing. My speech peters out; it’s too tend to be muffled – it is hard to really smell
early for this kind of talk. But you are nod- the city in this climate – others are intensi-
ding encouragingly, and add that we could fied. So is my attention to the sensory organs
think about questions of form and genre in themselves - I have never been so aware of
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Naomi Stead
my nostrils, for instance, or the tops of my like to read tourism theory, but I also like to
ears. The fingers come to seem like delicate be a tourist, to do tourist things in all their
fleshy anemones that could snap off in an grotesquery and commodification. I am not
instant. I shoot a sidelong glance at you, so only distanced and detached; I am also an
muffled that you are almost unrecognisable. enthusiastic amateur. I like postcards and
You have tucked your neck down into your snow-domes, and not just ironically, for their
scarf like a roosting chicken, but your eyes value as jokey kitsch. You nod, and add: we
are still visible, and they look startled. are both women (we ponder how strange
and radical is it to actually specify this). We
I see that, like me, you have dressed up for are both also architects, trained in a primar-
the day’s activities – we are conscious that ily visual mode of representing the world, a
our usual casual-scruffy clothing would im- strictly disciplined regime of aesthetic taste.
mediately mark us out here as tourists, and
without admitting it have each attempted We begin to climb the long hill at the East-
camouflage. We have avoided certain sar- ern end of Sodermalm, between five storey
torial giveaways: hiking boots, gore-tex apartment buildings, advent candles in ev-
jackets, backpacks. Your camera is slipped ery window. We turn right up a set of slip-
unobtrusively into your pocket. I try out pery timber steps towards the Sofia Kyrka
a provocation, quoting Jody Berland, ‘[l] and its surrounding park. There is frost on
ike everyone, I have travelled, and like ev- the oak leaves on the ground, a thin lichen
eryone, I hate tourists [3].’ You don’t miss tinges the tree trunks an extraordinary shade
a beat, retorting immediately with: ‘[t]he of bright green. Everything is still, there is
tourist is an unenviable figure: ugly, inau- not a bird, not a squirrel to be seen; we find
thentic, desperately out of synch [4]’. I try ourselves lowering our voices. The trees are
a sucker punch with Chris Rojek and John stark black linear patterns against the sky,
Urry, that ‘the mere sightseer has come to with the occasional darker knot of a nest.
be universally denigrated, as someone who We compare the silhouettes of the different
is necessarily superficial in their apprecia- tree species – the birch has the finest lin-
tion of peoples and places [5]’. You snort. ework, the greatest contrast between branch
We agree to move slowly, in deference to and twig. We wander around the park for a
my sore head, and to look for a café where while, watching people with their dogs. A
we can have a coffee and consult the tourist woman in a pink furry hat talks to her ridge-
map. back in Swedish. You find a frozen puddle
and stand on its surface with a look of glee,
We are both feeling a little dislocated, bouncing lightly to hear it crack, to see the
through the simple mechanics of turn- bubbles move beneath the surface.
ing the seasons upside down, cars driving
on the other side of the road, jetlag, being A piece of paper blows past in the wind,
surrounded by a language we don’t under- and I stop it with a stamp of my foot. On it
stand. We pause for a moment to situate is written a passage by Jane Rendell, which
ourselves, to plot out the coordinates of our I cite:
subject positions. You go first: you are mid-
dle class and educated; you know some of There is a kind of thinking that corresponds
the streams and bayous of theory, you lean to walking, one that follows an itinerary,
towards the analytic and the deconstructive, keeps up a certain pace and remains in con-
you know the scholarly conventions well stant motion, moving from one thing to an-
enough to risk trying to bend them. You also other, engaging only in passing; the external
have a roving eye. I follow on from this: I world acts as a series of prompts for more
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Stockholm, Slowly, Still
philosophical musings. The spatial story acts ing gauche and embarrassed, wishing it was
as a theoretical device that allows us to un- less conspicuous, thinking about my sheep-
derstand the urban fabric in terms of nar- ishness in using a map in public. It should
rative relationships between spaces, times, indicate autonomy, being orientated, plot-
and subjects. The notion of ‘spatial stories’ ting a confident path in time and space. But
can be connected to surrealist wanderings, really it just seems to advertise vulnerabil-
to the situationist derive as well as to more ity, that you are unanchored, that you don’t
recent theoretical ideas about nomadology know where you are. My thermal leggings
[6]. begin to feel hot and itchy in the warmth.
This sounds pretty good to us both, so we A passing waitress looks over my shoulder
take our spatial story along a winding path at my map and, balancing a pile of plates in
through the old quarter of cobbled streets one hand and a stack of glasses in the other,
and timber houses, painted in the distinctive observes that it is now commonplace to as-
Swedish red oxide. One of the windows over- sert that maps are not neutral artefacts. They
head opens and a woman leans out, shaking direct and persuade, she says, they advertise
a white sheepskin rug vigorously from side and cajole. But, she continues, shifting her
to side, then disappearing inside again. We weight casually to one hip, who would ever
are walking carefully on the rough cobbles, expect a tourist map to be entirely com-
wary of twisted ankles. You stop to pat a cat, prehensive, entirely ‘truthful’ or unbiased?
which regards you with grave suspicion. You Implicit in the tourist map is the idea of an
ask me about the question of tense, whether edited view, that it does not show ‘all’ of
we should be present, as though we are ac- the possible places or routes, but only the
tually here, now; or past, dawdling behind ‘best’ or ‘most interesting’ ones, as defined
ourselves, hanging on our own coat-tails; or by tourist operators with clearly and evi-
even projected forward, so we pursue our dently vested interests. I am staring at her,
future-perfect selves, following our own impressed. She goes on, arguing that tourist
trail of breadcrumbs through the city. Is it maps provide a valuable case of a knowingly
happening, you ask? Did it happen? Might and acceptedly subjective map – if it is true
it happen? Is this based on a true story, or that ‘[m]aps simplify the world somewhat in
what? I can’t answer these questions. I am the way a heavy snowfall does [7],’ she cites
thinking of the peculiar space of academic Robert Harbison, then a tourist map shows
conferences, how it couldn’t be further from the world after a particularly heavy fall –
the world of tourism. The conference exists highly abstracted, simplified, with all of the
in a kind of timeless no-place of ghostly and extraneous detail of the lived city blanketed
bodiless minds, wafted together, in spite of over. She concludes: in tourist maps it is not
the actual effects of halitosis, bad coffee and interesting to work at revealing omissions or
rumbling stomachs. This condition is usu- ‘lies’, since that is the very stuff of which such
ally only reversed at the conference dinner, maps are made. What is far more revealing
under the influence of alcohol, when bodies is to understand what exactly is at stake in
intrude again. Time passes. We keep walk- their partiality. With this she retrieves a pre-
ing. cariously balanced teaspoon and waltzes
back to the kitchen.
We come across a café and enter, both of
us temporarily immobilised as our glasses I return to contemplating the map, and
fog up in the warm interior. You go to the notice that you have already started to an-
counter to order while I spread out the ‘Wel- notate it with dots and crosses and cryptic
come to Stockholm Map’ on the table, feel- acronyms. You come back with the coffee
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Naomi Stead
and a pair of ciabattas, chevre and walnut between the sensory experience of an urban
and honey; you know my taste. You suggest tourist and a local, and why has the local
that we take it away, eat as we walk, since experience of the city been so privileged?
the pace of the argument is dragging, slow- You seem to take this as a cue, and dutifully
ing the pace of the narrative here. I have quote Walter Benjamin, ‘The superficial in-
begun to perk up, the painkillers are begin- ducement, the exotic, the picturesque has
ning to work. But as you lay a finger on the an effect only on the foreigner. To portray a
map and begin to trace the ‘sights’ you have city, a native must have other, deeper mo-
planned for us today, I slide immediately tives – motives of one who travels into the
back into lethargy. My sluggishness has a past instead of into the distance [9].’ But
perversely liberating effect – I throw aside that’s a case in point! I say excitedly, waving
my customary touristic conscientiousness, my coffee in a gloved hand. The ‘native’ oc-
my sense of obligation to the must-see list. cupant is seen to have access to the true and
I don’t want to see the sights today, I say, real place, beyond appearances, because of
even if Lippard is right in saying that ‘anxi- their haptic attention to it over time, and es-
ety is a basic condition of tourism, for there pecially through a distraction that renders
can never be as many minutes in the day as the place familiar on the level of bodily ex-
there are sights to be taken in. The turns not perience. The tourist, on the other hand, has
taken may haunt us to the point of casting a neither time nor distraction. But why does
pall over the whole trip. We will probably that mean that the literature has deprived
never be back; there are no second chances the tourist of having a body at all? And any-
[8].’ What about working against that, I ask way, I splutter, what’s so wrong with the ‘su-
– what could be more radical than a bor- perficial inducement’?
ing account of an aimless tourist experi-
ence? You look sulky, but we agree to head You whip out the ‘Body in Tourism’ essay
in the general direction of the centre, and and answer through Veijola and Jokinen: that
see what happens. That is enough of a des- the literature of tourism theory has placed a
tination, enough of a narrative impetus. We large emphasis on vision, on technologies of
struggle back into our outer layers and sidle sight such as photography, and on the notion
out the door. of the tourist gaze as appropriative and con-
suming. But, as you argue that they argue,
You are navigating, consulting the map, this often occurs at the expense of the other
while I am happy to follow vaguely along, senses, and of the body as the site and locus
looking around, eating my sandwich. We of these senses. On the one hand this exclu-
are overtaken by a woman dressed in high sion of the lived body is highly counterintui-
black boots, walking purposefully, towing tive, given that the point of much (perhaps
a wheeled suitcase that makes a complex even most) actual tourist activity is precisely
percussive music as it crosses the cracks the pleasures of the flesh. But then, at the
and the seams of the footpath. An old man same time, it is not at all surprising, given
walks slowly on the other side of the road, the general banishment of the body (in its
carrying a plastic bag of walnuts. I begin to apparently specific, ‘feminine’ corporeal
wonder why there is such a lack of scholarly materiality) from academic discourse, in fa-
work on urban tourism. Is it because the city vour of the abstract, supposedly ‘masculine’
is such a complex and layered entity, that it universal intellectual faculties of the mind.
is hard to distinguish the tourists from the lo- You argue that tourism theory has tended
cals, that the boundaries between them tend to skip over the actual subjects and objects
to blur in the crowd? I try out some rhetori- (and especially the bodies) of tourists, en-
cal questions on you. What is the difference gaging in a classically dry treatment of the
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Stockholm, Slowly, Still
topic in the name of rigour and scholarship. wool forming inside. Since you keep stop-
To approach tourist practices, behaviours, ping to take photographs I take the ‘Body in
and theory from the point of view of those Tourism’ from you and walk ahead, striding
who are actually doing it, then, is a radi- down the hill.
cal project. Veijola and Jokinen are assisted
in this by gender theory, one of the few es- I read as I walk, not looking where I am go-
tablished fields in which the body is not ex- ing. The essay is structured around a brilliant
cluded or ignored, but is made central, in its artifice, that after the authors have travelled
relation to identity, existential phenomenol- to Mallorca they find there, on vacation,
ogy, sexuality, and affect. So, I say slowly, in a whole panoply of tourism researchers,
light of that, and after Judith Butler, perhaps watching each other watching the tourists,
we might think of tourism, like gender, as ‘a but also engaging in the classic rituals of
corporeal style, an “act,” as it were, which this kind of package holiday – sunbathing
is both intentional and performative, where (and getting sunburnt), drinking (and getting
“performative” suggests a dramatic and con- drunk), flirting (and being flirted with). Vei-
tingent construction of meaning [10]’? You jola and Jokinen, in their ficto-critical nar-
shrug. We continue to walk. Time passes. rative, engage in a number of conversations
(not to say altercations) with the assembled
We emerge from the residential quarter onto scholars, taking issue with various aspects
a high terrace overlooking the distant islands of their work, and exposing in particular the
of Skeppsholmen and Djurgard. There is a thing that is glaringly missing from the liter-
fine layer of tiny stick-like ice crystals on the ature: an account of actual corporeal bodily
benches, we spend some time examining it, experience. I look back and see that you are
wondering if this might be a falling frost. A amusing yourself with your foggy breath –
ferry slides slowly by across the water. Two blowing long plumes of it into the air. The
other women are already there, looking at digital temperature gauge on the Gondola
the view, and as we pass by I overhear one reads minus two degrees. A lot of people
of them remark that she has been reading are wearing very tight jeans, slung low, and
Carol Crawshaw and John Urry, that slim-fitting jackets. I feel a shudder of empa-
thetic cold just looking at them. My nose is
Sometimes tourism seems to be understood running again. A cold tear slides unnoticed,
as little more than the collection of disparate half way down my nose, before I brush it
and unconnected sights which are given an away.
objectified form in travel brochures, post-
cards and photographs. Furthermore, the I ponder why I am so charmed by this essay,
promotion and practice of collecting sights its self-deprecating tone, and the intimacy
can dominate the very pattern of travel, of the conversation between its two author
which is often organised to facilitate fleeting protagonists. It skips between genres – now
views of spectacular scapes [11]. a diary, now a travelogue, now an argument,
now a gossipy chat in a bar. I like the way it
She seems to know what she’s talking collapses distinctions between ‘high’ abstract
about. I glance covertly to see your reaction, theory and ‘low’ corporeal embodiment, be-
but you are fiddling with your own camera, tween incisive analysis and the trivial mo-
oblivious. It is windy up this high, and as we ments, the ‘social dressage’ of actual tourist
start down the long slope towards Slussen experience – the sunburn, the hangover, the
the cold is coming up through my shoes. My faux pas, the flirtation, the dance. It wields
hands feel very dry inside my gloves, my fin- the sharpest of critical sensibilities, but with a
gertips playing idly with the small pills of touch as deft and light as a pickpocket’s.
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Naomi Stead
I linger on the bridge, looking over. The wa- move too slowly, they stop often and unpre-
ter is black, and highly reflective. It is impos- dictably, they walk on the wrong side of the
sible to tell how deep it might be. Glancing footpath and stand on the wrong side of the
back I see that you are jogging to catch up escalator. They get in the way. Tourism seems
with me. The light has become perceptibly to bring out the misanthropist in you.
duller, the mud is laced with a white crust.
Sometimes you can only tell there is ice on You are looking up, above eye level, like
the footpath because the surface changes the well-trained architect that you are. I
from matte to gloss. You catch up and point am tired and cold now, and walk looking
out the powerful atmospheric effect of the downward like a beachcomber, as though
seagulls’ cries. We only know European ‘botanizing on the asphalt [12]’. Apart from
birdsong from films, where it is used delib- the usual cigarette butts and dog turds the
erately to evoke a particular type of atmo- footpath is strewn with small tea-bag-like
spheric mood – black birds are aural short- sachets of snus, a peculiarly Scandinavian
hand for threat, sea gulls signify loneliness way of taking nicotine, where you tuck the
and desolation. It all feels very portentous little packet of tobacco up against the gum
when you come across such a soundtrack in beneath your top lip. Presumably then when
real life, and we look around warily. it is finished you toss it on the ground, and
now that I come to look at it there is a lot of
We enter Gamla Stan, the old town, and spit down there too, and a lot of the small-
walk up and down the crooked back alleys, calibre gravel they use here to stop you slip-
peering surreptitiously into the windows. ping when it is icy. It is a canvas of detritus
My telephone rings and it is my father, call- and grit, formlessness, of matter out of place.
ing from a warm late evening in Adelaide, You follow my gaze downwards, and ask me
to ask me about Christmas presents. Really whether it is a specific anti-aesthetic sensi-
I would like a methodology for Christmas, bility that finds pleasure in a picturesque di-
but I don’t say that. We wander through the lapidation and decay, or is it that the ugly
streets until we find a market and watch the and banal have come to seem more authen-
pony rides, a fat little Shetland stamping tic than the spectacular and beautiful? I say
grumpily along in a wild cloud of mane and that in any case these days it seems an em-
forelock. Two women walk along swinging barrassing cliché to be seen photographing
a small boy between them, laughing with a sewer access pipe cover, even more than a
delight. I buy us each a cup of glogg, load- ‘legitimate’ sight, as though caught trying to
ing them up with extra sultanas and cinna- sneak into the house of authenticity through
mon, and we drink this exceptionally sweet the back door.
and alcoholic mix standing up at a high
table, watching the people. Swilling the last We reach Sergels Torg and the House of
slurry around the bottom of my glass, I dare Culture. It is packed with people, playing
to say that it all seems rather authentic. I no- chess and reading newspapers, sociably, in
tice that your cheeks are pinker than usual, the warmth. It is impossible to tell who is a
but whether from my dangerous statement tourist and whom a local. We travel up the
or the alcohol I don’t know. We leave the escalators, somewhat melancholy, climbing
markets and walk on. to the top floor to look out over the city. The
light has faded into a dim blue twilight, even
The main drag of Drottninggatan is thronged though it is only 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
with crowds, and you say irritably that tour- We stand close to the glass, looking down
ists don’t seem to know, or care about, the at the city. I ask aloud what we’re actually
patterns of urban pedestrian etiquette – they going to do for this paper, whether we are
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Stockholm, Slowly, Still
any closer than we were when we started, tory, and Criticism of Architecture (NeTH-
what is the plan and the point of it all. I say CA), Brussels, 2007, p. 7.
that I’m not sure the category of ‘tourist’ is
even useful in an urban context, or perhaps 5. Chris Rojek and John Urry, ‘Transfor-
whether everyone exists on a scale of being mations of Travel and Theory’, in Touring
a stranger. The things we have done here to- Cultures: Transformations of Travel and
day – walk around, take photographs, drink Theory, ed. Chris Rojek and John Urry, p.
coffee – are very similar to the things we do 7
in Sydney all the time. I wonder whether
this is why urban tourism studies is itself 6. Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A
a kind of terrain vague within the broader Place Between, I.B. Tauris, London, 2006,
discourse of tourism, an ill-defined gap in p. 188.
the wider field, since in the city tourists
7. Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces, Al-
are almost indistinguishable from everyone
fred A. Knopf, New York, 1977, p.127.
else. There is a pause. We are both silent,
looking down. You pull out and unfold the 8. Lucy Lippard, On the Beaten Track:
tourist map, which is frayed now, starting to Tourism, Art, and Place, The New Press,
tear from the edges, rupture at the corners. New York, 1999, p. 10.
I think to myself that, in use, maps are not
really so flat. They are scrunched and folded 9. Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1981:
and refolded and written over. They make 194.) Gesammelte Schriften. Band III.
a new origami city every time they are re- Kritiken und Rezensionen. Frankfurt am
folded into a new configuration. You gather Main: Suhrkamp.
up this delicate concertina and we turn to
descend the escalator and go home. 10. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Femi-
nism and the Subversion of Identity, Rout-
ledge, new York, 1990, excerpt reprinted
in Ann Cahill and Jennifer Hansen eds.,
End Notes Continental Feminism Reader, Oxford,
United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield
1. Alexis Pontvik, ‘Memento Metropolis Publishers, 2003, p. 44. Italics in origi-
in Stockholm 1998’, Memento Metropo- nal.
lis: An Art Exhibition About The City and
The Memory, exhibition catalogue, Stock- 11. Carol Crawshaw and John Urry, ‘Tour-
holm, 1998, p. 246 ism and the Photographic Eye’, in Touring
Cultures: Transformations of Travel and
2. Soile Veijola and Eeva Jokinen, ‘The Theory, ed. Chris Rojek and John Urry, p.
Body in Tourism’, Theory, Culture and So- 178
ciety, vol. 11, 1994, p. 125.
12. Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire:
3. Jody Berland, ‘Travelling Correspon- A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism,
dence: Notes on Tourism’, Border/Lines, trans Harry Zohn, Verso, London, 1973,
vol 12, Summer 1988, p. 9.
p. 36.
4. David Vanderburgh and Hilde Heynen,
‘Itinerary’, in Tourism Revisited: Interna-
tional Colloquium on Architecture and
Cities # 2, The Network for Theory, His-
207
Naomi Stead
Biography
Dr Naomi Stead is a Senior Lecturer in Ar-
chitecture at the University of Technology
Sydney. She is presently undertaking a post-
doctoral fellowship at the Advanced Cultur-
al Studies Institute of Sweden, with a project
on architectural criticism. Her research inter-
ests include the history and theory of muse-
ums, intersections between art and architec-
ture, and experimental writing practices in
architecture. Recent essays have been pub-
lished in the anthology Critical Architecture,
ed. Jane Rendell at al, Routledge, London,
2007, and the anthology Architecture and
Authorship: Studies in Disciplinary Remedi-
ation, ed. Katja Grillner, Rolfe Hughes and
Tim Anstey, Black Dog, London, 2007.
208
Nothing More than Feelings:
abstract memorials
Quentin Stevens
Bartlett School of Architecture
209
Quentin Stevens
memorials have two important consequenc- These two memorials are open, public
es for visitors’ experience and their feelings. landscapes which many people come across
Firstly, the experience is not as carefully incidentally and unexpectedly. The memori-
composed as with memorials that are pre- als are not tall, or located on key, dramatic,
dominantly visual. These settings provide axial sites. Both frontality and vision shape
the body with continuous and varied senso- people’s movement and their sense of pur-
ry distractions, rather than framing focused, pose (Tuan 1977, Goffman 1959); these re-
static and protracted ocular attention. Sec- lations help visually prominent memorials
ondly, sensations other than vision, being to gain prominence in the public imagina-
relatively unmediated, are experienced di- tion and to thereby shape society’s values. In
rectly as either pleasurable or unpleasur- these two cases, many people do not even
able, but not interpreted reflexively. Most notice they are at a memorial. The MMJE
visitors’ actions appear hedonistic rather has no boundary. The memorial spreads out
than mournful. However, the physical quali- into the surrounding streetscape. The stelae
ties of the MMJE, combined with its lack of around the site perimeter are flat, level with
representational detail, also create physio- the footpath, effectively ‘underneath’ it.
logical feelings of discomfort, confinement, Passers-by thus initially walk over the memo-
disorientation, isolation, deprivation and rial; everyday public space overlaps sacred
instability which are intended to produce space. As people move further into the site,
a sense of apprehension. The remainder of the ground slopes downward and the ste-
the paper will explore in detail these two lae become taller; visitors’ bodies gradually
themes of distraction and performativity. become more immersed within the mass of
the object. The Diana memorial sits within
a continuous park landscape. In contrast
to the nearby Albert memorial, it is not set
apart as an obvious object of reverence. The
Diana memorial has a low physical profile,
and does not draw attention to itself.
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Nothing More than Feelings
concrete edge invites sitting and walking Vision tends to comprehend the world as
into the fountain. People immerse their bod- complete, fixed images. Tactile sensations
ies to feel the water’s coolness. They enjoy remain fleeting, spontaneous and partial:
feeling their own body moving in the water, harder to control, and less focused. The
whether walking, or sitting and dipping their body is constantly exploring new feelings of
hands or kicking their legs. Visitors playfully touch.
explore the water’s various material proper-
ties by feeling the current, splashing friends The gaze keeps the world at a distance, and
(fig. 3), trying to hold back its flow, carry- this tends toward abstraction and spectacu-
ing and pouring it with containers, and even larisation. Touch is spatially and temporally
tasting it. immediate, richly detailed and intense.
Visitors’ bodies are also constantly receiv- Touch constantly perceives in a state of
ing a richness of multisensory stimuli at the distraction. This can lead to shock experi-
MMJE. The site’s undulating topography and ences which may stimulate a wide variety
fragmented ground surface make visitors of desires.
aware of their bodily motion, forcing them to
actively manage their stride. Inside the me- Touch is embodied: to touch is to be
morial, views and sounds of the surrounding touched. Being physically close to the envi-
cityscape grow fainter as one moves deeper ronment and to other people leads to high
and lower between the concrete masses. levels of involvement.
Visitors often yell loudly to test the memo-
More than just perception, touch is also a
rial’s reverberation or sound absorbency, or
form of action which can transform the ac-
slap the stelae with their hands: they pro-
tor, the setting, and the meanings of objects.
duce audible perceptions for themselves
Vision remains passive.
and others. Memorial imagery, by contrast,
is typically fixed and designed only for re- For all these reasons, touch is profane; it
ception. The surrounding concrete mass of escapes socialised frames of reference and
the MMJE stimulates a haptic sense of en- reverence. The first three of these charac-
closure, from a slight increase in air pres- teristics of sensation – ephemerality and
sure against the skin. The stelae also radiate dynamism; closeness; distractedness and
and absorb a lot of heat. This is a property capacity to shock - apply not just to touch,
felt unconsciously on the skin of visitors, but but also to other senses, especially hearing.
their awareness is displayed by inquisitive Such ways of feeling have a very different
touching of the stelae, and most obviously relation to memory, and thus drastically al-
by the many people who lie sunbathing on ter a memorial object’s prospects for com-
top of warm stelae, or sit in their deep cool memoration.
shadows on hot days.
At traditional memorials where experience
Latham (1999) provides a useful critique of is mostly visual, visitors are generally very
the limits of vision in design, by examining passive and distant. They slow down and try
Benjamin’s writings on the tactility of urban to ‘make sense of’ images, connect them to-
experience. Latham explores how people gether into a logical narrative, by reflecting
perceive objects and meanings differently upon complex chains of meanings. Sound,
through touch, identifying five distinctive smell, touch, and the haptic sense provide
aspects of touch and illustrating them by less of this spatial and intellectual distance,
contrast to the dominant sense, vision: and there is much less fixity and clarity in
the impressions conveyed. These sensations
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Quentin Stevens
ryn Gustafson did not want Diana to be re- walk in separate rows might feel alienated
membered as “an icon that you can only and alone, with only fleeting views of their
look at” (BBC News 2002). The fountain does companions. The ground plane is uneven
not ‘illustrate’ Diana through representation and slopes in several different directions, so
or symbolism, but was designed to com- visitors feel unsteady, destabilised. This me-
municate something of Diana’s personality morial communicates with the visitor’s body
to visitors by analogy: along the fountain’s directly through environmental cues, rather
course, the shape and flow of the water is than mediation through symbols. Mean-
varied and changeable: sometimes ‘bubbly’, ing is meant to be conveyed through an
at other times calm, quiet and gentle; the analogous bodily experience. These effects
fountain is also inclusive and accessible, are difficult to communicate to the reader
like Diana. To reflect Diana’s own affection through images. People are supposed to feel
for children, this fountain seeks to continue this memorial’s purpose rather than see or
to make children happy, by supporting their think it. These unpleasant, uncomfortable
play, rather than sombre mourning. The me- physical feelings are intended to stimulate
morial is intended to have the same effect emotional ones; to produce a sense of ap-
Diana herself had on children. Rather than prehension and confusion which might lead
a symbol of joy, this fountain is a device visitors to then reflect on why the space they
that produces sensory enjoyment. The many are in is making them feel this way.
children who play here are thus not ‘over-
looking’ this memorial’s purpose. At these sites, the designers’ efforts to
make people reflect on historical tragedies
With the MMJE, the architect Eisenman was through abstract metaphors and perceptual
not trying to represent the Holocaust: he be- analogies seem to be at odds with visitors’
lieves this is impossible, because the Holo- observed responses to the sensory stimuli.
caust is unfathomable, and representations People act according to their perceptions
trivialise it (Eisenman 2005). Figural Holo- of a range of pleasurable behavioural affor-
caust memorials, such as the one at Sach- dances in these memorial landscapes.
senhausen concentration camp near Berlin
which depicts emaciated, suffering victims,
communicate that the viewer should defi-
nitely react by feeling sad. Instead, Eisenman
wanted to induce in visitors physiological
feelings like those the Holocaust victims ex-
perienced. He placed the rows of dark, tall,
stelae at the MMJE close together, so people
walking between them would feel claustro-
phobic, trapped and confined. Some large,
heavy stelae tilt out over the visitor, to make
them feel weak and insignificant. The grad-
ually-sinking ground plane draws people
downward; long tight rows of stelae restrict
views out, so visitors become disoriented in Feeling the functionality
the field of seemingly repetitive and endless
stelae. The stelae’s mass also attenuates sur- Observations reveal a fantastic variety of
rounding city sounds. The aisles between the ways that people position themselves in re-
stelae are intentionally too narrow for two lation to these two built environments. Visi-
people to walk abreast, so people forced to tors enter into these landscapes and move
213
Quentin Stevens
through them. They explore possibilities of of outstretched hands, and people walking
location, posture and movement. They move between them test their temperature, hard-
around to see the full complexity of the set- ness and smoothness. People engage with
tings and to photograph them, but they are the stelae’s inertial mass when they wedge
also ‘feeling’ their way around the sites, and themselves between pairs of stelae as a way
listening to different parts. of climbing up (fig. 4). Being able to per-
ceive the properties and arrangements of
The ring shape of the Diana memorial these objects in close three-dimensional de-
brings people ‘inside’ it. The site’s sloping tail emphasises possible relations of action
topography provides an enjoyable aware- and use, and not just perception.
ness of kinaesthesia - the body’s own mo-
tion - at varying speeds. People walk circuits
from the entry gate up and around to the top
of the memorial, where they have the best
overview, and back down again. Young chil-
dren enjoy running down a grassy embank-
ment on one side of the ring. People also
enjoy rolling on inline skates and scooters
down the smooth slope of the memorial’s
paved paths. The fountain channel has been
carefully scaled in relation to the human
body. People walking around the perimeter
path can bend down to touch the water. The
low height and ample width of the concrete
edge invite sitting with one’s feet in the wa-
ter, walking along the edge or stretching out
to lie down. The watercourse is also scaled
to human action. The variations in its cur-
rent allow people to play different games
with its flow. The channel is narrow enough
for people to step across the water, yet also
wide enough for people to walk along in the
channel itself. Visitors experience a wide 
range of sensations through all these interac-
tive performances with the sculptural form.
Conclusion
Similarly at the MMJE, people explore the
The MMJE is a sublime landscape. Those
diversity and the challenge of various spatial
who wish to mourn for Jewish Holocaust
relations to the sculpture. The stelae’s incre-
victims may be expecting a memorial that
mental changes in height facilitate stepping
interprets this tragedy and that makes visi-
up onto the upper plane of the field. The
tors think sad thoughts. But these concrete
stelae’s close spacing allows people to walk
shapes are mute. The difficulty of compre-
or jump between their tops. Low stelae near
hending this memorial is intended to fill
the periphery are ideal for sit on. The ste-
visitors with an existential dread which is
lae have a similar shape and size to people,
appropriate to the memorialisation of enor-
they stand on the ground; they are freestand-
mous loss. ‘Nothingness’ - the invisible and
ing objects which people can interact with.
unspeakable - is the message; the nothing-
The stelae rows are closely spaced in reach
ness of this setting is intended to overwhelm
214
Nothing More than Feelings
visitors. The Diana memorial also explains ties, and ‘sound out’ possibilities.
nothing about Diana’s life, how she died, or
the public’s attitudes toward her. But what References
this memorial does achieve is making peo-
ple happy. BBC News (2002) “Fountain reflects Diana’s
joy and grief”, 6 December,
These abstract memorials, lacking denota-
tive or connotative symbols, offer the visi- accessed 2 May 2008 from http://news.bbc.
tor nothing more than feelings, by which I co.uk/1/hi/uk/2549263.stm
mean sensations. People’s immediate senso-
ry responses and reactions to these two me- Carney, L. S. (1993) ‘Not Telling Us What
morial settings are the memorials’ intended to Think: The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial’,
effects. There is no need for interpretation or Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 8(3), 211-
mental reflection; there is nothing more. 219.
Like all abstract memorials, the Diana me- Eisenman, P. (2005) personal interview, 18
morial and MMJE do not ‘tell people what to August.
think’ (Carney 1993). But the kinds of play-
ful, indulgent, sensuous activities observed Fried, M. (1967) ‘Art and Objecthood’, Art-
at both sites raise the question of whether forum June, 12-22.
these designs encourage visitors to think at
all, or, rather, only to perceive, to move, to Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self
act. Constant and diverse distraction of the in Everyday Life (New York, Anchor).
sensing body means that visitors to these
Latham, A. (1999) ‘The Power of Distrac-
memorials are distracted from reflecting
tion: Tactility and Habit in the work of Wal-
upon the victims, the tragedies or the wid-
ter Benjamin’, Environment and Planning D
er society. This can be contrasted with the
17, 451-73.
asceticism and control of ritual behaviours
that often become associated with com- Thrift, N. (1997) ‘The Still Point: Resistance,
memoration, for example one minute’s si- Expressive Embodiment and Dance’, in S.
lence, standing still, lest we forget. The body Pile and M. Keith (eds) Geographies of Re-
is taught about tragedy through focused, sistance (London, Routledge).
disciplined performances, not uninhibited,
exploratory ones. Tuan, Y.-F. (1977) Space and Place: The Per-
spective of Experience (Minneapolis, Uni-
At these two memorials, people’s perfor- versity of Minnesota Press).
mances actively interpret a rich scope of
potential interrelations between various
sensory perceptions, spatial conditions,
possibilities for bodily action, and emo-
tional states. These relations are unmediated
Acknowledgements
by the kinds of strong representational cues This research has been supported by a grant
which are typical features of public memo- from the British Academy.
rials. People’s actions lead to the discovery
of new possible interrelations. Various forms
of play observed in these settings highlight
people’s active role as they ‘feel their way
around’ the landscape, ‘sniff out’ opportuni-
215
Quentin Stevens
Biography
Quentin Stevens is a senior lecturer in ur-
ban design. He has a PhD in urban design
and degrees in architecture and urban plan-
ning. His other research interests include
waterfront leisure precincts, urban festivals,
and architecture and planning in Antarctica.
He recently published The Ludic City: Ex-
ploring the Potential of Public Spaces and,
with Karen Franck, edited the collection
Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Ur-
ban Life (both Routledge 2007).
216
Materials in Architectural Design:
from abstract to objective material information
Lisa Wastiels & Ine Wouters
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
217
Lisa Wastiels & Ine Wouters
samples or they look at example projects. decisions during their material selection
Some firms, like Material ConneXion®, the process. Can we provide more structured
Nordic Innovatèque®, MatériO and Mate- and comprehensive material information
ria, offer material sample libraries to their to architects in order to take more abstract
clients: they provide physical samples as experience aspects into consideration in a
well as technical data sheets, so design- more conscious way?
ers can combine two types of information.
The use of material samples partially helps
architects with the information on aesthet-
ics and experiences but they are mostly a 3. Attributing Properties to
fragmented visual aid with little attention for
the multimodal experience the material will Materials
contribute to. Moreover, these consultancy
Through in-depth interviews, architects
firms or libraries mainly aim to bring prod-
were questioned about the materials that
uct designers and architects into contact
were used for their projects, how these ma-
with new materials, rather than providing
terials influenced the projects, and how the
them with comprehensive information on
choice for different materials would have
materials.
altered the project. A qualitative analysis
Accompanying the images of the materi- of the interviews, which is extensively de-
als, Materia provides technical information scribed in (Wastiels et al, 2007), revealed
as well as sensorial information in their on- that architects use similar descriptions for
line database‘materialexplorer.’1 Glossi- materials, elements, and spaces. Example
ness, translucency, texture, hardness, tem- descriptions of materials are ‘colored plas-
perature, and acoustics are specified in the ter,’ ‘metal with a certain texture,’ ‘material
datasheet. Even though these aspects seem that was very hard,’ where the attributes are
to be described rather informal, we believe linked directly to the materials. When talk-
that providing such ‘sensorial’ information ing about elements such as beams, walls
in the standard material data sheet can be or ceilings; the architects used material at-
very helpful to architects during their ma- tributes to describe these elements: ‘it’s a
terial selection process. Providing better hard floor,’ ‘it is an opaque wall,’ ‘a frag-
structured and more comprehensive infor- ile element’. Finally, the vocabulary used
mation on materials will facilitate the pro- to describe the spaces was also analyzed:
cess of comparing different materials based ‘the room is very sunny in its color,’ ‘the art
on more objective information. buildings are extremely tough,’ or ‘it is a for-
mal but progressive place’.
In order to create some clarity in the enor-
mous amount of materials that is made avail- Certain attributes like ‘hardness’ or ‘friend-
able to architects nowadays, it is important liness’ were found to be used to describe
to define which characteristics of materials materials, elements, as well as spaces: a hard
would be desirable information for archi- material, a hard floor, and a hard space; or a
tects. Here, the word ‘desirable’ does not friendly material and a friendly space. This
necessarily refer to information on “the as- illustrates that, in terms of descriptive vo-
pects they like,” but to the information on cabulary, it does not really matter whether
aspects they consider throughout the design architects are naming materials, elements or
process – consciously or unconsciously. De- spaces.
sirable information for architects thus con-

tains the aspects that actually lead to certain
218
Materials in Architectural Design
Van Kesteren (2008) found that product de- Figure 2: Framework of material information useful
to architects.
signers think in material solutions and do not
really consider the material properties while
selecting materials, which makes their material
choices very conservative. The analysis of the (1) Manufacturing aspects
interviews revealed that architects also have
trouble with mastering the properties of mate- The manufacturing aspects refer to the pro-
rials, and more specifically the description or duction, assembly or finishing technique.
meaning of the properties of materials. Pro- The choice for a specific technique de-
viding a framework with structured material pends on the project context but also on
information might help them in understanding the material’s form and physical behavior.
the different nuances between materials with- Descriptions of manufacturing aspects in-
out solely relying on their gut feeling. Guid- clude sheet-rolled, hand-formed, poured,
ing them through the material selection pro- polished, varnished etc.
cess based on such a framework, might lead
to more conscious material choices, different (2) Physical aspects
from traditional applications.
The physical aspects of a material de-
219
Lisa Wastiels & Ine Wouters
scribe the mechanical, technical, physi- that we also use these terms to describe
cal, optical, and thermal behavior of the people’s personality). A material can be
material. This information is included in perceived ‘warm’ without the material ac-
the standard material data sheets avail- tually being warm according to the tech-
able from manufacturers and material da- nical (at high temperature) or sensorial
tabases. They are quantifiable and can be (tactile warmth) definition.
measured. Examples are the compression
strength, the density, the thermal conduc- (5) Associative aspects
tivity, etc.
Associations are defined by Ashby and
(3) Sensorial aspects Johnson (2002) as making a connection
to a time, place, event or person. For ma-
The sensorial aspects of a material describe terials, associative aspects relate to the
the interaction with the human senses and common uses of a material in a specific
can therefore be divided into visual, tac- culture or context. Similarly to the asso-
tile, auditory, olfactory, and taste aspects. ciations considered for a project, associa-
The visual aspects include the color, gloss, tive descriptions of materials refer to the
and texture of a material; examples of tac- personal memory: associations to things
tile aspects are roughness, and warmth; people know from the past or from expe-
auditory aspects include dampness, and rience. Bricks might be associated with
pitch. Most of the sensorial aspects can tradition, while metals have industrial as-
be described based on a combination of sociations.
technical parameters. Tactile warmth, for
example, can be described by the contact (6) Emotive aspects
temperature Tc, which relies on the den-
sity, the thermal conductivity, the specific According to Desmet and Hekkert (2007)
heat, and the temperature of the material emotions are elicited by an evaluation
sample (Myers, 1971). of an event as potentially beneficial or
harmful. In this respect, emotive descrip-
(4) Perceptive aspects tions of materials refer to the observer’s
subjective response towards a material;
Perception is the result of interpreting what they describe how a material makes you
is observed (Ashby & Johnson, 2002). feel. A material can be scary, pleasant, or
Karana and van Kesteren (2006) define beautiful.
perceptive parameters based on what we
think of materials after the sensation. In
this respect, perceptive aspects such as
formal, though or friendly, describe the 5. Relation between the ele-
meaning that we attribute to materials
after sensing them. A distinction can be ments of the framework
made between material characteristics or
Within this scheme the different levels of
human characteristics when describing
material descriptions can be linked to each
perception. Human characteristics, such
other. For example, a perception aspect
as informal, trendy, or friendly, are con-
such as ‘warm’ will depend on a sensory in-
cepts that refer to a person’s personality
terpretation of warmth (tactile warmth and
which is transposed onto materials. Mate-
visual warmth) which itself is influenced by
rial characteristics, such as tough, warm,
technical or physical material aspects such
or rough, also refer to a personality but in
as the average roughness, the thermal capac-
the form of material characteristics (note
220
Materials in Architectural Design
ity, the density, the color, the thickness, the process. In this framework we find six types
texture… Moreover, aspects like the texture of material information, going from least
or the roughness can be influenced by the abstract to most abstract: manufacturing as-
manufacturing process (like being polished) pects, physical aspects, sensorial aspects,
or the color can be influence by the material perceptive aspects, associative aspects, and
being stained. emotive aspects. This framework allows to
draw the relationship between more abstract
An architect wanting to create a warm and material information and measurable objec-
informal space, might reason back to the tive material information.
material properties (sensorial and physical)
and manufacturing techniques that can con-
tribute to it. Moving up the framework, go-
6.1 Approaches to frame-
ing from most abstract to least abstract prop- work
erties, a reasoning relation is identified. On
the other hand, the physical and sensorial The framework can help architects in
properties of a material applied in a build- choosing materials or taking design deci-
ing will affect the perceptive, associative sions through different approaches: starting
and emotive interpretations of the building’s from a given material or starting from a de-
material. Moving down the framework, thus sired material experience. The first option
represents a causal relation. would be to start with the specific technical
properties of a given material. The given set
The framework allows to draw relations of properties like the density, color, thick-
between the different levels and allows to ness, etc. leads to a specific sensory interpre-
create links between measurable mate- tation and perception. More general, when
rial information and perception aspects. A choosing to work with a specific material
more thorough description of the experi- without specifying all the physical aspects,
ence aspects of materials and a definition the set of properties could also be a range.
of their relation to the material technical as- For example, one could choose to work
pects can lead to more thoughtful and well- with plaster without specifying the color or
considered material choices. roughness upfront. The range of possible
physical properties leads to the extreme val-
ues that could be achieved for the sensory
interpretation and perception of plaster (fig-
6. Conclusion and discussion ure 3). Through the framework, the designer
can mold the final experience by choosing
To conclude, we found in the previous the physical aspects accordingly. To go with
study that architects do not explicitly think plaster might thus lead to different experi-
in terms of the traditional hierarchy of ma- ences of e.g. softness or warmth based on
terials, elements and spaces. They select the chosen physical variables.
materials according to a set of precondi-
tions and several considerations concerning Another option would be to start from a
the manufacturing process, physical aspects desired perception and track what kind of
and experience aspects. parameters can be altered to achieve this
perception. In this case, the framework of
A framework of material information was material information helps in ‘educating’
presented here, which provides a compre- the architect. Multiple paths are possible
hensive overview of information that might to alter the perception. There is no deter-
be useful to the architect during the design minate relation going up the framework,
221
Lisa Wastiels & Ine Wouters
Figure 3: Use of the framework starting from a set of Figure 4: Use of the framework starting from a de-
material properties. sired aspect of perception.
which represents the possible reasoning Further research will focus on the defini-
processes of the architect (figure 4). As an tion of the interaction between the different
example, starting from a warm experience, material descriptions. We will focus on one
moving up the framework one can achieve perception aspect and describe this based
warmth through altering the tactile warmth on the physical and technical aspects of the
(eg choosing for wood) or the visual warmth material. The aim is to describe the relation-
(eg specifying the color). This bottom-up ap- ship between objective measurable techni-
proach actually allows to see how one can cal information and the sensory or percep-
coordinate certain material experiences. tion level of information in more detail.
222
Materials in Architectural Design
223
Sensory Experiences of Home:
the construction of home in high density housing context
Anna Wieczorek & Magali Paris
Architectural and Urban Ambiances Research Center (CRES-
SON-UMR CNRS 1563 Grenoble) & Environmental Re-
search Unit at Psychology Department (Warsaw University,
Poland)
In the results section, we present four dif- Following these concepts, we define dwell-
ferent dwelling attitudes more or less ori- ing as the process of making a place of exis-
ented to the self or to the outside environ- tence a Home by taking care of the human,
ment. We propose for each attitude one natural and built environment that surrounds
behavioural and/or material construction us. Residents have in common the skill of
that engages one or more senses and satisfy adorning the surroundings of their house
particular motivations. We also describe (Raymond, 1984). Gardening empowers the
the consequences of these constructions at residents to adorn these surroundings and
the community scale. to take care of it in a special way. Garden-
ing is “a close at hand form of leisure ac-
224
Anna Wieczorek & Magali Paris
225
Sensory Experiences of Home
226
Anna Wieczorek & Magali Paris
scribe design process of home construction time, anchored in the middle of his terrace,
implemented by residents through their be- sensorially isolated from his environment,
haviours and the manner they shape their Arnaud creates his own soundscape. Each
house surroundings. This manner of talk- member of the community understands the
ing about how residents dwell sensorially code “iPod listening” that Arnaud created to
could be the sketch of an interdisciplinary mean he want to be alone. Residents could
tool that get disciplines oriented to the indi- also isolate themselves by avoiding to come
vidual and disciplines oriented to the space into visual contact or by adopting a “not to
to enter into dialogue. We show that senses get caught” behaviour by hiding behind and
are mobilised by residents in order to sat- remaining silent. The shaping of the garden
isfy basic psychological needs. Moreover could also be the support of different clo-
the reception and the production of senses sure process that involve touch and sight
are embedded in the management of neigh- and sometimes smell sense.
bourhood relationships. Finally, the sensory
way residents feel, act and interact trans-
forms the common conception of a place,
far beyond its spatiality.
227
Sensory Experiences of Home
228
Anna Wieczorek & Magali Paris
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Anna Wieczorek & Magali Paris