Perception

Saw this on a friend's FB page and thought it was cool...

Disney Imagineering and the 5 Senses...

I do not know if anyone has been to Disney, but here are a few interesting websites regarding how they design for the senses...
I was glad when Jessica brought this up in class last week, as it was one of the things that I kept thinking of when I was reading these articles...
5 Senses at Disney
http://www.wdwinfo.com/columns/using-5-senses-at-walt-disney-world.cfm
PHILHARMAGIC Attraction at The Magic Kingdom
http://www.dadsguidetowdw.com/mickeys-philharmagic.html
Imagineering
http://www.oitc.com/Disney//Secrets/Imagineering.html

FIT Maps

Map #1 is my first and pretty well indicates where I spend most of my time in a given day at the old cinder block we know and love called FIT!

Map #2 is my second map, and reflects how I think of FIT as not just one block!  My campus includes the bodegas and shops across 7th Avenue, my Parking Garage on 28th, and the like...

Map #3 is my "Olde FIT," or my "First FIT."  It is how I best remember FIT as a student.  Man...if these walls could talk!  I still round corners expecting to see my old friends.  I still wish I was a resident at 23o West 27th Street, Coed Dorm!  A few things have changed, but so much looks the same.  That, in a way, makes me happy.

Map #4 is my attempt at thinking of FIT "thermally."  I often joke that the D-Building and Bridge are like San Francisco in that they have 7 micro-climates!

CHECK IT OUT!!!

Hi all...Please take a moment to check out my photos from OHNY 2011 under the "Photo Research Tab" here on the blog.  It was a lovely, eventful and very windy day in NYC!

Sorry about the small and ill-placed pics...I only had my cell phone camera (real one is broken and getting repaired) and the blog was giving me a headache when I was trying  to organize stuff!!

Thanks...Shannon :)

7 down...

We are just about halfway through...

Photos GCT Waiting Areas-Then & Now

They currently use Vanderbilt Hall,
GCT's old waiting area, for Exhibitions and Fairs.

Grand Central Terminal...  These are photos of the Old waiting area in the Station (called Vanderbilt Hall) and the Current waiting area inside of the Master's office.

Entrance to Station Master's Office

Current Waiting Area in Station Master's Office

This is the approach to Vanderbilt Hall
from the Grand Concourse

Module 3 ABs-Part II

Owen, David.  "The Dime Store Floor." New Yorker, January 25, 2010.

 There is a certain nostalgia that this article by Owen expresses when he tells the story of some childhood landmarks through smell memories.

Some memories come about when one smells the smell that reminds he/she of a place from memory and then proceeds to take you back to that place.  Others are found in that place still itself.  It is not just memory that it triggers, but emotions and anecdotes.  One smell can set off a series of emotions, thoughts and memories and can be quite transportive.

• In his reference to the Dime store of childhood, in addition to the smells associated with it, the author recalls the fact that this Store also represented the "first distance destination" he was allowed to venture upon via bike, and his past troubles with a bully enroute.
• The smell of paint in a museum reminded him of the overalls he wore and the embarrassing hole his mother fashioned for ease of bathroom use.
• Some smells fade, but are replaced by new.
• Some smells, though possibly unpleasant, can remind us of something good and happy.
• Owen discusses the passage of time when he remarks on the clean smell of present day runners versus how when he was young, the smell of hair products reminded him of sex, so where we are in our lives, and experience shapes our smell memories.

I am struck by how many unpleasant smells can still make me feel happy and fill me with wonderful memories, particularly those of cigar smoke and too much men's cologne.  Smell is such a string smell that it can make a not-so-good type of smell a happy memory.

I am left to wonder, is it the memory that is stronger, or is it the smell.  Can a smell be physically trapped within a space, and for how long?  Is it really there, or are we imagining it?  Is this type of memory through smell contingent on the other senses to exist?

Tonkiss, Fran.  "Aural Postcards:  Sound, Memory and the City," in The Auditory Culture Reader. Edited by Michael Bull and Les Back.  London:  Berg, 2003.

 Tonkiss looks at sound with the modern city as its backdrop and surmised that aural memories can be one of  the strongest amongst the senses.  Sound is what makes a city a city.

• It is interesting when Tonkiss says that we more or less have control over the "size" of our city space when we choose not to listen.  The space becomes "smaller, tamer, more predictable."  It almost becomes something other than a city.
• Tonkiss says we "speak" our city merely by how we are, live, and travel through it.  It is like another page of the cognitive map, as explained in the Lang piece on Cognitive Mapping, we are creating beyond the visuals.
• Aural Postcards is a term for what Walter Benjamin created for us in his writings where he referenced the sounds of his travels in his storytelling creating landmarks and memories of where he had been or what may no longer be there.  Benjamin believes that hearing may "be the sense of memory." 
• Metonym:  defined as aural fragments that speak of something larger.
• The SILENCE of a city is explored and explained as means of keeping time still or like uncovering a secret.  That moment of silence in a city is so rare that it becomes unsettling.

As a child who grew up in the suburbs, but who has spent much of her adult life in the city, the idea of sound as such a strong component of memory and sense of place is very clear.  But in my rural home, it is not quiet.  There is much chatter about, but it is different and not as loud as the city, but it is very constant.   The sound is birds, crickets, owls and people and cars are the backdrop of my day.  The deepest silence I have ever heard was in an ice storm where the quiet is equally eerie to what is described here when Tonkiss discusses a quiet city.  And the memories become just as distinct.

Module 3 ABs-Part I

Michael Bull and Les Back.  "Introduction:  Into Sound" to The Auditory Culture Reader. Edited by Michael Bull and Les Back.  London:  Berg, 2003.

In their introduction, Bull and Back point out that our experience of space and environment aurally has been affected, or overrun, by the visual.  Sight is thought to be the strongest and most dominant of the senses, so can we somehow democratize the senses so that each have equal power?  They are clear that they do not want to replace one dominant sense with another, but instead show what can happen when we "think with our ears."

• Bull and Black claim that "a visually based epistemology is both insufficient and often erroneous in its description, analysis and thus understanding of the social world."
• Deep Listening involves practices of dialogue and procedures for investigation, transposition, and interpretation.  We are made to re-think social experience, our relationship to community, our relationship to our power, and how we relate to others and our inhabitable spaces.
• Surveillance is not just visual, but aural as well.
• Our experience with noise is rooted in our culture and socioeconomic standing. For example, the more private space you have, or are used to, the more you complain about noise.
• Technology has granted us the means to create quiet and isolation from noise.  
• Sonic Bridge:  the way in which music links he insides and outsides of social experience into a seamless web.
• Sounds are what we want them to be based on our mood or place, or on who we are.

Can one really control the sounds around them?  Certainly they have deep meaning and memory as is expressed here, but what is one to do when sound is not available, such as with the hearing impaired?

Janet R. Carpman and Myron A. Grant.  "Wayfinding:  A Broad View,"  in Handbook of Environmental Psychology, edited by Robert B. Bechtel and Arzah Ts'erts'man, 427-440.  New York:  John Wiley and Sons, 2002.

Carpman and Grant begin this chapter by making a strong statement that wayfinding is an "issue in which environment and behavior are indisputably intertwined."  Wayfinding is defined as "how living organisms make their way from an origin to a destination and back."  Successful wayfinding systems look at behavior, operations and design in order to reduce or eliminate the disorientation one may suffer the consequences of if indeed this system is faulty.

• Disorientation is the opposite, so to speak, of wayfinding and the result of inefficient, insufficient, or non-existent wayfinding systems.  Poor wayfinding, or disorientation, results in stress, frustration, physical ailments (such as high blood pressure and exhaustion) and can potentially be dangerous and deadly in some instances.  It can also affect ones confidence in themselves as well as the confidence others feel in them (as being late because of poor signage can convey a poor impression of a person.)
• Wayfinding is important to all clientele in a public space including Users, Staff, and Administration, affecting efficiency and time management, morale, confidence, and even the bottom line.
• Differing evidence of and approaches to wayfinding in literature by Popular Press (articles, news commentary, cartoons), Design Professionals (architects, designers) and Environmental Psychologists are presented.  What we learn through specific focus on Behavior, Design and Operation is that study of human behavior in conjunction with responsive design can begin to create more efficient systems of wayfinding.

It is interesting that the main focus of the examples in this article are on Healthcare Environments.  This is probably because they have posed the greatest examples of inefficiency of wayfinding in the built environment and provide a good example of the hierarchy of user groups.  I would love to see us focus on more "everyday" spaces, such as transportation hubs, parks, and shopping markets, as these are much more frequented by larger cuts of the population.  Should wayfinding be considered in more residential environments, or is this necessary?  Does a system exist already? 

Places like New York City, for example, pose the most difficult circumstances, or opportunities, for more cohesive and inclusive systems given the diversity of its population alone.

As I designer, the opportunity to have a hand in a holistic approach to the total design of a space, including the wayfinding portion, is key, as the designer understands the project and the client on a much more specific and total level, therefore, they may be most attune to the needs of the population involved.  The suggestions made by the authors to vary and focus on more real life studies by environmental psychologists is welcome and important, and the collaboration of designers with these professionals is an invaluable relationship.  The case studies provided prove this to be true.

I would also suggest that more work is done with evaluation post-occupancy, and this applies to the designers as well.  What is working?  What is not?  These are questions we should be asking so that we can improve upon the existing and make greater strides in the future.

Lang, Jon.  "Cognitive Maps and Spatial Behavior" In Creating Architectural Theory:  The Role of Behavioral Sciences in Architectural Design, 135-144.  New York:  Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1987.

In this chapter, Lang presents the term Cognitive Mapping and defines it as the process whereby people acquire, code, store, recall and decode information about the relative location and attributes of the physical environment through direct experience, what he/she has heard of a place, and by imagined information.  Essentially, we are creating images which we use to navigate, remember, and denote spaces that we are experiencing or have experienced previously.  The quality of this mapping and its opportunities can directly affect our behavior in the given space and can contribute to our sense of control, comfort, and ease.

• Though citing the work of many, Lang comes around to declare that the Gestalt Laws of visual organization hold true in most instances as excellent predictors of parts of an environment that are important to people.
• Kaplan's (4) types of knowledge are provided by Cognitive Mapping:  recognition, prediction, evaluation, and action.  These help us to choose the appropriate behavior in the environment.
• Lynch, in his study of cities, sees images conjured of cities as being either about identity, structure, or meaning.  Highly "imageable cities" are seen as well structured, so he looks at what elements make a city imagable.  The main categories of these elements include paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks.  These have been thought to be key to the images people have of place and how we characterize our journey through space.
• Lang presents that buildings are made memorable through their form, visibility and significant attributes, and further explains the components that support these characteristics.
• People's different approaches to mapping are explored and it is thought that "cognitive maps are a function of an individual's experience," and such experience is affected by such things as gender, physical/mental capacity, socioeconomic status, age and culture, though not all of this evidence is fully studied

This text is written in the late 1980's, prior to the information revolution brought about by the internet and technology.  We are now faced with a glut of information 24/7 and are hooked up and plugged into any means possible to distract us (or one could say save us) from really experiencing the world around us and by extension, distracted from creation of maps.  Technology also, in many ways, relieves us from the necessity of knowing where we are or where we are going or who we can navigate through space.  Smart phones, GPS, Google map, do it for us.  Is this acceptable, or is it supposed to be hard, like it is in a labyrinth?  I wonder how such things would affect the studies of Lynch today.  We have become so dependent on technology that in a way, we have lost track of the landmarks so key to the journey.

Also, I cannot help but think about the call for proper signage, and how this is mentioned in the chapter as a key component to mapping, and results in more comfort, less frustration, and yet, I still find proper signage to be at a premium.

Gestalt Laws if Visual Organization

This link presents a less heavy look at the Gestalt Laws, which was noted numerous times in the Lang chapter on "Cognitive Maps and Spacial Behavior."
I had a basic idea of these principles prior, but I thought this broke it down well using visuals, which of course make things easier to understand.


http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

How I Violated Norms in a House of Worship...

I had an interesting weekend.  I was at a wedding in New Haven watching a girl I used to babysit for get married.  (Not fair that she's gotten hitched before me!)  It was an interesting experience as she is Italian Catholic and he is Greek Orthodox, so they actually  had 2 ceremonies!

I was asked to take part in the Catholic ceremony by doing a reading called the Responsorial Psalm.
Prior to the ceremony I was going over my reading which I printed out for myself.  I was thinking about the fact that I did not get enough direction from Kristin, the bride, as to where I was supposed to sit, etc... Was it okay for me to sit in a pew with my family or did I have a designated space? Am I reading off my paper or from the Book on the Lectern? I was also very concerned on how I was going to get the congregation to respond to me and the verses I was presenting (the response to each of my verses was "Alleluia"). Would a hand or arm motion in the air do it?  Would a pause get the message across that it was time to respond (or would this just become an awkward pause)? How about a head nod?

So...instead of keeping to myself in my own head or whispering to my friend sitting next to me, I remembered our assignment from this week to "break the space rules."  So I spoke in louder-than-a-whisper voice to the 3 people next to me in my pew and asked aloud what I should do in this scenario?? Yes...I spoke loudly in Church.  It was quiet and you could nearly hear a pin drop and then there was me in my whisper that was more like a dull roar.  I promise I did not shout, but I did break the rules and speak aloud in a spiritual space that is normally quiet and contemplative prior to the Mass starting.

What happened, you ask?  How did the people all around me react?
Well, my mom, seated 3 people away from me, gave me the "Mom Look" over her glasses and spoke back to me in a "leaning in" whisper.  She basically insisted I stay pious and dignified.
My friends next to me giggled at my desperate questions, probably louder because they were trying not to make so much noise but the harder they tried, the louder they laughed.
People a few rows ahead gave me the "over the shoulder" look of surprise and disdain, though my one friend Sandra smiled back at me.
Then, the  people in front of me turned around and answered queries in such a fashion as to say "if we tell her she can stay in her seat until it is her time to go up for the Psalm maybe she will pipe down now!"
The people behind me just stared straight ahead at the altar.


Now mind you, I really tried not to be obnoxious and disruptive.  We were still about 15 or so minutes away from showtime and the clergy and wedding party were not there, but I saw an opportunity and I took it.  I did feel bad after that the Blessed Sacrament was present and I was chatting.  Catholic Guilt.

Interested in hearing your reaction to my little experience.

By the way, I went with the awkward hand raise after the pause did not work with the congregation.  Alleluia.

Signed,
Shannon Mary Brigid Leddy