Threshold + Privacy

Since the last pin-up, I have been looking at threshold conditions and transitions between private and public spaces in GBJ.  In Chapter 14, “Privacy, Territoriality, and Personal Space – Proxemic Theory,” Lang presents some research that addresses territoriality, that I think is relevant to the questions  I’m asking in studio.

One of the current issues with the site is a lack of visual and auditory privacy – the space is essentially a warehouse with two fire stairs on either side.  When I conducted brief interviews and surveys of the end-users, one of the complaints was the lack of acoustical privacy for students studying on the 3rd floor; they could hear (quite distinctly), the noise from the Burger King below, as cashiers called out orders.  The 1st floor is relatively quiet, as it is divided into classrooms and offices with insulated walls.  The lack of visual privacy doesn’t seem to be as much of a concern, except for users walking from the 3rd floor Burruss entrance to the central stairs, who commented that it feels like they’re being “watched” as they walk by the students working in the 3rd floor lounge.  Frankly, there is no truly private space in GBJ, as even the bathrooms are public restrooms; according to the readings, this can be a major concern for productivity and the ability to enjoy a space, but not one that is without remedy.

Another concern raised by the readings that is relevant to my site is the end-users inability to personalize the space.  This relates back to Oldenburg’s writings on the Third Place and its regulars who feel ownership of the establishment. Flexible furnishings and the ability to decorate are cited as examples of ways spaces can become personalized; while GBJ has flexible furniture, there is nothing that invites the user to move pieces to suit their needs (people adapt to the site, rather than adapting the site to them).  I am interested to see what mechanisms might encourage people to move the furniture (even the seemingly-heavy lounge furniture) to fit their social interactions.  In my intervention, the lounge will have a combination of fixed dividers and flexible seating to facilitate small to large group interactions.

The reading also discusses threshold conditions that transition from public to private space.  It discourages an abrupt transition, suggesting a vestibule-condition that is semi-public/semi-private.  In GBJ, there are two public to private transitions: from the exterior (Burchard Plaza/the park) to the interior, and from the interior public spaces (the lounge, café) to the private (study lounge);  Oscar Newman’s diagram of private to semi-private to semi-public to public spaces is one that I think applies to my site, where the private condition will need acoustical privacy from the semi-private/public and public spaces, without eliminating visual connections to the exterior (public) park and plaza (so that they get natural light).

Mapping: remembering, making place

After having read about Lynch’s identification of five characteristics of place (paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks), I thought it might be interesting to try a mapping exercise with the class.  I gave my classmates an index card and asked them to draw their way from our studio in Burruss to the Au Bon Pain in Squires on the other side of campus; the results were quite interesting.

Of the six participants (and I’m excluding the professor, who drew another map – from Studio to GBJ), 3 used both the front and back of the index cards.  All drew in pen, 4 in black ink, 1 in red, 1 in blue.  Everyone drew stairs in some shape or form, 2 drew the stairs in elevation (interesting, since the readings note that it is easier for people to visualize themselves as aerial observers).

Paths: most individuals only drew a line as indicative of their trajectory, while a few also drew the paths that ran perpendicular to their own parcours, or paths they crossed along their way.

Edges: the Drillfield was defined as an edge condition in one drawing.  Buildings were treated as masses and edges.

Districts: the Drifllfield, treated as a mass, read as a district in the majority of the drawn maps.

Nodes: there were almost no nodes in these drawing, even though there are points along the way that are large intersections of pedestrian sidewalks; the only node noted on the majority of the drawings is the fork in the Drillfield (exit access to Prices Fork Road).

Landmarks: stairs and buildings were treated as landmarks; one individual noted what appear to be quads as landmarks, as well.

What I found even more interesting (as I tried to watch while I drew) was the order in which people drew their maps.  The readings noted that laying out a grid (working large) and then mapping a path (working small) was a sign of a more developed intellect – I am inclined to disagree (not just because I didn’t do it that way…).  Most people drew their landmarks, their edges, their guides, if you will, as they went. These are, mind you, all seniors and juniors in college, trained to think visually. And, they had all done the readings, so unless they wanted to be thought of as less intelligent, they veritably thought this process of drawing the map was the best way to express their intent!

I found the readings on Lynch to be most valuable to my thesis research, as well, since they attempt to pinpoint the way in which we remember place.  The readings mentioned Tuan, and I went back to my notes on Tuan’s Space and Place, which led me to some interesting notes about the relationship of the individual to place, particularly his note: “When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place.”  Implicit in this statement is the reading’s references to use and attachment – when people frequent a building, they are more likely to become attached to it (give it the moniker of place). So, as the reading notes, if hospitals are less likely to become places because people don’t frequent them (unless they have a chronic illness), and this is a condition applicable to a variety of places (anything that isn’t a First, Second or Third Place, really – post offices, gas stations, etc.) – what can we, as designers, do to make Tuan’s man “fall in love at first sight with a place as with a woman”? Must we live with spaces, or can any space become a place?

Triangulation, Part I: GBJ Survey

As part of my synthesis of the courses I’m taking this semester, I’m hoping to apply my readings/learnings from the DTR class to thesis.  As such, I’ve developped a survey as Part I of my triangulation plan (Parts II and III are observation and precedent [i.e. readings], respectively).

I will be surveying students, faculty, staff, and “others” who I encounter in GBJ itself, but I have also posted an online survey for students at Tech who I do not know (and have not yet met in GBJ), but might potentially use the space.  I’ve sent out the survey to my dorm’s listerv, an honors community with engineers, business majors and architecture students, and have received 21 results so far.

If you’re a Tech student reading this blog, please take a moment to respond to my survey: just click here!

I will leave the survey open until Midnight, Feb. 6th, upon which I will start compiling data for my studio pin-up on Feb. 9th.

If you’re not a Tech student, and still interested in doing a survey, shoot me an email (araja@vt.edu), and we can work something out. There’s no dirth of questions on this side, I assure you.

The Interior Design Exquisite Corpse Experiment, Part Deux

Yesterday Greg and I introduced the ECE to the class.  Well, Greg introduced me, and then I gave my first (sort-of) lecture! For posterity’s sake, and because it sums up rather well the readings I did over break, and the idea behind this experiment, I’d like to post in written form today, what I presented in oral form yesterday.

Exquisite Corpse Lecture

Can we design authenticity? For the purpose of the experiment, let’s say an authentic design is one that is “true” to time and place.  Other questions that arise in the quest for a design that is authentic to time and place are: What is a Third Place? What role does memory play in the design of authentic places? What is the role of the designer in the creation of Third Places/authentic places?

Pub: A Third Place

Ray Oldenburg, a sociologist, introduces the idea of Third Places.  He defines the First Place as home, the Second Place as work, and the Third Place as the place you go to in order to escape home/work life.  The Third Place comes in various forms: pubs, coffee shops, hair salons, book stores…But each type of Third Place has the following characteristics in common:

• They are “levelers”: everyone who walks into the establishment is treated as an equal.  A lawyer and a janitor can sit and converse without feeling the pressures of social/economic class.
• Conversation is key: it is a place to talk, not to be silent (not a library, but a coffee shop).
• They have regulars, but newcomers are welcome.
• They are proximate/keep long hours: basically, they make themselves available to their users.  Ideally, they are within walking/biking distance, and rarely within driving distance.
• They are a “home away from home.” This is the only time Oldenburg comes close to describing an aesthetic for a Third Place; he uses Seamon’s qualifiers for a home away from home: a place that “roots” the user/is a “physical center,” allows the user to feel a sense of ownership (“appropriation”), is where the user goes to be “regenerated” or “restored,” where the user feels “at ease” and has the “freedom to be,” and evokes a sense of “warmth,” that comes from “friendliness, support and mutual concern.”
• They are human-scale: ex: Cafés in France bring the 6-story scale of the city down to the pedestrian when they spill out onto the sidewalk.

Some Third Places in Blacksburg include Big Al’s, Easy Chair, and Bollos (see below).

Big Al's

Easy Chair

Bollo's

Coffee shops are naturally conducive to becoming Third Places because they are places for conversation, often are proximate/have long hours, and strive towards a “home away from home” aesthetic.  Dr. Waxman’s research into local coffee shops, where she interviewed and questioned the users about desirable qualities of the coffee shop showed that the user demands various characteristics in order for a coffee shop to be considered a Third Place, some of which are under the control of the designer (comfortable seating, movable seating, natural light), some of which are not directly under the designer’s control (inexpensive, free wireless, cleanliness).

Back to the question of authenticity: since Oldenburg doesn’t mention a specific aesthetic for a coffee shop/Third Place, and Waxman’s results are generalizations about programmatic conditions (flexible seating) and conditions out of the designer’s control (cleanliness): what does an “authentic” coffee shop (Third Place) look like?  Does it look like Starbucks? Mill Mountain (a local chain?) Bollo’s? (see images below)

Starbucks

Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea

Part of the problem arises because Oldenburg’s research was conducted more than 20 years ago.  He mentions that “barbaric college students” and “mechanical or electronic gadgetery” are essentially the death of the Third Place.  He requires “signal fittings” (ex: the swinging doors of an American Saloon, the terrasse of a French café).  Are these still true for the Third Place of today? Especially one like GBJ, intended for technology-loving college students? How can we design a Third Place that fulfills Oldenburg’s sociological qualifiers and Waxman’s programmatic qualifiers, that is contemporary (authentic to time) and still has the “essence” of a coffee shop?

Frances Downing’s answer is “domains.” Domains are essentially place archetypes.  Downing postulates (through the research she conducted in her Spatial Solitaire experiment) that designers and the public all categorize their memory of places into these domains, and by using domains and metaphor, designers can create new spaces that still “speak to” the public’s memory of place.  Authenticity becomes a matter of congruent vocabularies: designing with the public’s vocabulary evokes a sense of authenticity in the space, the designer’s memory becomes a language tool.

Two domains Downing identifies are relevant to our experiment: Gregarious Places and Places of Region.  Gregarious Places are lively and full of conversation, Downing uses the example of a coffee shop.  Places of Region are places that express the identity of a place, Downing uses the example of an adobe house in Mexico.  They are similar to Seamon’s “home away from home” in that they offer the user a sense of belonging.

Domains would work, ideally, if everyone was able to categorize place-memory in the same way.  What happens when I say “home” and my client thinks of this:

When I meant this?

What’s the difference between Hobbes’s art…

…and Rousseau’s?

Herbert Gans, a sociologist, proposes that this disconnect occurs because of disparities between “taste cultures” and “taste publics.”  Gans identifies 6 taste cultures defined by socio-economic differences, two of which seem to have the biggest issue with each other: the lower-middle (which is the largest and has the most economic power) and the upper-middle (which has the most political power over public spending and are the “producers of high culture” and has “the most prestige”).  The client fits into the first taste culture, while designers fit into the latter.  Different taste cultures mean that different groups categorize their place-memories differently, and authenticity becomes a matter of using visual imagery to construct a dialogue between the two taste cultures.

Ducks and Decorated Sheds

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown applied Gans’s research, postulating that perhaps designers (upper-middle) shouldn’t be so quick to reject the public’s (lower-middle’s) opinion on aesthetics. In Learning from Las Vegas, they analyzed images encountered while driving around Vegas, producing labels like “Duck and “decorated shed.” How buildings were built by the public (vernacular architecture) was a means of communicating with the public: how could designers participate in this dialogue?  We must, then, design for the people, and not for designers.

Venturi and Scott Brown tried to combine the vocabularies of the two taste cultures in their exhibit Signs of Life but were unsuccessful: critics thought they were being ridiculous, and the public didn’t understand what was so great about the road signs and imagery they collected from all over America.  But their point remains important: we (designers) can incorporate vernacular architecture (what the lower-middle taste culture is building/buying) into the designer’s (upper-middle) vocabulary, rather than force the upper-middle vocabulary upon the lower-middle culture.

An authentic design, by the inclusion of this theory, would be one that incorporates the vocabulary of the lower-middle taste culture in order to be “of the time and place.”  Problems occur, however.  Vernacular architecture is about the building, and not the builder.  Today’s design practice is often about the builder (the Starchitect).  And then there’s the problem of nostalgia: the regurgitation of form without reason.  How do we incorporate contemporary vernacular architecture (which is often this regurgitation – see, suburbia), without resorting to nostalgia? Or is nostalgia part of our time (in which case, nostalgia would be a component of being authentic to today’s time).

So, back to GBJ and our experiment: how do we get from here:

Johnston Student Center (GBJ)

To Bollo’s?

How can we get the essence of the Third Place into GBJ, while still being authentic to our time (2009), and our place (Virginia Tech, Blacksburg)?

Our proposition is that there is a distinct difference between the designing of a place over time and one offered as a one-shot solution.  Designing over time results in a place that responds to changing needs, and is thus more authentic than one created in a single-sitting (which is what you see in today’s design practice).  Through this experiment, we’d like to simulate the passing of time with the changing of hands.  Below are the instructions for participants in the experiment.

You will be provided with a SketchUp Model of the space we will be using for this experiment.

You are asked to make an intervention that:

• changes only one thing in the space
• does not “undo” any intervention conducted in the last 5 “moves”

You have from the end of the class period to the beginning of the next class to make your move (if you get it on Wednesday, you have until Friday, if you get it Friday, you have until Wednesday).

At the end of your turn (beginning of class) you must submit:

• the modified SketchUp Model with a scene
• a perspective (300dpi, 11”x17”, PDF and JPEG format)
• a floor plan (1/4” scale, PDF format)
• a brief statement explaining your decision-making process

Please label all files with your name and the date.

During class we will discuss the progress of the experiment and its real-world implications.