Investigate writing
1. Architectural bias
It would be hard to describe architects’ way of looking at things more aptly than Venturi and Scott Brown (1977, p. 3). We do tend to see places through the lens of knowledge poured into our minds and values cultivated in architecture schools that later become the foothold for judgements which we misinterpret for our stand. On top of these biases, we also get caught up in the mindset of never-ending problem solving, thinking of the world as a fixer-upper and seeing nothing but room for improvement.
To illustrate, that’s how my inner architect would describe the investigated site: A pedestrian passage crossing a residential area of Victorian row houses. On the contrary to the parallel main street, the passage is narrow and quiet, enclosed by blind walls of houses, never meant to be seen, contrasting with decorative 19th century front facades. It reminds me of those extremely narrow streets in medieval towns, meandering through the city fabric. Although it doesn’t look attractive, people seem to like its human scale and use it on a daily basis. It keeps children away from the car traffic on their way to school mindfully located adjacent to the passage. This space could become more inviting though, surely there’s a way to organise workshops with the local community and somehow lighten it up.
Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D. and Izenour, S. (1977) Learning from Las Vegas. MIT Press
2. Love poem
I miss you from the day I moved in here
In the morning I stand by the window gazing out
The city wakes up slowly
Starting from a constant hum of cars in the background
And birds calling
And sky turning blueish grey
I listen to people going for a run
Their breaths almost as loud as their footsteps
Dull thuds of people walking
You can tell when bikes are coming, they always ride through that one loose tile, then tremble slightly on uneven pavement
I wash my face
Hearing through the bathroom window rat-tat-tat of a scooter
I’m so fast!
You’re so fast!
Hurry, mum! Hurry up!
Thumping of small feet along the passage
And shouting
Wait, I want to see you! Ok, calm down, calm down, please!
If I can vaguely hear voices from far away before making sense of the conversation, someone goes in the direction of a school on my street, or further up north along the passage
If I first hear the loose tile and clear bits of dialogs slowly blurring into the distance, then they go the other way
Common, we gotta be on time!
I’m coming!
People with strollers
People carrying one kid, holding the other one’s hand
People talking on the phone on their way
Emmmm… what they call… yeah, I mean…
…another bit of it, and so we’ve done some work…
I’m over the moon with this, over the moon! We’ve got loads of…
Sun laying out their shadows on the pavement
I can see you clearly in your long coat
Turning around to look at me
Perec, G. (1974) Spieces of Spaces and Other Pieces. Penguin
Final crit notes
What’s working:
- Mixing different senses / ways of perceiving – things you can hear with things you can see (fragments of conversations with glimpses of the space and close-ups of gestures)
- Simplifying visuals through drawing. It puts focus on the sense of space
- Taking the place apart into elements and arranging them together which goes along with Gestalt theory – that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Fragmented image of the place is complimented by imagination
What’s not working:
- Too many typefaces, it looks chaotic
- For some the relationship of drawings and the text was vague and they preferred direct relation of image to sound in the movie
- For some the method in the movie was too obvious and did not communicate the sense of space, so they favoured sketches and dialogs put together
What could be improved in the future:
- The spreads of images and conversations could be divided into different portraits of the place
- Play with one typeface – sizes, thickness, styles – instead of combining different fonts
- When illustrating sounds, focus on the context, not the sounds themselves