Week 02

PERCEPTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Todays lecture introduced important theories particularly breaking down the identifyable elements within a city, and how these elements contribute to the user experience and future design.

"The social life of small urban place" as decribed by Whyte, gives us an insight into how designing different elements, such as seating, within spaces can subtely have a big impact on the users overall experience and social interaction. Similarly, in a residential context, houses built with a predominant garage facing the street (with minimial front facing windows or entries), have moulded the street into a anti-social community, where residents are seemingly isolated, and garages seem to be used as an additional room with most cars observed to be parked on the street. Such a design may lead to both social and neighbourhood security consequences. 

Cities may be defined as either "Thick" - which are cities that are broad and deep lived, or "Thin" - which are cities with no sense of place (example: Jersey City). Gordon Cullen further explains the importance of harbouring a sense of place evidently leads to the importance of designing buildings which relate to the residents and its context; if users can not relate with the building or environment, the building is dead. Theories presented by Kevin Lynch further explan the importance of quality within an object; the legibility of a city scape - the creation of objects with a "strong atmosphere" where people can recodnise its identity immediately.

Different cultures have different needs and issues such as religious values, agriculture, location, available resources, economy, etc, and as a result, cities are shaped depending on these - it is important to design in consideration of the existing circumstances, environment and infrastructure.

REFLECTION

I found this weeks lecture onthe perception of environment very interesting and it has opened up my understanding of cities, their elements, and social considerations hidden within. It has allowed me to understand in further detail, the somewhat overlooked or un-noticed components that make-up a city, and how social aspects can alter the cities form subtely over a period of time. I enjoyed Whyte's diagrammatic explanation of "the social life of small urban space" where one is able to encourage the user to utilise the space/object in a specific or desired way. It is interesting to see how social efects can alter the design over-time (street houses building with predominate garage - which ultimately isolate residents and raise neighbourhood security issues).

Following todays walkshop where we travelled from QUT Gardens Point to Eagle Street Pier (mainly by foot), I have learnt too appreciate the different elements of a city, the quality of landmarks and design of public spaces and buffering objects which compliment its adjacent building. As a result, I can now identify more specific componets of our own Brisbane city: the layout of malls, position of parks, etc and how all these elements affect the usage of space, and design of surrounding infrastructure.