Environmental Transactionalism: The impact humans have on a place and the impact a place has on humans on a microsecond by microsecond basis. (From Class Notes)
From Shaun O'Rourke's Presentation on the 21st Century Public Realm: How do we see the Public Realm? As a series of elements and/or a collection of details? Or perhaps as a network of a diverse biotic and abiotic interactions that continually change along the temporal scale?
I enjoyed the readings on Mapping Through the Senses. I am not sure if there was a hard copy of this to read, but I found and listened to the podcast. It was a unique and fun way to take in the information and allowed me to use a different sense to interpret the information. As in the segment of mapping sound, I felt a sense of "hyper awareness" that I think sometimes isn't as acute through straight text reading.I am amazed at how many things in our surrounding environment go unnoticed and what we can interpret about a space by mapping abstract elements. In particular, I thought the mapping of leaf light to be such an interesting way to draw conclusions about a neighborhood.
The MacFarlane and Haggett piece on Mapping Tranquility was also interesting. I appreciate the author's explanation that to measure tranquility one must form a definition first and rely on quantitative data. They write, " While tranquility may be a personal experience, there are places where it is more likely to be experienced. The concept merits a mention in documents, policies... unless the experiential or felt aspects of landscapes are considered alongside more easily quantified and indicated characteristics, landscape, countryside and environment quality can only be partially safe guarded into the future." How hard it is to formulate a working definition to a "concept" word! I thought the use of Participatory Appraisal as a research method worked well in this instance. Through expressive interpretation participants painted a clear picture of what tranquility as a concept meant to them. I felt it was a great way to gather data on a personal meaning. There was segment however, where I paused to wonder about data collection and interpretation. Participants were asked to rate their top three reasons for visiting a park (in this case, it was Northumberland Park in England). It was reported that one of the top three reasons given was for "tranquility". While the rest of the reading was very precise in explaining how research was conducted, I found this one particular questionnaire was not explained. The reason I questioned it is because of the very use of the word "tranquility". I wanted to know if the participants were given a list of reasons and asked to rate them on a scale of let's say 1-5 or 10 or if most of the participants came up with the word tranquility on their own. I think of the responses i would use to answer an open ended question and I am not sure the word "tranquility" specifically would come to mind. I was just curious about the manner in which the question was asked.....
Zeisel's reading on observing physical traces was my favorite of the group. The use of trace evidence to me is something I could see myself easily doing. I especially like the notion of not only documenting what is in evidence, but, perhaps more importantly what is missing. Definitely something to think about. I felt that the topics he discussed were followed up nicely with relateable examples. The case study of the healing garden was so good for me to read as it gave me a better understanding of how all that we have been studying relates back to landscape architecture.
Shaun's exercise on mapping elements along Newbury Street gave us a wide range of elements to cover and a lot to talk about in class. My particular element was to look at municipal infrastructure that is visible at street level. Not the most photo appealing topic, so I decided to map out where these elements lie on the street scape and/or sidewalks (Map to follow as soon as I can get to the BAC to grab it off my H drive). A few things were discovered along the way. All of the gas and water access ports are grouped in threes on the sidewalks. All of the fire hydrants on that particular segment of Newbury Street are on the north side sidewalk, nothing on the south side. My assumption is that the street is small and narrow enough to access any building in the event of a fire. Luckily, this leaves more parking opportunities on the southern sidewalks! The one thing that I was most curious about was the adjacency of storm water drains to crosswalks. Thinking about storm water management and the issues of pollutants entering, and at times blocking storm grates, it seems to me, crosswalks, where many people gather in large groups and drop paper, cigarette butts and other pollutant, and storm drains siting is completely incompatible. Can this ever be changed? Most likely not. But what can change is the responsibility of the people in the crosswalks or better yet, placement of trash receptacles at either end of the cross walk, an observation that was not noted anywhere....
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