Monday, December 12, 2011
Stream of Consciousness 1+2
Stream of Consciousness 1:
I’m sitting on the slope of a hill which is mostly rock used for drainage of water. It’s very calm and not a lot of noise besides the people interacting within the space. Right now the people who occupy Ringer Park are either people walking their dogs through or kids skateboarding. I am surprised to see the skateboarders here because the terrain did not seem fit for such an activity. They are using the playground as a skate park essentially which kind of brings a duality and mix use to the space. The trees seem to define spaces around me. I noticed that where the trees are is what separates the function of the park form the basketball courts to the playground, to the baseball fields. It’s very sunny out today, and the air is extremely brisk but not to the point where I am uncomfortable. I can see why a lot of people would be here no matter what time of year. Even now there are at least 25 people or so occupying the park. I can see access into the park may be an issue for people coming from the T.
Stream of Consciousness 2:
I am sitting at the highest point in Ringer Park and the temperature is a lot warmer than the first time I was here. I can basically see the entire boundaries of the park and each function space. A lot more people are filling up the park the longer I stay here. Most likely due to the fact it’s a Saturday. Mostly families with young children are using the space to either play on the playgrounds or to walk through with their family dogs. I’ve noticed from this vantage point that the circulation through the park isn’t entirely composed of paved sidewalks or walkways, but rather the majority are gravel or dirt paths. This gives the space a more natural feel rather than a man made park. The surrounding area seems like it could be slightly intimidating at nighttime due to the excessive amount of graffiti on concrete walls and fences. The whole landscape of the park slopes downward and opens outward to residential spaces surrounding the lower plains.
Ringer Park Interviews
Ringer Park Interviews
Questions:
-How do you view this space, as public or private?
-How often do you use this space?
-What do you come here to do?
-How did you get here?
-Do you think this space is a successful space for the things you come here to do?
Bill, 32:
-Public definitely
-Every weekend and after work a few times a week
-Walk my dog and sometimes play catch with him
-90% of the time I walk but sometimes I may drive if I feel like a change
-Yes, there is plenty of open space and lots of variety
Miguel, 16:
-Public, I mean there aren’t guards or anything
-Maybe once a week
-Hangout with friends or to skate the playground if it’s empty
-Skateboard
-It’s an okay place. It’s nothing special so I guess technically no it isn’t successful for skating.
Dawn, 29:
-Public, but mostly for the locals
-Once a week
-Bring my daughter to the playground and to walk our dog with her
-Walk, I live up the road
-Yes, it’s a nice park to just come to for an hour or so. Much better in the summer however.
Cameron, 12: (I had to simplify the questions for him)
-Public (from what he said I assumed he meant public)
-On the weekends
-To play with my brother and sister on the playground
-Drive in my mom’s car
-The playground is smaller than my schools but it’s super fun. Especially the swings
Gene, 58:
-Public
-I’m actually just passing through this one time. I’m just visiting a relative for the weekend and this place looked interesting.
-To walk I would say
-Walking
-Other than the graffiti inn many places I would say it’s a decent place to stroll through every now and then.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Week 13 Readings: Public Space and Urban/Rural Health
In response to Frampton;
In this article Frampton talks about not only what critical regionalism is, but also he suggests ideas on how to improve modern architecture with regionalism in mind. Frampton basically defines critical regionalism as a response to the lack of focus on site and meaning within modern architecture. He says that modern architecture should still be seen as a progression into the future, but still hold qualities of previous styles that often focused on such ideas as site context, light, climate/microclimate etc. Critical regionalism relates to the ideas of megaform that were previously discussed in class in a sense that critical regionalism focuses on the region as a whole, rather than a very specific point of interest much like the difference between megaform and mega structure. The Bagsvaerd Church mentioned in the reading stood out to me, primarily because of its modernistic style and how even though the style is such, that it brings back ideas of the cultures past into the nave. The expression of the vaulted roof really emphasizes that in section, as seen in the reading as well. After reading this article I'm beginning to think more about perhaps bringing more of a focus on regionalism and more specific critical regionalism into my own work because of the positive benefits of bringing people together and using the site to create a "universal" space.
In response to Waldheim;
After this reading by Waldheim I have gained a general understanding of how landscape can effect urbanism and the planning behind urban areas. It was stated in the article that "landscape is merging as a model for urbanism." This to me makes a lot of sense because creating spaces with landscape, particularly green spaces in urban environments can be critical to the success of not only public space but buildings themselves. With the right amount of focus towards the landscape, a building can really become "complete" if you will by establishing a connection between the two. The "Freshkills" projject in the reading tells us how difficult it is to create such a place where the cultural and social aspects work in a positive way with the infrastructure of the area itself.
In this article Frampton talks about not only what critical regionalism is, but also he suggests ideas on how to improve modern architecture with regionalism in mind. Frampton basically defines critical regionalism as a response to the lack of focus on site and meaning within modern architecture. He says that modern architecture should still be seen as a progression into the future, but still hold qualities of previous styles that often focused on such ideas as site context, light, climate/microclimate etc. Critical regionalism relates to the ideas of megaform that were previously discussed in class in a sense that critical regionalism focuses on the region as a whole, rather than a very specific point of interest much like the difference between megaform and mega structure. The Bagsvaerd Church mentioned in the reading stood out to me, primarily because of its modernistic style and how even though the style is such, that it brings back ideas of the cultures past into the nave. The expression of the vaulted roof really emphasizes that in section, as seen in the reading as well. After reading this article I'm beginning to think more about perhaps bringing more of a focus on regionalism and more specific critical regionalism into my own work because of the positive benefits of bringing people together and using the site to create a "universal" space.
In response to Waldheim;
After this reading by Waldheim I have gained a general understanding of how landscape can effect urbanism and the planning behind urban areas. It was stated in the article that "landscape is merging as a model for urbanism." This to me makes a lot of sense because creating spaces with landscape, particularly green spaces in urban environments can be critical to the success of not only public space but buildings themselves. With the right amount of focus towards the landscape, a building can really become "complete" if you will by establishing a connection between the two. The "Freshkills" projject in the reading tells us how difficult it is to create such a place where the cultural and social aspects work in a positive way with the infrastructure of the area itself.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Week 11 Readings: Creating Public Space: Ritual/Practice and Event Spaces
In response to Roach's "Cities of the Dead"
Overall I found this reading to be very confusing and there was too many "back and forth" moments throughout. Mainly it was figuring out what time period he was talking about and what new or old laws pertained to them. As for the basic ideas behind a parade, I do have my own personal opinion about them. Parades are for the public, or a particular group within the public to express themselves whether it be for political reasons or for protest, or for at least primarily what I have seen in life, for fun or celebration. The role of tradition does come into play for certain things however I feel as though if a tradition involves something such as racial discrimination than that tradition should be altered to follow some of the social orders and well, US laws that are instated. In my opinion a tradition should still be able to be had, just to a certain extent. For example, say a group has a historic tradition to drink alcohol in the public square of town. Now it is technically against the law to do so in a lot of places because it is illegal to drink, or be drunk in the open public. However, I feel as though if the group does not disturb the peace of the public than their tradition should still be able to be had. This creates grey areas for what is right and what is wrong, this I know, but there is always going to be grey areas when it a subject is dealing with both law and tradition and what is "right."
Overall I found this reading to be very confusing and there was too many "back and forth" moments throughout. Mainly it was figuring out what time period he was talking about and what new or old laws pertained to them. As for the basic ideas behind a parade, I do have my own personal opinion about them. Parades are for the public, or a particular group within the public to express themselves whether it be for political reasons or for protest, or for at least primarily what I have seen in life, for fun or celebration. The role of tradition does come into play for certain things however I feel as though if a tradition involves something such as racial discrimination than that tradition should be altered to follow some of the social orders and well, US laws that are instated. In my opinion a tradition should still be able to be had, just to a certain extent. For example, say a group has a historic tradition to drink alcohol in the public square of town. Now it is technically against the law to do so in a lot of places because it is illegal to drink, or be drunk in the open public. However, I feel as though if the group does not disturb the peace of the public than their tradition should still be able to be had. This creates grey areas for what is right and what is wrong, this I know, but there is always going to be grey areas when it a subject is dealing with both law and tradition and what is "right."
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Week 10 Readings: Public Space and Participation/Public Space and Management
In response to Kiefer's "The Social Functions of NIMBYism,"
Nimbyism aka "Not in my backyard", is essentially a term for the people who are against certain proposals of construction in or close to their own neighborhood. In my own opinion I would say I have no problem with people who do this. Even if say I were to design a building in an area and it were to be reacted to in a negative way by the public, I would accept this and potentially find out what exactly is the concern. I feel as though a public interaction with the architect and or construction company is key to success in a project. Especially of that in a city or urban environment, primarily because the number of people affected is most likely going to be increased in said situation. I have actually experienced something along the lines of a "protest" against a project in my own life. When I was in 5th grade, we were told our playground was going to be removed for good, due to a recent accident in which a person broke their arm on the monkey bars. The reason for the proposal of the removal was that the parents suggested a more supervised group activity based recess instead to prevent injuries. Us kids of course were in an uproar... how could they take away our playground we loved so much, just because of one accident. We had just learned about the judicial system in class and a group of friends suggested we have a trial to our teacher against the people trying to remove our playground. Upon which our teacher suggested a petition, which of course was a new idea we had never heard of before, and were eager to try. So our fifth grade class created a "Stop the Playground Removal" petition around school, as allowed by my teacher. Unfortunately the process continued forward and our playground was removed within a month of the incident. However all was not lost for us kids. They installed new, much more safe equipment for us to use, all because they saw how distraught we were to see our playground go. Even at such a young age, and in a sense tiny community, we were able to convince the people otherwise.
In response to "Public Space: The Management Dimension,
In the reading they talked about four main topics and they were as follows, aspirations for public space, public space management structures and coordination, stakeholder involvement in public space management, and lastly challenges facing local authorities. The first topic basically talked about public space and its accessibility. The authorities were arguing that some public spaces do not benefit from 24/7 access, such examples were provided such as, urban parks and places that were framed by academic institutions. I can see why they could argue about that because the safety of the community that which the space is involving could be in jeopardy. The basic behind the second topic was that there was an intention to improve the coordination between different public space management processes and to overcome largely historic rationales for fragmentation. The stakeholder involvement in public space management portion discussed how the community itself and the stakeholders communicate within the project so that the public space being created can be exactly what is needed and what is envisioned. Also so that there are no discrepancies. The final topic, the challenges of facing the local authorities talked about all the issues of a public space such as who will manage and maintain the space, how will it stay successful in the future etc.
Nimbyism aka "Not in my backyard", is essentially a term for the people who are against certain proposals of construction in or close to their own neighborhood. In my own opinion I would say I have no problem with people who do this. Even if say I were to design a building in an area and it were to be reacted to in a negative way by the public, I would accept this and potentially find out what exactly is the concern. I feel as though a public interaction with the architect and or construction company is key to success in a project. Especially of that in a city or urban environment, primarily because the number of people affected is most likely going to be increased in said situation. I have actually experienced something along the lines of a "protest" against a project in my own life. When I was in 5th grade, we were told our playground was going to be removed for good, due to a recent accident in which a person broke their arm on the monkey bars. The reason for the proposal of the removal was that the parents suggested a more supervised group activity based recess instead to prevent injuries. Us kids of course were in an uproar... how could they take away our playground we loved so much, just because of one accident. We had just learned about the judicial system in class and a group of friends suggested we have a trial to our teacher against the people trying to remove our playground. Upon which our teacher suggested a petition, which of course was a new idea we had never heard of before, and were eager to try. So our fifth grade class created a "Stop the Playground Removal" petition around school, as allowed by my teacher. Unfortunately the process continued forward and our playground was removed within a month of the incident. However all was not lost for us kids. They installed new, much more safe equipment for us to use, all because they saw how distraught we were to see our playground go. Even at such a young age, and in a sense tiny community, we were able to convince the people otherwise.
In response to "Public Space: The Management Dimension,
In the reading they talked about four main topics and they were as follows, aspirations for public space, public space management structures and coordination, stakeholder involvement in public space management, and lastly challenges facing local authorities. The first topic basically talked about public space and its accessibility. The authorities were arguing that some public spaces do not benefit from 24/7 access, such examples were provided such as, urban parks and places that were framed by academic institutions. I can see why they could argue about that because the safety of the community that which the space is involving could be in jeopardy. The basic behind the second topic was that there was an intention to improve the coordination between different public space management processes and to overcome largely historic rationales for fragmentation. The stakeholder involvement in public space management portion discussed how the community itself and the stakeholders communicate within the project so that the public space being created can be exactly what is needed and what is envisioned. Also so that there are no discrepancies. The final topic, the challenges of facing the local authorities talked about all the issues of a public space such as who will manage and maintain the space, how will it stay successful in the future etc.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Week 9 Readings: Public Space as Cosmopolitan
In response to Cronon's "A Place for Stories..."
After reading about these two author's and there interpretations of the same event, I tried to relate it in some way to public space, or even architecture in general. Both the authors talked about in the reading wrote about the same occurrence, used the same knowledge and it was even said that, a lot of the material they researched from was similar. Some how though they came up with polar opposite conclusions. How this relates to architecture and public space is that even if given the same exact site for a project, two architects can come up with different solutions, or creations to fill that void. In relation to public space, one can imagine the same sort of thing. I p;ace that may be the perfect setting for a public space can be ruined or mis-used to create something that is a failure.
After reading about these two author's and there interpretations of the same event, I tried to relate it in some way to public space, or even architecture in general. Both the authors talked about in the reading wrote about the same occurrence, used the same knowledge and it was even said that, a lot of the material they researched from was similar. Some how though they came up with polar opposite conclusions. How this relates to architecture and public space is that even if given the same exact site for a project, two architects can come up with different solutions, or creations to fill that void. In relation to public space, one can imagine the same sort of thing. I p;ace that may be the perfect setting for a public space can be ruined or mis-used to create something that is a failure.
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