11.522 : UIS Research
Seminar (Fall 2009) | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 | Discussion leader: David Lee
Discussion notes
In Image of the
City, Kevin Lynch advocates creating urban environments that are
"legible." He argues that humans need strong sensory cues and hints
of the past to connect with a place. Thus, we find cities with vague
organization and repetitive design to be confusing, oppressive, or, worst of
all, boring.
Urban designers attempt to rectify
these problems with intervention in the physical environment of the city. They
erect landmarks, dictate distinctive building forms, and develop wayfinding schemes to help define city spaces. However, a
new breed of wayfinding devices is changing the way
we read the city: GPS navigators, iPhone augmented
reality apps, sensor enabled clothing and bikes. These are not the static maps
of Lynch's time. They provide layer upon layer of dynamic information about our
environments, in a way that leaves us little time or excuse to get lost or
reflect upon a place. They can impose new order onto a previously formless
place, and perhaps introduce "legibility" to the sort of places Lynch
would have found lacking.
Yet, is there something we lose in
this process? Is there a point of no return with these tools? As a metaphor,
consider the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, where the act of observing
something can change the nature of what you see, such that what once was vague
"collapses" into a defined state that it cannot revert back from. Our
images of the city may be the same way.
Questions:
Think of a place that you've walked
through many times in the past, but cannot recall ever seeing on a map. Write
down anything you can think of about that place, and try drawing a map of the
place.
Find another place on Google Maps
that you have never walked through. Spend a few minutes exploring the place,
looking at it from different Street View angles, and trying to memorize the
street layout of the area. Then, take a walk through that
place, and at the end of the walk, write down what you remember and draw a map
of the place.
If possible, repeat this exercise
one more time in another place you have never walked through, but this time
using an iPhone mapping application to guide yourself
through the place.
Finally, compare what you've
written for each of these exercises. How are they different? What sort of
observations do you recall in the first place that you didn't bother to make in
the second or third?
Readings:
Please skim through Chapter 1
(pages 1-13) of Image of the City. Most of it can
be found on Google Books here: http://books.google.com/books?id=_phRPWsSpAgC&lpg=PP1&dq=image%20of%20the%20city&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Some interesting projects, worth
pondering:
http://springwise.com/telecom_mobile/worksnug/
http://springwise.com/gaming/hiddenpark/
A short and
not-very-illuminating paper on user experiences: http://mit.edu/11.522/www/discussion_notes/papers/p30-hakkila.pdf