on 
Welcome to the Grist Mill. This spot serves as a place for people to come and host cook outs, let their children play in the water before the mill and lake and take pictures. The Grist Mill itself was not built in Stone Mountain, but was moved from its original spot in Ellijay, Georgia. Access is strictly forbidden into the mill and it is padlocked shut.
Video:
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This is the Memorial Hall museum at Stone Mountain. The inside of the museum contains exhibits about the geology and ecology of Stone Mountain, the civil war and its impact in Georgia and the background of the men who carved the Confederate Memorial, which is the largest relief carving in the world. In addition to the artifacts, the Civil War exhibit presents a 25 minute documentary, “The Battle for Georgia – a History of the Civil War in Georgia” and another 11 minute feature film about the men who carved the Confederate Memorial called “The Men Who Carved the Mountain”.
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Welcome to the Crossroads! This area in Stone mountain is built to resemble a small town and is where tickets are sold for the theme park attractions within the Crossroads. The Crossroads also provides options for food and is the center point for most of the transportation systems that are offered at Stone Mountain.
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In her article “His & Hers: Designing for a Post-Gender Society“, Suzanne Tick talks about the change in how society views and challenges the traditional masculine and feminine roles. As society continues to grow technologically and scientifically, people are becoming gradually exposed to a variety of options on how they wish to express themselves. As a result, Tick argues that designers and people need to learn to accept this new movement and to work with it.
She begins by explaining how the current state of society is mated with the idea of modernism, which is shaped through the male perspective (Tick). Because society is shaped mostly through the male perspective, architectural and systematical designs are oriented more towards males and often negligent towards females. To provide an example, Tick looks at technological jobs like web design and states that “85 percent of tech workers at the top companies being male” (Tick). Tick also discusses how traditionally males have always been assigned to leadership roles because they were viewed as dominant and how this had an impact on the design of the workplaces. However, this traditional structure is being gradually changed as males are no longer the only ones to hold roles with power. As a result, faculties and work stations are increasing the amount of light that enters and becoming more inviting and softer (Tick).
In addition to the evolution of architectural design, Tick also talks about the more prominent and fast moving changes that are occurring within society itself. More specifically the topic of fashion. As society becomes more accepting to the change that has been brought upon by the advances in technology and science, people no longer have to maintain the identities they were born with. Both sexes can now change their outward appearance both biologically and physically through their wardrobes. Tick explains that this change can easily cause confusion as males and females can look like the opposite sex. In order to adapt to this change, Tick discusses how institutions have begun to allow their students to choose not to identify their sex. As a result, Tick argues that institutions should not only be the ones to embrace this change, but all of society collectively.
However, Tick explains that larger corporations like Google have noticed the change and are beginning to adapt their buildings to become more inviting to those who are transgender and those who are not willing to identify to a single gender. Despite this, the issue of bathrooms remains. Tick explains how finding bathrooms that are open to those who are transgender is difficult by using an example of how a group of coworkers did not wish to share a bathroom with a coworker who recently went through gender-reassignment surgery (Tick). Even though designers are physically able to create environments for those who are transgender, it is difficult for these people to feel welcome and safe when those around them are not willing to accept the change.
In order to eradicate the boundaries that transgender people face, Tick states that designers should take those who are transgender in consideration when they are erecting new buildings and facilities in order to accommodate for this new movement of self liberation and change. In addition to this, Tick also states that people should learn to become more accepting and respectful of others and their choices in order to provide an equal and safe environment for all.
Bibliography
on February 8th Class Notes
***DISCLAIMER***
The notes I have taken are what I heard and how I interpreted it. These notes do not cover 100% of everything that was said in class and not word for word. Some things on here have the possibility to be wrong. I am only human.
NOTE: Clicking words that are highlighted like this (Google) will open a new tab and take you to a website with a description/helpful explanation or save you time from searching things like Zotero and etc.
Today in class we discussed:
Built Environment Project
Things you want to observe:
| Style = What the space is like(specific details).
Ex: Modern –> full of computers/apple logo/modular |
Aural = Sounds you hear.
Ex: Kids playing in a park, sounds of the swings. |
Structure = How things are designed/built
Ex: Buildings–> pillars etc |
| Tone = The effect of the space on you. How it makes you feel. What the author uses.
Ex: Space makes you feel cold or its inviting. |
Visual = The things you see.
Ex: Traffic, buses etc. |
Organization = How things are laid out.
Ex: Where sidewalks/trails go, how buildings are spread out, bus stops. |
| Mood = What the audience feels/reacts/thinks. | Oral = The way people speak.
Ex: Accents during an interview. |
Graphics = Signs
Ex: The style of the sign, color, definition/how detailed the sign is. |
| Diction = Signs/punctuation.
Ex: |
Repetition = Styles or patterns that repeat.
Ex: All the buildings in a shopping plaza are designed similar. |
Colors = The colors present.
Ex: Red, Green, Black etc. |
Types of research
Primary research: Examples: Built environment descriptions, interviews, using archives, transcripts.
Secondary research: Examples: Annotated bibliographies,
When conducting interviews:
Remember, they are people. Do not badger/force people to talk to you. Respect them. Ask for permission to interview/record/taking pictures and have them sign a release form.
Zotero
Zotero is optional. However, if you use zotero, you can get extra points.
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Burnard, Michael, and Andreja Kutnar. “Wood And Human Stress In The Built Indoor Environment: A Review.” Wood Science & Technology 49.5 (2015): 969. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.
The authors, Michael D. Burnard and Andreja Kutnar test the hypothesis that indoor built environments with natural materials, specifically wood, decrease stress. They use critically evaluated articles that previously studied the psychophysiological responses to wood as well as recent papers as their support. In order to monitor the stress levels of the individuals, the studies they reviewed conducted saliva tests and monitored the Autonomic nervous system. Their findings lead them to the conclusion that the use of wood has a positive effect on people, because it reduces stress levels. However, the authors also state that more studies need to be conducted in order for this conclusion to be proven true.
I decided to read this paper because it was well written and provided me with more insight on how the indoor built environment affects human behavior. None the less, the paper has flaws in the sources it used. Most of the data they discussed was biased in regards to how they collected and tested the samples. Regardless, this paper opened my mind to how indoor built environments also affect people.
on February 3rd Class Notes
***DISCLAIMER***
The notes I have taken are what I heard and how I interpreted it. These notes do not cover 100% of everything that was said in class and not word for word. Some things on here have the possibility to be wrong. I am only human.
Today in class we discussed:
Researching for Annotated Bibliographies
Took 10 mins to write down ideas that could be used for search terms. Brainstorming places for the built environment description. Annotations do not have to summarize the whole article, they can focus on the built environment part of the article.
Research terms for the example used in class (Relocation of minorities): Minority displacement, demographic distribution, city policy, urban planning.
Wikipedia is a good source to use. However, you should always check for sources or use the sources used. Also when using Wikipedia, its good to add to what it has to say.
Do not use EasyBib. The library bibliography can be copied to be used.
AB 1-3 Due: Friday February 5th.
Built Environment
Questions that arose:
Q: For the built environment, should it be more pictures or words?
A: There should be pictures accompanied by descriptive text or sound. This is so that people can experience what its like to be in that space.
Start working on taking pictures and doing research so that you can submit posts before the description.
Due: Friday February 12th
Other
For the rest of class we did research.
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Wang, Y. et al. “A Review on the Effects of Physical Built Environment Attributes on Enhancing Walking and Cycling Activity Levels within Residential Neighborhoods.” Cities 50 (2016): 1–15. ScienceDirect. Web.
The purpose of this paper is to identify which characteristics of the built environment influence the activities of walking and cycling. To support their findings and conclusions, the authors use journals from 1977 to 2015 with impact factors of 1.5 as their sources. The authors begin by analyzing the built environment broadly and dividing it into four types of barriers: Opportunity, access, safety and physical barriers. All four of these barriers restrict people from participating in walking and cycling. In order to increase the probability of walking and cycling, the authors discovered that necessary facilities should be provided, nearby, safe and visually appealing to people.
Furthermore, the authors also address more specific built environment factors like: land use, landscaping, greenery, public space, and building design. They discover that providing larger parks, filtering what can be built (liquor stores), increasing trails, adding greenery, and reducing things that do not promote exercise (e.g elevators) can increase participation in walking and cycling.
I chose this source because it provides alternate views on how the built environment affects health compared to the first annotated bibliography. The authors are straightforward with their data and mention the flaws in the data making it unbiased.
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Bodea, Tudor D. et al. “Socio-Demographic and Built Environment Influences on the Odds of Being Overweight or Obese: The Atlanta Experience.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 43.4 (2009): 430–444. CrossRef. Web. (30)
This paper discusses how the built environment and socio-demographics affects people’s weight using data from the Atlanta SMARTRAQ travel survey. In order to be able to separate people into different categories, the authors used the BMI index. The authors also used the Multinomial Logit Model because of the multitude of variables. The MNL model was used in this study as a way to explain the relationships that exist with weight, socio-demographics and the built environment.
The study discovered the following: Males, people with lesser educations, African Americans, households with lower incomes and the presence of children are more prone to be overweight than their equivalent counterparts. The study also discovered that certain aspects of the built environment, such as street connectivity and net residential density had an effect on obesity. Areas with high street connectivity and net residential density lowered the probability of being overweight whereas, areas with low street connectivity and net residential density increased the probability of becoming overweight.
This source was very informative about how the built environment affects health, which I never really thought about before. This paper is relevant to the current time period and the authors are not biased when presenting their views.
on February 1st Class Notes
***DISCLAIMER***
The notes I have taken are what I heard and how I interpreted it. These notes do not cover 100% of everything that was said in class and not word for word. Some things on here have the possibility to be wrong. I am only human.
Today in class we discussed:
SOS PAGE
How to add the SOS category to our sites:
Annotated Bibliography Workshop
Today we opened the rubric for the Annotated Bibliography.
Questions that arose:
Q: Does it have to be based on the readings?
A: No, it can be about the built environment in general, but it has to be related to the class.
Q: Does each set of annotated bib have to be about the same topic?
A: No, as long as its complete.
Q: Do annotated bibliographies have to be related to Atlanta?
A: No as long as its relevant to the built environment.
Q: How should we make a description about the annotated bibliography?
A: Go under link http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography and use the one under MLA format to reference. You can quote, should be mostly in your own words. Paraphrase!
Q: Where does Zotero come into play?
A: Right now Zotero is extra credit for the time being. Will get into Zotero next week.
Q: How much to quote?
A: Quoting is fine as long as you provide support as to why the quote was chosen etc. Quoting should not take most of the Bibliography.
Notes while looking at an example of an annotated bibliography: http://sites.gsu.edu/dnorwood6/2016/02/01/bibliography-wilfried-wang/
Discussed Built Environment
Additional notes
