Month: October 2016

1 Comment Posted on class notes

Quotes from “Possible Worlds: Henri Lefebvre and the Right to the City”

“[Lefebvre] hoped that an analysis of space, and specifically of the “lived spaces” that people actually experience, would be able to apprehend human life as a complex whole and avoid reducing our understanding of experience to small fractions of life, such as class status, gender, race, income, consumer habits, marital status, and so on.”

  • I think people today have gotten really used to the idea of reducing people to statistics – we think of people (that we don’t know personally) less as complex human beings and more as shallow representations of numerical values.

“To take an archetypical example, when a developer buys a plot of land, he or she acquires property rights that confer extensive control over what that land will become. According to the regime of property rights, the role of that land in the everyday life of the surrounding community need not be considered. Those who inhabit the area need not play a role in decisions about the land. A property rights regime works to separate the land from the surrounding community of users, and it abstracts the land from its role in the web of urban social connections.”

  • I guess this is striking to me because I never really considered how owning land can totally separate you from the land surrounding it. I suppose you could take this to mean or imply that homeless people are more entwined with their community than the landowners of that community.

“As I discuss above, Lefebvre sees “the urban” not merely as urbanization, but as a society beyond capitalism, one characterized by meaningful engagement among inhabitants embedded in a web of social connections.”

  • I really love this idea that a utopia should be catagorized by the meaningful interactions between people, that a society is “perfect” not because of how well-off the inhabitants are, but because of the happiness they’ve found amongst one another.

 

 

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Annotations for Alexandra Lange’s “The Innovation Campus: Building Better Ideas”

Link to article here

“Being in bigger interactive spaces encourages expansive thinking, while being in a box of a room encourages box thinking,” said Dan Huttenlocher, founding dean and vice provost at Cornell Tech. “Sometimes you need to be in a box to concentrate, but to always sit in a little box is a problem.”

This sort of seems like a false analogy to me, or at least one that needs evidence to be convincing. It’s hard for me to just take Huttenlocher’s word that big rooms are better than small rooms for thinking, since I’m generally pretty okay with my “box” of a dorm room when I do homework.

“One thing about the building is it has no formal classrooms, and no faculty or staff offices,” said Troy D’Ambrosio, executive director of the institute. “We didn’t want to have a classroom because that says, ‘In this room you learn, out here you don’t learn.’”

I guess I never really thought about the psychological aspect of having classrooms that are separate from the rest of the building – I always figured it was just practical, but it does kinda seem like you’re supposed to learn in the classroom and outside of the classroom it’s just an option.

Dean Janusz Kozinski speaks of trying to create “Renaissance engineers,” in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci, and has set the ambitious goal of a student body that is 50 percent female. They have a long way to go. Currently, 17 percent of undergraduates are women.

17 percent seems like a pretty astoundingly low number. According to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey (ACS), “women comprise 48 per- cent of the U.S. workforce but just 24 percent of STEM workers“(link). I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the statistics look like in about ten years.

Larger, purpose-built labs are equipped with professional-grade equipment for testing and prototyping, including a concrete-lined mechanical lab with a 12-ton crane. “This is where you get to build things like solar cars, or crush concrete,” [Paul Stevens] said.

That sounds pretty rad.

The new Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa is designed to open up access and views to all art-making activities, and serves as a pathway through which the campus circulates. Credit Iwan Baan

The new Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa is designed to open up access and views to all art-making activities, and serves as a pathway through which the campus circulates. Credit Iwan Baan

All the non 90-degree angles are super cool, if not just a little bit uncomfortable to look at. My favorite thing about this picture is probably that light blue denim-looking ceiling, other than that it’s mostly just white and grey; I feel like buildings such as this one would inspire more “creativity” if they were brightly colored, but maybe that’s just me.

 

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Annotations for Scholl & Gulwadi’s piece on Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces

click here for article

“Interaction with nature, in particular, can help to maintain or restore cognitive function such as direct attention, problem solving, focus and concentration, impulse inhibition, and memory, which can become depleted from fatigue or with overuse (Hartig, et al., 2014; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989).”

  • I, personally, think a nap would be more effective in restoring my “cognitive function” than taking a frolic through the flowers.

“Therefore, this paper will define nature or natural environment as the… “physical features and processes of nonhuman origin that people ordinarily can perceive, including the “living nature” of flora and fauna, together with still and running water, qualities of air and weather, and the landscapes that comprise these and show the influences of geological processes” (Hartig, et al., 2014, p. 21.2).”

  • I am glad to see that outer space (though not expressly listed) likely counts as what this article defines as “nature.” I get that a lot of people probably don’t think of staring into the neverending abyss of the night sky as especially comforting or restoring, but space is basically what gets me out of bed in the morning, so it’s nice that there’s a constant reminder of what I think really matters right above my head all the time.

“Public areas and outdoor learning environments, including nature trails and ecological study areas, lend more opportunities for community interaction and social encounters that foster a sense of belonging, whereas quiet areas provide a place for students to refresh themselves, have a temporary escape, or quiet reflection, affording an enriched and enjoyable campus life (Kenney, et al., 2005).”

  • I don’t mean to be passive aggressive, but this whole article sort of sounds like a more convincing version of something I would’ve written back in my treehugging pre-teen days.

“Students spend most of their tightly structured learning time indoors amidst traditional instructional classrooms (where students’ direct attention is most required) that are primarily structured for the visual mode of learning (e.g., whiteboards on designated walls, seating that faces the instructor).”

  • “Tightly structured” seems like a pretty strong term for what we have here at GSU. I mean, you need a set time for classes, or no one would show up (at least, I wouldn’t), but outside of that, classes are in all different buildings and there’s occassionally time inbetween for other things. Nothing about my schedule strikes me as particularly rigid.

 

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A Personal Site Response of the Ebenezer Baptist Church

Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Gary Tarleton, HFC, NPS link here

Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church
Gary Tarleton, HFC, NPS

I think it’s a worth while pursuit to understand the historical context of this church, especially given how well-known Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is today – but even without it, the building is sure to feel distinct from the surrounding areas. I always feel like traditional churches stand out in most places, since the architecture is so strikingly different from the modern style of housing; it’s weird to see that gothic framework next to street signs and traffic lights. The stained glass windows are particularly recognizable as you pretty much only see those in churches anymore, and they seem to communicate an elegance that separates the structure from more modern architecture.

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A Focused Built Environment Description of the Ebenezer Baptist Church

Frontal view of the church.

Frontal view of the church.

Located at the corner of Auburn Ave NE and Jackson St NE in Atlanta Georgia, the Ebenezer Baptist Church communicates a display of balance. The building is organized symmetrically from left to right, where the two outer thirds are rectangular prisms and the middle third is a shorter rectangular prism with a pointed traingular top. The four columns that outline each third are equidistant from one another.

The windows are also aligned symmetrically, with two vertical sets of stained glass windows in the middle section, two shuttered windows on the upper half of the two outer rectangular structures, as well as two more stained glass windows directly beneath the shuttered windows. The windows are all lined with white paning and all the stained glass windows are mostly dark blue with individual flecks of viridian, cerulean, and beige. The symmetrical design of the building contributes an overall even and balanced presentation.

 

 

Picture taken by author.

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Summary of Scholl & Gulwadi: Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces

Link to article: here

Scholl and Gulwadi’s piece on campus landscapes focuses on how the environment surrounding college students influences their performance in school. The article begins by stating that college is a “stimulating and demanding time in a student’s life” that requires “direct, focused attention.” Therefore, college officials should take care to ensure that there are areas on campus with “potential [to replenish] cognitive functioning for attentional fatigued students.”

The article continues to discuss the historical context of college campuses, explaining that American campuses as they were in the 1770’s were “self-sufficient and often built in rural locations,” whereas campuses today are less focused on preserving green, open spaces than they are on new structures and facilities.

In the 3rd section of the paper, Scholl and Gulwadi explain the psychological benefits of being exposed to “green nature,” such as “a chance to rest and replenish,” which can in turn benefit the overall academic state of college students. Therefore, Scholl and Gulwadi deem it essential to provide students with open spaces to help replenish their “learning mechanisms.”