Exterior Built Environment Description: Little Five Points

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Little Five Points has been apart of Atlanta since the early 1900’s. It is only two or three miles away from Downtown Atlanta. The Little Five Points area is off of Moreland Avenue in Atlanta. It consists of many little restaurants: like Little Five Points Pizza, Zestos, and The Porter. Along with many choices of restaurants, there are several clothing stores also. Most popular clothing store in Little Five Points seems to be Rag-O-Rama which is mostly recycled clothing. Along with these places are stores like Criminal Records, Crystal Blue, Vape Atlanta, and many more. Criminal Records is a well-known music store in Little Five. Crystal Blue is a little shop that is painted blue which sells things like jewelry and other little odd and ins. Vape  Atlanta is in pink building and it sells probably just about any flavor of vapor you could think of. All of these unique places are centered around what used to be the Five Point’s intersection. It was where Moreland Avenue, Euclid Avenue, and Seminole Avenue all intersected which gave Little Five points its name. Now Seminole Avenue is no longer connected because it was turned into a plaza between some of the shops. Little Five Points is basically a few short strips of shops all interconnected at what used to be the the five pointed intersection.

All of the places located in Little Five Points are Unique. Almost every store is a different color. There is graffiti and murals painted on just about every flat surface. The storefronts are also usually quite interesting with their setups.IMG_5153

The area is pretty easy to find your way around. The only hard part about visiting Little Five Points is where to park your car if you drive there. Little Five Points is not your average commercial area, it has a bohemian vibe to it. All sorts of people can be seen at this location enjoying a meal, shopping, or just socializing. The uniqueness of Little Five Points draws in many varieties of customers. I enjoy going because it is not just another shopping center, it is weird in a good way and there is always something interesting to see. Going to Little Five inspires me because I am very appreciative of the different forms of creativity and art that are throughout the area.

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Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ 6-7 PM.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Digital Record 5

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This advertisement is on the back of a building in Little Five Points which faces the main area to park there. This is one of the many advertisements for this clothing store. There are many other murals painted on the sides of buildings suggesting one to “recycle their wardrobe” for this store.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Digital Record 4

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On the side of one of the buildings in Little Five Points, there is a large mosaic full of tiles with their own picture. This picture is of the center of the whole thing where it all comes together. The top writing says, “THE LITTLE 5 POINTS PIECE OF The WORLD WALL for PEACE“, and the lower writing says, “‘THE WORLD WALL FOR PEACE’ HOLDS UP A VISION OF GLOBAL UNITY. THERE ARE 29 WALLS LIKE THIS ALL OVER THE WORLD, BUILT BY VOLUNTEERS FOR PEACE.”

Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ 6:00 PM.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Digital Record 3

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This is a recording that I took of part of what I heard while visiting Little Five Points. There was a man sitting outside of the stores sitting on the curb, playing a beat on a handheld bongo type of drum. There was a couple dancing to it and a man taking several pictures of the scene. He continued playing for only a little while.

Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ around 6:00 PM.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Digital Record 2

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On the main strip in Little Five Points, I came across this little shop. What caught my eye was the paintings on the storefront, it is not something a person could easily overlook. The storefront itself draws so much attention to this little place. It is a good way to get people to come take a look to see what they have inside.

Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ around 6:00 PM.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Little Five Points-Field Notes

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Little Five Points

Thursday, February 11, 2016. @ 6:00 PM

See: A lot of Graffiti. Many people walking around, all ages. Restaurants. Clothing shops. Smoke shop. Record store.

Hear: Rap music. Cars. People talking. People laughing. Someone playing a drum.

Smell: Pizza. Car exhaust. Perfume.

Touch: Cold seat of outside seating.

Exterior Built Environment Description: Digital Record 1

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In one of the alley ways in Little Five Points, I found this masterpiece. What probably started out as graffiti is now a beautiful piece of art on the sides of two buildings. I came across this in an entrance of the main parking area in Little Five. Each wall has its own theme. The wall on the left is more realistically done where the one on the right is very cartoon-like. (Click on image to see detail)

Thursday, February 11th, 2016. @ 6:00 PM.

Reading Summary 3

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“Making Bathrooms More ‘Accommodating'” by Emily Bazelon explains some of the troubles of transgender people. She also questions why our society has separated males and females in the ways that we have. Emily does this by using the simple main example of specific gendered bathrooms by pointing out the unease people have or would have if they had to share restrooms with the opposite sex. She mentions how many people do not agree with the idea of mixing both genders in restrooms. Some people have gone as far as campaigning against men being allowed in women’s restrooms and vice versa. Bazelon also adds how schools handle the issue when it comes to transgender students. Majority of schools call transgender students by the names they ask to be called by, and they allow transgender students to be on whichever gender of a sports team they identify with. Even with both of those accommodations, there are remaining issues on if transgender students should be allowed to use the same dressing rooms and bathrooms as the gender they identify with. Emily Bazelon gives an example of an issue that came up in Illinois where a transgender girl was not allowed to change with the girls because of lack of privacy for the girls. The solution that came about was a curtain being put up to give more privacy. This way transgender students can be accommodated and the mixing of genders becomes less problematic.

Emily Bazelon then goes into talking about accommodations or rather the lack there of. She speaks on how accommodations have been made for the people who have disabilities and even for peoples’ religions. Yet accommodations for transgenders have not been made. Bazelon points out how it seems that people who are transgenders are the ones who have been making changes to accommodate others instead of others trying to help accommodate them. Not only do people who are transgenders fall short when it comes to being accommodated, women are slightly looked over also. Bazelon makes note of women having to wait in lines for the bathroom, which is not a rare occurrence, while men move quickly in and out of the bathrooms because urinals help them to do so. Accommodations for men are more frequent compared to accommodations for women and especially transgenders.

Brazelon continues making her point by stating how the separation between men and women as far as using the restroom is something that was created by society a long time ago. It began when women stopped being housewives as much and began joining the working community. Women were looked at as more fragile so they needed their own restroom that they could retreat to at work. Since the bathrooms have been separated for so long, women also see their restroom as somewhere they can go and chat or freshen up away from men. Many women are uncomfortable with the idea of a transgenders being in their restrooms because then the restroom will not be specifically for them. This view on the women’s restroom discourages any movements toward limiting the separation of sexes and accommodating transgenders. Brazelon states that adjustments are necessary for coexistence. Everyone needs to feel like they belong.

Annotation #3.

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Chernoff, Michael. “Social Displacement in a Renovating Neighborhood’s Commercial District: Atlanta.” The Gentrification debates: A Reader. Japonica Brown-Saracino. New  York: Routledge, 2010. 295-303. Print.

This source is about social and physical displacement, specifically in Little Five Points, caused by built environments. Disagreements began between the residential area and the business owners when talk began about altering roads and such in order to let more traffic through. The residential area wanted no part of this, but the business owners were all for it because they saw opportunity to make more money. In this way, the built environment drove these two groups of people apart. Even later on, old merchants and new merchants began having disagreements due to the same change in the built environment that was only desired by some. The dispute on altering the built environment in Little Five points is creating social displacement between the old and the new. This shows how important the built environment is to the people who live in or around it.

I chose this source because it showed how changing the built environment can have such a large impact on people, and it is specific to Little Five Points which is my exterior built environment. The information is somewhat outdated, but even with it being outdated it shows the effect of the built environment on its people. My source one and two are directly related because they are both about the desired alteration to the built environment in Little Five Points.

Annotation #2.

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Gutman, Robert. “The Social Function of the Built Environment.” The Mutual Interaction of People and their Built Environment. Ed. Amos Rapoport. Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1976. 37-50. Print.

This article is about the built environment’s impact on a person’s behavior and social organization. It shows how built environments are created in a way to produce the behavior of a person that is desired. Architects design buildings and such to create specific reactions to the environment. Gutman also explains how architects design buildings in a way to improve social communication.This article has shown me that every built environment in Atlanta, or any other place for that matter, is built the way it is to create a certain reaction from the people using the environment.

This source gave a lot of explanation behind the relationship between the built environment and a person’s behavior. It explained why things are built and set up the way that they are. Gutman gives perfect examples to show how the architectural designs of built environments can produce the behaviors that they are supposed to. For instance, he used the example of how a lecture hall is set up the way it is to have students focused on the speaker. I found no flaws within this source. This article reinforces what I have read in my other two sources about how the built environment can have a large impact on the people who use it.

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