Visualising Research & Communicating Places

New Schedule

2011-09-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

Due to the cancellation of the field trip this week I have had to re-jigg the schedule for the rest of the semester. I want to make sure that we fit in some further discussion of readings and some field trips as well as setting aside time for individual tutorials on your project work. This is my current proposal, although for weeks 9 and 10 I still need to get confirmation.

Week 8 / 21 Sept
Please look at the following readings, choosing one that you read in depth, being prepared to discuss in relation to the questions:

De Certeau, M. (1984) Spatial Stories. From The Practice of everyday life. Berkely: University of California Press. 115-130. (Start at page 117, end at new section on page 122)
1- List the attributes on place and the attributes of space in terms of De Certeau's analysis.
2- What do stories do in terms of places and spaces?
3- Summarise the difference between maps and itineraries.
4- De Certeau identifies an important historical change in mapping practices. What is this change, why did it occur and why does De Certeau think it is important?

Wortham-Galvin, B.D. (2008) Mythologies of placemaking. Places: forum of design for the public realm. Vol. 20, No. 1. 32-39
1- Wortham-Galvin suggests a number of motives for the enactment of place. What are these? Locate some visual material of examples. (Hint, think advertising.)
2- What does the term tabula rasa mean? Why is this an important concept in terms of the example of North America that this author discusses?
3- Why does Wotham-Galvin think that shared myths of place are powerful and important? Why does this have implications for virtual and technologically mediated places?
4- Summarise the critique of New Urbanism given in this article. Find two other discussions of New Urbanism, one from a founder
of it and one from another commentator. What are their views?

Abrams, J. & Hall, P. (Eds.). (2006). Where/Abouts. From Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Design Institute.
1- What key aspects of maps and or mapping does this author(s) discuss?
2 -Why do they consider mapping to be an important process?

NB* When copying images/texts make sure you reference the source.
The second part of the class can be used for individual tutorials.

Week 9 / 28 Sept
Project Twin Stream field trip (tbc)
Planning students are going on their own trip and cannot come to this class so as its is a small group we will organise to travel by car or train.

Week 10 / 5 October
"Your Are Here: mapping Auckland" field trip Auckland Museum (tbc)

Week 11 / 12 October
Group meeting exhibition design followed by individual tutorials

Week 12 / Crit week no class

Week 14 Exhibition - details TBC

notice

2011-09-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

trip today canceled due to high winds, lets just meet in our usual room, Kathy

Field Trip this week

2011-09-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

just a reminder that we are going on a field trip for class this week. We will be starting early, meeting outside 26 Symonds Street at 8:50am. The Ritchies transport bus will take us all to the Corbans Estate Art Center in Henderson where we will be talking about Project Twin Streams. The bus will return us to the university by 12:00 midday.

Class next week, Wed 17 August

2011-08-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Thanks very much for your attendance and open mindedness in today's session. It's a big jump from reading philosophy on "place" one week to looking at effluent the next! We probably need to spend a little bit f time next week stitching these things together.

As you know we have had to delay the field trip until after mid semester break. I had suggested that next week (week 5) we would return to our usual class format, discussing the readings that we are yet to get to. However I have now realised that we WILL NOT have a formal class session in week week 6 as academic staff in the Tertiary Education Union will be on a one day strike. This includes me. (For further info on strike action please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0kfcmUGHTk I expect that the university will also publish information for students via the web page).

Therefore I think its really important that we move your seminars forward so that you can work out if you are on track prior to the mid semester break. So be prepared next week to use 10 –15 mins of class time outlining your water mapping project. Look at the assignment in the course reader for a guide to what you should be talking about and showing. (Alex and Sally, I know that you will be missing this class, please email me to make a time for us three to meet separately.)

Next week we can also work out what you would all like to do in my absence for week 6. There are some options that I can put to you.

Ka kite
Kathy

Class next week, Wed 10 August

2011-08-03T15:00:00.001-07:00

To confirm, the seminar class next week will take place in Building 110, the Thomas Building. This is at 3 Symonds Street, it is the concrete building over the road form the Music School. The entrance to the Thomas Building is on the old Government house side, the side facing away from Symonds Street.

We will meet in the Thomas Building foyer at 9:50. Clark Ehlers will then take us to the lecture room so YOU CANNOT BE LATE, or you will be lost and left behind . . .

The programme for the morning is:

10-11
Kiely McFarlane, PhD student in Geography
This presentation will draw on an understanding of the physical geography of New Zealand rivers, based on courses taught within the School of Environment, as well the experiences of Gary and his students with rivers (and river communities) in the Auckland region. It seeks to build an appreciation of the diversity and uniqueness of river ecosystems in Auckland and wider New Zealand. The conflicts that have arisen around these landscapes and the community level response to river degradation will be explored.

Dr Clark Ehlers, Centre for Microbial Innovation, School of Biological Sciences
Wastewater treatment processes and how it interconnects with other water bodies & different scales of operation

11-12
Clark will take us to his lab where we will have a basic water microbiology lab (mostly around microscopy work looking at stream biofilms, sludge samples, petri dishes etc).

See you all there
Kathy

Reading week 3: What is place anyway?

2011-07-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

Please make the effort to do the reading ahead of the class. This week we have:

Casey (history of place as a philosophical concept)
Calvino (a short excerpt from a short novel, you can all read this as well as another text)
De Certeau (a philosopher thinking about the difference between space and place)
Entrikin (thinking about place in relation to other spatial and regional concepts in geography)
Wortham-Galvin (a critic looking at ideas of place-making)

Question of the week for all!
From the author you are reading what are the key characteristics defining "place"?

Also: remember to send me your blog address.

Casey, E. S. (1998) Disappearing places, from The fate of place, a philosophical history. Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, ix-xv
1- Identify some reasons why Casey believes that the idea of place has been hidden in philosophical discourse, both historically and in more recent times. (your should find at least 4).
2- What does Casey mean by the term universalism? Give an example. Why is this detrimental to place based thinking?
3- Casey says that disruption to a place, in the aftershock, can bring about "a revitalized sensitivity to place". He gives the possibility of nuclear annihilation as an example. Can you think of some historical examples where this new sensitivity to place might have occurred in this way?
4- Casey says that even the 'virtual' can provide elements of a place based experience, and can make us feel 'in place' though physically distant. Think of a virtual experience that you frequently have (online banking / computer gaming / using mobile phone) and analyse it in terms of providing a place based experience.

Calvino, Italo. (1972) Invisible Cities. Harcourt, Orlando Florida. 10-11, 88-89
All read and answer question of week!

De Certeau, M. (1984) Spatial Stories. From The Practice of everyday life. Berkely: University of California Press. 115-130. (Start at page 117, end at new section on page 122)
1- List the attributes on place and the attributes of space in terms of De Certeau's analysis.
2- What do stories do in terms of places and spaces?
3- Summarise the difference between maps and itineraries.
4- De Certeau identifies an important historical change in mapping practices. What is this change, why did it occur and why does De Certeau think it is important?

Entriken, J. N. (1991). Chapter 2 The Betweeness of Place. From The Betweeness of Place. London: Macmillan. 6-26
1-What is the difficulty does Entriken identify with a 'scientific' point of view of place?
2-Describe the two opposing positions for viewing place that Entriken describes.
3- On page 11 Entriken uses the term "semantic density". He gives Jonestown and Chernobyl as examples. Think of another example.
4- Under the section Specificity Entriken discussed the unique view of place and the fused view of place. Summarise these ideas.
5- What useful synthesis does Entriken see narrative as having the potential to do?

Wortham-Galvin, B.D. (2008) Mythologies of placemaking. Places: forum of design for the public realm. Vol. 20, No. 1. 32-39
1- Wortham-Galvin suggests a number of motives for the enactment of place. What are these? Locate some visual material of examples. (Hint, think advertising.)
2- What does the term tabula rasa mean? Why is this an important concept in terms of the example of North America that this author discusses?

3- Why does Wotham-Galvin think that shared myths of place are powerful and important? Why does this have implications for virtual and technologically mediated places?

4- Summarise the critique of New Urbanism given in this article. Find two other discussions of New Urbanism, one from a founder of it and one from another commentator. What are their views?

NB* When copying images make sure you reference the source.

Reading week 2, 2011

2011-07-20T01:29:00.000-07:00

Hello, here are the questions to guide your reading for this week. Remember you are reading all of the texts, but answering the questions or doing the further research for one of them. The text that you read in more depth is the text you will be prepared to discuss with the class next Wednesday.

Allen, S. (2000). Mapping the unmappable, on notation. From Practice, architecture, technique and representation. London and New York: Routledge. Pg 31- 45
1: What does Allen mean when he says that architectural drawing is instrumental?
2: What change in the literary descriptions of the city does Steven Marcus note, and why is this relevant to Allen's argument?
3: What is the main argument that Allen is making?
4: Suggest some areas, topics, or relations that could be mapped in relation to water in Auckland that would include aspects of anticipation, invisibility and time as discussed by Allen.

Cosgrove, D. (2006) Carto-city in Abrams, J. & Hall, P. (Eds.). Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Design Institute. 148-157
1: Cosgrove says that urban maps, "continue to control the daily lives of citizens through zoning ordinances, zip codes, and the myriad territorial regulations that shape daily life". Locate, and bring to class, at least 5 maps of Auckland city that operate in this way and explain how they operate in Cosgrove's terms.
2: Radial axis and the grid. Cosgrove mentions Versaille, Rome and Paris as radial axis cities and Greek colonies of the Mediterranean, imperial Chinese cities and modern American cities as being based on the grid. Locate some historical maps of Auckland, and bring to class. Are they radial or grid? Find other examples of radial and grid cities.
3: Locate and bring a copy of Charles L'Enfant's map of Washington, DC. and describe it in Cosgrove's terms to the class and compare to the map of Auckland from number 2.
4: Take a look at Braun and Hegenberg's city maps from Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1570). (Click here for good res versions). Find a copy of Turgot's 1739 Plan de Paris. Using these describe the visual differences that Cosgrove identifies. Why are these differences important?

In relation to pg 1 See Wikipedia on redlining

Questions for Corbellini, G. (2006). Diagrams, instructions for use. Lotus International (127), 88-95.

What is the panopticon? (Locate an image)
Make a list of the functional attributes of the diagram as discussed by this author.
Is a map a diagram? Yes - why? No-why?
What are the differences that this author describes between a compositional approach and a diagrammatic approach to design?

NB* When copying images remember to reference the source.

Modeling the Mississippi

2011-07-11T19:30:00.001-07:00

The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River

QR code

2011-06-20T02:02:00.001-07:00

Thinking about place / mapping gardens in Montreal

2011-03-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Place as assemblage: Montreal Garden Mapping

Abstract

This paper borrows Manual De Landa’s assemblage theory, an elastic schema of society, to consider places as dynamic and extroverted entities, made up of spatial, social and material component parts. The paper also discusses the potential of mapping as an operational practice championed in Landscape Urbanism to harness the dynamic qualities of place for making design. Then follows a description and discussion of Montreal Garden Mapping, a project for the 2010 Arts and Cartography Workshop: Mapping Environmental Issues in the City. In this project a landscape urbanist approach to mapping was engaged to map the municipal gardens of Montreal against De Landa’s assemblage schema, in order to unfold some of the spatial, social and material component parts and contingent relations of the Montreal place assemblage.

Kathy Waghorn, The University of Auckland

To be published in a forthcoming book (as me if you would like a draft copy).

waitemata to manukau

2011-03-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

A 16km walk North to South across the isthmus of Tamaki Makaura Auckland. Starting at the Waitemata Harbour and finishing at the Manukau, photographing East and West approximately every 500m.

waitemata to manukau by kathywag at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-02-25T01:05:00.000-08:00

A 16km walk North to South across the isthmus of Tamaki Makaura Auckland. Starting at the Waitemata Harbour and finishing at the Manukau, click here for route, elevations, speed etc.

waitemata to manukau by kathywag at Garmin Connect - Details

Anatomy of a visualisation

2011-02-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Anatomy of a visualisation - Mapping New Zealand voting results

View more presentations from Chris McDowall.

Visualisation of Auckland's public transport

2011-01-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

An animated map of Auckland's public transport network from Chris McDowall on Vimeo.

read about this on http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10700893

New blog to look at

2010-11-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

Fields is a collaborative space where ideas and projects involving places, memories and people are shared. Fields is made up of researchers within ESALA (Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture) who examine subjects such as digital technologies, urban planning and social architecture.

Click

DavidMcCandless: Visualising Information

2010-08-24T16:44:00.001-07:00

This is a really fantastic exploration of the ways is which data visualisation (such as maps) can make us see new relationships between things.

Assignment 1 / part A

2010-08-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Fieldwork: the RWC walking route mapping project
Just a reminder that the due date for this has changed. This part of the assignment is due and will be presented on Friday October 1. This will be a discussion of your projects with the Ahi Kaa project team, including staff from Auckland Museum and design staff and students from Unitec School of Design.

Seminar schedule

2010-08-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

We have made a schedule for your 10 min seminars, remember that these are more like workshops, use the time to test out your ideas with the class. We will start brainstorming mapping possibilities in the second part of this weeks class. If I have missed anyone out please get in touch with me.

Friday 20 August
Joseph C
Marion
Jae Yong
Jae In
In Hye
Sommer
Linda
Chelsea

Friday 27 August
Bhavina
Angus
Ruby
Divya
Chloe
Renee
Lucia

REading week 3: Making data visual

2010-08-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Please choose a text from Abrams & Hall, Corner or Treib.
The two questions for all are -
What key aspects of maps and or mapping does this author(s) discuss?
Why do they consider mapping to be an important process?
Bring your notes to class (and last week's also)

Notes from the Corbellini Text

2010-08-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

We were discussing the differences between operating compositionally and diagrammatically as described by Corbellini :

"compositionist" / "diagrammatician"
plastic / infrastructural
formal / operational
representative / performative
tectonic / virtual
object oriented / process oriented
specific / inter-disciplinary
tangible / conceptual
paradigm / programme
talent / ideas
tactical / strategic

Reading week 2: What is place anyway?

2010-08-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Question of week! (all):
What fields or disciplines do you think the author you are reading is operating from?
From the author you are reading what are the key characteristics defining "place"?

Casey, E. S. (1998) Disappearing places, from The fate of place, a philosophical history. Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, ix-xv
1- Identify some reasons why Casey believes that the idea of place has been hidden in philosophical discourse, both historically and in more recent times. (your should find at least 4).
2- What does Casey mean by the term universalism? Give an example. Why is this detrimental to place based thinking?
3- Casey says that disruption to a place, in the aftershock, can bring about "a revitalized sensitivity to place". He gives the possibility of nuclear annihilation as an example. Can you think of some historical examples where this new sensitivity to place might have occurred in this way?
4- Casey says that even the 'virtual' can provide elements of a place based experience, and can make us feel 'in place' though physically distant. Think of a virtual experience that you frequently have (online banking / computer gaming / using mobile phone) and analyse it in terms of providing a place based experience.

Calvino, Italo. (1972) Invisible Cities. Harcourt, Orlando Florida. 10-11, 88-89
All read and answer question of week!

De Certeau, M. (1984) Spatial Stories. From The Practice of everyday life. Berkely: University of California Press. 115-130. (Start at page 117, end at new section on page 122)
1- List the attributes on place and the attributes of space in terms of De Certeau's analysis.
2- What do stories do in terms of places and spaces?
3- Summarise the difference between maps and itineraries.
4- De Certeau identifies an important historical change in mapping practices. What is this change, why did it occur and why does De Certeau think it is important?

Entriken, J. N. (1991). Chapter 2 The Betweeness of Place. From The Betweeness of Place. London: Macmillan. 6-26
1-What is the difficulty does Entriken identify with a 'scientific' point of view of place?
2-Describe the two opposing positions for viewing place that Entriken describes.
3- On page 11 Entriken uses the term "semantic density". He gives Jonestown and Chernobyl as examples. Think of another example.
4- Under the section Specificity Entriken discussed the unique view of place and the fused view of place. Summarise these ideas.
5- What useful synthesis does Entriken see narrative as having the potential to do?

Wortham-Galvin, B.D. (2008) Mythologies of placemaking. Places: forum of design for the public realm. Vol. 20, No. 1. 32-39
1- Wortham-Galvin suggests a number of motives for the enactment of place. What are these? Locate some visual material of examples. (Hint, think advertising.)
2- What does the term tabula rasa mean? Why is this an important concept in terms of the example of North America that this author discusses?

3- Why does Wotham-Galvin think that shared myths of place are powerful and important? Why does this have implications for virtual and technologically mediated places?

4- Summarise the critique of New Urbanism given in this article. Find two other discussions of New Urbanism, one from a founder of it and one from another commentator. What are their views?

NB* Remember that there are tips to help with reading, just look further down the blog . .
When copying images make sure you reference the source.

Friday 30 July change in venue

2010-07-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

As our seminar room is so small I have booked another space for the talk by cartographer Igor Drecki.
This FRIDAY 30 July, 10:00am Engineering building 403, room 401.
This is the building that joins the conference center. Room 401 is a small lecture theatre on the east/motorway side of the building, closest to the architecture school end.

I have attached a campus map with the venue marked, click on the map to make it larger.

Reading week 1, 2010

2010-07-23T15:41:00.001-07:00

Remember you are reading all of the texts, but answering the questions for one of them. The text that you read in more depth is the text you will present back to the rest of the class on Friday.

Allen, S. (2000). Mapping the unmappable, on notation. From Practice, architecture, technique and representation. London and New York: Routledge. Pg 31- 45
1: What does Allen mean when he says that architectural drawing is instrumental?
2: What change in the literary descriptions of the city does Steven Marcus note, and why is this relevant to Allen's argument?
3: What is the main argument that Allen is making?
4: Suggest some areas, topics, or relations that could be mapped in Auckland that would include aspects of anticipation, invisibility and time as discussed by Allen.

Cosgrove, D. (2006) Carto-city in Abrams, J. & Hall, P. (Eds.). Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Design Institute. 148-157
1: Cosgrove says that urban maps, "continue to control the daily lives of citizens through zoning ordinances, zip codes, and the myriad territorial regulations that shape daily life". Locate, and bring to class, at least 5 maps of Auckland city that operate in this way.
2: Radial axis and the grid. Cosgrove mentions Versaille, Rome and Paris as radial axis cities and Greek colonies of the Mediterranean, imperial Chinese cities and modern American cities as being based on the grid. Locate some historical maps of Auckland, and bring to class. Are they radial or grid?
3: Locate and bring a copy of Charles L'Enfant's map of Washington, DC. and describe it in Cosgrove's terms to the class and compare to the map of Auckland from umber 2.
4: Take a look at Braun and Hegenberg's city maps from Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1570). (Click here for good res versions). Find a copy of Turgot's 1739 Plan de Paris. Using these describe the visual differences that Cosgrove identifies. Why are these differences important?

Questions for Corbellini, G. (2006). Diagrams, instructions for use. Lotus International (127), 88-95.

What is the panopticon? (Locate an image)
Make a list of the functional attributes of the diagram as discussed by this author.
Is a map a diagram? Yes - why? No-why?
What are the differences that this author describes between a compositional approach and a diagrammatic approach to design?

NB* When copying images make sure you reference the source.

Reading difficult texts

2010-07-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

Complex ideas require complex language and forms of writing. It is useful then to develop ways of reading that allow you to access the ideas discussed in theoretical texts. You will all develop you own ways but here are some of my tactics:

The place of reading. Remember that you are not reading a magazine or newspaper, you will need to be in a place where you can concentrate for a period of time.
Get the context. If there is an abstract read it to give you a sense of what the text will be about, it might also help to find out something about the author.
Identify the subject. Read all the way through the text once, not stopping at the pieces or words that you don't understand. I find that despite the fact that I may reach the end of the text feeling quite confused, I might at least perhaps gain a feeling for the subject they are discussing. Then the next time I read it through I don't have to work out what the subject of the text is, I can just concentrate on what this author thinks in relation to this subject.
Read through the text again but this time stop at the end of a piece (paragraph or sentence) that you don't understand. Re-read that piece. Look up any words that you need to clarify in your mind the meaning of. (Start keeping a glossary of these words).
Make notes to yourself on/in the text. These notes can direct your attention to the parts of the text that stand out to you. For example, a note I have written in Allen's text from week one says "he begins to talk directly about architecture here".
Often a paragraph will make one point and then tease this point out further. Try to identify the key point made in each paragraph. Underline this.
Read through for a third time and this time try to identify the crux of the author's argument. That is, think about describing the text in two or three sentences - what is the most important point the author is making.

For further help see
HOW TO READ A DIFFICULT BOOK

by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.

click here

Hello 2010

2010-07-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
welcome to the course blog for 2010.

2009-10-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

thanks for your work today. Although the exhibition is a bit partial at present it is begining to interest passers-by.

So from here on . .

The exhibition:

I have checked the Traction of Drawing Symposium timetable (http://intersticesjournal.wordpress.com/) and Saturady is the big day, beginning at 9:00am. It is then only a half day on the Sunday.

So I propose that we go ahead as planned:

have it all up and running on Saturday 14 November at 10:00
have the opening from 10:30 - 11:30 when they are having the cup of tea at the symposium
close it at 6pm, when the last address is on.
open again at 10:00 on Sunday 15 November, close at 12:00

Would anyone like to volunteer to design a cool email flier?

We need to make a roster for the Sat and Sunday, I will email you all later with this.

In the meantime please complete your work, send me any info about how to access your project online and Xiao Li please find out about internet access.

The blogs:

I will do the final assessment of your blogs on Tuesday 17 November.

Cheers

kathy

Exhibtion: update

2009-10-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hi,

as we discussed in class I have moved the exhibition opening date to October 28th. I have asked if we can run it through until November 16th. This would allow it to be viewed by those attending the Interstices Drawing Symposium on November 14th and 15, so we would have an audience of international experts! The Interstices organisers have agreed, so now I just need confirmation from the faculty office who manage the space.

Cheers
Kathy

Exhibtion

2009-09-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

Hi,

just to confirm, I have booked the corridor space on level 2 for Thursday 8 October - Friday 23 October. They are going to look into the lights issue.

Next week everyone is going to bring something visual in terms of what you have been collecting, recording, mapping so that we can start to work out the visual language of your map. On 1 October everyone will bring a mock up of their map to class so that we can start to curate and design the exhibition.

This is the website of Global Studio, the project we discussed today http://theglobalstudio.com/

Derive:holes

2009-08-12T17:28:00.001-07:00

Reading this week

2009-08-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Please choose a text from Abrams & Hall, Corner or Treib. The question for all is:
What key aspects of maps and or mapping does this author(s) discuss?
Why do they consider mapping to be an important process?

Please all read Hofmeester et. al.

I will be showing lots of mapping examples in class this week, and they will be on cecil after the class. Also, remember to put your derive onto your blog before the class, we will be looking at them.
Kathy

Next week

2009-07-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hi, please bring a camera, a book and pen and $5 to class next week. If the weather looks bad bring rain protection. We are going on a Dérive.

10 min seminar timetable

2009-07-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

20 August Week 5
1:25 Yeyu Jiu
1:35 Anas
2:10 Kristin
2:20 Mark

27 August Week 6
1:25 Xiaolei
1:35 Malin
1:45 Hannah
2:00 Janice
2:10 Barbara

L&P ad

2009-07-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUq1JQ5jsQ&feature=player_embedded

2009-07-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

Readings week 2: What is place anyway?

Question of week! (all):
What fields or disciplines do you think the author you are reading is operating from?
From the author you are reading what are the key characteristics defining "place"?

Casey, E. S. (1998) Disappearing places, from The fate of place, a philosophical history. Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, ix-xv
1- Identify some reasons why Casey believes that the idea of place has been hidden in philosophical discourse, both historically and in more recent times. (your should find at least 4).
2- What does Casey mean by the term universalism? Give an example. Why is this detrimental to place based thinking?
3- Casey says that disruption to a place, in the aftershock, can bring about "a revitalized sensitivity to place". He gives the possibility of nuclear annihilation as an example. Can you think of some historical examples where this new sensitivity to place might have occurred in this way?
4- Casey says that even the 'virtual' can provide elements of a place based experience, and can make us feel 'in place' though physically distant. Think of a virtual experience that you frequently have (online banking / computer gaming / using mobile phone) and analyse it in terms of providing a places based experience.

Calvino, Italo. (1972) Invisible Cities. Harcourt, Orlando Florida. 10-11, 88-89
All read and answer question of week!

De Certeau, M. (1984) Spatial Stories. From The Practice of everyday life. Berkely: University of California Press. 115-130. (Start at page 117, end at new section on page 122)
1- List the attributes on place and the attributes of space in terms of De Certeau's analysis.
2- What do stories do in terms of places and spaces?
3- Summarise the difference between maps and itineraries.
4- De Certeau identifies an important historical change in mapping practices. What is this change, why did it occur and why does De Certeau think it is important?

Wortham-Galvin, B.D. (2008) Mythologies of placemaking. Places: forum of design for the public realm. Vol. 20, No. 1. 32-39
1- Wortham-Galvin suggests a number of motives for the enactment of place. What are these? Locate some visual materila of examples. (Hint, think advertising.)

2- What does the term tabula rasa mean? Why is this an important concept in terms of the example of North America that the author discusses?

3- Why does Wotham-Galvin think that shared myths of place are powerful and important? Why does this have implications for virtual and technologically mediated places?

4- Summarise the critique of New Urbanism given in this article. Find two other discussions of New Urbanism, one from a founder of it and one from another commentator. What are their views?

NB* When copying images make sure you reference the source.

Week 1 questions:

2009-07-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

For help this week see:

HOW TO READ A DIFFICULT BOOK

by Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D.

click here

Allen, S. (2000). Mapping the unmappable, on notation. From Practice, architecture, technique and representation. London and New York: Routledge. Pg 31- 45
1: What does Allen mean when he says that architectural drawing is instrumental?
2: What change in the literary descriptions of the city does Steven Marcus note, and why is this relevant to Allen's argument?
3: What is the main argument that Allen is making?
4: Suggest some areas, topics, or relations that could be mapped in Auckland that would include aspects of anticipation, invisibility and time as discussed by Allen.

Aureli, P. & Mastrigli, G. (2006). Architecture after the diagram. Lotus International(127), 96-105. (101-105 English trans.)
1: Locate an image of Giovan Battista Nolli's Great Plan of Rome (1748). Bring a copy to class, large enough for all to see.
2: Why do the authors consider this map to be paradigm breaking?
3: Why is Deleuze and Guattari's idea of the abstract machine important? What effects do the authors see it as having?
4: Locate images of the 7 architectural projects mentioned and bring to class.
5: What issue do the author's have with diagrammatic architecture?

Cosgrove, D. (2006) Carto-city in Abrams, J. & Hall, P. (Eds.). Else/where: mapping new cartographies of networks and territories. . Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Design Institute. 148-157
1: Cosgrove says that urban maps, "continue to control the daily lives of citizens through zoning ordinances, zip codes, and the myriad territorial regulations that shape daily life". Locate, and bring to class, at least 5 maps of Auckland city that operate in this way.
2: Radial axis and the grid. Cosgrove mentions Versaille, Rome and Paris as radial axis cities and Greek colonies of the Mediterranean, imperial Chinese cities and modern American cities as being based on the grid. Locate some historical maps of Auckland, and bring to class. Are they radial or grid?
3: Locate and bring a copy of Charles L'Enfant's map of Washington, DC. and describe it in Cosgrove's terms to the class and compare to the map of Auckland from umber 2.
4: Take a look at Braun and Hegenberg's city maps from Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1570). (Click here for good res versions). Find a copy of Turgot's 1739 Plan de Paris. Using these describe the visual differences that Cosgrove identifies. Why are these differences important?

NB* When copying images make sure you reference the source.

Course context:

2009-07-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

In this seminar students will engage in a research project on a particular “place”, located in the Auckland Region, and will explore and evaluate different possibilities for ‘mapping’ this place. This seminar will traverse practice and theory and will weave together discourse from an array of disciplines; architecture/design, planning, urbanism, geography, philosophy, information design. The particular formal outcomes of this seminar will be that of the map and the diagram, and it is anticipated that these will operate across a range of media. In the seminar students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on projects and these projects will be publicly exhibited.

The seminar centres around two provocations. Firstly the call for complex forms of notation to meet the contemporary form(less-ness) of the city, and secondly, the contention that discursive forms such as drawing and as image-making are powerful and persuasive in the setting of agendas for the design of the city. A “key” prompting discussion into each provocation follows.

Complex notation:
Stan Allen calls for new forms of notation in order to engage with the contemporary city. He says,
Traditional representations presume stable objects and fixed subjects. But the contemporary city is not reducible to an artifact. The city today is a place where visible and invisible streams of information, capital and subjects interact in complex formations. They form a dispersed field, a network of flows. In order to describe or to intervene in this new field architects need representational techniques that engage time and change, shifting scales, mobile points of view, and multiple programs. (Allen, 2000, p. 40)

For Allen architecture requires a continual shuttling “between the abstraction of architecture’s graphic instruments and the unyielding concreteness of the building” (Allen, 2000, p. 36), and it is this shuttling that, “makes it possible for architecture to work within the complexity of the real, and to engage the shifting field of the contemporary city” (Allen, 2000, p. 36). http://www.stanallenarchitect.com/

Image making:
muf are an art and architecture practise committed to working in public space. They describe their practise as engaged with the limits, edges and limitations of a brief (Ainley, 2001, p. 9), and that these provide the clues and content for their urban place-making strategies. http://www.muf.co.uk/
muf operate with an awareness of the powerful role images play in the design process. In their drawings muf gather together a range of ideas for a project, from the imaginary or strange to the technical, in effect giving this wide range of ideas a formal representation, a place. The making of images in the practise of muf could be seen as a political device whereby all parties in the project can have their needs and desires for the project articulated and represented with equal weight. For muf, 'making images that acknowledge the imaginary, the unexpected and the unofficial is an attempt to value the kind of knowledge that is often marginalised or ignored; it is an attempt to say to the people who are the larger client body, ‘your most weird thoughts are socially relevant’. (Ainley, 2001, p. 91)

These two positions act as starting points for the seminar. To summarise, the seminar contends that new forms of notation are required and that all forms of notation and drawing convey an agenda in terms of the place represented.

Operations:
The seminar will commence with three weeks of discussion lead by key readings. The themes for these sessions will cover the “why”, the “what” and the “how” of the seminar. We will begin by considering WHY new forms of notation are called for and why diagramming and the mapping might fit as a response this call. This will be followed by a discussion of WHAT place is, through differing disciplinary lenses. Finally we will discuss HOW various forms of research and design can be used to convey particular agendas or points of view.

In the next part of the course we will identify places (physical and digital, contained and networked), that might prove useful and engaging in terms of a mapping project. To pursue these further, project teams will be formed and a collaborative in depth research period will follow. Finally a series of maps in a range of media (still and moving image) will be prepared, critically analysed and publicly exhibited.

ViRaCoP 2009 Introduction

2009-07-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

ARCH GEN 710: Visualising Research and Communicating Places: Overview

Aim: The intention of this course is to engage students in a critical discussion and experience of ‘mapping’, as used in contemporary architectural and urban design methodologies for the visual representation of data in relation specific places. In 2009 the course will focus on the Auckland region

Learning Outcomes:

On the successful completion of this course students will–
Be able to discuss WHY new forms of notation are emerging in architectural/urban design contexts
Be able to discuss WHAT place is, through differing disciplinary lenses, and to engage with the cross-disciplinary nature of such discussions.
Have gained an awareness of HOW various forms of research and visual information design can be used to convey particular agendas or points of view.
Be able to procure data, analyse this material and represent it visually in contemporary forms.
Have publicly exhibited their work
Have critically reflected on work produced by self and peers in course

Course Content:
Contemporary techniques of visual and spatial research, with particular references to the paradigms of the map and diagram. ‘Place’ as conceptualised in different disciplines; with specific reference to architecture, urbanism, philosophy and geography.

Modes of learning:
The course will provide authentic contexts and activities that reflect the way such knowledge would be used in real life.
It will provide access to experts in the field, will support collaborative investigation and construction of knowledge and will promote reflection and articulation through the following:

Readings and discussion, (a course reader is provided)
Collaborative project research
Peer to peer analysis and critique
Blogging, promoting self-broadcasting –reflection and articulation
Course blog (facilitating exchange and interaction, address http://viracop.blogspot.com/)
Visiting critics and guests

Assessment:
Each student will produce a series of maps/diagrams with data from the Auckland region. These will be critically analysed and publicly exhibited. See assignments for assessment criteria and marking breakdown.

Chris's comments and cheques

2008-10-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

you will see that Chris has been sending you some comments over the last day or two. You may want to respond before I assess the blogs (as %30 of your final grade) on November 7.

Also I need to give cheques to those of you who have supplied receipts for you material costs etc. I will get these to the office early next week for your collection. When they are ready I will put a notice on this blog.

Cheers and best wishes for your exams
Kathy

project comments

2008-10-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I was planning on having a look through your projects over the weekend, but have been told that you have studio crits today, and I imagine you are all a bit preoccupied.
I've seen a few photos of the exhibiton and it looks like some very well made things have been produced, I look forward to reading and understanding more about the theoretical background to the pieces.

In order for me to get comments to you by the end of next week, can everyone please get all the material you want commented on published to their blogs by monday. And please, a short written statement will make it much easier for me to get in to your ideas.

Thanks,
chris

message from Chris Cottrell

2008-10-19T20:41:00.001-07:00

hi everyone,

I'm hoping that the exhibition was a success and I'm looking forward
to seeing the images and reading the statements appearing on your
blogs over the next little while. As Kathy has let you know I will be
commenting on the work over the week starting Friday 24, so please
have all your work ready to go.

best for crit week & you'll hear more from me soon,

chris

Class tomorrow

2008-10-13T20:43:00.001-07:00

Hi
just a reminder that we do not have a class tomorrow as you have all spent so much time at the gallery over the last week. It is instead your opportunity to start to document your projects on your blog.

(The Italy students are welcome to come and discuss the development of your projects with me if you like)

Kathy

Timeline

2008-09-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

3 October - 1pm A5 sized pdf for your page in the catalogue emailed to Kathy
8 October 10:00 Gus Fisher for installation of work
10, 11 + 13 October show (see minding schedule below / document your work)
13 October 4pm show closing event
14 October 10:00 meet to demount show
22 October no class / crit week
24 - 31 October Chris Cottrell, online critic, comments on blogs (see Chris's note below)
4 November assessment of 30% blog sketch book

Gallery Minding
Friday 10 October:
10-12 Cloe
12-2 John
2-4 Jacob

Saturday 11 October
10-12 Nita
12-2 Matt
2-4 David

Monday 13 October
10-12 Claire
12-2 Lyannie
2-4 Dasha

Gallery mock up

2008-09-30T13:45:00.001-07:00

Online critic

2008-09-30T13:39:00.001-07:00

Hi there,

I have been invited by Kathy to act as an online critic for your mapping
projects and I am looking forward to seeing the work and images from your
exhibition. I am hoping to be able to give some helpful feedback on the
projects and in order for me to do that, please try to use you
blog/sketchbooks in a way that will clearly communicate your ideas to
someone (ie/ me) who can't be at the exhibition to get a tangible
understanding of the works.
So to help me, I would ask that everyone post a brief statement to their
blog, focusing on the ideas of mapping you were engaging with and how your
work then communicates something about a specific aspect of auckland, or
part of auckland. I am really interested in how the mappings you produce
offer new ways of understanding and thinking about the environment. How and
what does the work communicate about place?

A little bit about me:
I graduated in architecture from the university of auckland in 2004. Since
then I have been operating as a lecturer, architect and practising artist,
showing work around New Zealand, in Australia and in the U.K. I am
currently based in Edinburgh where I am studying towards my MFA in a
programme called Art, Space, Nature at the Edinburgh College of Art.

Its in need a bit of updating, but my website is: www.make-do.net

Look forward to ~meeting you all soon,

chris

Invitation

2008-09-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hi,

this is the Claystation poster and the website for Claystation is http://claystation-making-auckland.blogspot.com/

Can we all meet on Wednesday at 10:00 to finalise what needs doing in terms of organisng the event, who is inviting who etc.

And look out here for news on budget, amd going to consult with Martine the School Manager now!

Next week - meet at gallery

2008-09-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

thanks for your participation today, I hope you found it interesting.

Next week we will meet at 10:00 at the Gus Fisher to design the exhibition. Please bring as much information about your piece of work with you as you can. For example, it would be good to have dimensions (height/width/depth), weight, costs. Also a mocked up or partially complete image of your work would be useful. We will literally blue tack 1:1 scale stand in's for your work to the walls and photograph this to generate an exhibition installation plan.

Best wishes,
Kathy

2008-09-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
just a reminder that we have a workshop tomorrow with Dr. Cris de Groot.
Venue: level 3 exhibition studio

10am : Introduction by Dory / Kathy

10.10 : Presentation on the Definition of, and Forces for Collaboration

10.15 : Exercise on exploring the future space between Architecture and Planning

10.45 : Presentation on Strategies and Tactics for Collaboration

11.00 : Exercise on Examining the Systemic Dimension of Creative Relationships

11.45 : Group De-Brief

------------

12:00- 1:00 exhibition meeting
Please meet in level 3 at 10;00. See you then,

Kathy

The critic and the exhibition

2008-09-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

2Hello all,
just some updates.

online critics
The online critics are turning out to be trickier to arrange than I had anticipated! One that I had arranged from the design programme at Massey is away from work, I can only assume due to illness. The other, from the UK is keen but I am yet to get confirmation of his participation. I will let you all know how things go with this but it may be that we get some discussion of your projects after the exhibition, as you would with a final studio crit.

week 7 workshop
a reminder that this coming week Dr. Cris de Groot, of the Unitec Hothouse Project will be running a specialised workshop on collaborative practices. This is a great opportunity for you all to give your attention to what collaboration actually means, something that may be very valuable to you in your future practices. Some info on Cris and Hothouse at:
http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/standard.aspx?id=1915
http://nuzilla.co.nz/cris
I know many of you want to discuss aspects of your project so after the workshop with Cris we can stay and have a group discussion about the exhibition ( I have more details on this now) and on your work

Italy trip students
We need to discuss how you all will proceed with your work for this course. Could we all meet on Tuesday afternoon at 3pm in my office (room 333)? Please let me know by email if you can make this time.

Cheers
Kathy

Building Sustainable Urban Communities

2008-09-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

Building Sustainable Urban Communities
This discussion document is on the SUDU site of Department of Internal Affair's web pages:

www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Resource-material-Sustainable-Urban-Development-Index?OpenDocument

Submissions are requested by 28th November 2008. Have a read of the discussion document and make your submission.

Katrina Simon

2008-08-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

A slide show of work by Katrina Simon, using maps and grids, as discussed in class.
Use the space bar to pause show

Exhibtion dates - for your timeline

2008-08-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

Friday 10
Saturday 11 and
Monday 13 October

Gus Fisher Gallery

Comments from session with Sue Evans 20 August

2008-08-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

a few general comments from our discussion today, and from Sue and I's discussion afterwards.

Data:
What you map does not need to be overly complex. (This is a 10pt seminar not a design paper) Look at examples in L.A. Now, each map concentrates on something in particular. An example is the photography project, recording the landscape at set points across the counties that make up LA, this is not complex but tells an interesting story.

What are we making: Communicating Places
This project is not a generator for a larger design project. As such the "audience" is different. The mapping you undertake is not for the designer, looking to have insights that will help establish formal design moves. The maps, in their accumulation, should start to tell stories about, or describe the place that is Auckland, through your particular engagements with it as a city.

Artefact:
The work is to be exhibited, as such its formal value and crafted nature will be scrutinised. (ie it what ever "style" you chose to operate within, it has to look good and be well executed!)

Timeline:
make yourself one. Allow time for testing of materials/processes/ technologies - you want it all to work "on the day".

Next week:
we have scheduled an opportunity to discuss your project with planning students. Think about what you might show them to explain your ideas. These are people from a related but different field, it is an opportunity to test your ability to communicate an idea outside the narrow confines of the architecture studio, so how will you do it?
10:00, level 3 exhibition space, please be on time.

Individual comments on your blogs and Katrina Simon map projects (grid cut up etc) on cecil

Christian Nold

2008-08-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Click here for a very interesting design/artist/activist working with mapping

http://www.softhook.com/

Wednesday 13 August

2008-08-12T02:55:00.001-07:00

Hello all,

my daughter is unwell today so I too am on sick leave to look after her.
My apologies for this. However, this does present an opportunity for you all to advance the research for your own mapping project, keeping in mind that next week you will be presenting your ideas to the rest of the class and to Sue Evans, Design Manager from Auckland City.

Some things you might consider, in light of this week's readings:
How will you procure your data? Will it be through reliable informed sources (Auckland City, Auckland Regional Council etc) or through your own data gathering processes? What role will this data collection play in your project? (The Cultural Probes text on research processes may be useful to think about).

How will you present your ideas to the class - a draft version? (A picture is worth a thousand words!!)

What visual language do you imagine your "map" will take? (Read Tufte and Abrams & Hall from this week's texts and check out some of the sites linked here).

I am looking forward to hearing about and seeing your propositions next week.

Kathy

Gus Fisher dimensions

2008-08-12T02:39:00.000-07:00

Introduction

2008-06-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

In this seminar students will engage in a research project on a particular “place” located in the Auckland region, and will explore and evaluate different possibilities for recording and representing this place. This seminar will traverse practice and theory and will weave together discourse from an array of disciplines; architecture/design, planning, geography, philosophy, information design. The particular formal outcomes of this seminar will be that of the map and the diagram, and it is anticipated that these will operate across a range of media. In the seminar students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on projects and these projects will be publicly exhibited. The seminar will draw on the expertise of a range of experts, both internal and external to the university and from practise nationally and abroad.

The seminar centres around two provocations. Firstly the call for complex forms of notation to meet the contemporary form(less-ness) of the city and second the contention that discursive forms such as drawing and as image-making are powerful and persuasive in the setting of agendas for the design of the city. A “key” prompting discussion into each provocation follows.

Complex notation:
Stan Allen calls for new forms of notation in order to engage with the contemporary city. He says, "traditional representations presume stable objects and fixed subjects. But the contemporary city is not reducible to an artefact. The city today is a place where visible and invisible streams of information, capital and subjects interact in complex formations. They form a dispersed field, a network of flows. In order to describe or to intervene in this new field architects need representational techniques that engage time and change, shifting scales, mobile points of view, and multiple programs" (Allen, 2000, p. 40).

For Allen architecture requires a continual shuttling “between the abstraction of architecture’s graphic instruments and the unyielding concreteness of the building” (Allen, 2000, p. 36), and it is this shuttling that, “makes it possible for architecture to work within the complexity of the real, and to engage the shifting field of the contemporary city” (Allen, 2000, p. 36).

Drawing and image making:
muf are an art and architecture practise committed to working in public space. They describe their practise as engaged with the limits, edges and limitations of a brief (Ainley, 2001, p. 9), and that these provide the clues and content for their urban place-making strategies.
muf operate with an awareness of the powerful role images play in the design process. In their drawings muf gather together a range of ideas for a project, from the imaginary or strange to the technical, in effect giving this wide range of ideas a formal representation, a place. The making of images in the practise of muf could be seen as a political device whereby all parties in the project can have their needs and desires for the project articulated and represented with equal weight. For muf, "making images that acknowledge the imaginary, the unexpected and the unofficial is an attempt to value the kind of knowledge that is often marginalised or ignored; it is an attempt to say to the people who are the larger client body, "your most weird thoughts are socially relevant". (Ainley, 2001, p. 91)

These two positions act as starting points for the seminar. To summarise the seminar contends that new forms of notation are required and that all forms of notation and drawing convey an agenda in terms of the place represented.

Operations:
The seminar will commence with three weeks of discussion lead by key readings. The themes for these sessions will cover the “why”, the “what” and the “how” of the seminar. We will begin by considering WHY new forms of notation are called for why diagramming and the mapping might fit with this call. This will be followed by a discussion of WHAT place is, through differing disciplinary lenses. Finally we will discuss HOW various forms of research and design can be used to convey particular agendas or points of view.

In the next part of the course we will identify places (physical and digital, contained and networked), that might prove useful and engaging in terms of a mapping/diagramming/notation project. To pursue these further project teams will be formed and a collaborative in depth research period will follow. Finally a series of maps/diagrams in a range of media (still and moving image) will be prepared, critically analysed and publicly exhibited.