Sense of Site

To explore how the sense of site can be used for place making, I went to Bowen Lane in RMIT University to see how the different parts of the site was being used in different ways and the creating 5 diagrams about my observations.

The first diagram shows how people would gather throughout the site. The little circles shows where the pockets of people would use the site the most; the more concentrated the circles, the larger the groups of people.

The second diagram conveys that the people in the site would use the space under or around trees the most. The more the leaves on each tree (in the diagram), the more those trees' surrounding space was used.

The third diagram documents the movement through out the site. Since the diagram is a lane most of the flow of people was as though they were simply passing through the space. Another major space with lots of movement was the area in front of the RMIT Cafeteria.

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This diagram shows the different temporary activities that occur throughout the space, flyer handouts, food stalls,chalk messages, and retail stalls. The area these activities were most evident in were in front of the RMIT Cafeteria. However, the chalk messages were usually displayed on the walking pathway and the flyer handouts were also located around the entrances and exists of the lane.

 

The final  diagram documented where people parked their bicycles the most throughout the site. The bicycles were mostly parked  by the entrances and of buildings and the lane way. But was it only due to the act of placing bike racks near the entrances?

  

 

Next, I made a model that conveyed the ideas that have come across in my diagrams. This week, the material I used was paper/card. Through this model I tried to explain how the different main zones within the site drew different numbers of people in the site because of the activities that take place in those specific zones. The circles would represent the zones (for example, the basketball court, the grass courtyard, the park-like area and the area in front of the RMIT Cafeteria); the cones represent the pockets of the people (the thicker the cone, the larger the group of people)

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