The Memorial Union Bus Terminal From A Social Context Approach
During these eleven weeks in LDA 01, we have discussed several approaches to the discipline of environmental design. Some, but not all of these approaches are the social context, ecological, participatory, artistic, and the cultural competency approach. For this project in specific, I decided to analyze a site using the social context approach. For me, this approach is the most interesting and crucial when planning a project. The social context approach focuses on the people that use the site, how they interact in and with it, and their needs. Part of what you need to do when observing a place through this approach is observe the people and what they do. Observing all the different …show more content…
My recording techniques were predominantly quantitative for this approach; I was counting how many people were in the in the terminal, how many couples, groups, etc. I realized that this spot is relatively busy at all times during the day, therefore is it very noisy. This is due to the location of the site. Since it is located in the Quad district, where all the classes are located, there are a lot of students walking from class to class. Few people were walking through the bus terminal, the majority was sitting down or standing up, either waiting for a bus or doing homework. The groups that were sitting down were of 1 to 2 people, but no more, and almost all of them were seating in the covered benches, trying to avoid the sun. One curious fact that I came across is that people tend to seat near objects, in this case, trees, or well-defined places and they almost never sit in the middle of an open space (Whyte, 1980). Most people are standing next to trees rather than benches because the benches in the terminal are hard, uncomfortable and they lack a backrest, thus people sitting in benches keep moving and readjusting. Most people choose to stand next to trees because they provided shelter, people feel cuddled and protected (Whyte, 1980). Some of the benches are uncovered; the covered …show more content…
For the Memorial Union Bus Terminal, in my opinion, the most suitable approach is the social context one. While some would argue that the ecological approach is better because of the amount of nature that is present in the campus, generally speaking, the truth is that students are the ones that use it the most. For us to try to understand what students need and in order to take advantage of this space, we have to observe how they use it, what do they use it for, at what times, etc., and this is what the social context approach does. To be able to create a fully functional, successful design we must limit who can actually design the place. This is where the idea of social competency comes in; people who use this and know what students need should be the ones to decide what the place needs. Now, there might be a problem with this because not all students are architects or designers, so they can’t actually build anything per se, but they can express their suggestions to the designers and make them know what is really needed, as Kevin Lynch and Gary Hack state in their essay, design is not restricted to genius (Lynch, Hack, 1984). I am not an expert in the field of environmental design or any type of design for that matter, but I am a student and a part of the UC Davis community, therefore I feel that my point of view is valid. We must make the MU Terminal an
During these eleven weeks in LDA 01, we have discussed several approaches to the discipline of environmental design. Some, but not all of these approaches are the social context, ecological, participatory, artistic, and the cultural competency approach. For this project in specific, I decided to analyze a site using the social context approach. For me, this approach is the most interesting and crucial when planning a project. The social context approach focuses on the people that use the site, how they interact in and with it, and their needs. Part of what you need to do when observing a place through this approach is observe the people and what they do. Observing all the different …show more content…
My recording techniques were predominantly quantitative for this approach; I was counting how many people were in the in the terminal, how many couples, groups, etc. I realized that this spot is relatively busy at all times during the day, therefore is it very noisy. This is due to the location of the site. Since it is located in the Quad district, where all the classes are located, there are a lot of students walking from class to class. Few people were walking through the bus terminal, the majority was sitting down or standing up, either waiting for a bus or doing homework. The groups that were sitting down were of 1 to 2 people, but no more, and almost all of them were seating in the covered benches, trying to avoid the sun. One curious fact that I came across is that people tend to seat near objects, in this case, trees, or well-defined places and they almost never sit in the middle of an open space (Whyte, 1980). Most people are standing next to trees rather than benches because the benches in the terminal are hard, uncomfortable and they lack a backrest, thus people sitting in benches keep moving and readjusting. Most people choose to stand next to trees because they provided shelter, people feel cuddled and protected (Whyte, 1980). Some of the benches are uncovered; the covered …show more content…
For the Memorial Union Bus Terminal, in my opinion, the most suitable approach is the social context one. While some would argue that the ecological approach is better because of the amount of nature that is present in the campus, generally speaking, the truth is that students are the ones that use it the most. For us to try to understand what students need and in order to take advantage of this space, we have to observe how they use it, what do they use it for, at what times, etc., and this is what the social context approach does. To be able to create a fully functional, successful design we must limit who can actually design the place. This is where the idea of social competency comes in; people who use this and know what students need should be the ones to decide what the place needs. Now, there might be a problem with this because not all students are architects or designers, so they can’t actually build anything per se, but they can express their suggestions to the designers and make them know what is really needed, as Kevin Lynch and Gary Hack state in their essay, design is not restricted to genius (Lynch, Hack, 1984). I am not an expert in the field of environmental design or any type of design for that matter, but I am a student and a part of the UC Davis community, therefore I feel that my point of view is valid. We must make the MU Terminal an