Exercise Three: Tiffany Huta

Exercise Three: Katie Felton

"Exercise three: Nancy Huang."

Project One, Part Two

Project One
Suburbia
Social Space in the Planametric City


PART TWO: DUE OCTOBER 2, 2008, 8:30AM

Through imagery and prose, you have each identified five different forces affecting the social space of your site. You will now map these forces.

With your group, develop a base map, derived from aerial imagery available online at maps.google.com or maps.live.com. This base map must cover the minimum extent of your preliminary observations - a 1km radius around the Station in question - but it may cover more area, and it need not necessarily be centred about the Station. The forces at play on your site may not be evenly distributed in all directions: choose your extents and your orientation carefully.

The design and set-up of the field is perhaps one of the most creative acts in mapping, for as a prior system of organization it will inevitably condition how and what observations are made and presented. Enlarging the frame, reducing the scale, shifting the projection or combining one system with another are all actions that significantly affect what is seen and how these findings are organized.

from The Agency of Mapping by James Corner, 1999

Print one copy of your base map for each member of your group on a single sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper.

Overlay a sheet of 8.5" x 11" transparency film, and using appropriate markers (Staedtler Lumocolor or the equivalent), posit the spatial character of one of the forces you identified in Part One. What are the different parameters of each force, and how might you represent them in plan? What physical information as found on your base map should be emphasized on your transparency in order to map your force? You may need to revisit your site, either in reality or virtually, in order to fully map your force.

Repeat this process for each force.

Upload all six maps (the base map, and the five force maps) onto the blog in a single post. Bring the physical maps to class on October 2. Note that each member of your group should make a separate post, and have separate force maps - only the base map should be prepared as a group.


EVALUATION

Base Map: /3
Force Maps: /5

Exercise Four: Corner Reading Summary

In your Project One groups, clearly and concisely summarize the portion of James Corner's essay The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention listed below.

• Kipling Group: The Agency of Mapping, The Efficacy of Technique
• Downsview Group: Maps and Reality, Space and Time Today
• Finch Group: Mapping, Mapping Operations (Overview)
• Don Mills Group: Mapping Operations (Drift, Layering)
• McCowan Group: Mapping Operations (Game-Board, Rhizome)

Your summary should include the following:

• one or two sentences per paragraph recapitulating its main points
• definitions of any difficult vocabulary
• visual examples wherever appropriate

One member of your group should post the summary to the blog. Exercise Four is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, October 2.

Exercise Three: A Psychogeographic Map

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. Man is a differentiating creature. His mind is stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts - all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates.

from The Metropolis and Mental Life by Georg Simmel, 1903

Buildings have been man's companions since primeval times. Many art forms have developed and perished. Tragedy begins with the Greeks, is extinguished with them, and after centuries its "rules" only are revived. The epic poem, which had its origin in the youth of nations, expires in Europe at the end of the Renaissance. Panel painting is a creation of the Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterrupted existence. But the human need for shelter is lasting. Architecture has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception - or rather, by touch and sight. Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building.

from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin, 1936

The production of psychogeographic maps, or even the introduction of alterations such as more or less arbitrarily transposing maps of two different regions, can contribute to clarifying certain wanderings that express not subordination to randomness but complete insubordination to habitual influences (influences generally categorized as tourism that popular drug as repugnant as sports or buying on credit). A friend recently told me that he had just wandered through the Harz region of Germany while blindly following the directions of a map of London. This sort of game is obviously only a mediocre beginning in comparison to the complete construction of architecture and urbanism that will someday be within the power of everyone.

from Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography by Guy Debord, 1955

Read and briefly ponder the above collection of excerpts regarding the psychological basis of our experience of the city.

Now: shake your arms, spin in a circle, and do a jumping jack: clear your mind.

Using the provided set of arbitrary directions, trace a path departing from the lobby of 100 McCaul Street. On a single sheet of paper, take sketch and prose notes of everything you see, think and feel. Scan your sketch and post it, unedited, to the blog.

Upon completion, re-read the collection of excerpts. How does the psychogeography of the city affect our ability to map its characteristics?

Project One- part1: Amin Shahinbakhsh

1. Business
The major business in the Kipling neighborhood is the mechanic shops and storages for train containers

2. Transportation
Residence of the area use personal vehicle and public transportation.

3. Community
Less population than the center of Toronto. Some residential areas ,but there were no place for community bonding.

4. Traffic & Road

Traffic during the rush hour

5. Residential
There limited residential buildings around the Kipling station.

Project One. Part One: McCowan staion. By Anna Totska.

People.

Based on observation, there is a dominance of elderly people and teenagers among other population in this neighbourhood. Shopping mall is a place for entertaining for both age groups.

Littering.

Garbage is a problem for this neighbourhood. The interesting fact is that there are signs, such as "No Littering" but there is a visible littering right beside this signs.

Contrast

There is a big contrast in this neighbourhood between busy, functional structures and useless bare areas; and all in within small area. This field for example, on the top left, is a trope that leads to the subway.

Places.

This Neighbourhood has all conveniences. Shopping centres, entertaining places, gas station and banks are all within a small area. These all places are mostly franchised. People are very multicultural in this area, with mostly Asian and Indian dominance. There are no signs of this multiculturalism in actual city structure.

Traffic.

This is a video of Elsmere and McCowan intersection at around 2PM. It shows very busy neighbourhood where buses and cars play an important role in transportation and connecting to larger urban areas. There are also other ways of transportation, such as GO train, SRT and shuttle buses. This neighbourhood is located far away from urban area, where well organized transportation system gives this area an easy and fast access to urban area. It also gives this area a busy and loud urban feel.

Project One - Part 1 (Downsview Station) - HB

1. Types of business:

On the west side of Allen Rd. (Downsview Station), a Canadian Forces Armoury, various warehouses, and casual restaurants are found (above). On the east side, law firms, dental clinics, beauty specialists and other mom-and-pop stores (conveniences, food store, pet shops, restaurants) dominate the streets of Sheppard and Wilson Heights Blvd. (below)

2. Community

A mix of new and old. While there are new condominiums and houses on every street, there are some old houses, dull, poorly maintained ones as well.

3. Traffic:

Quite heavy on Sheppard at Allen. Traffic is light around Sheppard and Wilson Heights.

4. Political Positions

Downsview is Liberal-dominated neighbourhood.

5. Transportation: TTC (buses, subways), Viva buses

Kipling Station

Downsview Station: additional pictures

These are just additional pictures of Downsview Station itself

- this is going to be the first scene you will see if you visit this site by TTC
- it was about 6:00pm but the traffic was very light, it was such a dull station!
but it was also very neat; a newly renovated looking.

Project one- Downsview (by Yewon Karen Lee)

Community : in the downsview, there were lots of places where people can enjoy the leisure time. This photo shows indoor car racing place.

Transit: In the Downsview station, two transits are running such as TTC (bus and subway) and Viva (bus).

Government/ traffic" on the street I easily saw people who were wearing the military uniform.

Business type/groups/density.. ETC: Most people who are selling the products are South American. Also i found out that lots of people in the market were black people.

ethnicitie: This place contains cultural aspect of Africa.