Session 01 – 18.02 Observation I

We did an analysis of the following texts:

• Georges Perec, “The Street,” in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, (London: Penguin, 2008).William

• H. Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, 1980;  Chapter “The street” p. 54-60

Both texts are forms of observations of spaces. In Perec's text he described the places strategically and plain and almost boring way. Nevertheless it showcases one first approach to analyse a place with a system behind and to look at everything in an obervatory position.

Whyte focuses more on the social aspect of a space and states that spaces can support or prevent certain behaviors.

As a first exercise we did our own first obervation. I've chosen a space where the "barrier" or the "boundrys" weren't clearly visible but more formed by Traintracks above, yellow markers on the ground, certain shadowfalls and movements from the pedastrians. It is a big place were you can move freely but in this triangle formation the atmosphere is very unwelcoming and people avoided it but not all of them so I counted how many walk around and how many don't bother.