Lost In Place

Lost In Place

Lost in Place

by Erik Schmahl A Master’s Report Submitted to the Faculty of the COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2016

UNDER THE PAVING STONES, THE BEACH! - Paris Student Graffiti, May 1968

Acknowledgments

Committee:

Margaret Livingston, Ph.D.. (chair) Eduardo Guerrero I would like to take this opportunity to thank my committee and cohort for their support and encouragement throughout this process. A special thanks to Simon Kilbane, Ph.D. who introduced me to psychogeography during my first semester in graduate school and has been helping keep the fire alive via sporadic texts from Sydney, Australia. I would like to thank my parents for their endless support, love, and motivation. My twin brother for being the best design partner, surf buddy, and late night consultant since always. All my friends who participated in this project in some way or another, your stoke for my work kept me going and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.

COLOPHON typesets used in this publication include Tondo and Iskra icons used throughout the project are sourced from the NOUN project and are used under the Creative Commons graphics and book layout were designed using the Adobe Creative Suite and Scrivener on the Mac OS posters were printed by Super Hit Press on a Risograph RZ390 in Galveston, Tx

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Abstract Landscape architectural discourse might condition the public to think that they need certain amenities for a public space to be enriched and engaging. The tricks of urban designers can facilitate enriched landscapes, but the real power lies in the user. Let me explain. I’m sure everyone here can recall a special place from their past that anatomically, as an urban condition, is not really that special at all. The dirt road where I grew up, for example, was a magical gateway into the world around me, but when assessed by the metrics of landscape architecture it was flawed in almost every regard. It flooded regularly and lacked proper drainage, was unpaved and dusty, had nary a street light and ended abruptly with barely enough room to maneuver a three point turn without sinking a tire or two into the mangrove median.

All of these elements made it a great place to skid on my bike, walk around in knee high water catching minnows after a heavy rain, and regularly challenge the souls of my feet by walking barefoot late under the darkness of an unlit night. The reason that place is special is because I have a wealth of experiences tied to it and those experiences are continually crunched through my own perception, establishing that gravel stretch of road as a distinct place rather than a neglected piece of poorly planned transit infrastructure.

This begs the question, does the power of placemaking reside in the user?

The architect or urban planner can facilitate desired uses, and the best do this splendidly, but to claim placemaking as a billable deliverable is not only arrogant, but ignorant, and really just quite silly. To bat away the lingering fog of trite jargon and address the issue of placemaking with modest honesty might require a simple passing of the torch.

Lost in Place hopes to start a dialogue that seeks to bring placemaking to life and consequently foster a greater appreciation of underutilized and undervalued public spaces. Sidewalks, alleys, medians, vacant lots, drainage ditches, the vague spaces that are truly found between most buildings.

These are the spaces that are begging for life; and that life is there, ready to be unveiled. Not by the hand of the timid, but by the explorers, the wanderers, those who wonder “can I see my house from the top of that tree?” “what if I go that way?” “does that building have memories too?” Places are all around us and it is up to us to make them. Its not a prescribed spatial distinction, bestowed upon a space by those with the power of placemaking.

It is simply a way of thinking about our environment and perceiving one’s experiences within it. Lost in Place provides resources, activities, and technologies to encourage placemaking as a part of everyday life. The beauty is in the streets, especially the ugly ones, you just have know how to look for it.

Go on now, and get lost! vii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Abstract

vi vii

Public

Space & Place Time Psychogeography Summary

17 22 31 33 37

Introduction 11 Literature Review 15

Case Reviews

39

Design Application

49

Pilot Study

89

.walk

Mapping Your Manor

What happens When nothing Happens Skateboarding Geocaching

May 1968 Posters Zines Guidebooks Summary

Goals & Objectives

Design Program

Mobile App Summary

Pilot Study: Participant 1

Pilot Study: Participant 2

Pilot Study: Participant 3

Pilot Study: Participant 4

Pilot Study: Participant 5 Summary

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 47 48 50 51 64 86

92 96 102 106 110 114

Conclusion 117 Works Cited 119

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Beginning my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much, The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the power of motion, The least insect or animal—the senses—eyesight—love; The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much, I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther, But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs.

- Walt Whitman

I have known that I would be responsible for a final master’s report since I started my studies of landscape architecture some years ago. Early on, I thought that I would design ecological parks or avant garde gardens, using my final project to demonstrate graphic proficiencies and build site models and slick renderings. It turns out that is not what this is.

With this project I am seeking to challenge my own preconceived notions of what a landscape architecture project is, and what landscape architecture is for that matter. Landscape architecture has always been much more than just the design of landscapes, from the City Beautiful movement to landscape urbanism, landscape architecture has framed the discourse about how designers and the public alike discern the landscape. Specific sites present challenges and opportunities, and this is typically where the project starts. But, architecture is scalable. The fine detail is relatively easy to explore and comprehend, but what about the big? The macro? The uncanny? Can a singular landscape architecture project address multiple sites? Sure, why not?

This train of thought came from the ever present critique, “what’s the big idea?” Small sites can have very big ideas, that is certain, but when the scope of the site is extended to the point were it is abolished altogether, is there room for big ideas? The complexity of the hyperobject almost requires a small idea, something simple enough that it can transcend site and become universal. A big small idea. Now we are on to something!

Landscape architecture concerns itself, in my mind, with making places better. Ensuring ecological functionality is not compromised by anthropocentric services and amenities. Providing equitable space for public engagement. Being conscientious to the site and its vast network of environmental and social factors through inquisitive and creative approach and design application. Brilliant examples of landscape design fill books on the subject and are touted by city’s parks departments, but why is it that some of my favorite 12

Introduction

places, the public gathering grounds where I have felt most at home, are architecturally mundane? I don’t believe that I am attracted to bad public spaces, but nonetheless the rather informal urban infrastructure excites me.

If landscape architecture is responsible for designing the meaningful spaces that comprise our public life, then should it not too provide a discourse that encourages the public to engage public space in meaningful ways? Furthermore, if the public were more aware of all the beauty and nuance inherent in the phenomenon of place, would the public would become the placemakers? Would this awareness that comes with a deeper connection to placemaking require more from landscape architecture? Challenging architects to stimulate this demand, which would result in more nuanced and intimate landscape architecture. Trust me, this could only be a good thing. I have designed a study that specifically explores these two questions and has proposed a methodology to democratize placemaking as an everyday act, for the public, by the public.

Introduction

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Literature Review The Public Space & Place Time Psychogeography

At the outset of this project I had a feeling, a sense, that there was something more to the often used term genius loci. Genius Loci refers to the “spirit of place”, derived from Roman mythology in which places were guarded by local deities – or spirits – and often used today to reference the characteristic atmosphere that sets places apart from one another. There is something uncanny about the spirit of place, words like “spirit” and “atmosphere” aren’t typically the types of esoteric diction that would be used in such a serious profession as urban planning, yet genius loci is referred to regularly by both professionals and citizens alike. Humanistic geography goes further to discuss the concept of topophilia, a phrase coined by Yi-Fu Tuan to describe the “affective bond between people and place” or the “human love of place” (Gregory, 2009, p. 762). This often overlooked infatuation with place is at the heart of my studies. I love places, especially public places, where I feel connected to a greater social system, a commons, a collective whole bound in space. This project seeks to explore this concept in detail and derive methodologies and design implications from the inquiry of place. Tuan would go on to insist that topophilia is more than just a human response to places, but an active mechanism that produces places for people. How can landscape architecture be positioned to produce places, does it do this inherently, or is placemaking an altogether different act from place-based design? By examining supported literature on various peripheral concepts to place maybe new concepts can be gleaned that will support a more informed, even weirder, approach to placemaking, this is where my research begins.

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Literature Review

Public In his seminal work Life Between Buildings, Danish architect and planner Jahn Gehl stresses the importance of public space as the setting for social interaction. If we, the public, are the actors in this urban world, the public spaces that comprise our urban habitat serve as the stage (Gehl, 1987). Where things happen is the foundational element in the process of things happening at all. This is how we experience culture and society, placing us in the world. The word things is usually disregarded for more precise diction, but in this instance the vagueness is intentional. Things encompasses all interactions. Interactions between people. Interactions between people and habitat. The simple and mundane.

The complex and insightful. All things need to happen somewhere and in the public realm these events typically take place in what we often refer to as public space.

Before we explore this idea further, let us discuss the concept of public. We, the public, know this term and use it regularly without much thought, but in order to properly understand public space we must first define what is really meant by public. As a noun, public refers to the ordinary people in general; the community.

This idea has an innate beauty. The idea that ordinary people can find solidarity in, if nothing else, the shared experience and knowledge that we are all people. We interact with each other and our environment in both subtle and profound ways that bind us into a conceivable commons. Communities form within this general public based on more discrete characteristics and ideologies, but in the public realm we all share the primal condition of being the public.

Public carries additional meanings and connotations. It is used to describe the condition of being shared by all people, typically bound to geographic and political boundaries. A city, for instance, is made up of its citizenry, and in the representative democracy of the United States is typically organized by a municiPublic

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pality, which represents and serves its inhabitants. Municipalities define and maintain land that is owned and operated by the city, in stark contrast to that which is owned by individual private or corporate interests. This land is considered public land. This concept is scalable, from the majestic granitic face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park to the three foot planted median separating opposing lanes of traffic in the city where you went to high school. Roads, sidewalks, right of ways, some urban plazas, playgrounds, and parks fall into this public realm.

In addition to ownership, public also refers to perception and experience. Physical and emotional acts carry implications of being private or public, existing on a subjective gradient. One’s morning commute to the local café, taking place on public sidewalks, would readily be accepted as a public act. Walking, a physically shared experience, is not inherently sacred or worthy of guarding, and can be accomplished in public view without much thought. While dancing, let’s say, to the music in your headphones as you walk might begin to enter the realm of a private act. Expression - whether it be emotional, artistic, or what have you - is personal and therefore vulnerable. Personal expression is also what makes life interesting. In order to truly allow for the opportunity of meaningful connections – peer to peer, or peer to place – public space must accommodate, on some level, this type of behavior. This accommodation does not have to be public, however.

Everyone has different levels of comfort in different environments. If a space is public, than the public should feel comfortable enough at least for modest expression. This might be contrarian, but their needs to be a certain level of ownership in public space, not that an individual or single entity owns a public space, but instead that you as a member of the public own public space and share it with the rest of your public cohort. This perceptual ownership provides a sense of freedom from the commercial nature of most urban settings. There is no pressure to buy anything, there is nothing to buy, no one is monitoring you to make sure 18

Literature Review

you are using the space correctly, this is your space and you may use it as you see fit – in accordance with the rest of the public.

This aspect of public life, as it pertains to lived experience in public space, relies on intersubjective understanding, or the idea that the concepts of the public realm are shared by more than one conscious mind. Our public life, as it is often referred, is a series of personal experiences on which we reflect to gain perspective and position ourselves in the social world. This personal act of reflection, if done by one person can be acknowledged to be done by all. We all share this position, since our experiences of the public realm are uniquely our own, but only exist due to the presence and experiences of other people and places in that public realm. This intersubjectivity is the phenomena that bonds public life, for we have the ability to observe each others experiences in real time, while our own observations of ourselves are reflective acts (Schutz, 1967, p. 102). Our landscapes and environments carry hidden individual experiences like an unseen patina; knowing this fosters a sense of mutual appreciation for others as well as the spatial realms that bind us.

This might be a good place to note that this is not a rigid planning document, and the scope of public in this discussion is abstract. The public realm is all space in which the general public has unimpeded access, a sidewalk in front of a business might fall into the legal ownership of the business, but its use is that of public transit for pedestrians, therefore in this case we are considering that to exist in the realm of public space.

Public space comprises the spaces in the landscape to which the citizenry has a right of access, in contrary to those spaces which fall under the scrutiny and rules of private property. The streets, sidewalks, and alleys in any metropolitan area fall into the realm of public space, where as the shops and gated yards which line these streets would represent the private realm. This private landscape is exclusionary, although the public Public

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at large may be granted access to these spaces, that admission is dependent on the owner of the space in question. Think of signs that read “establishment refuses the right to serve anyone at anytime” as an indicator of the true power play potential in these scenarios. The power inherent in the ownership of space is authoritarian in nature, therefore public space could be argued as being autonomous and more supportive of individual liberty and spatial freedom. This is a significant distinction, and even acknowledged at the highest levels of United States political structure. The Supreme Court has acknowledged the ‘traditional public forum’ as “those places that have been immemorially been used for public assembly, debate, and informed dissent.” A pillar of not just public life, but of democracy as it was envisioned by the founders of the country. Contemporary examples of public space being used for expression of the will of the people are evident in any march or protest that “takes to the streets”. The Occupy Wall Street movement, for example, utilized the occupation of spaces in the public realm to protest wealth inequality – an example that also serves to illustrate that privately owned spaces that exist in the public realm are susceptible to the agency of the public. Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, which served as the epicenter of the Occupy movement, is in fact a privately owned public park, demonstrating the unique power of the public when it flexes its communal muscle.

The urban context of the United States is made complex by this dynamic interaction between public and private spaces, creating a gradient of access and ownership. Take the public university, for example, a space that allows access to the public, but ultimately that access can be denied. These spaces comprise the semi-public realm, a setting in this research which will generally be considered more in the public realm, for as it pertains to place it is for the most part accessible.

Public space, this uncanny setting for public life, exists within and feeds the idea of a public sphere. The public sphere is identified as the “realm of collective option and action that mediates between society and the 20

Literature Review

state� by critical theorist Jßrgen Habermas, who considered the public sphere to be the space where the public could engage in rational discourse without interference from the direct influence of the state, economic interests, and private ownership (Habermas, 1989).

The public sphere, although public, does not offer unencumbered inclusion to all. This is well recognized by the exclusion of communities and populations from the public sphere based on gender, race, and often class. Communities that continually struggle to gain acceptance and a voice in the public sphere can be marginalized even in the public realm. This is evident in public space, and clearly exemplified in a view held by the public sphere when it comes to social conceptions of homeless populations in public parks. Having or not having material wealth is not a prerequisite for being a member of the public, although when it comes to public space, the public sphere holds opinions that exclude certain populations. This creates a social attitude that permeates throughout public space, creating a contentious relationship between the users and the space itself. This is at the very heart of the matter and begins to illuminate the political nature of public space in a society that arguably leans towards privatization.

Do we really know what to think about public space?

As subjects of a socialization heavily steeped in prioritizing and honoring the private, do we have the appropriate lens to view public space outside this lens of privatization? By investigating and promoting inquiry into the idea of public space, hopefully behaviors and attitudes can become more altruistic and recall the intersubjective nature of public life that was mentioned earlier.

Public space is where public life occurs, therefore it is paramount for the strength of the public that public spaces be accessible to all, and even further that the public feels comfortable to engage in public life via public spaces. Inherently political, public space is the scene for democracy, where the public has the ability to articulate and convey their desires to influence Public

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the elected. Public space serves as the stage for the underrepresented voice, a space where ideas held by the public but disenfranchised by private ownership can be expressed and made visible. This is again where the technical discrepancies between public and private space become abstract, the public can treat private space as public and therefore apply its agency over private space, making it, if even temporarily, public. If we are indeed “all in this together”, which would be the tag line of public as argued by this discussion, then public space is where we are all in this. This is at the very heart of placemaking, but before we get to place, first, lets explore the concept of space.

Space & Place Space is defined as a continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied. Space being exemplified by the cosmic void between the stars – represented by blackness and specks of glittering light.

Space is also the emotional space required by an exhausted lover. The open marine horizon, encumbered only by clouds and the occasional gull, vast and open.

The polygon defined by coordinates on a map, seemingly discreet yet expansive. Space equates to distance, and distance reflects concepts of time. Time and space, two concepts that go hand in hand. Yi-Fu Tuan, a human geographer whose lifework rather poetically explores concepts of space and place, says “spaciousness is closely associated with the sense of being free.

Freedom implies space; it means having the power and enough room in which to act” (Tuan, 2014, p. 52). “In experience, the meaning of space often merges with that of place. “Space” is more abstract than “place”. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value. […] The ideas of “space” and “place” require each other for definition” (Tuan, p. 6). Tuan describes space as being filled with potential for movement, conceptually contrasting with place as pause. By stopping movement, we can begin to appreciate space in a new light, this pause al22

Literature Review

lows for a location to transform into a place.

Don’t just do something, sit there! This conceptually frames the idea that in our day-to-day hustle and bustle we are constantly moving between places, typically with the urban landscape – public space being prioritized as mere conduit. There is need for pause in public space. A concept termed “third places” by Ray Oldenburg champions the informal gathering spaces of pause that are disappearing from our urban realm. Areas of respite where public life happens between our homes, or first places, and our work, or second places (Oldenburg, 1997). These spaces were pause occurs are embodied by the scene of “regulars” outside the local café, the places that give an area character, typically frequented by characters. These spaces become points of interest, also commonly referred to as places. The place to be. But what is place?

Place can generically be defined as a particular position or point in space. This definition is indeed true, but its simplification of the phenomenon is rather shallow; if this definition is used as the conceptual extent of place by those investigators of place, then the results will too be shallow and unfulfilling. A simple definition that gets much closer to the point is that place is space, filled (Gieryn, 2000). Another, even more comprehensive definition that yields far more interesting results, is that of place as a space that is endowed with the value of experiential perspective. Experience being the multitude of ways in which a person both constructs and identifies his or her reality. Experience is crucial to the concept of place. Experience is how we learn and contextualize the world, the word itself means to undergo.

The culmination of experimenting with the uncertain, and the implications of the learning which stems from each new tribulation. We experience the world spatially and temporally with the use of our senses coupled with our emotions. Tuan suggests that “[t]o become an expert one must dare to confront the perils of the new” (Tuan, p. 9). This sounds like profound gestures are required to experience the world, when in fact we Space & Place

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are confronted with these “perils” regularly. When we try a new ethnic cuisine, not sure if we should have ordered it “spicy”. When we take a detour down an unfamiliar street on our daily commute. When we scramble up a rocky crag not quite sure of how to get back down.

These explorations of the senses allow us the opportunity to create and learn from experience, and consequently these experiences bestow value onto the spaces in which they occur.

Some experiences are sought out, while others, motivated by outside forces, just occur. Walking across the street and getting struck by an inattentive driver is not an intentional exploration of physics, but instead a mere consequence of existing in a dynamic environment. This accidental occurrence is just as much an experience as any intentional experience, since the pedestrian has learned from what has occurred, an experience that now influences how he or she might go on to interact with the world. This example also, in turn, has modified that crosswalk as a very specific place in the perception of the pedestrian, trauma lingers like a specter, perceived only by those involved in the incident. Place, being formed by the perspective of experience, unlike space, is not objective. “Places are centers of value [and] to attend to them even momentarily is to acknowledge their reality and value” (Tuan, p. 18).

We receive impressions of space through our sensory perceptions and in doing so spaces become objectified as places. “Place is a type of object. Places and objects define space, giving it geometric personality” (Tuan, p.

17). Objects have the tendency to entangle one another and, similarly to the intersubjectivity of the public, effect each other interobjectively; exhibiting interrelationships on an aesthetic dimension (Morton, 2013).

Where space is abstract, places are discreet and specific, often uncanny in their ability to exist in public as a result of private acts, connected by our public consciousness. Even if we don’t know where specific places are, we know there are specific places all around us, the unknowing is grounded in knowing that they exist. Get it? Follow me on this one, hopefully it will start to solid24

Literature Review

ify once we clarify modes of experience.

Our human intelligence allows us the ability to acknowledge and establish feelings about the particular.

Where space is abstract and vast, place is a defined object, which once objectified can be embedded with value. The particular endures in our minds – we give it proper names, and identify it by its appearance, its tactile feeling, and maybe the sound or smell it emanates when touched. This idea is scalable, like all objects. It could be a small flower in your garden or the urban condition of your hometown, both having particular visual aesthetics, feelings, and smells that allow us to identify and differentiate them, making them particular. Objects beg for meaning, since this is how we seek to understand and qualify our surroundings. We might see a photo of the leaning tower of Pisa on a postcard. It is an established object in our consciousness, and, even on a modest level, a place. But to fully solidify its reality we must experience it in its totality, using all the senses, see it with our own eyes, adjust its scale spatially in the presence of our body, smell the diesel from the passing trucks, touch its facade, lick its marble. The more complete our perceptual experience of a place or object, the more reality it has – the more we can understand and know it. This knowing is also achieved by actively thinking about places or objects, keeping them in mind.

Living in a place typically allows for a more complete perceptual experience, perspective of time and intimacy is formed by residence. Locals only. Not that I can’t know Paris as a place based on my experiences of the city, but I can’t know it as fully as someone who was born and raised in it’s bistros and alleys. Again, time and space are partners in the uncanny dance of placemaking.

What is placemaking then? The term is debated in town hall meetings with somewhat reckless abandon and thrown around across urban design charrette tables more regularly than red pens and trace. The Project for Public Spaces conducted a survey in 2006 asking people how they define placemaking and received Space & Place

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a wide array of responses ranging from “…making public space a living space” to “…leaving a legacy for our children”, making one thing clear: placemaking is urban planning jargon for an abstract concept of positive community development. These definitions are rather uninspiring, since they side on the grandiose and ignore the subtle and simple beauty of, what I would argue, is at the heart of place. People having experiences in space. An idea so simple, almost to the point of being dumb. Dumb ideas don’t go very far in front of mayor and council or at an architectural critique, but I tend to be quite fond of the notion of exploring dumb ideas.

Not dumb in its adjective state, meaning unintelligent or mindless, but more along the lines of the verb’s connotation: to simplify or reduce the intellectual content of something so as to make it accessible to a larger number of people. Place as a space experienced is a simple concept, and it has a simple beauty that I seek to explore in greater depth. I want placemaking to be accessible to a larger number of people, to exist as an everyday action – not just a strategy of urban designers. How do we simplify placemaking to its essence?

The ability to brand placemaking as a profound savior for tactical urbanism might on the surface be diminished, but only in the way that the idea is used as a deliverable. The act of experiencing space, placemaking, is simple and belongs in the hands of the public – it already does, it just doesn’t have a name, and as mentioned earlier we can know concepts more fully when we know their name. How do we promote the potential magic in experiencing place? We must dare to explore the perils of the world. How do we explore? We sense.

As humans we have a series of sensory mechanisms which we employ constantly to perceive the externalities of our reality, typically recognized as five physiological capacities: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

These five senses are crucial for the perception of the physical world and have strong implications as to how we both perceive space and conceive place. Kinesthesia is the overall awareness of the position of the body as it exists in space as felt by the sensory organs in the mus26

Literature Review

cles and joints. This ability to sense movement of the body in space is instrumental in determining the body’s spatial relationships. Movement from one place to another informs a sense of direction, the body in space.

This is a development humans hone throughout their early development and isn’t an intrinsic trait to the human condition; it is the result of experience. “Place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind” (Tuan, p.18). Placemaking therefore benefits from experiencing our landscape with the totality of our senses. This can be encouraged through activities that are conscious of how each sensory mechanism works. So, how do we sense?

“I see” said the blind man. Clarity of concepts conveyed by alluding to vision. Sight is the ocular perception, ophthalmoception, that allows for the processing of information contained in light. This stimuli of the visible light spectrum allows for organisms to construct a visual reality of the environment. It is interesting that in the English language, to see is synonymous with to understand. With our biological intelligence, the perception of sight goes beyond that of merely visualizing our surroundings, it serves as a foundation for symbolizing and organizing the meanings of our environment through the intellectual and creative process. Sight also allows us to conceive the spatio-temporal world.

When we look out upon mountains on the horizon our sense of sight allows us to recognize the inherent time scale of that distance. This perception of distance is experiential, since we know based upon our basic human experience that to traverse that distance would take some abstracted amount of time. Emotionally, distance can embody feelings of the future, since if we were to travel to those distance peaks we would arrive at a future time. This notion is rather poetic and is capitalized upon by the romantic landscape painters whose works imbued the feelings that peaks shrouded in fog readily emote.

Sight is how the vast majority of humans orient and Space & Place

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navigate the landscape, but it should be noted that these visual stimuli are almost immediately processed through our intellectual emotional mechanisms which apply subjectivity onto what is fundamentally light data. “The organization of human space is uniquely depended on sight. Other senses expand and enrich visual space.� (Tuan, p. 16). Awareness begins with sight, and is often followed, sometimes instantly, with the desire to touch.

The somatic senses are those which comprise our tactile and haptic perception, resulting in touch being one of the most intimate ways in which we experience the physical world. Tactile perception is mostly perceived through the skin, and while it is the most direct form of relation to the external world, it is limited to that which is immediate to the proximity of our person. While touch offers no sense of distance, it does however allow us to truly feel the nuance of texture and temperature, positing touch as almost the sensory opposite of sight. If seeing expresses a level of understanding, then emotionally feeling something elevates that sensation to a level akin to empathy. I see where you are coming from, and I feel your pain.

The haptic response of feet hitting pavement informs our proprioception, or one’s own sense of the position of the body and the effort being expressed in movement. The cool sting of a shaded granite slab on exposed skin triggers our thermoception, the sensory modality that accounts for temperature. Through touch we can handle objects in space, manipulate them, traverse them, perceive their size, temperature, and shape. Touch often informs our perceived comfort, an experience that we employ to determine perceived value in space. Your favorite bench for example, might not be the most visually appealing, but somatically it is superb. Places that are experienced by touch are innately more intimate. Seeing images of a smoldering Berlin at the end of the second world war is powerful, but removing your glove and feeling the post-war pockmarked granite scars on the foundation of the Perga28

Literature Review

mon is about as intimate an experience with a place’s history as one can get.

I hear what your saying, but you see, I just don’t feel the same way. Hearing is the ability to perceive vibrations, changes in pressure through the air, via the auditory organ, the ear. These vibrations are processed as sound and prove to be perceptually instrumental in how we experience physical space. Similar to sight, sound is a pivotal perceptional tool for discerning and orienting oneself in physical space. Coupled with sight, sound greatly enhances the ability to perceive our surroundings. We can often hear things before for we can see them, for example the buzzing of a mosquito, or a loud truck before it becomes visible from around the bend. The ways in which sound travels can inform the spaciousness of a landscape as well. Perceptually sounds inform a sense of activity. The repetitive lapping of waves on a beach are recorded and then sold to us on compact discs to be listened to in hopes of conjuring up a sense of calm that is best associated with flip flops and margaritas, while the honking of car horns and incessant cacophony of pedestrian chatter might drum up visions of Time Square. The Aokigahara, or suicide forest, at the base of Mt. Fuji is renown for its lack of sound. Something about the dense vegetation coupled with the pH of the soil being inhospitable to wildlife results in a macabre silence, leading some to consider it haunted. This perception together with its uncanny beauty has resulted in the forest becoming a destination for those seeking to take their own life, resulting in a labyrinth of ribbons, used to lead love ones to potential piles of bones. A place devised by sound, or lack thereof. Our sense of hearing is also used for navigation, even the blind can navigate through a landscape due to an acute stereophonic perception, which allows us to differentiate direction. The perception of sound can be used to augment landscapes via technological interventions. For example, runners often listen to upbeat music when traversing the landscape, since music can completely change the aesthetic quality of space and can be considered a tool for experiencing Space & Place

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spaces in new and exciting ways.

Smell ya later! Olfaction, the sense of smell, allows for the perception of odors. A biologically necessary sensitivity that allows humans to differentiate ripe from rotten fruit, death and decay from the sweetness of flowers. Smell, although sometimes neglected, is directly implicated in emotion and memory due to it’s unique relationship with the amygdala and hippocampus. Interestingly, visual, auditory, and tactile information do not pass through these brain areas. This may be why olfaction, more than any other sense, is so successful at triggering memories. Smell is paramount in creating and recalling memories, a critical experiential practice in the creation of places. Some artists have gone as far as mapping smells throughout the urban context. The Tour De Stink in Chattanooga, Tennessee is a bicycle race that uses particularly pungent urban landmarks to establish its route, reiterating a collective consciousness surrounding the perception of place distinguished through cringed noses. Smell can also inform a perception of distance, for example when you smell the jasmine growing on the fence of the community garden before you see it. Smell has temporal implications too, anyone who has experienced the change of the seasons in New York is well aware of the putrid olfactory sensation that comes with the heat of summer due to the curbside trash collection in the congested inner city. Smell's unique ability to trigger memories poses interesting implications in the act of placemaking and should be considered more readily as a design element.

Sensory perceptions culminate to provide a vivid landscape, and through a collection of sensory experiences we have the ability to get to know places well.

Being intellectual creatures, we often extrapolate beyond sensory evidence when establishing places in our own subjectivity. Some people prefer the views that vistas afford, while others find comfort in the confinement of dense urban footprints. We sense, and then we perceive, allowing for unlimited possibility in the 30

Literature Review

perception of landscapes, further reinforcing the possibility for enriched places to exist truly anywhere – and at any time.

Time The term ‘landscape’ has traditionally been used to describe permanent features on the land, sometimes more conceptually used to describe how humans have manipulated the land, since permanence does not always exist. Temporary landscapes are often described as places that exist in the present, or maybe for extended periods of time, sometimes repeatable, other times sporadic, but are not permanent and not perceived as permanent (Mayo, 2009).

Landscapes are easily altered by their scenes, or social events that occur in a place. Scenes require the user’s presence and are created by the ephemeral artifacts of the place in the moment. Scenes transform a landscape temporarily, and can redefine the perception of a landscape without having any significant physical change to the place itself. These scenes can also redefine the surrounding landscapes. Scenes create chronological progressions of temporary landscapes for the user, an example given is that of natural disasters and the scenes of destruction which then lead to temporary landscapes of repair – which eventually will resolve back to the landscapes more stable form.

Temporary landscapes can be broken down into a conceptual taxonomy, defined by the social circumstance of the user as well as the nature of the landscape either being enriched or corrosive. Social circumstances are defined as either planned or reactive.

Planned social circumstances in an enriched landscape are described as rituals. Rituals will overlay temporary artifacts over a permanent landscape to symbolize an occasion – such as a Grateful Dead concert or a funeral. In this line of conceptualization, I believe that Time

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placemaking could be described as ritual. Rituals enrich our feelings for our permanent landscapes. These temporary arrangements of artifacts can stimulate the collective memory of the place that being enriched.

Reactive social circumstances in an enriched landscape are described as epiphanies. Epiphany is defined as a sudden manifestation of the meaning. Epiphanies inspired by landscapes are described as "ah-ha" moments of realization that can occur when experiencing an enriched landscape. Epiphanies are individual responses to situations, and while they cannot be designed, they can be inspired to occur through enriching landscapes. A social component presents itself when a collective-will unites people by combining place and occasion. Group events provide an increased opportunity for shared epiphanies, consider the emotional response exponentially inflated by watching a sporting event at a sold-out home stadium. Epiphany landscapes therefore hold an interesting potential to transform separate individuals into a group with collective will, or reinforce the concept of public. Shared knowledge and understanding is often required to create a collective epiphany landscape. The subjective nature of landscapes in general can only provide opportunities for epiphanies, but should not rely upon that intention for it cannot be guaranteed. Individuals who experience epiphany landscapes are often prepared to have one because their knowledge and intentions have conditioned them to do so. Therefore, it is important to provide the conditioning if the goal of the design is to inspire epiphanies.

Due to the temporal constraints of a short-lived temporary landscape, these landscapes often represent the past. Recognizing the past results in the formation of memories, and while we experience the permanent landscape as singular, we have the potential to hold memories of multiple temporary landscapes, accumulating the past. The culmination of the multiplicity of past temporary landscapes allows the user to combine those recollections into projections of future 32

Literature Review

experiences.

Growth can be based of the accumulation of multiple temporary landscapes resulting in an expression in sum that is greater than its parts. I think of this as an art gallery with rotating shows. Some shows are better than others, but the collective temporal state of the individual shows is typically more enriching and inspiring of epiphany than if one really good show was permanent.

Although the consideration of this conceptualization of temporary landscapes might not seem at first to provide design implications, there is great relevance of this understanding in order to create inspiring enriched landscapes. Designs must consider the collective memory of a place and should utilize that collection of past temporary landscapes in order to further enrich the site. Landscape designs can enable users to fully appreciate the temporary landscapes that are created on permanent landscapes. Temporary landscapes elevate the understanding of place to a degree that surpasses the permanent features of the landscape. Places can be defined as the permanent perception of a temporary landscape. Places cling to landscapes, even after the experience has passed.

Psychogeography When it comes to thinking about place, I am drawn to the uncanny vision of landscapes as being cloaked in experience, hiding as memories. The subtle nuance in architecture and vegetation that makes the physical world exciting is not purely geographical, it requires an active user to ascribe it such meaning. Geography, semantically dissected, is comprised of the roots geo, meaning the earth and graph which means to write, from the Greek geographia literally translating to earth description. Geography refers to the discipline of study focusing on the features of the Earth in interaction with the organisms that inhabit those features. PhysPsychogeography

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ical geography covers the processes that comprise the natural environmental factors and geosystems. Human geography focuses on the relationships that exists between the people of the world, their cultures, economies, social phenomena and their physical geography.

Why people end up where they do, what effects the environment has on the development of their cultures and vice versa, as well as the spread of resources and ideas fall under the intellectual musings of geography.

The work of the geographer is inherently spatial, and therefore the birthplace of geography is typically considered to be the map. Cartography, the study of map making, started on the walls of caves millennia ago and ended up in the mobile device tucked in your back pocket. This is no arbitrary relic of the past that we tote around with us through social evolution; maps are paramount to our spatial understanding of place.

Much as language bestows the magic of consciously articulating and intellectualizing mere impressions, maps allow us to articulate space. Maps can offer clear delineated paths between points of interest. Take Main St. until you see 3rd Ave. where you will take a right, the bank will be on your left. The map is invaluable for productivity when navigating an unfamiliar terrain, but as any geography professor will drill into your head during the early weeks of your introductory seminar: all maps lie.

Maps only articulate a small sliver of spatial data, they are modified to accentuate particular routes or modes, they play favorites, and can even maliciously deceive.

One school of geographic thought has been known to intentionally deconstruct maps and reorganize entire urban fabrics, throwing cartographic conventions – and many other geographic conventions for that matter – to the wind. These are the psychogeographers; a discourse in geography that pays close attention to the “specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals” to explore the “behavioral impact of urban place” (Coverley, 2010, p. 10). Psychogeography is steeped in literary history, from William Blake to Robert 34

Literature Review

Louis Stevenson, visionaries whose gaze focused on the psychic connectivity of landscapes that was best realized by wandering the streets of London – observing and recalling the marginalized and the familiar scenes that expressed the unspoken urban geographies of their times. The dérive, or the aimless wander, becomes a pivotal element in experiencing the psychogeographic contours of a landscape. The mere act of wandering became a tool for reclaiming urban space as a site for political and aesthetic experimentation (Crowley, p.59). In The Painter of Everyday Life, Charles Baudelaire describes a wanderer, or flâneur, as being a “passionate spectator” whose passion is to “become one flesh with the crowd [and] to be away from home and yet find oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet remain hidden from the world”. This starts to address a methodology for experiencing public space in a way that can facilitate public placemaking. Promenading, embodied by the window-shopper, belittles the ability to lose oneself in wander, for the urban realm is often positioned to promote consumption – consumption of goods not experiences.

The dérive offers a method for “creating new conditions more favorable to our purposes” since it thrives off chance and “possible rendezvous” says Guy Debord in his Theory of the Dérive (Knabb, 2006, p. 62). Debord’s fondness of the dérive stems from what he saw as its exceptional ability to truly experience place in a playful and constructive manner that raised awareness to the psychogeographical effects of one’s landscape. Psychogeographic discourse has always embodied a sense of playful affirmation. Wandering in groups, reconstructing maps to redefine urban conditions, proposing that Paris should open its subway tunnels after the last train stops running at night for exploratory purposes, cheekily arguing that street lights should have switches so that pedestrians can flip them back and forth for grins; these all reflect the “spirit of discovery” of “a future urbanism [that] may well apply itself to no less utilitarian projects, but in the rather different context Psychogeography

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of psychogeographical possibilities” (Knabb, p. 9). This tendency towards “not subordination to randomness but total insubordination to habitual influences” has been incredibly influential for artists and placed-based thinkers to reconsider the potential of public space and is inspirational to the possibilities of public placemaking. Conceptually this exploratory approach to geography gets under the skin of space and provides a way of thinking that is much more open to the perceptual existence of place.

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Literature Review

Summary This literature review contemplated ideas of public and how public space exists in different incarnations, some political others social, and in a larger sense anchors the public realm in space. Space was clarified as abstract locales, where place is the discreet locations, made real by our individual experiences and perceptions of those experiences. Connecting back to public, places exist as objects and are connected by a sense of intersubjectivity rooted in a collected consciousness of the human conditions ability to experience. Experiences challenge our notions of what we know, and allows us to learn, grow, and discover. We experience the world through our vast sensorimotor capacities, each sense granting special privileges into the perception of our reality. These realities exist in time, and even if our experiences are temporary, these temporary landscapes have the tendency to stick around and continue to influence our perceptions of our surroundings. The psychogeographers were acutely aware of this phenomena and actively pursued its study by wandering and encouraging playful interactions in the urban realm as to claim agency over one’s landscape to ensure that we are not beholden to the consumer nature of the city and instead set our own stage to live out our lives as we best see fit. These ideas are of critical importance when it comes to placemaking. The idea of places as spaces filled with human experience and emotion makes the city a magical place, a place that deserves exploration; for this exploration is not only how we tend to best find places, but also how we actively generate them.

Conclusion

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Case Reviews .walk Mapping Your Manor What happens When nothing Happens Skateboarding Geocaching May 1968 Posters Zines Guidebooks

As presented in the literature review section, it might appear that the multifaceted concept of place, and in turn the act of placemaking, will be challenging to pin down with discrete practices and actions. Places being perceptual and subjective require a wide net in order to attempt to catch them, for we all have our own techniques. A methodology that works well for one person might be completely arbitrary and unmoving for another.

By reviewing applications and cases that broadly reflect the act of placemaking, I hope to provide a expansive and inclusive set of inspirations that can help guide the design process of my project. By looking outside the realm of landscape architecture to the arts and political movements I hope to incorporate new practices into the fold, practices that respond to landscape architecture but might not typically be considered within its discourse. I believe landscape architecture has a deep connection to poetics and art and should more actively pursue an interdisciplinary approach that surpasses reaching across the isle to planners and architects – artists and citizens, the people who engage intimately with the urban fabric have just as much to offer if not so much more.

This case review study will briefly illuminate some of my inspirations and provide resources for potential design applications. The goal of public placemaking is broad and abstract, therefore it makes sense that the inspirations for the designs to come be conjectural as well.

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Case Reviews

A small pocket sized card with a "walking algorithm", passed out to participants in a psychogeographic walk.

.walk

by Wilfred Hou Je Bek (2004)

Hou Je Bek created a methodology for psychogeographic walks in which the concept of a “walking algorithm” is used to facilitate a dérive. This activity is implemented by giving participants a small index card with walking directions printed on it. These directions are to be followed in sequence for an hour while participants, armed only with pencil and paper, create names for interesting objects that they see based on their own experience of these configuration of elements found in the landscape. Hou Je Bek argues that “the ability to communicate about places in names you have yourself found the language for creates a strong emotional relationship with these objects” (O’Rourke, 2016, p. 5) This project provides a simple mechanism for psychogeographic discourse. It could be argued and extended upon that the objects in the landscape, if experienced intently, would classify as places. This methodology is not new to Hou Je Bek, it is at the heart of psychogeography and alternative cartographies. I plan on using similar techniques to promote participatory wanders, while incorporating technology such as a mobile application to enhance the process. .walk - Hou Je Bek

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Mapping Your Manor

by Lucy Harrison (2011)

In response to a “Mapping the Park” art commission, public realm artist Lucy Harrison created Mapping Your Manor – a project that intends to capture the sense of place in Olympic Park by making audio recordings of people who live near to trees planted as part of the original commission. The audio files are available for download from an associated website and then are intended to be listened to at each of the corresponding locations, providing a soundtrack for the park.

This project utilizes simple technologies to capture the uncanny experiences that exist in the public realm, yet are not typically decipherable. The packaging and display of the project is also very compelling, merging audio, maps, and writing to express the intention of the project.

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Case Reviews

What happens When nothing Happens

by Rakan Budeiri (2012)

In order to capture the nuanced happenings of Flat Iron Square in London, Rakan Budeiri spent multiple days in the location taking note of the occurrences of the square – what happens when “nothing” is happening. This exercise was influenced by a similar practice employed by French novelist George Perec in his 1974 exercise “An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris”. Budeiri encouraged passerbys to participate by taking a moment to record their observations and experiences of the place. The result is a portrait of Flat Iron Square which attempts to honestly capture the subtlety of place, from the humdrum of everyday banality to its unexpected richness, all of which gives a place its essence. Through Union Street Press, a temporary and small scale publishing house, the resulting observations were printed and put on display within the area.

This project is inspirational to the project I wish to conduct in that it celebrates the mundane and attempts to record the everyday perceptions of everyday people to try to discuss a place. It makes me think of Werner Herzog’s rationale behind documentary film, that it is not a factual medium, but in a sense a portrait that offers a perception of a topic – calling into question the idea of truth and celebrating the subjective experience as an honest depiction.

What happens When nothing Happens - Budeiri

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Skateboarding I have always been inspired by the act of skateboarding, not as a sport, but as a way of visioning the urban fabric. There are few acts that engage the physical landscape in a way that blends creative reinterpretation and defiance into such beautiful action.

In order to fully participate in the public realm, citizens must find a way to make public space personally meaningful. Skateboarding, in concept, does just this. A broken bollard becomes a stage for creative expression and physical prowess. A graded embankment becomes a concrete wave begging to be surfed.

If there is a community that pays close attention to the nuance of physical forms in urban infrastructure it would not be the engineers or the architects, but the small diaspora of the population that claims agency over handrails and loading docks to make magic of sweat and wheel wobble. The act of skateboarding heightens the awareness of place. Can a project gain from this insight to encourage everyday people to view public space in a similar fashion? I believe so. Having ritual in public space grants us the opportunity to see our surroundings in a new light, and this should be encouraged at all costs, for the sanctity of public space.

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Case Reviews

Geocaching Geocaching is a recreational activity with global reach that encourages participants to use navigational techniques, such as GPS, to seek out “caches” or hidden objects in the landscape. Participants obtain locations of caches through various clues and then go out to find the cache, an elaborate game of hide and seek. Caches typically include a logbook in which participants note their name.

Geocaching has many incarnations, some simple and some more complex. Mobile applications and QR codes are used in some forms of geocaching to incorporate technology into the process.

Geocaching as an act is quite inspiring as it gets people out and about, exploring the landscape with a goal based reward as the motivation. Like most things, the journey becomes as important, if not more, that the destination. I plan on using this same general approach, although replacing physical “cashes” with conceptual places.

Geocaching

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May 1968 Posters Amid the political turmoil of 1968 Paris, student groups and artists took to the streets with politically motivated artworks.

Atelier Populaire, the people's workshop, generated countless designs, which were plastered among the barricades in a city under siege. This movement is directly tied to the Situationist International and the psychogeographers. Claiming the streets as a public medium and redefining urban infrastructures. The medium of the printed poster is universal and a charming way of spreading ideas, especially now in a time when most ideas exist solely in the digital realm.

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Case Reviews

Zines Zines is a catch all term for typically small run and self published fanzines or magazines. Rooted in the punk movement, when fans would spread ideas about music and politics through self published editions of Xeroxed periodicals, zines have a wide cultural spread and great potential application for this project. In the same way that the poster medium was used to spread ideas in the 1960’s, zines serve as an economical and creative way to disseminate information in a playful and engaging format.

Guidebooks We peruse guidebooks over coffee in foreign cities when we are curious as to what to do next. Guidebooks typically hold cultural and historic information, presented spatially for the convenience of travelers.

I intend to create guidebooks for everyday places, not spatial or specific, but instead conceptual and provocative of exploration to encourage everyday placemaking.

I always feel like a tourist when looking at a guidebook, and maybe if we viewed our own neighborhood as a tourist we would open up to the potential of discovery.

Zines & Guidebooks

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Summary These case reviews provide an introduction to the methodologies that inspired my design process. When it comes to placemaking as a public – even psychogeographic – act, the precedent becomes varied and non-linear. Hopefully this collection of projects and ideas helps to clarify potential approaches that can be employed to get to the bottom of place. Psychogeographic projects, such as the walking algorithms or site observation practices mentioned in this section provide a foundation for methods that can help indulge the concept of place. Activities, such as skateboarding and geocaching, provide examples of how some actively choose to engage with the landscape in a new way – more of a lens with which to view public space facilitated by an active ritual. Finally, mediums such as posters and zines provide a vehicle for spreading these ideas in a feasible and public manner.

These case reviews, in tandem, begin to illuminate a path for public placemaking, a path that I will further express in the following section describing the design applications of what will become Lost In Place.

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Case Reviews

Design Application Goals & Objectives Design Program Website Mobile App Physical Toolkit Poster Series Activity Booklet Merchandise

Goals & Objectives GOAL #1:

Explore the phenomenon of placemaking and educate the public on key concepts

research “place” as a concept consider a cross-disciplinary view of place to enlighten the idea of “placemaking” as it pertains to its use in landscape architecture collect, analyze, and promote resources as an educational part of the project

GOAL #2:

Resist conventional wisdom to be site specific and create design implications that can function in all public space

focus on design applications that function as a methodology that can be applied to any public space

employ technologies that are widespread, accessible, and mobile

GOAL #3:

Promote the democratization of placemaking as an everyday public act

position landscape architecture as a tool instead of just a site deliverable, this frees landscape architecture as a discourse open to all and not just a trade with proprietary privileges of the profession elements of the project should exist in public space and promote modest interactions between the project, the public and place

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Design Application

Design Program In order to achieve the initial goals of the project, as laid out in the goals and objectives section, a project has been created that replaces conventional site-based landscape design with a set of tools and methodologies which can be accessed by the general public to facilitate the creation of public place. In order to capture the rather uncanny process of placemaking, the project will employ a three pronged approach, three coexisting elements that support one another while maximizing functionality as a cohesive whole.

Places are created by people experiencing space, so in order to maximize the effectiveness of the project, a multitude of approaches are considered to incorporate and include a wide array of users. The project is designed to include the active placemaker, the person who is familiar with the project and intentionally seeks the project out for place creation. But, the project also employs strategies that can catch the attention of the passive user, elements that raise awareness for public placemaking and convert passive users to active users by provoking and arousing their place-based curiosities.

The project pays careful attention to the significance of technology in our daily lives. The time of techno-pessimism has grown stale and there is a compelling connection between physical and digital that posses a great opportunity for landscape design. Augmented and virtual reality have fascinating implications on how humans interact, even spatially, to the physical landscape, and while this project only incorporates rather simple technologies it embraces fully the potentiality posed by new technological advances. The young and old alike are experiencing place through their mobile devices and this project addresses that as not a good or bad thing, but just as a contemporary truth. We photograph our experiences and post them to our social media accounts, but we simultaneously consume content from friends and strangers and this contributes to the shaping of our physical reality. These existing technolDesign Program

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ogies can be designed to enhance our intentional physical relationship to public space, if that is their design intention.

Lost In Place is a project that embraces this potentiality and intentionally designs technological interventions that increase users awareness and ability to create new experiences in public space. A website is used to collect and disperse the content of the project. A mobile app is designed to promote wandering and challenge users to get lost in familiar landscapes, with the intention that they will experience new experiences and find new public spaces that can be endowed with meaning. A physical toolkit is designed to promote the project and the idea of placemaking in public space, using posters, activity guides, and branded merchandise.

The following sections will elaborate on each design application of Lost In Place.

s e c n e eri p x e l a n o s ces per a p s s e c i c l a b l cp i l in pu b u p e k a to m

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Design Application

Sub Section

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The conventional method for public space making as it pertains to landscape architecture and the design professions. The need for public spaces results in the professional design process.

Landscape architects assess the site and come up with concepts, culminating in a final plan. The final plan is then approved and permitted, this takes time.

Public Space

Eventually, resources are provided in the form of funding from the client. The site is constructed and built. Funding is a determining factor as to whether or not a design can be built. The resulting built project is now a space, most likely a space for people. People will inhabit and experience the space, over time making the space a place.

design

concepts + final plan

funding

time

design + build

process

space for people

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Design Application

Lost In Place takes a different approach, utilizing already designed and established public space as a foundation to create public place. It is not in meant to replace traditional site-based landscape architecture, instead to provide a methodology to enhance users experiences of existing public space. Lost In Place deploys a three step approach to

Public Place

promote the democratization of public placemaking as an everyday act. Existing technologies are utilized to increase awareness of placemaking, challenge the public to consider place, and encourage all users to engage with their landscape in ways that foster new experiences and results in the establishment of new public places.

website

resources + media

toolkit

mobile app

physical objects

technology

people for place

Design Program

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Website Since Lost In Place is a project that relies primarily on public engagement yet does not have a physical site for gathering of users, the project needs a home. What, at one point in time, would have been a nonstarter now has a rather simple solution. Lost In Place will dwell in cyberspace, in the world wide web, everywhere all at once. This website domain will serve a multitude of purposes, while presenting an interesting design challenge that is not only applicable to landscape architecture but all design disciplines.

The website will function as a universally accessible hub for the project.

••• The website will contain the project’s digital components and provide access to the physical components.

••• The website itself will promote the project while also functioning as a waypoint to connect users back to the project if they are to come in contact with only a single component in the digital or physical worlds.

••• The website is flexible and can easily expand or be modified to accommodate the needs of the project as the project grows and changes ••• The website will also function as a learning experience for web-based design, expanding on current design knowledge and incorporating basic website development as a skill set.

The website is divided into four categories: About, Goods, Resources, and Contact. Collectively the four sections contain and provide access to all of the designed elements of Lost In Place. The website is designed to be easily updated and adapt to the project as it grows.

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Design Application

www.lostinplace.info

About introduce the project + big idea + establish look of the site

Goods free materials + printed matter for sale + access to mobile app

Resources suggested readings + similar projects + development tools

Contact network, socially + collaboration + feedback

Website

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About: The about section of the website serves as the landing page for viewers when they first open the site. This section offers an introductory paragraph describing the project, as well as the slogan “turning public space into public place�. This slogan sums up the project in a simple phrase, when the user scrolls down the slogan glides off the screen and tools for creating public place come into view.

The about section is designed to introduce the visual branding of the project. A simple black, white, and red color scheme is established and an automated slide show displays photographs of elements of the project in action.

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Design Application

Goods: The goods section of the website serves as a depository for the various public placemaking materials presented by the project. The first item in the goods section is the mobile app “This Must Be The Place”. The app is described with playful language to encourage users to try it out, for example “reviews” are presented to advertise that the app might be fun. When users click on the “Get Lost!” button the app is instantly loaded into the user’s web browser. The website is designed to function on both desktop and mobile devices. As users continue to scroll down additional good are presented.

Website

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Goods [cont.]: Continued scrolling will reveal both the poster series and the activity booklet.

Both of these elements of the physical toolkit are available for free download directly from the website, while PayPal attributes were added to the code so that users can purchase physical editions of the posters and activity book directly from the website by use of a credit card.

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Design Application

Resources: The resources section of the website functions as the primary hub for the educational outreach portion of the project. This section is designed to grow over time as the project grows and collaborations occur. In its initial stages the section consists of a “suggested reading list”, which provides book titles that recommended for further research into applicable themes of the project, as well as a “food for thought” section, which provides links to interesting projects’ websites, videos of compelling lectures, as well as place-based groups and initiatives.

Website

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Contact: The contact section of the website provides an opportunity for users and participants to network with the project directly. Lost In Place is designed as a method and is therefore highly dependent on feedback from participants.

Participants are encouraged to provide feedback and hopefully this feedback will lead to collaboration and growth of the project. Contact itself is done through email, a simple and accessible digital format of communication that still tends to maintain some intimacy.

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Design Application

e c a l p lostin

#

Hashtag: Many social media platforms use hashtags as a metadata tag to facilitate searchability for various topics or content. Lost In Place uses the hashtag #lostinplace to create linkages throughout the internet, connecting users with project specific content. This is a standardized existing technology that project participants can use to share their experiences with the project anywhere on the internet. The example given here is the social media app Instagram, which users can tag photos with hashtags so that their content is then searchable. This is a convenient way to monitor how the project is being used once it is made public.

QR Codes: Quick Response Codes are iconic two-dimensional matrix bar codes that can be easily decoded by most smart phones. Lost In Place uses QR codes to store URL information that when scanned will bring up the Lost In Place website and/or “This Will Be The Place� mobile app.

QR codes are included in the physical toolkit elements in order to connect users back to the project. This is an easy way to create connectivity between the physical presence of the project with the digital aspects, another form of contact through existing technologies to increase access to the project.

Internet Presence - Connectivity Methods

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Mobile App Mobile devices are now technologically advanced enough to host powerful applications. It is now standard for mobile phones to include geospatial referencing capabilities, be equipped with impressive digital cameras, they can record audio, and connect to high speed digital signals to provide the user with fast widespread connectivity. These mobile devices are basically the ideal instrument. They can collect data through various sensors, similar to the same way people collect data using their senses. The trouble with most mobile apps is that they often are designed to highlight the technology, and while impressive, can have a tendency to remove users from their physical reality. With that potential in mind, I decided to design an incredibly simple application. An application so simple, in fact, that it would be challenging to be consumed by its tech glamor – for it has none.

An analogy could be made to fantasy video games.

New video games allow users to become high elf wizards, traversing majestic landscapes where each blade of grass is rendered and shaded to create an immersive environment. These technologies are great, but the graphics and artificial intelligence of the enemies often become the real highlight. Another approach is that of the early fantasy table top games, like Dungeons & Dragons. In traditional D&D campaigns all of the magic occurs in the players’ imaginations. The only props are some twelve-sided dice and a hand drawn map. “This Must Be The Place” is a mobile app that functions like a table top fantasy role playing game, yet the dungeons are public space and the magic comes from the users interaction with their physical reality. The phone takes a back seat and is instead a simple tool, allowing for the focus and attention to be given to the actual act of placemaking.

Here is how it works. Users access the app through the Lost In Place website. Once the app is opened it provides a prompt stating that the app is intended 64

Design Application

to help the user find “cool new places”. The user is instructed to go for a walk, a dérive, and to consult the app if they are in need of directions. There is a button that reads “Where to now?”, when the button is engaged it populates a dialogue box with an arbitrary directional cue. The user is then suggested to follow this cue until they feel the need to ask for directions again.

Eventually, when prompted, the directional cue will be replaced with the dialogue “This must be the place!” signifying to the user that they are in proximity to a cool new place. That is it.

The app is meant to be a guide to anywhere, with the intention that the user will explore new places that he or she might not typically seek out. The app, in its very existence as a placemaking tool, also passively suggests that the user is engaging in the act of placemaking just by consulting the app. The results can be quite surprising, ranging from bordering the line of senseless to randomly guiding users to really captivating new places. It is intentionally low tech and designed to incorporate its flaws as a part of the placemaking process.

A guide for getting lost, if you will.

Mobile App

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<!doctype html> <html> <head> <meta charset=”UTF-8”> <title>This must be the place!</title> <style> body h1 {color: blue;} p {color: black; font-family: courier; font-size: 110%;} p2 {color: grey; font-family: courier; font-size: 100%;} </style> </head> <body> <p>Hello there!<br> <br> I think there is a cool new <em>place</em> around here. <br>Do you want to help me find it? <br> <br> Oh, you do? Great! <br> <br> All you have to do is start walking around <br>and follow these simple directions! <br> <br> When you think you might be lost, don’t worry! <br>Just ask me where to go! <br> </p> <p><form name=”scriptform”><input name=”scriptinput” size=50 style=”border-width:1px;font-size:18px”> <input type=”button” value=”Where to now?” onClick=”randomdisplay()” style=”font-size:20px”></form> <script> //Satirical Punch Line Script- by javascriptkit.com (text by Colin Lingle) //Visit JavaScript Kit (http://javascriptkit.com) for script //Credit must stay intact for use quotes = new Array(); quotes[0]=”You are on the right track, keep walking this direction!”; quotes[1]=”Almost there! Take your next left!” quotes[2]=”Getting closer, take your next right!” quotes[3]=”What’s the tallest thing you can see? Walk towards it!” quotes[4]=”This must be the place!” quotes[5]=”Do you hear that? Walk in that direction!” quotes[6]=”Sorry, but you should turn around.” function randomdisplay(){ randomquote=quotes[Math.floor(Math.random()*quotes.length)] document.scriptform.scriptinput.value=randomquote } setTimeout(“randomdisplay()”,100) </script> <p2><br><br>Once you find a place, take a photo of it!<br>If you want to send it to me with a brief description, <br>I would love to see it!<br><br> <a href=”mailto:info@erikschmahl.com?Subject=Here%20is%20a%20cool%20new%20place!” target=”_ top”>Share your place<br><br><br><br> <font size=”2”><a href=”http://www.lostinplace.info”>www.lostinplace.info</a></font> </a></p2> </p> </body> </html>

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Design Application

This Must Be The Place a mobile app!

The code on the opposite page shows the basic Java script that commands the app to cycle through 6 phrases on the button click.

Each phrase is meant to offer directions, some with simple cardinal orientations, others by engaging the users senses (such as sight and sounds). â&#x20AC;&#x153;This Must Be The Placeâ&#x20AC;? functions by use of simple Java and HTML and can be used on any mobile device that has a web browser.

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Mobile App

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Physical Toolkit To complement the digital presence of the project, both the website and the mobile app, the third element of Lost In Place is a physical toolkit. The physical toolkit is a general category for elements of the project that involve printed and material goods. From early research into the psychogeographic movement and the Situationist International, there was compelling historic usage of printed propaganda to spread ideas.

The student movement in Paris during the political upheaval of 1968 welcomed artful posters and leaflets to playfully spread the word of the struggle. Lost In Place borrows many ideas from the psychogeographers and it only seems fitting that ideological posters and other printed material be used as a tactic to publicly spread the idea of public engagement and placemaking. This strategy is also fitting with the goals of the project, educating and disseminating information to the public as a public gesture.

Poster Series The physical toolkit initiated with three main parts.

First, there is a poster series displaying various slogans ands activities for passive consumption of passerbys.

The posters spread ideas about placemaking, as well as advertise the project itself. Each poster has source information for the Lost In Place website, as well as a QR code that also links back to the projects digital presence. Posters are available to download from the website and can be printed by anyone, in addition they can be purchased if participants want access to a series of limited edition 2-color risograph prints. There is a designed duality to the poster series. First, the act of posting posters in public space is itself a public act, one that is steeped in modest defiance and allows the participant to gain some sense of ownership over public space. Second, the posters function as a part of the project passively anywhere they are displayed, hopefully drawing attention to the project and the ideas which the project represents.

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[left] The poster to the left offers directions to a â&#x20AC;&#x153;cool new placeâ&#x20AC;?, this is meant to be a playful activity that changes based on where the poster is posted. The idea that there are places waiting to be found everywhere, if we just open ourselves up to exploratory wander. [below] This poster has an abbreviated screen capture of the psychogeography Wikipedia website.

There is something inherently fun about making the internet physical.

Wikipedia has recognizable design, so to see it posted on a wall in an alley somewhere is intriguing - especially when it educates the view on the subject of psychogeography.

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[above, left] This poster encourages passerbys to “get lost”, a phrase that is often combative, but without punctuation, the tone is left to be interpreted by the reader. [above, right] The psychogeographic activity of the dérive is referenced as a wander that can lead to wonder. It just so happens that when the words are composited a “circle a” is formed - referencing the anarchistic nature of the concept. [right] This must be the place, referencing the mobile app that is linked via a QR code. App users could post this poster where they find places.

Physical Toolkit - Poster Series

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Activity Book The second part of the physical toolkit is the Lost In Place Activity Book. This pocket-sized booklet is described as a “placemaking activity book” with the subheading as being “a pocket tour guide to just about anywhere”. The concept behind the activity book is to provide insightful information about place and its relationship to aimless wandering.

The activity book begins with a description of the project, included definitions of key concepts, and then offers fill-in-the-blank prompts and suggested placemaking activities. All of the activities are intended to heighten the user’s awareness of their place in the landscape, ideally suited for exploration of public space. Based on research about perceptual experience of landscape, activities are catered to entice the user to employ his or her senses in ways that might be neglected during most urban walking. The activities are presented as lists of things one could do, they are meant to be mere suggestions, hopefully encouraging users to create their own placemaking rituals.

The takeaway point of the activity book is that sometimes we need someone to suggest activities to challenge us to adventure past our often mundane routine. The activity book is intended to be used handin-hand with “This Must Be The Place” mobile app, like most parts of the project it is designed to function on its own, but can be enhanced by other elements of the project. The activity book outlined in this book is the first volume, with the idea that as the project grows more activity books will be released offering new lists of activities incorporating feedback from previous participants. The activity book is available as a free download from the website, while printed versions are available for purchase.

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Design Application

The activity books are simple Zeroxed zines that can be printed from any computer. In order to keep the project as accessible as possible the activity books are made available for free as PDF downloads on the website.

Alluding to a rich history of zine culture, hopefully participants will modify and create their own activity books. Simple design that is easily replicated further democratizes not only the project, but the idea of place oriented design as an everyday act.

Physical Toolkit - Activity Book

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This section displays the first volume of the Lost In Place placemaking activity book. Two versions are provided to illustrate how the booklet can be used, the original blank forms as well as a completed version filled out by a participant. The design of the booklet is influenced by radical political pamphlets of the late 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activity books, and travel guides. The booklet addresses serious themes and concepts at the heart of the project, while hopefully engaging users with playful exploration.

It is intended to be fun and is successful if its reading instigates a single exploratory wander.

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Physical Toolkit - Activity Book

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Merchandise

The third division of the physical toolkit covers branded merchandise and ephemera that are used to advertise the project and entice participation. As a designer it is fun, but also important, to brand a project graphically to help spread the word. Embossed #2 pencils were custom ordered to reward participants in the pilot study for their effort, for example. The idea of a complete package is important to the project. If you were going out on a dĂŠrive to hang up posters and engage in some of the activities from the activity book you might need a bag to carry your posters and a pencil to fill out the activity book, this is where a branded Lost In Place canvas tote bag and custom pencil might become useful. A tote bag then serves its purpose as facilitating in the activities of the project, while simultaneously modestly advertising the project out in the physical world. Maybe a cashier at the grocery store will read the bag and inquire about the project, at least that is the idea.

The availability of merchandise also allows for the project to generate some funds. The project is designed to be implemented with a very limited budget.

Selling some items as a part of the project can help accumulate funding to cover the cost of printing materials, web domain and online storage costs, and in the future bring in revenue to pay for services outside of the scope of the designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current skill set - for example more advanced Ä°OS programming and app production.

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Physical Toolkit - Merchandise

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Summary Lost In Place is a landscape architecture project.

There are no construction documents. There are no photo realistic renderings of raised bed medians or cutouts of joyful multi-modal urbanites. There are no planting plans. But, a landscape architecture project nonetheless. Landscape architecture as a discipline seeks to address how users interact with their built environments, how social and biotic systems influence one another, how relationships form.

Lost In Place provides an alternative approach to addressing these interactions, with a design application that focuses on users of the landscape instead of the landscape itself. This is necessary when addressing issues of placemaking. Places are responses to the lived experiences of the users of a particular space, so a spatial design implication is not suited for the task of placemaking. The users must be put into focus. By designing an interactive approach that seeks to educate, facilitate and encourage everyday people to be actors in public placemaking, Lost In Place makes connections within the discourse of landscape architecture that are often neglected in site-based design.

Using available technologies and psychogeographic concepts, this project provides a seat at the placemaking table for the general public â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all that is required is a pair of walking shoes, an open mind, and the willingness to wander.

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Summary

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Pilot Study

Participant 1: J. Suskin - Los Angeles, CA Participant 2: R. Calabrese - Tallahassee, FL Participant 3: I. Dudley - New Haven, CT Participant 4: B. Basino - Starkville, MI Participant 5: M. Sawyer - Tucson, AZ

In order to test the effectiveness of the design applications for the Lost In Place project, a preliminary pilot study was conducted in the spring of 2016. By providing participants with a prototype of the “This Must Be The Place” mobile application, a brief description of the goals of the pilot study, as well as rewarding participation with a complimentary poster pack, activity book, and novelty #2 pencil, the pilot study hopefully illustrates how the project can be implemented in a real-world scenario. Participants were chosen from a list colleagues, friends, and acquaintances who had expressed interest in the project. A general “call for participants” email was sent out with a breakdown of the elements needed from pilot project participants (as seen on the opposite page).

Finally, after allowing several weeks for participants to complete the tasks requested of them, the participants’ responses and data were collected and formatted for their inclusion in the following section. It should be noted that participation in the pilot study was voluntary and completed independently without any oversight. Each participant was encouraged to participate in a manner that suited their own interests, allowing freedom to interpret the project’s intentions and results how they each saw fit. This pilot study had no ambitions of being a quantitative data collection device, rather a free-form experiment that could be used to illustrate the result of project participation. A documented dérive, with “This Must Be The Place” as a lackluster tour guide, gently leading the participants into the unknown. In search of place.

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Pilot Study

Hello friends, I am sending this to people who I think might be int activity. I am curre erested in a little ntly working on my final project Landscape Arch to conclude a Ma itecture degree ster’s of an d am looking for pa in the final deliver rticipants to fea able. The project ture is called ‘Lost In creating a series Place’ and is loo of activities and king at methodologies to “placemaking”. Pla democratize the ce is basically jus act of t a point in spac with personal ex e that has been perience or memo endowed rie s, these places in our spatial reality. our daily lives bu I am proposing th ild at through the sim getting lost, one ple act of wander can encourage ne and w spatial experienc discover or reaffi es and in the proc rm meaningful pla ess ces is the public realm.

I created a simple “mobile app” that gives you directio places. The app ns to help you find is called “This Mu these st Be The Place”, facilitate getting and is basically lost, but in a good a tool to way.

This Must Be Th e Place App http://www.lostin place.info/thism ustbethepla

What do I want

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from you?

I am looking for participants to us e the “This Must record their find Be The Place” ap ings, document p and their experience, results. I’m lookin and provide me g to include exam wi th the ple s from a wide ar urban conditions ray of locales an . It would take les d s than an hour an interested in parti d could be fun! If cipating and are you are OK with me publi of my pilot study sh ing your results here is what I ne as a part ed from you: • Your Name & Oc cupation • Location & Tim e • Tools Used • 6 Photographs from your walk • 3 Photographs of places you fou nd • List of 3 places you found w/ sh ort description of • Map of your jou each rney • Personal reflec tion on the expe rience That sounds like a lot, and it is a go od bit of informa grateful for anyo tion. I would be ve ne who would be ry willing to particip for your time and ate. To compensa effort I will send te you yo u a some zines, poste “Lost In Place” ca re package with rs, a custom penc il, and some othe immortalized in r goodies. You wi the catacombs of ll also be the University of I will also buy yo Arizona Library in u a drink the next my thesis. time I see you!

Thank you so mu ch for reading th is and if you are please let me kn interested in parti ow and I’ll do ev cipating erything I can to possible to parti make it as easy cipate! for you as

Introduction

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Pilot Study: Participant 1 Participant: Jacqueline Suskin Poet Location: Los Angeles, California Time: 4:40pm - 5:20pm (40 minutes) Tools: iPhone 5, This Must Be the Place App Personal Reflection: I left my house at 4:40pm and walked down Occidental Blvd toward the tallest thing that I could see. Then I kept walking toward the sound of hammers hammering. My next left was onto Bellevue Ave and then quickly a right onto my favorite alley way. The next left took me past my favorite landscaping in the neighborhood.

Onward across Silverlake Blvd and up into the hills, surrounded by the wonder that is LA flora, where I eventually took a right onto a road that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never been on, never even noticed: Dillon St. On the corner there was this beautiful shining lot, overgrown and glorious. Then, right away there was this house that blew my mind and made me feel a longing to live in a place this beautiful.

Finally, at the top of the hill I found it. This must be the place! But what was it? Not a fantastic house or a wild lot? Where was the place? I eventually looked down, right in front of my feet, and I found it!

A thimble! The very kind my grandma used. Rubber and textured. Dropped from someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basket or purse. I instantly felt connected. Someone nearby sews! People still sew! This is a place where people sew! It was 5:20pm.

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Place 1: This must be a place where people sew!

Participant 1: J. Suskin - Los Angeles, CA

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Pilot Study: Participant 2 Participant: Ryler Calabrese Digital Media Manager, College of Fine Arts, Florida State University Location: Tallahassee, Florida Time: 9:47am - 10:58am (1 hour 11 minutes) Tools: iPhone 5S, This Must Be the Place App Personal Reflection: It was a beautiful day for a wander about. I started from the front porch of the Charles Mansion, my home of nearly 5 years, one of the hubs of my social existence for nearly a decade.

The sun was shining and the birds were chirping, 67 degrees, winds northwesterly traveling approximately 6 miles an hour. The app directed me to set forth towards what my ears could hear.

The birds in the front yard seemed too easy a target, the distant hum of cars stirred nothing in me. Then: the honking of geese called out; Lake Ella it is.

I took the aptly named Moss Street. Above, the sunlight was variegated from live oak branches and the low hanging beards of conquistadors.

My first place: a bench looking out across Lake Ella. It’s a familiar location, though I am not sure I have sat on this particular bench before. People are already out and about, taking in the nice weather before the southern summer sets in and makes everyone miserable. Couples and friends enjoy each other’s company, loners ponder in their loneliness.

I take off around the Lake and pass numerous young people jogging off last night’s drinks.

I pass a few parked cars and remember that many years ago an ex-girlfriend and I had sex for the first time in the back seat of her car parked exactly here.

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A prompt from the app sends me towards the radio tower behind the cop-shop adjacent to the lake.

I take the short cut through the minor homeless encampment nestled behind the public restrooms.

A few homeless guys are congregated around a picnic bench and I wonder if they catch much heat from the pigs next door.

I’m on the road now, taking in the traffic and an old Radiator repair shop. The building is in disrepair and I’m not sure if they are still in business. I think a common thought: this building could house something pretty awesome but the way Tallahassee is developing it’ll probably just become another corporate s**t-hole.

I cross the 5 lanes of traffic into the old stomping grounds: Levy Park.

I wander back and forth. I pass a handful of Bernie yard signs and smile, there is hope. There’s a Trump sign in front of one of the newly built town houses on Duval and I roll me eyes, this a**hole is in the wrong part of town.

My second place: Just to the side of the Senior Center. A nice older brick building. It used to be an armory I think. There are gas street lanterns along 7th for a few blocks and I never noticed that they are on during the day, seemingly at full blast.

Aesthetically I like them at night. This daytime burn though has me wondering about efficiency and the waste of resources. I’d take a little waste to avoid the fluorescent nightmare of standard streetlights I guess.

I set on my way north through the old neighborhood. Not many people about, not much traffic. Nature is calling and I’m far from a bathroom now.

Walking along I wish there were more edible bushes and trees planted around town like in Portland. I’d like a fresh snack right about now. So many great fruits and nuts can be grown around here with minimal effort; maybe I should start a city-wide initiative.

My third place: an intersection, 10th and Green.

Participant 2: R. Calabrese - Tallahassee, FL

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Not much to see here. The school is across the way, all is quiet today. The rusted staples and nails protruding from a telephone pole interest me for a moment. Remnants of yard sale signs and notices about lost pets. There is a metal ‘A’ tacked there as well. I wonder what that is about.

Nature’s call is increasing in urgency at this point so I b-line it back to my home.

There has been a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of our house for over a year now. It feels like a slap in the face every time I see it. My friends and I have rented this house for 14 years now. In that time we have collectively paid over $200,000 in rent and put thousands of hours of sweat equity into keeping the place together. Someday very soon though, some rich dude from the suburbs who inherited this land will make over a million dollars by forcing us out of our home so that some developer can make a buck knocking down our house to put up ugly condos or yet another corporate retail establishment.

It makes me sad to know this space will be gone soon but the place will live on in memories and reminiscences with the old friends who made it what it is.

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Place 1: A bench looking out across Lake Ella. It’s a familiar location, though I am not sure I have sat on this particular bench before.

People are already out and about, taking in the nice weather before the southern summer sets in and makes everyone miserable. Couples and friends enjoy each other’s company, loners ponder in their loneliness.

Place 2: A nice older brick building.

It used to be an armory I think. There are gas street lanterns and I never noticed that they are on during the day.

Aesthetically I like them at night. This daytime burn though has me wondering about efficiency and the waste of resources. I’d take a little waste to avoid the fluorescent nightmare of standard streetlights I guess.

Place 3: An intersection, 10th and Green. Not much to see here. The school is across the way, all is quiet today.

The rusted staples and nails protruding from a telephone pole interest me for a moment. Remnants of yard sale signs and notices about lost pets. There is a metal ‘A’ tacked there as well. I wonder what that is about.

Participant 2: R. Calabrese - Tallahassee, FL

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Pilot Study: Participant 3 Participant: Ian Michael Dudley Graduate Student Location: New Haven, Connecticut (@ Chapel & York) Time: 9:27am - 9:45am (18 minutes) Tools: iPhone 6, This Must Be the Place App Personal Reflection: As an avid walker, I’ve grown fond of–if not dependent upon–the spontaneous pleasures of an aimless stroll. On any given day, a walk may inspire my creativity, humble my ego, rejuvenate my soul, or broaden my perspective. The health benefits aren’t bad either.

Although my routes are rarely mapped, I usually have a destination in mind. However, sometimes my dependence upon destinations concerns me. For this reason, I found Lost in Place to be incredibly refreshing. Each time I was told that “this must be the place,” I would stop, look, and listen. I would try hard to feel it all, to open all of my borders. I looked long into a vacant security booth. I was charmed by an untouched tissue box.

I probed the root-caves of a tree that had outgrown its plot of sidewalk. Most importantly, I reexamined my personal definition of “interesting.” Walking without a destination (without expectation) felt like walking with the world rather than through it. When I was told to look, I looked, and I uncovered wonder in the overlooked and the underturned.

I would recommend this exercise to anyone, for its ability to strengthen the multifaceted skill of observation. When I actively look, listen, and investigate, I begin to recognize and appreciate the care and intention of the individuals who compose and construct the environment through which I wander.

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Place 1: An unnamed eighteenthcentury alley that cuts through the center of Yale.

It was quiet save for the chirping birdies. I dingdong-ditched the masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house.

Place 2: The corner of Elm and York. Traffic was buzzing. A couple students waited for the bus. A magnificent tree was showing off its roots.

Place 3: An empty security booth on Crown & York. The emptiness was unnerving.

The office chair swiveled slightly as if someone had left in a hurry. The sun was bouncing off a glass building, so the lighting had a cinematic quality.

Participant 3: I. Dudley - New Haven, CT

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Pilot Study: Participant 4 Participant: Brandon Basino Communications Coordinator at Mississippi State University and State Council Member for the Humane Society Location: Starkville, Mississippi (Historic Greensboro Neighborhood & Old Main District) Time: 5:40am - 6:50pm (1 hour 10 minutes) Tools: iPhone 6, This Must Be the Place App Personal Reflection: The This Must Be The Place app led me on an hour-long, exploratory and roundabout walk through a neighborhood I thought I knew well, my neighborhood. Although new to the area, I have spent a considerable amount of time wandering, seeking and mapping out points-of-interest but had mainly done so indirectly as part of a commute to a specific destination.

The app led me to a few of my favorite spots, helped me to further understand the geographical space, and aided in my discovery of new quirks and curiosities. Overall, it served as a great amendment to my own, more guided and concerted, efforts and reinforced the value of simply wandering, becoming lost in place.

My dog also enjoyed the randomness of this particular walk which afforded her many new scents and (probably) a sense of our woodland walks which are nearly always unguided and unplanned. The beauty of our arbitrary hikes in nature is primarily the outcome: discovering new wonders in a place not unfamiliar yet not entirely known. This Must Be The Place facilitated that experience in an urban environment and allowed me to further appreciate details specific to my neighborhood while experiencing some of the freedoms I almost exclusively associate with rural tracts.

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Sometimes I let my dog determine the route, or Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll go for a drive and let the most convenient action at intersections guide me, but I preferred this new experience because it incorporated multiple senses. I could see smell and touch being incorporated into future â&#x20AC;&#x153;Where to now?â&#x20AC;? directives.

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Place 1: The water tower looms large beyond the fence of my backyard and my dog and I frequently enjoy the openness of the lot and slow deterioration of the abandoned house at the front of the lot. This was the tallest place I could see and also the tallest structure in town.

Place 2: I walk a different section of tracks on the edge of town—they provide a link between creeks and ponds scattered throughout farmland—and although I’d driven under the RR bridge, I couldn’t place its location relative to anything but the road it passes over.

Place 3: The abandoned shop has been a favored curiosity of mine since before moving into town. It showed up on this particular route out of pleasant coincidence. I looked into buying it once, but it is not structurally sound and the owner is holding out for a spike in real estate prices.

Participant 4: B. Basino - Starkville, MI

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Pilot Study: Participant 5 Participant: Matthew Discher Sawyer Film Student Location: Tucson, Arizona (Menlo Park) Time: 11:17am - 11:55pm (38 minutes) Tools: iPhone 4, This Must Be the Place App Personal Reflection: I found this experience to be profoundly enlightening in a spatial sense. Enlightening in a way I most certainly did not – which arguably may be the point – see coming. I used this experiment with space and the structure that populates it as a way to test my understanding of my neighborhood.

As well as jointly that of the experiment’s potential validity as a methodology of the project’s notion of a conscious wandering through prescribed terrain.

What I found was indeed three objects I have not scene before – one of which lays on a route I walk semi – frequently. Beyond the three objects however, I realized this experiment required within itself a certain level of mental presence (despite the configured act of getting one to wander). In this experience, I felt a desire to be more aware of what was around me.

There was an implicit notion seemingly embedded in the fabric of this construction – which to me communicated itself as an intent maybe to pay more attention to the nuances that populate the world we walk in. I found in my neighborhood there was a reoccurring almost decaying aesthetic that had a startling beauty to it – that seemed from an outsider’s perspective to be reproduced (intentionally or not) by a variety of my fellow neighbors. The undeclared reality of this realization made this thought all the more sexy to me.

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Place 1: A leaning mailbox. I found this first on my journey. This teetering mail box speaks to the aforementioned idea I had with regards to the reoccurring aesthetics of decay in my neighborhood.

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Place 2: A lonesome Wooden basketball hoop in an empty gravel lot. This was the second wonder I came upon. It was on the corner of two different streets fenced in by some old chain link fence. As the picture shows the court was made of dirt and gravel!

Place 3: A funky memorial of sorts made of rock.

Participant 5: M. Sawyer - Tucson, AZ

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Summary I did not know what to expect when I first started receiving the results from participants in the pilot study. I was fortunate enough to cover a vast array of urban conditions as well as different regions of the United States - from the metropolitan streets of central Los Angeles to the quiet train tracks of rural Mississippi. Durations and distances covered by participants varied as well. Some participants incorporated the activity into their daily routine, an amendment to walking the dog for example, while others used it as a special excuse to just get out and wander. Everyone made new experiences, and better yet recorded them, and processed them, and shared them. This is what I believe to be at the heart of placemaking. The intersubjectivity of the landscape. We all experience our surroundings on a very personal level that is unique and can be known intimately only to us, but upon that realization we become innately aware of its shared quality. If I have experiences and places I hold dear in my neighborhood, then so must my neighbors. This is what allows us to care about our environment. Topophilia. The love of place.

When I first became infatuated with place, I fetishized the concept as the ultimate endowment that can be bestowed upon space. The pilot study helped clarify that this is not always the case, beauty and wonder can be found just as readily in the subtle and brief interactions we have with our landscape. Placemaking as an act is the real wonderful thing about place. Place is experience, remembered or embodied in space. It is a result of an action, an artifact. The action is the magical part. If this project was conceived to create public places, I think the next logical step would be to concentrate on making public placemakers. Maybe that was the point all along, but now it seems easy to say we need more placemakers!

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Conclusion

A small hungry child, told to grind rice, instead gazes at the moon.

- Basho

As of its publishing, this book presents the completed materials representing my masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s report Lost In Place, it does not however indicate that my involvement with this project is anywhere close to over. It is hard to gauge whether a project of this nature is significant or successful, but I find satisfaction in knowing that the pursuit of answers for the many questions that this project seeks to answer has resulted in only more questions, better questions. What I have learned about the design process is thus; a designer has a question and answers that question, not because they are so talented or skilled, but because that initial question was rather simple. Instead of stopping there and rejoicing in the solution, a new question usurps the initial question. This second coming requires some research, thought, and a walk around the block or two, kicking rocks, before the answer becomes clear. Again, not so much a celebratory feat, for this question too was only marginally more challenging than the first. With each answer a new question. A final product is only the result of time or resource constraint, an artifact of a market economy. This is fine.

As a designer, whatever that means, I try to address for this lack of closure by designing a product that does not have closure. Instead of designing a high end residential backyard complete with patio and pool, I just designed the diving board. This is intentional, or strategic, whatever is more appropriate for the occasion.

My original curiosities about placemaking and the role of landscape architecture in creating places has been appeased. Users make places. Landscape architects contemplate how users interact with their landscape. Landscape architecture, in my opinion, therefore bears some responsibility or at the least is afforded the ability to help users interact with their landscape. Lost In Place does this. It is a simple and modest intervention, but it is effective in achieving its rather simple and modest goal of encouraging placemaking as an everyday act. It is a start. The project now exists and will hopefully grow or better yet spurn new projects that take public placemaking to new levels.

Get lost ;)

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Conclusion

Works Cited

Coverley, M. (2010). Psychogeography. Harpenden: Pocket Essentials.

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Image Citations: All photographs in the book were taken by Erik Schmahl unless noted below.* *Photographs in the Pilot Study Chapter were taken by Pilot Study participants.

Pg. 45 O’Rourke, K. (2016). Walking and mapping. Cambridge, MA: Mit Press. [Page 2] Pg. 46 http://www.mappingyourmanor.com http://www.mappingyourmanor.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ LHarrison02-65©DaisyHutchison.jpg http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/0/23921/4218361/Mapping_2.jpg Pg. 47 http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_6012.jpeg http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P7101799.jpg http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P7101800.jpg http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P7101808.jpg http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P7101809.jpg http://unionpress.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/P71018051-620x465.jpg Pg. 48 http://typicalculture.com/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/ miranda_mcdonald_05.jpg http://welcomeleeds.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Trahan-Front-Wallride.jpg Pg. 49 https://d3mo08i005h0zn.cloudfront.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ 8-geocaches-1-picture.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Geocaching.svg/ 800px-Geocaching.svg.png, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Munzee.jpg/ 1280px-Munzee.jpg?1462396940137 https://www.geocaching.com/play/Content/images/preview-lg.jpg Pg. 50 https://analopesblender.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/atelier-populaire-1968-vii1.jpg https://analopesblender.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/atelier-populaire-1968-viii4.jpg http://www.formes-vives.org/histoire/public/Mai-68/AtelierPopulaire-Mai68_2.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q3WchjSpKKU/maxresdefault.jpg http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma31vvkT7O1r44q44o3_1280.jpg Pg. 51 http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uMqAE1PNV98/U4qVcLiZY9I/AAAAAAAAIFA/cb20D80NFW4/ s1600/SSCselection.jpg http://www.lippincott.com/cache/made/cc190b03fd288467/ LonelyPlanet_spines_959_487_90_c1.jpg Pg. 113 Image by Ian Dudley

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Suggested Reading List & Links: What happens When nothing Happens by Rakan Budeiri [p. 47] http://unionpress.cc/?page_id=320 Mapping Your Manor by Lucy Harrison [p. 46] http://www.mappingyourmanor.com Bachelard, G. (1958). The Poetics of Space Certeau, M. D. (2013). The Practice of Everyday Life Debord, G. (1967) Society of the Spectacle

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about the author Erik Schmahl was born in Key West, Fl in 1986. He studied fine art and geography before getting a degree in Environmental Studies from Florida State University in 2009. After working on a backcountry trail crew in the Califronia wilderness he became interested in the field of landscape architecutre and eventually pursued a Master of Landscape Architecture degree at the University of Arizona. Erik enjoys surfing weird waves and getting lost in strange places.