COLLECTHIVE PRIMARY RESEARCH
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
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TEXTURE RESEARCH COLLECTHIVE RESEARCH DESCRIPTION/GOALS RELEVANT LITERATURE
ETHNOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION
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THE MEANING OF TEXTURE TEXTURE CUBES WALKS OF NOTICING IF TEXTURES COULD TALK SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK REFLECTION
VISUAL AND MAPPING
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DESCRIPTION TEXTURE AND EMOTION 10 DAYS/10 WALKS REFLECTION
PROBE KITS
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DESCRIPTION GRAPHICS PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK SKETCHES 3
Our cities and spaces are embodied with a seemingly unlimited amount of textures that enable our experiences. These textures and surfaces hold meaning and make up the “skin� of our world. The combination of textures and materials in each city create the atmosphere and attribute to the overall experience.
What better way to remember a city, than to have your own little piece of its environment and texture?
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TEXTURE RESEARCH COLLECTHIVE RESEARCH DESCRIPTION/GOALS RELEVANT LITERATURE
DESCRIPTION COLLECTHIVE
ll t i e
collectHive co ec H v
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- COLLECTABLE KINETIC ART PIECE FOR THE HOME - CONCEPT CollectHive is a collectable set of kinetic artifacts that have a direct connection into the city of their origin. The individual products are constructed of a combination of textures and materials, from its city, to emphasis the overall aesthetic and feel of the environment, as a reminder of the moments that the traveler spent there. Each CollectHive works as a kinetic piece that is always in constant movement, as it draws upon live stream weather data from the its place of origin. The product is a wall-mounted, module hexagon, to allow for the collection to grow and assemble nicely together. As the traveler visits more cities, more CollectHive products are gathered and will then be added to the CollectHive wall of the traveler’s home CollectHive’s purpose is to create a home-based installation that works as a “portal” to memories and moments that were spent all around the world by keeping a never-ending connection to these cities.
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RESEARCH DESCRIPTION COLLECTHIVE
“A single texture is rarely employed in building. The variety of materials and treatments typically produces a complex of textures that must be composed and harmonized like the forms and spaces of architecture into a consistent expressive whole.”
Our built environments are embodied with a seemingly unlimited amount of textures that enable our experiences. These textures and surfaces hold meaning and have the ability to emotionally affect people, both unconsciously and consciously. They make up the “skin” of our world and allow us to navigate our environment. The combination of textures in our urban spaces, as a whole, create the atmosphere and setting of our lives. In order to create coherent structures and meaningful environments, textures must cohesively come together and be carefully constructed.
THE FOLLOWING RESEARCH WAS CONDUCTED TO BETTER UNDERSTAND PEOPLE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH TEXTURES IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
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RESEARCHING TEXTURE ASKING THE QUESTIONS WHY ARE TEXTURES IMPORTANT? HOW DO TEXTURES AND MATERIALS DEFINE A CITY? HOW CAN PEOPLE MAKE AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO MATERIALS AND TEXTURES?
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RELEVANT LITERATURE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED & INFORMED
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ETHNOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION
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THE MEANING OF TEXTURE TEXTURE CUBES WALKS OF NOTICING IF TEXTURES COULD TALK SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK REFLECTION
DESCRIPTION ETHNOGRAPHIC
- CONTEXT I started by exploring how textures define the aesthetic of a city, differ from environment to environment, and affect the people experiencing them. From there, I moved on to what textures people combine together, and then on to what textures they would change. I asked family, friends, and people that I have never met before, taxi drivers, coffee shop workers, really anybody that was willing to have a discussion about the built environment and textures.
- METHOD - Documenting peoples responses and conversations that I have had. - Taking photographs relevant to these conversations
- AIMS By conducting this ethnographic research, I am aiming to gain a better understanding of how people interact with textures, define the word “texture�, react emotionally to them, and perceive textures in their environments.
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- TASKS CONDUCTED I USED A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT WAYS TO CONDUCT ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH THEY INCLUDE: - Asking people the simple question “What does texture mean to you?” - Asking people to select from a group of textures to make a cube and explain why - Going on walks with people to spark a conversation about what texture they notice most - Adding stickers to textures to spark conversation and see how people react - Creating a social media presence on Instagram to start a conversation
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- WHAT DOES TEXTURE MEAN TO YOU? INTRODUCTION: To collect the data, I started by asking friends and people of Edinburgh a simple question: “What does texture mean to you?” The variety of answers was amazing and gave immense insight into the personality and profession of the person. It was widely understood that textures can be both tactile and visual, but answers to this question explored this concept deeper. The majority of the answers fall under the following categories: Food/taste Wearable Emotional connection Materiality/surfaces Representational/Visual Sound
FOOD/TASTE
Many people’s first thoughts about texture went directly to food. They explained the food with an unpleasant texture made the meal more unappealing, regardless of the taste. A women stated: “Food that is slimmy disgusts me, I can not even look at it without my stomach feeling upset. It may very well taste amazing, but I cannot image getting over that feeling and look.”
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WEARABLE
People commented about texture in clothes and how it made them feel and how it felt on their skin. “When I shop it is texture is the very first thing I look at in clothing and all items I am shopping for, if the texture is not appealing no matter what the item looks like I will not even pick it up.” EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
Texture seemed to be very important when it came to emotional connection. People spoke about textures in their home, textures that they sleep with and textures that remind them of somebody. A young girl told me: “Texture is my love for my blankets. Everything about them, they are perfect.”
The images above are textures that a women sent to me, from around her house, that she loves because it makes her feel at home. “For me, texture is about feeling comfortable where I am. My favorite textures are my plants, my decorations, the fabric on my pillows and couch.”
This was not commonly talked about, but one women stated the following, which I thought was very interesting: ” hate plastic! Plastic bags especially. Thinking about the damage they cause environmentally makes me sad, and the whole process of how we got to producing so much of it that it’s caused this level of damage to the earth infuriates me. So I avoid that texture whenever possible!”
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MATERIALITY/ SURFACE
Similar to myself, there were people that noticed the textures of surfaces and materials around them before anything else. One man explained: “When I think about texture, images don’t come to my mind right away, instead I instinctively begin to look around and notice all of the millions of textures around me.” Another women, with a background in interior design, spoke to how materials work together in a space: “Textures make up the materials of a space and the materials, along with the architecture make up the space; the space that people experience as their world.”
REPRESENTATIONAL/VISUAL
A graphic design and illustrator commented in detail about how he uses texture: “Digital textures like noise and the adding of more general faded textures is a pretty common thing for me when designing interfaces at work. Concept artists regularly input textures they took photos of in the world and apply them with some brushes and blurs to make a totally different object, brought about primarily because the viewer can believe the object, while being a fantasy element, to being more real simply because it does such a good job of mimicking a real world texture like metal or stone, etc. ” An artist also explained her love for texture in painting to me: “I experimented a lot using texture to create dimension vs pattern. I remember choosing my objects based more on texture than anything else. It made the composition so much more interesting.” There are also hatched textures that are made to represent something, like wood or stone, etc. Most commonly used in architecture. Some of my peers from my undergrad commented on this before anything else.
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SOUND
Multiple people told me how the hated the sound of certain textures, which I though was fascinating, because it was not something that I has considered before. “Not only do I hate the touch of cotton balls, and it may sound crazy, but I absolutely hate the sound of it being ripped apart.” “The sound of styrofoam kills me. I hate it. I don’t even want to talk about it.”
- REFLECTION Throughout the process of observing and conversing about texture, I learned a lot about differently one word can mean to people. A commonality that I found was that people with art/design backgrounds were more likely to comment on visual and surface texture, whereas other people had multiple different answers. This feed back and information has aided me in understanding what people think of first when thinking of texture.
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- CREATE A TEXTURE CUBE In this ethnographic based research method, I asked people to choose 4 puzzle pieces and lay them out on the table. I then asked them a couple of questions about their choices: - Why did you pick these pieces? - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? I then let them keep all of the pieces and invited them to assemble the cube themselves. The idea of a “cube of textures” is meant to represent how textures combined represent something different than a texture by itself. The images below reflect my first attempts at creating this “game.”
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CUBE 1 - Why did you pick these pieces? Because they seemed the most interesting to me. - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? I thought about them as a composition because it is a cube, after all. So if they didn’t look good together, the whole thing would suck.
CUBE 2 - Why did you pick these pieces? Because I like that it is half color and half black and white. I think that it makes a nice mix. I also like that one of them is raised off the board. - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? As a composition.
CUBE 3 - Why did you pick these pieces? I like that they are neutral and have a handcrafted look to them. I picked the ones were unique to me. - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? Really both I guess. I mean you need them to look good together, but that you also have to like them as an individual part.
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CUBE 4 - Why did you pick these pieces? Because they worked well together - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? Together.
CUBE 5 - Why did you pick these pieces? They seemed cool. I am not really sure. I really like the “hello, hi.� one. I picked that one because I think it is cute and funny. - Do you think that you thought more about the individual piece or how they would go together as a group? I am not sure.
- REFLECTION By having these conversations and seeing which pieces people chose to put together and why, I was able to gain a better insight into whether or not people tend to see individual textures or as textures within their surroundings. In order to establish for quantitative data, I would need to conduct more of these and ask more in depth questions.
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- WALKS OF NOTICING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT I went on walks with people to spark a conversation about what textures or surfaces that they notice most in the built environment and why. It was very informal, but interesting. Here are some quotes from the people with an image taken during the walks.
“I always notice the new textures more than anything else. They make me appreciate the old textures more I think. I like to see the old and new together as well. Like here, on Princes Street, is a great example.”
“I think that textures give us an insight into the building. When I am walking to work, I notice textures the most whenever they seem out of place in context to the building.”
“I notice color, I think, more than texture. Like here on this bridge, these textures would nothing if they were not painted. Nothing at all.”
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“I think I notice the texture of plants and nature more than anything else. I used to have a garden as a young girl and I think in some way the texture of plants reminds me of those days.”
“I notice windows a lot. I guess not really the different texture of windows, but more the windows themselves. Also the arrangement of the windows. Like this building here (pictured), could you imagine if they decided to not organize the windows like that?”
“I seem to notice the facades of the buildings more than anything else. I mean I am sure most people notice this, but I just love seeing the way they all flow together.”
“I like looking for where leaves and petals fall for some reason. I know that there are so many but it makes like a piece of art where they fall. I don’t know. I just like it.”
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- IF TEXTURES COULD TALK - METHOD “If textures could talk...� This was a intervention-like attempt at start a conversation with people about noticing their world. I applied stickers to elements of the built environment walls, ground, etc. and then watched to see if anybody took notice of them. It was difficult to tell if people were taking notice or not, so I started to ask people if they saw the words and asked them what they thought it meant.
- FEEDBACK The feedback that I received was very minimal. Some people stopped and chatted because they thought that it was an interesting thing that I was trying to do, but did not have much to say. Some people also thought that it was a form of vandalizing and I received some very negative feedback about that, even though the stickers were temporary.
- REFLECTION This method did not end up working very well because it was difficult to understand what people noticed about it and why. I asked some people questions about if they noticed the works and did not get very many answers, as most people were seemly in a rush.
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- SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK I used Instagram as a way to gain more feedback from people, and to keep a collection of the questions and thoughts that I have regarding the subject. I used this platform not only to gain insight from others, but also to help myself understand the aim and goal of my project. Below are a couple of posts from the feed. I think that this is a great method to use in conducting research, but it takes time to build a following and make connections with people. I plan to continue posting to this profile throughout the rest of my research and major project to gain feedback and see what other people on the Internet think.
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VISUAL AND MAPPING
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DESCRIPTION TEXTURE AND EMOTION 10 DAYS/10 WALKS REFLECTION
DESCRIPTION VISUAL & MAPPING
- PROCESS - Photographing the details and textures that I noticed - Writing down the emotions that I felt on that day - Reflecting upon the feeling of embodiment - Making a visual collage to represent my walks
- METHOD Visual research with mapping research was a good way for me to understand my own relationship with textures and the built environment before going on to better understand other people’s thoughts and relationship with them. This exercise was very useful in collecting daily data and observing correlations.
- AIMS My aims for this mapping and visual research method were to explore the relationship between the conscious awareness of our built environment, emotions, and what textures and details stood out to people the most. I wanted to understand why people choose to notice some parts of the textures and surfaces in their daily lives and ignore others. I questioned if there is a connection between the emotional mentality of the day and what people choose to be aware of. This was an exercise that I started with myself and continued for 10 days, so I was able to compare and contrast, and see if the correlation between mood and textures of my life.
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- MAPPING OF A DAILY WALK 10 DAILY WALKS PHOTOGRAPHED AND COLLAGED - Noticing the textures, in the built environment in relation to the day - Emotional mentality of the day (during the walk) - Psychogeography - Emotions in relation to the textures that were surrounding me - Which parts of the environment that I was aware consciously made aware of - Feeling of embodiment in my surroundings - Observing others during their walks, making notice their interaction with the built world
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- DAY 1 EMOTIONS: Feeling neutral to life, not too happy and not too sad. Realizing that the duller colors of Edinburgh actually make me happy in a weird way. It makes me appreciate the little pops of color even more. THOUGHTS: I keep wondering and noticing doors. Why do people paint their doors bright colors? Is it to decipher between theirs and others when giving directions? Is it to show a sense of personality and identity? Is it to add brightness to the otherwise dull and neutral colored Edinburgh? Or is it something that maybe they themselves do not even notice? REFLECTION: This exercise caused me to feel more embodied in my urban environment. I looked at things that I haven’t before and truly explored how they made me feel. EXPLANATION OF MAP The first mapping of my daily walk from home to Napier campus. The images are abstractions of textures and surfaces that I noticed on this particular day, accompanied by the and feelings of my day. I started this to understand the coordination between mood, feelings, and consciousness of my environment. The reason that I choose to abstract the images into patterns was to represent humans’ need to find pattern in their world. It was a way of adding a different and stimulating visual to images that could be considered overlooked or general and non-stimulating For the following days, I decided to only show the images in a collage to show the true essence of the materials and textures that I was noticing.
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- DAY 2 EMOTIONS: Happy, optimistic, and inspired THOUGHTS: The sky was so clear, and it was so sunny out today. It changed everything, way more than I ever realized before. The buildings looked different, happier almost. It is crazy how something that we are so used to having, sunlight, can play such a huge role in our built environments, mood, and the textures. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 3 EMOTIONS: Annoyed and frustrated THOUGHTS: Thinking about the design of materials that are so common in our lives, but that we ignore. Once you start noticing everything that could be designed better, but isn’t, you start to get really annoyed. This is what I want to change. I want to bring awareness to the importance of the materials and textures that we bring into our lives. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 4 EMOTIONS: Sad and confused. Stressed out and not sure why. Maybe it is what I am surrounding myself with.. THOUGHTS: I find myself staring at the ground a lot when I walk. I am not sure why this is but when you stare at the ground a lot, it is crazy how much information is there. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 5 EMOTIONS: Inspired and motivated to be creative THOUGHTS: Questioning the relationship between the purposely beautiful designs and the abstractions that were never planned, but somehow become something beautiful in itself. The impact of humans and the elements on our textures is something that is very fascinating. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 6 EMOTIONS: Fascinated by nature and the natural elements. Appreciating the earth for what it is THOUGHTS: The relationship between color and pattern is so important. While we can feel the textures in our built environment, they would not have near as much meaning if they did not have color the elements of wear, and the materiality that they were constructed with. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 7 EMOTIONS: Stressed out, rushed, a bit of frantic and anxious. THOUGHTS: I am noticing more and more grays, with just pops of certain colors. Today I noticed a lot of teal. I wonder if there is some sort of symbolism in that? Or am I just trying to make my environment coordinated to my liking? SKETCHES:
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- DAY 8 EMOTIONS: Happy, full of energy and life. Ready to take on the day with a positive attitude. THOUGHTS: Understanding how textures hold history and meaning and how the same texture can be so completely different in five years depending on the place that it is located, the way that people use it, the weather, and so many other factors. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 9 EMOTIONS: Observant, curious, and fascinated THOUGHTS: I am becoming obsessed with the meeting points of materials and how they compare, contrast, and compliment the textures that surround them. Everything is only as beautiful as the context that it is placed within and the surroundings that affect it. SKETCHES:
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- DAY 10 EMOTIONS: Sad, annoyed, stressed, and also somewhat calm THOUGHTS: Today I am wanted to notice the dull, the grays, the textures that lack color, and unfriendly textures. I think this is directly correlated with my mood. It is raining out today and I fell the impact of the rain in the city. Everything is kind of sad, including myself. SKETCHES:
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- CONCLUSION Using mapping and visual research as a way to quantify and organize my data was a very useful way to understand the patterns in my daily walks and the in how different of texture that I noticed on the same walk to class.
- FINDINGS - My mood and the textures that I noticed seemed to correlate as a composition - The more days that pasted, I started to notice particular things that made sort of patters, like a color or surface, or quality.
- REFLECTION I plan to start asking other people to do a similar exercise for five days or so. This will allow for me to have a better collection of relationship between emotion, mood, textures, and the built environment. This was a very useful exercise for me.. It gave me a lot of insight into my own relationship with my world. I started to notice things that I never have before and feel in general more embodied in my urban environment.
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PROBE KITS
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DESCRIPTION GRAPHICS PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK SKETCHES 59
DESCRIPTION PROBE KIT
- METHOD I tried to think of a probe kit that would be both fun and interesting, but also allow for a bit of reflection on textures and the built environment. I also wanted to have a conversation with the people that partook in the probe to better understand their thoughts on textures.
- AIMS My aims for these probes, as a design research method, were to see the relationship between texture and emotions. I asked people to assemble three cubes, one that represents the feel “happy,” one that represents “anxious,” and one that represents “calm.” They were given a large variety of printed textures to chose from and asked to assemble the cubes. The purpose of the probe was to inspire them to think about how textures and the built environment play a role in their emotions, and embodiment in their world. I wanted to get them thinking about textures and emotions and then have a conversation with them after to gain a better insight.
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- ITEMS IN PROBE KIT - Two cards with information, instructions, and questions to answer - Pieces to make 3 cubes - Small pieces of printed textures to assemble to the cubes - Pen to fill out information - String to assemble the cubes
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- GRAPHICS/REQUESTS-
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- PARTICIPANT 1 CONVERSATION/THOUGHTS: I thought that this exercise was very interesting and fun. I enjoyed assembling the cube and seeing the end results. It is kind of crazy when you think about how each and everyone of us has textures and colors and patterns that make them happy, sad, whatever. I would be interested to see if other people’s cubes were similar to mine.”
CALM
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HAPPY
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- PARTICIPANT 2 CONVERSATION/THOUGHTS: - no comments -
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- PARTICIPANT 3CONVERSATION/THOUGHTS: “I think that textures are such an important part of our lives. It is pretty weird how I do not notice them very much though.. after doing this probe it is odd, but I have really started to notice a lot more textures. It is actually pretty crazy how all of these textures come together to create the areas that we live in.”
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- PARTICIPANT 4 CONVERSATION/THOUGHTS: “I really liked the you included a negative emotion as well because the bad textures and patterns and colors are what I notice most whenever I am out. I really should start appreciating the spaces that make me happy though to, I guess.”
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SKETCHES
RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT
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collectHive co ec H v
Jenna Endres MA Interaction Design Major Project 2018