In order to get to grips with a large site for a new project third year interior architecture students undertook some ‘deep mapping’ activities.
Working in teams, students undertook 5 of the following activities on the valley gardens site to enable a ‘reading’ of its current inhabitation.
They recorded / documented / communicated / expressed their findings each day using creative and ‘diverse’ media methods e.g stop-frame, tweet, GIF, tilt shift, GIS, Wiki-map, sketch, VINE, morfo, interview, diorama, mapping, surveying, collecting objects, classifying / identifying and counting objects / people / activities. You can see examples of the students work on tumblr here.
From this research students invented and played a game to further enhance their understanding of the site. These included versions of ‘wide games’ often played by the Scouts and Guides, and more sophisticated outside activities such as Geocaching or urban golf. Their games had to be clearly described with written rules and illustrations so the rules could be passed on to another group. Each group played their own game and another randomly chosen from another group.
Their findings will help to inform their design work for the rest of the term.