developing ideas

After doing my locational drawings, we had a lecture on 'Cities and Film' which had some interesting points that I think I want to look into further. The lecture focused a lot on the city's relationship with the individual and the effect it has on people, almost looking at the city and architecture as a living thing, which I really like the idea of. 

There was a snippet from a documentary about shopping centres and how they have very bright lights, complicated layouts, loud music and lots of advertising purposely to confuse and frustrate people so they keep finding themselves in more shops and buy more out of stress, which I found really interesting - using architecture to manipulate people. 

I think looking at how people are effected by certain architecture or environmental spaces could be an interesting topic as it is something we all experience, and a lot of the time without realising it. 

I did a quick bit of research into this idea and found that there are 2 ways in which the built environment can regulate behaviour:

- architectures of control which physically prevent or direct a certain type of behaviour (gates, fencing, pathways, narrow streets)

- designs that regulate our behaviour through the psychological effects surrounding the built environment (libraries + galleries where everyone knows to act quiet and reserved)

I think I am more interested in the psychological effects of architecture. Some examples I found were:

- when building schools, windows are often placed high up to prevent students from being distracted by things happening outside

- the 'Panopticon', a round prison which was designed to have the watch tower high up in the middle with all the cells surrounding it so that the watchmen can see into every cell by just walking around the watch tower while the inmates can't see into the tower. It creates quite a 'God-like' system that puts the watchmen much more in control.

So to take this further I thought I could take photos and draw in places like the Trinity shopping centre, the market, churches, the oriental supermarket to be able to depict the different architecture but also find a way to communicate the atmosphere I feel when being inside these environments or what I can see form other people around me.