Urban form -- Assignment 4

  Project Statement: urban space: synthesis: a network

1.     Read both sector plans – Martineztown and Sawmill.

2.     Pick a neighborhood to focus on

3.     Visit your neighborhood and make notes on:
• spatial character – scale of housing, surrounding uses, canopy if any
• zoning – how far are dwellings set back from streets? Are there walls at the street edge?

• cultural character –what kind of cultural symbols are available?
• form – how does the street grid/non-grid “draw” on the landscape? Are there natural features you can discern?
•any other aspects you find engaging about the neighborhood.  Dogs you have met, people you spoke with, etc.

4.     Present your experiential findings along with what you know of history of site – This presentation should help us feel what you understand about the neighborhood.  You will need at least one drawing with notations.  If you want the neighborhood to feel old, try using a technique that communicates that – pen and ink?  If you want the neighborhood to feel hip and groovy, use a technique that communicates that – hip-hop?

5.     create a piece or a proposal, fleshed out with drawings, plans, model and text, developing a visual/experiential system that ties together an urban space

(by which I mean, think of an art work, not as an object, but as a system – is it sound, is it light, is it markers or monuments, is it a theoretical approach?

6.     Due Last day of class: May 4 – One model, one example of your intervention, one plan to scale of how the system works across the neighborhood

7.     Please take advantage of class work time to bring in this project in its various stages and have commentary from all of us.