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VKK 757: Archiving UP's Piazza

Molly Question 4

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Louise
“It is through the daily smelling, touching, seeing, hearing and tasting that places become known to us, familiar.”

~ Monica Montserrat Degen and Gillian Rose (2012:3276)

1.         Introduction

On Tuesday 10 October 2017, students from the University of Pretoria’s Visual Arts department embarked on a sensory exploration of the Piazza, a communal space, central to student life on campus. Each participant engaged with the space as a flâneur, Baudelaire’s urban stroller (Borer 2013:968), moving across the space and recording the individual multi-sensorial embodiment via photographic and voice recording. Paul Rodaway (Borer 2013:977), suggests that walking is a primary way in which we touch and perceive a place. When moving on foot, one’s whole body comes into contact with the environment. Of the 11 participants in this walk, two confirmed that they were visiting the place for the first time. Nine participants indicated that the Piazza was a space they frequented during the first and second year of their undergraduate studies. Due to reasons such as location, convenience and personal preference regarding the amenities and ambience, most preferred alternative options on campus with some participants, such as Chloe, citing off-campus ATM facilities preferential to those offered by the Piazza.

2.         The Piazza – a sensory exploration

Historically, the Italian Piazza is described by Richard Fusch (1994:424) as “an opening in the city fabric that allows activity in various forms – walking, riding, driving, shopping, socialising, and playing.”. Likewise, the UP Piazza has been structured in a similar manner to provide indoor and outdoor facilities where students can purchase food, socialise, relax, fulfil a number of administrative tasks, but mainly to act as an ‘oasis’ in the centre of campus. The student centre can be accessed via multiple walkways situated on the periphery of the space. This structural phenomenon guides the flow of pedestrian traffic from the outside space into the student centre and food court. The majority of participants preferred to enter the building from these walkways as opposed to walking across the central open court area. Jane stated, “I walk around it, instead of through it.” This sentiment is echoed by Loretta who referred to the walkways as a type of ‘tunnel’, getting you to where you want to be, a means of avoiding the various activations that occur within the space from time to time. She stated, “I don’t want people to pick on me... I prefer not to be seen.” In a comparative study of Milton Keynes, Degen and Rose (2012:3277) found that participants displayed similar routinised patterns of walking. A participant in the Milton Keynes walk Susan observes “You find people walking in synch with each other, so if you want to get across it’s really hard.”
“I experience; therefore I am.” ~ George Simmel
In a sensory twist to the philosophical proposition put forward by René Descartes, George Simmel motivates our investigation of the experiential dimension of social life (Borer 2013:967). Simmel observed that within a city, individuals strive to protect themselves from sensory overload. Simmel views this notion as a necessary adaptation. This “protective organ” that has developed has had a profound effect on how individuals relate to each other, resulting in what Simmel refers to as a “blasé attitude”. When asked the question “Do you like this part of campus?”, JP replied with, “there is nothing good or bad”. According to Simmel this attitude is necessary for individual survival and to maintain social order (Borer 2013:967).

Vision is the predominant means by which we experience our life as “social life” (Krase cited by Borer 2013:970). It is the visual aspects of the space that provide us with clues to the interactions and activities that need to take place. Sight, however, cannot provide a full bodily engagement with a space and define the individual experience. When driving through an urban area for example, reliance on sight alone takes away from the experiential nuances provided by the other senses. In this respect a walk through, such as that conducted within the Piazza, provides one with a more comprehensive sense of place. Although the majority of the participants provided negative feedback regarding the ambience at the Piazza, it was the visual structural elements that received the most positive review. Chloe, Molly and Poppy liked the outside sections of grass which they described as “cooling”, “calming” and “relaxing”. The lines created by the brickwork lead the visitor to the central, circular area which acts as a podium, with a range of possibilities as pointed out by Calliope. On the inside of the student centre, architectural features such as the ceiling also received positive feedback from Poppy, Loretta and Louise, and the radial layout is deemed as the most striking feature by Ophelia. “Seeing” and “being seen” are also attached to a negative connotation of surveillance, and this influenced the manner in which the participants described their utilisation of the Piazza, choosing not to “linger” in the space. Adeline stated that she preferred not to walk through centre of the outdoor area as it felt as if everyone was looking at her.

It is only when the other senses are explored that alternative viewpoints on both the interior and exterior of the Piazza are provided. In terms of the sound experience, the inside of the student centre and food court are described by many as loud, noisy and chaotic however visitors seem to spend time both inside and outside working or socialising. Noticeably the “protective organ” as posited by Simmel, is deployed in the form of personal music players. This is a strategy that enables the visitor to retreat to a privatised world by “tuning out” or “sounding out” (Borer 2013:972). The keynote sounds within the food court consist of voices, laughter, movement of cutlery and crockery. The constant noise is punctuated by soundmarks, such as the calling out of orders, from the many fast food outlets available.

The sense of smell and odour featured predominantly as an influencer in the manner in which the space is used. In general, participants preferred the grassy area outdoors, to the inside of the student centre due to the “overwhelming” odour of the cooking process, food and the cigarette smoke prevalent in the benched area adjacent to the building. Simmel (Borer 2013:972) views the sense of smell as a “disassociating” sense and results in the stigmatisation of certain practices such as smoking. This notion came to the fore during the subsequent photo elicitation in which Savanna mentioned that the area is associated with the “lazy people” who “smoke, play cards, chill and don’t go to class”. The sense of taste also featured as a means of division between those who frequented the food court at the Piazza and those who preferred to buy food elsewhere on campus. The notion of taste suggests a social class distinction whereby “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier” (Bourdieu cited by Borer 2013:975). Borer (2013:975) is of the opinion that our tastes are not individual but a result of socialisation and re-socialisation according to a particular context. Poppy claimed that when one compares the donuts, for example, to “other” donuts they are “not that appealing” and Savanna supported this opinion in her observation, “Now it sounds like I’m being a snob but I’d rather go to Tribeca or Aloha.”.
“There is no perception which is not full of memories.”
~ Henri Bergson
Memories can result in comparisons between specific aspects of two places. Judgements are made when comparing the sensory qualities of each (Degen & Rose 2012:3281). The majority of participants who frequented the Piazza, during the first and second year of their undergraduate studies, now preferred to make use of alternative facilities on campus due to what is perceived as an improved sensory experience to that which is offered by the Piazza. The two participants that visited the Piazza for the first time experienced the place somewhat differently. Louise commented on the positive aspects the Piazza had to offer, such as an opportunity to engage with other students and collaborate on projects in an informal manner. Chloe viewed the external central area as a “blank canvas”, an opportune area on which activations could occur, not as a place to be avoided as indicated by the other participants.

3.         Conclusion

The way in which we engage with a space on a sensory level is influenced to a large degree by our perceptual memory. This project provided significant evidence of this as the majority of participants provided similar feedback in terms of their sensory embodiment of the space. Memories associated with alternative facilities on campus served as a basis for comparison and categorising the Piazza as the loud, noisy and chaotic “other”. The process of photo documentation and elicitation provided first-hand and individual feedback regarding the multi-sensorial embodiment of this space. Besides the verbal feedback received during the elicitation session, the use of photography also provides other clues in terms of the participants’ individual engagement with the space. What is interesting is that few participants chose to frame areas with a close shot which suggests a disassociation from the space. However, the use of a camera encouraged participants to notice structural details that had gone unnoticed on prior visits such as the image of the surveillance camera captured by Molly and the ceiling detail captured by Louise. As the group of participants are quite homogenous in terms of culture, interests and age, the feedback was very similar in terms of the majority of sensory experiences. It would be interesting to repeat the process with a heterogenous group of randomly selected and willing participants on campus. The value of such a project on a larger scale, within an urban area, would be crucial in terms of the design and expansion considerations of urban planning that often places too much emphasis on the purely visual and aesthetic elements within a space and ignores the culturally diverse sensorial aspects.

4.         Bibliography

Borer, M.I. 2013. Being in the city: The sociology of urban experiences. Sociology Compass, 7(11):965-983.

Degen, M.M. & Rose, G. 2012. The sensory experiencing of urban design: The role of walking and perceptual memory. Urban Studies, 49(15):3271-3287.

Fusch, R. 1994. The piazza in Italian urban morphology. Geographical Review:424-438.
JP Multisensory experiences of Spaces

The experience people perceive of the spaces they inhabit is highly mediated by the design and interaction of these spaces. Degen and Rose in The sensory experience of urban design: the role of walking and perceptual memory (2012: 1) offers a justification of this avowal by stating that “experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a more-or-less direct effect of the design of the built environment”. The multisensory experience of spaces by individuals were clearly observed in the manner in which a group experienced the Piazza of the University of Pretoria. The interaction resulting from the experience hinted at the manners in which individuals mediate the space in mention and clearly ties to shared experiences (especially in participants that closely relate in milieu and background) through the considerations of the patterns that was perceived from the conversations. It also deserves mentioning that although there were reoccurring patterns, the individual experiences were not exactly alike and many of the participants experienced the space, again mediated through individual interactions.

The most perceivable patterns that were visible in this engagement was first and foremost filth. There were many discussions on how dirty certain parts of the Piazza was, specific reference was made to an area of benches where smokers gathered. The group was in agreement that this space heavily mediated their opinion of the space in a very negative fashion. In Chloe’s recording a contributor is quoted in saying “There is a disgusting smell of cigarette smoke mixed with food that will prevent me from eating there”. Another contributor in this recording mentions that the smell makes the whole place “feel dirty and disgusting”. In Jane’s recording the rhetoric is furthered regarding the corner when contributors to the discussion comments on the people occupying this space saying “the people there seems unwelcoming and engaged in their own groups” and “to me this seems like the slackers corner”. Although the comments in Jane’s recording are visually based there is an argument to be made that the contributors made use of multisensory modalities to draw these conclusions. The specific mention of the smell of smoke and food links to one of the three features neglected in most accounts of sensory urban experiences as outlined by Degen and Rose (2012: 4-5).

The specific area referred to here, being the multi-sensory modalities individuals make use of when experiencing urban spaces (the second feature (Degen and Rose 2012:5)).The contributors in this recording uses their multi-sensory experience of the dirty visual as well as bad smell to draw conclusions regarding the individuals that utilised the space, thus a mediation of contributors opinion of other individuals through the use and design of the space. There are many more of these occurrences that can be picked up from the patterns referring to the feeling of surveillance (as mentioned in the recordings of Calliope, Adaline and JP). In the discussion on surveillance a contributors states “I don’t walk through the middle of the Piazza because I feel that people are looking at me” another contributor stated that “people are looking by trying not to look” in the explanation of people sitting in the Piazza. The conversation of surveillance engages the topic of “the Importance of Walking” (Degen and Rose 2012: 12, 29) where the authors makes mention of the influence that the way of walking has on the experience of the areas, as well as the effect the experience of the areas had on the manner in which people walk. Another pattern was the reference to the movement in the piazza that featured in the recordings of JP and the images of Savanna, Poppy and Diversity.

Degen and Rose (2012: 7-9, 20) describes the opposing experiences that individuals reported when making mention of the same spaces. The same occurrence took place in the Piazza experience where individuals with less or no past interactions with this space like Calliope and Louise had experiences mediated with what they perceived from their visit, where the experience of individuals like Chloe was mediated more with their past experiences of the Piazza. Chloe shares an experience of her interaction when she stated “we sat on the grass to relax on study breaks or between classes in first year”. A notable element here is the memories that had an influence on the experience. Degen and Rose (2012: 19-22) substantiates the influence of memories on the experience of Bedford and Milton Keynes. This principle is observed within the Piazza experience where Chloe, through her positive memories of the space can be perceived to have a more neutral, even positive experience of the Piazza (this is clear when listening to the engagement where Chloe takes part as well as the images shared by her in many of the questions) compared to the more negative inclinations of Jane and specifically Calliope throughout the discussions.

The multi-sensory experience of a space is clearly apparent to thus far. The distinct engagement of the space with specific senses however still deserves mentioning. Although the space was engaged with a combination of senses, the discussions in particular through question 9’s photo elicitation discussions clearly brought forth that the group engaging with the Piazza experienced the space more with certain senses than others. Above clear notes the effect of vision through the consideration of “people looking at you” and mention is made of smell, from the cigarette smell to the “smell of tomato sauces” as described by one of the contributors of the photo elicitation discussions mediated the experience of the Piazza. Other senses than seeing was also significantly involved.

The sense of taste was engaged in describing the environment. In Poppy’s recording mention is made of the “smell of the Piazza effecting the taste of food” consumed there, this is furthered in a contributor stating that “I can’t stand the taste of food when someone smokes around me”. A more explicit consideration of the influence of taste in experiencing the environment comes from Louise’s image and the discussion of the taste of the coffee that was incited when discussing the initial experience of the Piazza by some of the contributors. From Molly’s image and the discussion the most notable discussion of taste is made. This discussion was based in the taste of the doughnuts in the image and how it is mediated by the visual display and surrounding smells. The discussion however cantered around the manner in which the presentation “made even chocolate not look good” and was furthered in to how the perception of display differs in consideration of the space in which something was presented.

The above mentioned discussion on taste led to the perceived health effects of food that comes from the a specific environment and finally led to a comparison of the taste of food and the perception formed by the environment when the Piazza was compared with other restaurants on campus in a different (better perceived) area. Degen and Rose (2012: 24) makes mention of this comparison in the influence expectation has on the individual’s experience. This is further strengthened with Borer’s statement in Being in the city: The sociology of Urban experiences that “the nuances of urban experienced has significantly been altered by the understanding of sensory scholarship” (2013: 965).

In conclusion the embodies mediation of individuals through a multi-sensory experience has an absolute impact on the experience of an environment. Individuals will consider many aspects other than the visual in the engagement of their world, thus significantly empowering the effect designer can have on a population through the spaces they engage with. This Piazza experience will therefore stand to prove the statement by Degen and Rose (2012: 1) “experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a more-or-less direct effect of the design of the built environment”.

Reflection:
In a world that is so heavily concerned with perception and mediated with persona it stands to reason that it is exceptionally difficult to navigate the visual overload that we experience on a daily basis to make sense of the world we live in. Through understanding the effect that the design of the environment can have on us, it positions the individual in a better space to understand him/herself in connection with the world they live in. Acknowledging the multisensory perception of our world in a very practical manner considering a space that is so integral to my direct environment I am provided with a diverse array of tools to make sense of my world. I have thus strengthened the understanding that it is easier to make sense of the world and to verbalise my understanding of such if I maintain an understanding that it is not only what I see that creates the effect of the environment on me, but also what I smell, hear taste and feel. This provides significant value to me as this allows a more encompassing way of articulating experiences, strengthening my ability to assist others and myself in considering the world we live in.

Sources consulted:

Borer, Michael Ian (2013). Being in the city: The Sociology of Urban Experiences. Social Compass, 7(11) pp. 965-983.

Degen, Monica Montserrat and Rose, Gillian (2012). The sensory experience of urban design: the role of walking and perceptual memory. Urban studies, 49(15) pp.3271-3287.