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VKK 757: Archiving UP's Piazza

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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.