Workbook for Introduction to Digital Humanities: A-State

Edward's Visualization

For this project, I gathered data on the various architects and contractors of buildings on the main ASU campus over time. This was honestly the most time consuming part, as it had to be gathered through a combination of targeted web searches, combing through online architectural portfolios, and biking around campus to hunt for and photograph dedication plaques. (FYI, some historical building plaques are located along a trail in the woods behind the Kays Foundation Office on University Loop.) While the list is not comprehensive, it does provide some interesting insights on the relationships between various companies and firms, and how certain firms rose and fell in prominence over time. The "big three" of McAninch, Stuck et al, and Brackett-Krennerich stand out especially dramatically, and I would never have noticed how prominent they were otherwise.

There were a few challenges-- I haven't found a good way to show minor changes such as the addition of Beisner to the firm of Stuck, Frier, Lane, Scott Inc in such a way that the before & after firm names are intuitively connected. There is room to expand the data even further by mapping out the location of each firm as well. Even with this introductory run, Palladio proves it can be useful for a wide variety of network analyses.

The original data set can be viewed at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lXG9oQv3uZ7FEzK8iZLgLERNfQYwFCi_r_NnyiYRRJA
 
 

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