BRIEF
About culture
design something for the culturemile area for culture
TEAM MEMBERS
Nancy / Winnie / Lulu / Winnie
Desk Research
We did some desk research separately at first. Each of us read a few documents provided by Culturemile. We looked through research reports about London culture and strategy for culturemile. We searched online and found that culturemile is an area with lots of historical stories and traditional cultures. So we planned to go to Barbican to know more about the area.
Field Research
We went around the area on a weekday. The architecture around the Barbican Center is special compared to other buildings. There are schools teaching music and drama, concert hall and art exhibitions inside Barbican Center and the London Museum telling stories about ancient London. Several ancient walls from Roman times is surrounded by lots of office buildings. Office workers, students, teachers, artists, musicians and residents are together in the area.
Week 1 Conclusion
After the research, we found that the main colour of the area is grey. Also, it's hard for people who go into the area for the first time to know about the culture of the area. Wayfinding is a big problem since signs are not easy for people to look for their destinations. There are maps everywhere in the city but it's actually not easy to be understood.
We have some discussions about the direction we are going next. Maybe we can do something to help people find their way. Maybe we can use some projectors to do some projection mapping or design some characters as tour guides to help people find their way.
Week 1 Outcome
To conclude all this, we made a map of the whole area to show the roads we passed by. And we put some basic characters on the map for guiding tourists.
-Tutorial
For week 2, we had three directions to move on.
1 Wayfinding
Use characters or projections to help people find their way.
2 Colourful wall
Add colours to the area. Make the area seems to be energetic.
3 Telling stories
Tell people stories of the area. Show the stories to people on the street to let people know more about the culture in the area. During the tutorial, our tutor told us some old stories happened in Smithfield Market. He suggested us to find more history stories of the area and show them to the public by setting up different scenes.
They also told us a word called "psychogeography" and showed us some case studies.
What is Psychogeography?
Case Study
We could use physical movements to build interactions with users to let them feel that they are in ancient times.
Further Research
So we planned to go to several places for deeper research.
At first, we did some desk research and got to know about the history in the area.
Through my research, I got the information that there used to be a Black Death plague around Smithfield Market. And during the construction of Guildhall Gallery, people found ruins of ancient Roman Architectures. There are also lots of ancient Roman wall in the area. My groupmate told us about the bomb history that happened in the 90s century.
/黑死病记录 guildhall gallery 图片/
After the desk research, we went to Culturemile area again to find the history details.
Since the market opens from 2 am to 8 am, we went to the Smithfield Market in the morning for interviews. When we arrived, the market was almost going to close. We found the people in charge of the market, he told us some stories of the market. There used to be a big fire and the market is almost destroyed. Then the market was rebuilt and lots of people moved into the new market which turns to be the Smithfield Market now.
We went to the Barbican Center after the interviews in the Smithfield Market. Stuff in Barbican Center Library recommended some books refer to the history of Barbican. We read those books and understood the history of Barbican in ancient Roman times. Barbican used to be the centre of London City. During World War II, the area was destroyed by bombs in the 1940s. So architects made new design plans for the area. The final plan was a group of buildings with residential places, gardens, schools and an art centre.
So we decided to use stories of Barbican Area, Guildhall Gallery and Smithfield Market to design experiences.
Next step we focused on how to tell these stories to the public.
Reflection
-After the tutorial, I realised that we should summarize the research content and put them in a framework. -When we been to the Smithfield Market in the morning, the market was going to close. Next time, I should do more research before heading to the place.
Reference
Clarke, J. (1990). The Barbican Sitting On History. London.
我们在讨论的时候 讨论到 我们为什么要通过这样的形式展现历史
通过分析我们发现,与其在书上读历史内容,不如到博物馆里去看文物，了解它们背后的故事，来的印象深刻
与其去博物馆里看文物，不如在大街上，走在路上，感受几百几千年前的历史，更让人感同身受。
Comments