El primero projecto: The first project

So it's jury day and the fact that all 12 of us got a full night's sleep is a rarity before a normal architecture jury. So glad our projects were due before the Field Trip!

Gisela and Mon-snacking on Tortilla bocadillos from La Parra before jury time!

Billy...being weird :)

Our first project was much more artsy than our usual projects. We split up into pairs and chose 3 of the plazas that we had all visited. From there we had to do an experiential study of those spaces--which was really hard, at least for me, as we are always taught to look at space architecturally, and now we had to be "normal people" again and just think about approach, sights, sounds, etc. With the information we gathered, we had to make deductions about the space in order to form an experiential analysis.

Sean and Victoria were first. They did three boards which read very distinctly from one another but which all had the same theme. My favorite was their board for Rambla del Raval, which had a super-highway mirrored with the plan of raval, surrounded by desert, because of the one-direction motion of the space, and the compartitive lack of people. I thought it was pretty ingenious. They also did Placa St Jaume and Placa Reial.

Ben and Rob were up next, with their awesome boards, which they put together to create one fluid board. I really appreciated their static vs movement concept and thought it was well portrayed through the colors and the graphics...not mention its just plain aesthetically pleasing!Placa Catalunya, Placa de la Universitat, Placa de la Catedral.

Brian and I were third having studied the definition of Path versus Destination so that we could better understand the attraction of a given space, in order to apply it to our overall ARCH302 project in which we want to distinguish Placa de les Glories as a destination placa.

Rambla de Raval is a path:

it's shape: long and narrow

it's placement, setup, organization: benches oriented logitudonally, trees, lights, and tables lining the side much like a normal vehicular traffic street, location parallel between two streets

lack of main attraction: mostly residential, some commercial and civic

Placa de le Universitat is in between and shares characteristics of both passage and destination

Placa Reial is a destination:

surroundings: need to leave main thoroughfare

focal point: fountain-centered, a point to achieve visible from main axis/entry point

"building" aspects: main entry, uniformity of windows, color, balconies, secondary entries, and pattern

points of interest: Gaudi lamps, old 2-story atrium

We explained these plazas in terms of leaving a main axis in order to achieve a final destination point. The heavy line represents the human path, the dotted is vehicular. The foreground of each is the plan of the plaza, and behind is the perspective view from the 1/2-way point. The red people represent individuals who have searched out the space as a destination (not just passing through) and the gray/black are using the plaza as a passageway. The images in the background of the plaza were the original emotions of the space, mirrored by the part of the plaza that it coincided with: For Raval, we thought of the walkway to a house; it is man-made for the purpose of getting from one point to another in an easy manner. For Universitat, we thought of Central Park because there were so many uses of the space (from a transport hub, to a rest area, to a skateboarder's paradise, to a meeting place...). For Reial, we thought of a waterfall: Brian was convinced each time he got near the fountain that we was going to get soaked!

We proposed that the destination plaza was the best overall because it created a sense of comfort, shelter, and interest due to the enclosure, separation from the main drag, and the focal points.

Bob and Mon went next. They has a unique idea because theirs was more research-based and their boards each had a comparison between their 3 plazas instead of separating each plaza into one board. They studied Forum, Raval, and ...?


Billy and Gisela's project focused on how walls defined their spaces. I liked the graphics of their project and how they read as a whole. They also seemed really attached to their plazas after having visited multiple times and enjoying the sights and sounds.

This is Tom and Felipe...presenting...haha

You can check out their project on Tom's site, I think he has video links. They did a series of photos to study the movement of people through their plazas. They also played "Stalker" and literally followed people through the plaza drawing lines on the plan of where the people walked. It was cool to watch. The discussion was more about how interesting the footage and the media was than about what we learned, which was different.

We made it through our site model AND the board presentation...bring on Placa de les Glories!