Patch 1

Hey Guys here is my output for patch one, i'll scan the diagrams in and post them tomorrow, can everyone post their output as soon as possible please, it would be good if we all had our introduction written for monday (so we need all the info, forgive me if i'm stating the obvious) so we can discuss and move forward/improve what we've done, if we stick to it as a group it will be stress free! Also would be useful if we all use the module guide to format the output? as it makes the relevant info more readily available.

lEE FARNAN
ArC6-2.
Literature Review.
Patch 1.

SELECTION>
Edward. T. Hall, (1988), The Hidden Dimension. Bantam doubleday dell publishers.
As a group we decided to look at NORD’s work through the concept of social inequality, be it class divide, drug divide, religious divide or whatever. How-ever the divide is conceptualised, the important point is that, there were two or more separate antagonistic or unequal conditions which causes the stratification of the local community and produces; anomic citizens. We thought we had picked up on this issue being discussed in NORD’s work, especially the Ceramic Ashtray, Urban Green Park and the Barrowland Ballroom projects.
The reason for choosing the hidden dimension as reading material was that I wanted to start by looking at how people perceive the built environment in a pragmatic and physical way.

ARGUMENT>
Hall like Durkheim considered people, embedded creatures and as such their behaviours could be said to be predictable and through experimental evidence rationalised into categories or general rules.
The Hidden Dimension focuses on sensory experience in space. Hall divided the senses into two groups: distance receptors (eyes, ears, nose) and immediate receptors (skin, membranes etc). Sight and hearing are said to be the most important because they are the senses which connect people and facilitate interaction, how these senses work is fundamental to socially responsible design.

RELATION>
Situating Halls approach in other theory, I would have to cite Durkheim, because he also reduces the individual as a product of a totallic Other; a collective consensus of morality (which limits possible behavioural principles/traits). This can be seen in Durkheim’s famous work On Suicide, Where Durkheim showed statistically, a link between social structure and suicide. It is a positivist approach which produced in Durkheims own words “social Facts”. This is the same manner with which Hall presents his own work.

RESPONSE>
I agree with Halls opinions and have found them to be supported by empirical evidence. How the evidence is situated morally is less of a design tool and more of a spiritual concern; as with Juhani Pallasmma’s eyes of the skin. I find Hall’s work more directly translatable as a design tool; since eyes of the skin deals more directly with the haptic qualities of architecture it is complementary to Halls spatial investigations (distance and immediate receptors). We can use this information to analyse physically the devices NORD use to encourage interaction.