Urban Methods: A Reflection

I found the essay by Lynch and Rivkin interesting. The comments on how people seemed to focus on the same parts of the block: the spatially dominant buildings and the overall blending of the buildings and other components of a street were very interesting, especially after having my own excursion walking the city. I only remember certain parts of the landscape: the construction, the marked difference between the Lusty Lady and the surrounding buildings, a large factory with a calming picture of orcas in the ocean, and how there were, at one point, a large number of sunflower seeds on the ground. The first and second of these certainly relate to the convergence of the various parts of the landscape: I saw some parts as incongruent with the rest. The Lusty Lady was a small, rather beat-up looking building with a sign reminiscent of decades past while the surrounding buildings were tall and streamlined. The construction was also a contrast to the surroundings. The third of the observations mentioned was a spatially intrusive building (it was much larger than the buildings next to it) and it had been painted in very bright colors, catching my attention. The fourth probably relates better to what Lynch and Rivkin said was also of importance: the quality of the pavement. I recognized what I was walking on and registered what was covering it.

I also found it interesting that people did not tend to focus on certain stores, except for the ones with two sides open for viewing. Only the very visually catching stores (such as the toy store) were commented on by more than half of the viewers. One thing I noticed with the essay was that it did not mention the people that the viewers noticed. I would think that’s probably a result of how people do not stay put so it was unlikely to have the same person still in the street during the different tours. I also rather wonder what are considered “signs”, whether they are street signs or store signs, because one of the participants apparently mentioned 78 different ones.
I thought this was an interesting piece. It would seem like there are so many things composing a street that there would not be any outstanding preference for commenting on certain objects, but that is not the case. It was quite the interesting study, and its implications are rather important for city planning.