MAS960: Spatial Information Design - Asgn01: pos/neg example

My example of good spatial design is the Waterworks Project, a public art project staged in Bristol, England, where rising sea level marks are projects onto buildings in the city to illustrate the estimated impact of the Greenland ice cap melting.

For poor spatial design integration, I chose to critique Boston’s South Station, which is currently covered in excessive advertising and recently provided a troublesome experience for me in meeting a class group there – no one agreed on where the central meeting place was, which led to a lot of confusion and quality time spent among the Pepsi advertisements.

http://mit.edu/~samadden/www/1_samadden_MAS960.pdf

The Holly Wisdom basilica Istanbul-Turkey

tsourk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:44:35 +0000

The Good:
The temple was created near 537AD. Nearly one thousand years later, it becomes a mosque. Byzantine art exhibited in the interior was destroyed or completely replaced by Muslim-Ottoman inspired drawings.Since then it served as a model for many other Muslim mosques.
Some of the old byzantine work has been restored, and enables us to witness the spatial information design, the ways the building was intended to be, and some of the design can now be justified.
Major example includes an icon on top of the Sanctuary space facing east The whole space was--designed to introduce extra Information on this icon.

The Bad:
A Mystery sharp pyramid-shaped building:
Ryugyong Hotel Pyongyang, North Korea‐
dominates the skyline of the city.
Construction started in 1987, and in 1992 it was abandoned.
Building is empty, until December 2008 where supposedly construction started again.

Good/Bad Spatial Information Design: Jeff Warren

warren — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:23:11 +0000

I found three examples of good spatial information design: the Panopticon (Benthams and more specifically Presidio Modelo in Cuba ), robotic warehouses, and PARKINFORMATION, the parking proposal by Natalie Jeremijenko. For poor spatial information design I chose The World, a collection of islands off the coast of Dubai, which I will compare with the Million Dollar Homepage.

PDF here »

Dynamic Space and Adaptive Signage

achang — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:14:50 +0000

Negative example:
Steelcase Inc. headquarters.
Grand Rapids, MI.
Designer unknown.

The space was a demonstration of Steelcase's new focus on the concept of dynamic-use office space. All space dividers were modular, enabling easy reconfiguration of the floor plan to suit the needs of people. However, their signage was not only badly lighted, information-starved, and visually inaccessible, it was static and incongruous with the activity needs of the people and visitors who will inhabit that space.

Positive example:
Museum of Cinematography (La Cinémathèque française).
Bercy, Paris/France.
Design by Intégral (Ruedi Baur et associés).

Projected guidance system designed with consideration of the architectural form and material of the building, and complementing the informational content of the space. (In addition, the projections are positioned in such a way that visitors can interact with it.)

good/bad (sorta)

plushfish — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:50:38 +0000

It is perhaps architectural blasphemy to call Aldo Rossi's Cemetery at Modena bad design, even if one is talking only about the design of spatial information, but in comparing it to Pere Lachaise in Paris, one can at least say it would not be as accommodating to such a plethora of circumstances..

http://mit.edu/mwatabe/www/watabe_01.pdf