The place that I have chosen to be my site of investigation is the place where I first found peace when I moved to London. The thing that fascinates me most about the chosen place is the movement you see when you look at it. Everyone is always moving alongside the water. People move with a specific aim in mind. Nobody stops to admire the view or to just take a moment. It makes me think about how people also live their lives this way. Everyone is so busy moving around and getting their life together that sometimes they forget to take a break of slow down and enjoy the view of the environment. To me the view of the place is what really intrigues me. The water, the boats, the nature surrounded by big buildings and traffic noises. How nature stands still in a city full of movement.
In the reading ‘Are we human: Note on an Archaeology of Design’ Colomina, Beatriz
& Wigley, Mark discusses a multilayered exploration of the relationship between
human and design. How we created a world where we designed everything in every
way possible. It makes you rethink the philosophy of design and its correlation with humans and the earth (Colomina, Beatriz & Wigley, Mark). It caused me to consider that we got so used to things that are designed that we stopped looking at things, like really looking and taking things into consideration. We’re so busy designing places and other items that we forget to look at them. In a world where everything is based on design, it is sometimes hard to see the earth underneath it. This relates to the reading from Georges Perec, ‘Species of Spaces’, where Georges Perec challenges readers to look at their surroundings differently. Because he looks at the things differently. He is interested in looking at things and how they are organised and the routines within them. He wants the reader to really observe a place, to really look at the place and to carry on until you get an impression (Georges Perec, 1997). If you really think about it, the only things that interested us are either designed artefacts from the past or things from the future or the possible future. We are so busy focusing on the past or the future that we forget to appreciate the present. The challenge from George Perec would be a good exercise to relearn how we look at things and how we design them. Maybe if we start to look at things differently, maybe we would start to design differently as well.
Bibliography
Are we Human? : Notes on an Archaeology of Design [digital copy] (no date). Lars Müller Publishers. https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?guid=1659e614-746e-ee11-826a0050f2f06092&pcid=3242210&t=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJqdGkiOiI5NDAxNWIzOC0wZjc1LTQ2MTEtYjNjZi04N2FkZDc0YTQ5MmIiLCJuYmYiOjE3NjAyNjQ1OTMsImV4cCI6MTc2MDI2NDg5MywiaWF0IjoxNzYwMjY0NTkzLCJpc3MiOiJEQ1MiLCJhdWQiOiJSZWFkZXIifQ.uip_PBI8SKdtPG2qIX-Bzuk6JJdsopfPf2J9VVn2x_I&b=False.
Species of spaces and other pieces [Digital copy] (1997). Penguin Books Ltd. https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?guid=793c4b4f-4a0d-eb11-80cd-005056af4099&pcid=3242188&t=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJqdGkiOiI0NDQ2YzYwOS1mMDQ3LTQ4M2ItYTgwZS1iZjYyODVmZmUxZGMiLCJuYmYiOjE3NjAxOTQyNjIsImV4cCI6MTc2MDE5NDU2MiwiaWF0IjoxNzYwMTk0MjYyLCJpc3MiOiJEQ1MiLCJhdWQiOiJSZWFkZXIifQ.lE3lgYSZTNvArt68MEdKjhvZLozU7s-Lt8onWQGVoBA&b=False.
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