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Informal Urban Practices Final

First Part:

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Second Part:

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diagramming a day

In my diagramming class, for midsemester presentations, we were to diagram an entire 24 hour day. We had to create two diagrams, one had to be linear while the other was non-linear. We also had to choose various relationships to look at in our diagram. In mine, I choose a day on my midsemester trip, our first day on Kangaroo Island. I choose to look at proximity to others, noise level, density, temperature/comfortability, and open vs. closed space.

diagramming retail

For another brief in my diagramming class we were to choose a site and identify the hidden flows and systems that take place on that site. For my site, I choose to do the retail store that I work at in Greensboro. I looked at the general flow throughout the store as well as how various pieces throughout the store may be connected to one another.

FIRST ATTEMPT:FINAL DIAGRAM:

[in]formal practices

For the second half of the semester in my studio class, we have been able to come up with our own brief and project direction for our final project. After attempting to work in a much larger group, I'm now working in a group of 4 girls (2 from Australia, and one from Germany). We have titled our group [in] and our main focuses are engagement, and how we can get people to interact and react, as well as the using recycled or found materials to create various structures and situations. So far we've been testing various ideas that we have had for both engagement and using those various materials. You can read more about our group, [in], on our blog here.

[in]put

For our first test we created a structure that was designed to hold beer bottles that were being used at an event for all the interior design studios at RMIT. We were hoping that once people finished with their bottle, they would put it into the structure and take part in creating a light source. The amount of engagement wasn't quite what we had hoped for, but as a first test it aided in coming up with more ideas.

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After our first test we undertook a few more separately. Quinn worked on a project that involved people putting their used water bottle or coffee cups into a structure. You can read more about her test here.

Sarah also undertook a test that involved using lights in trash, and getting people to find the lights and bring them together in one spot. And you can read more about her test here.

Janine and myself worked on a project we called [in]duce

we created pieces out of cardboard that are capable of being slotted into one another. The pieces were laser cut and had our logo and blog address on them as well. We then took the pieces to the Queen Victoria Market. At first we put a few of the pieces together ourselves to give people an idea of what could be done with them. We then started passing out some of the pieces, asking people if they would like to join in making a structure, and that they could put a piece anywhere that they like. We received a pretty good response from that, and were even able to get in contact with some people at the market. We will be doing another event at the market in the upcoming weeks. After the success here, we decided to test the same idea in another location. We went to City Square in the CBD of Melbourne. The test here wasn't as successful as the first one, but we were able to gain more ideas from the various tests.

[in]duce at vic market

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[in]duce at city square

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sydney!

One weekend here in Australia we took a trip to Sydney. The trip was organized through RMIT, so we were able to travel with other students from the school. We got to spend 3 full days there. The first day we explored the city and got to see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour bridge. The second day we traveled to the Blue Mountains and were able to see a few sights there. And the last day we went to Manly Beach and Bondi beach. Overall, it was a great trip and I was glad to be able to see the Opera House in person (something I've always wanted to do!)

anzac memorial in the city

sydney opera house

syndey harbour bridge

three sisters in the blue mountains

bondi beach

diagramming the city

Here at RMIT I'm taking a class called Multiple Layers where we are studying diagramming and how that can aid in designing interiors. Over the semester we have done various diagrams to develop our own style of diagramming. For this particular brief we had to travel from Melbourne Central to Parliament Station underground, and then back to the RMIT campus above ground. We then had to diagram our trip. This was our first shot at diagramming, and the beginning of coming up with our own diagramming style.

Great Ocean Road : Kangaroo Island : Grampians

Over the mid-semester break I took a trip with Megan, two guys from Denmark, and a girl from Sweden along the Great Ocean Road up to to Adelaide, to Kangaroo Island and then down to the Grampians. I absolutely loved this trip because we rented a car and were able to stop wherever we wanted along the way, and really just enjoy all of the things that we got to see. The Great Ocean Road has some of the most amazing scenery that I have ever seen. I think my favorite spot along the G.O.R. was Loch and Gorge. We stopped for a day in Adelaide, but there really wasn't too much to see there. After Adelaide, we traveled over to Kangaroo Island. On Kangaroo Island we got to see a wide variety of things. We saw seals in their natural habitat, Little Sahara, Flinders Chase National Park which included the Remarkable Rocks, and lots of other beautiful sites. We also camped out one night on Kangaroo Island. From there we traveled to the Grampians which is a mountain area. Here we went hiking, saw waterfalls, and lots of kangaroos! Overall it was a really amazing trip and I'm glad that I got to see such a wide variety scenery.

12 apostles along the Great Ocean Road

loch and gorge

Remarkable Rocks on Kangaroo Island

hiking in the Grampians

kangaroo and joey in the Grampians

Informal Urban Practices

My studio class in Australia at RMIT is called Informal Urban Practices. We've been looking at the different ways people interact with urban spaces. So far in the semester we've been doing some research on different types of informal urban practices and then getting out in various communities and participating in these types of practices. The first assignment we had was to research a particular type of urban practice. My research was on 'random acts of kindness and goodwill.' Below is a video that I put together on this topic:

Random Acts of Good-will and Human Kindness from informal.urban on Vimeo.

The next assignment was to go into a suburb of Melbourne and see what types of informal practices go on in that area. My partner, Daniel and I, went to Box Hill. Below are images that we took while in Box Hill, along with our proposed ideas of how to change some of those practices.




The most recent assignment was to do our own informal urban practices. In our group consisting of Daniel, Jacqui, and Quinn we went into the city of Melbourne and saw how people reacted to different things such as a phone being left behind, ghosting (or invading personal space), and how they reacted to seeing a line of red string. See the experience in the following videos:

Intervention of the public from informal.urban on Vimeo.

Intervention: How long is a piece of string? from informal.urban on Vimeo.

hello melbourne!

Megan and I arrived into Melbourne on the 10th of July. Sadly our bags did not arrive right along with us. Thankfully they did end up arriving the next day. For the first 3 days we haven't had anything particular to do so we've been out exploring the city. The view from our room is amazing! We have a great view of the city. the view of the city at night from our room

The first day we took the tram into the city. We found a Big W which is just like a Walmart and a Woolworths that's a grocery store. I think we were both so tired that night we ended up going to bed at 6pm. The second day (sunday) we decided to just walk around the city. The architecture here is amazing! all of the buildings are so interesting and unique. We found the Queen Victoria Market that has all sorts of things: fresh food and vegetables, clothing, souveniers and so much more. They were starting to close when we got there and we dont think all of the places were set up since it was a sunday. This is definitely a place we will be going back to. Today we walked around the city some more. We were going to go back to the market but it was actually closed today. We ended up finding a park, Flagstaff Gardens, which was pretty and definitely will be a nice place to go when it warms up.
We then found our way to Victoria Harbour where a really nice outlet mall is. The harbor itself is also really beautiful

After spending some time there we walked back to Melbourne Central which we found out is a much larger place than we first realized. There are about 5 levels with shopping, food courts, a movie theater and more.
After walking so much we got a little something to eat and sat outside the State Library of Victoria. This is right beside RMIT University. We then ventured back to our place. So far we are both loving it. Tomorrow is the first of 3 days of orientation so we'll see how that goes!