The mapping of people
This Studio project is about people. What makes people stay at a certain place? Why are some places more crowded than other places?
In the first hand-drawing, you can see a square called ‘’Kikar Atarim’’ which is located in Tel-Aviv. I examined the movement of the people with a drone. The grid indicates routes and places where people are walking. The blank spaces are buildings.
After analyzing the recorded video of 15 minutes made 3 times a day, (morning, afternoon and evening) the grid became a clear mapping of places where people were staying the most. The darker the grid, the more people stayed at this certain place.
Most of the dark grid spaces were connected to the sea. Although there were only a few places where you could see the sea and enjoy it, people preferred to sit on the fence having a better view of the sea than sitting on a bench in the middle at the square, without any good view.
I concluded that the main purpose of this square is that people use it as a passageway. People are passing through this square to go from and to the beach.
The other drawing of ‘’Kikar Atarim’’ indicates from which point on the square you can see the sea, with an average person body length of 1.70 meter. Lighter gray areas indicate a good sea view. Darker areas and indicate very little sea view to none.
How can I make the grayer grid areas more attractive to people? My understanding is that the square needed some kind of purpose to become a nicer place to stay over there. I came up with the idea to design a playground for children. Not just a regular playground, but a playground where all games are connected to the sea view for kids, parents and families and so they can enjoy their time together with this good view.
One of the games I build on a 1:1 scale, is the famous game Hopscotch. The flattest game there is. Painted with chalk on the surface, shapeless and lacking in depth. The absolute opposite of the game has changed into a three-dimensional object, that rises out of the surface and becomes a volume. To give another dimension to this simple and known game; Sea-View.
