SITE-SENSE

“Look around you...Feel the wind, smell the air. Listen to the birds and watch the sky. Tell me what's happening in the wide world.” Nancy Farmer, The Sea of Trolls.

The reading and understanding of ‘site ‘ is a fundamental component of an architects design process. The relationship between site and designer ultimately leads to the creation of the architectural proposal. A rich and thoughtful relationship with context can support the development of a unique, appropriate and relevant output.

Is it therefore appropriate to assume that learning how to develop this relationship is crucial to those engaged in the study of architecture, and if so how do we support students to acquire the skills to be able to fully and meaningfully engage with the ‘site survey’?

This paper explores the development of a multi- dimensional methodology and proposes a toolbox of skills which students can draw upon to aid their understanding and registration of place exploring the poetic, prosaic and the technics of the site. Students will be challenged to be scientists, urban archaeologists and anthropologists as they engage with place beyond its surface and factual dimensions. These tools are designed to support students to experiment with recordings of both the factual and the temporal qualities of the context under examination, using a plethora of instruments from smart phones, clipboards, and their own bodies, and are encourage to engage with the pragmatics as well as the poetics of that place through a number of open ended tasks. It is anticipated that a meaningful and confident approach to site analysis will support students in their design of proposals that are consequently intelligently and intrinsically connected to the place for which they have been proposed.

Our observations, firstly as students of architecture are that the ‘site analysis’ and what that meant in terms of activity, recording and analysis was never made explicit to us. Generally a design brief was issued, a site given and off you went to complete the ‘site survey’. This usually involved a camera, a tape measure and a sketchbook, but with no guidance or instruction about exactly what we should be recording or what to do with the gathered information. It was intuitive learning, which never received the same level of critique as the outcomes that were produced as a result.
And now secondly as architectural educators we are critical of the learning and teaching around this vital part of the process, observing that it is generally unstructured and often inadequate.

This paper explores the development of a methodology, which will support new students of architecture through the elusive site survey and equip them with a range of tools to observe, record register and communicate the multi layers of factual and experiential information gathered through this process.
But what are we asking, or perhaps expecting from students when we send them out to site? Scratching the surface of the place is a good starting point, inhabiting, resting and registering the phenomena of the site seems an ideal place to begin.

“Observation is a dying art.” Stanley Kubrick

Architecture students must not only learn to actively observe, but they must do this within a framework that will result in recordings of these observations that have meaning, and which will in turn contribute to narratives and arguments in the development of design proposals. They must learn skills and develop the confidence to represent what they find through captured images, , technical data, drawn representations, recorded ephemeral experiences, taxonomies of collections of found information and objects and in the construction of poetry and narratives. There is then a requirement to edit what has resulted from these observations and utilise the selected observations and findings as devices to develop meaningful work, which is connected to the spaces and places that they have observed.
Kubrick’s statement proposes that the art of observation is in decline and as architectural educators his statement rings true.

“We live in a world where there is more information and less meaning” J. Baudrillard

Many students now, when sent out to explore, analyse and record a site for a design project, unless given specific direction otherwise, will take photos with their phones and possibly do a desktop search for historical information. In many cases Google Earth takes precedence to physically visiting the site. This information once gathered is then put to one side and along with further site visits is never returned to. In this digital age, there is such a wealth of information but as Baudrillard suggests a lack of depth of understanding to the information collated.

Rarely will a student treat this observational process in the manner of an archaeologist, scientist or anthropologist. Despite, or perhaps because of the immediacy of technology available to the majority of the students the smart phone seems to be the default tool. This relatively new device has replaced the habit of the sketchbook and pencil, and whilst the technology offers possibilities beyond the captured photo it is seldom that a soundscape, or light levels, temperatures or short filmic documents result through the observation and analysis process. It seems odd, as all this is easily possible with the technology, which most students have in their pockets.

Ensuring students understand that this initial encounter with the site is fundamental to the subsequent process, begins in the first year of study and requires constant re-iteration to try to ensure that they become aware of the importance of the thoroughness of this part of the design process, and how it can reveal so many opportunities for them to make appropriate connections within the context which they are working. It is about getting them to appreciate that these are the clues available to them to build upon, there is no blank canvas.