Sublime

In my previous post, I described Kevin Lynch’s five-part structure of how people form mental maps and navigate the geographic space of cities. Lynch’s research suggested that people form mental maps with five basic features in order to navigate: boundaries (such as water lines, freeways, and walls); regions (such as neighborhoods); paths; landmarks... See more

In The Image of the City (1960), Lynch identified the crucial role of the sense of place that ‘in itself enhances every human activity that occurs there and encourages the deposit of a memory trace’. This separation of ‘place’ in spirit and idea could, he argued, be differentiated physically and conceptually, as in edge, path, node, district and... See more

Urban explorers use the dérive to map the emotive force field of the city, and the way architecture and topography combine to create its 'psychogeographical contours'. Robert Macfarlane, a masterful writer-walker of the countryside, offers this summary of the practice: 'Unfold a street map of London, place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map,

... See more

Psychogeography: a beginner’s guide. Unfold a street map of London, place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map, and draw round its edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city, and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in whatever medium you favour: film, photograph, manuscript, tape. Catch the

... See more

Landscape architects are increasingly embracing desire lines from the outset, allowing desire lines to emerge in parks and campuses over a period of many months, and then paving the lines to make permanent walkways. The approach is certainly preferable to the more common alternative: Attempt to predict how people will navigate a landscape, render

... See more

While he was consumed with the administrative details of the work he undertook, he was always aware of the Big Picture. He had the anthropologist’s ability to stand back, gather information, and make independent judgments based on the facts. This was perhaps his strongest character trait. Whether he was laying out a university or a municipal park... See more