"By rearranging numeric data, reinterpreting qualitative information, coating information geographically, and building visual taxonomies, we can develop a diagrammatic visualization—a sort of graphic shortcut—to describe and unveil the hidden connections of complex systems."
--DensityDesign
How to make the complex and invisible issues become more accessible? When we talk about the topic on walking, there is no way to avoid looking at the spatial elements of neighborhood. Deep maps are finely detailed, multimethod depictions of a place and the people, objects and emotions that exist within it and which are inseparable from the activities of everyday life. These depictions may encompass the beliefs, desires, hopes, and fears of residents and help show what ties one place to another. Deep mapping, as a geographical express of neighborhoods’ value, is related to communities’ daily places, such as the streets they walk on everyday, the grocery stores or bakeries they frequent most. Those points and routes make up our neighborhoods and our complex societies. Audiences of the following maps will feel more specific and will engage more into discussion.
Prototype 1.0
As I mentioned in the context page, some of the researchers and planners only stare at the urban patterns without any people in them; also, many designers and engineers treat pedestrians as a whole—they are all human beings. However, the streets in the eyes of pedestrians are more vibrant and subjective according to the different facades, stores, activities, and social networks. Trying to bridge the top-down view of planners with people’s daily lives on the streets, I developed my first prototype.
Based on the previous offline GIS mapping, I have shot more than 380 photos on the streets for each hexagon. By embedding photos into online map, I hope people can compare both built environment and street activities among different hexagons from low density of Chinese signs and high density ones.
Although I have bridged top-down view of mapping with bottom-up view of street scenes, there is still some limitation of single methodology. The idea behind photographic research is relatively equals to nonparticipant observation, which is difficult to determine what continually attract people and what makes them to stay. To fully identify the demands on the street, I have to insight into people's feelings, emotions, and perceptions about the neighborhood and streets.
Prototype 2.0
Local residents, workers and visitors have different destinations to social, shop, relax and promenade based on their economic, cultural and social positions. In addition, the changes of neighborhoods are also have obvious impacts on pedestrians emotions and preference. Inspired by Kevin Lynch's hand-drawn-map method, I have organized a youth workshop, in which I asked the participants to draw their walking routes, and places they like in Chinatown, and put their emotions on the top of those maps.
However, the limitation here is that other audiences of those hand-drawn maps cannot understand the streets views in map makers’ mind. Therefore, it is difficult to arouse more empathy from others. To engage the wider public, and to understand the stories behind the photos and the lively narratives of street life in Chinatown, there is a more powerful way to have a spatial storytelling that we can utilize the previous survey which tries to unpack people's daily routes, the places they frequent most, and how they describe the value and changes of streets in Chinatown spatially.
Prototype 3.0
After testing the previous prototypes, a better way of deep mapping is to combine people’s daily routes and the photos of street views. In the survey part, we can gather the information and narratives on the categories of people such as their relations with Chinatown and their purposes of walking. Also, we can mark the places which they prefer to walk in Chinatown. By showing the social and power dynamics spatially, we can help the other learn the specific values of Chinatown to the low-income immigrant communities.
