I’ve decided to organize this blog prompt, the design of the project layout, in a more ‘holistic’ manner. For me, it was important to define what we were really trying to achieve before attempting to design a way to reflect our information. I’ve included a series of sketches that helped me work through the definition in my own mind. Hopefully they are useful in examining the final product.

To sketch the first diagram, I simply looked up the definition of sustainability on the web. The UN pinpoints the definition to ‘environmental’ sustainability, but I was curious, for layout purposes, what was encompassed by the greater spectrum of the term. Maybe, in this way, our final document could be built upon in research, while focusing, for the purposes of the class, on the millennium goal achievement.

The definitions from various sources seemingly created a web in my vision, with many different, often very specific, ways to define sustainability. Included in the center are the definitions that I felt were the most encompassing, while the extensions outward reflect the multitude expressions of sustainability. Environment is included here, however, there are many others listed, and many more beyond what is included here.

The question is, then, how do these relate. They are all extensions of sustainability in some way, but how is that possible? How are there so many ‘takes’ on the same idea? How are they connected?

From the beginning of the term, our group decided to focus on knowledge and education as a means to effectively achieve the millennium goal. To define this decision for myself, I wanted a way for ‘knowledge’ to specifically fit into this diagram, somehow justifying its strength and justifying our focus for the term project.

The second diagram reflects the integration of knowledge into the web. First you begin with the idea of sustainability. Then, you move to defining that idea as a whole, which represents the knowledge base, a starting point, a foundation. Only then can you move to interpreting or implementing that knowledge in various ways, which would represent the multitude of topics expressed in the earlier diagram. In this way, knowledge feeds the web of action, the web of resolution and the web of achievement, millennium goal or otherwise.

For our layout, I feel it is important to reflect the web concept, and the idea of knowledge extending out to various methods of action. To support the response of ‘building the knowledge’ base as a means to achieve the millennium goal, our group has focused on one organization which provides many classes, with different topics, to schools, corporations, other organizations, among others. Each topic offers a different way to focus the knowledge or education of sustainability. Our group has decided to use these topics as a framework to define our own project, each taking one topic, expanding the realm of the topic, and relating how it can potentially impact the achievement of sustainability.

To reflect the idea of a web in our layout, I chose the hexagonal shape because the pieces can fit together or stand alone. The shape itself suggests it’s ‘fit’ with others. From there, the cover could represent the center, while the first ring off of the cover, or center, could reflect the ‘knowledge base’. From there, the layout suggests an infinite connective web extending outward, signifying the seemingly endless ways to act upon the one goal of sustainability.

The actual layout of the pages could look something like the sketch below. The text and images would connect (with fabric or a band?) in some way, can could potentially fold back up to be included behind the one cover page, or center. The document as a whole would present a web of text and image, all feeding and supporting the center, reflecting the holistic and interconnectedness of the entirety of sustainability.

I’ve included the images below to suggest one way we could attempt to define the web more specifically, possible with color coding. The first image could represent the cover page, while the latter two could be options for the ‘knowledge pages’ or the ‘implementation/action’ pages. More could be devised as needed; however, choosing a few would keep the pages simple in the complexity of the whole document. The outside dotted rectangle around each hexagon show an 8.5�x11� sheet of paper, suggesting that these shapes could be cut out of sheet before being assembled together.

Another layout option that achieves a similar reflection of ideas is shown below. This one emphasizes the circle, or the center more overtly, and literally extends the 'knonwledge' topics outward. The topics themselves become the linking peices between the research information/text and sustainability, also further emphasizing the concept of knowledge as a 'bridge' or a 'foundation'.

The last layout option is more similar to the second, but emphsizes a hexagon center rather than a circle in the center. For layout purposes, this might be more effective in simplifying the overall design by sticking to one shape. Again, the topics are the actual peices that extend outward to connect, or link, all of the other information.

We started the lecture with ‘things’, defining them as existing in space, having mass, matter, and size, ability to be measured with formal attributes, arranged, and are comparable. Of course, there are many ‘things’ that make up any built environment, whether they affect the users or not. In that sense, each ‘thing’ will vary in affect for each individual. The things which affect me most would be the items which relate in some way to my lens and perception of the environment, whatever previous framework s, or a bound relationship of systems, I have established based on past experiences. For example, I mentioned in my previous blog that my family had a major impact on the person I am today. The built environment that I have associated with my family would most likely include associations to my parent’s house. The framework of things that constitutes ‘my parents house’ in my mind would be the framework of past experiences that I would use for association for comparison in new environments. If I experience an environment similar to my childhood home, with similar things, feelings, senses, than I call upon that established framework to evaluate the new one. Often, new environments that have a similar framework of things to my childhood home comfort me, support my personality, and encourage my identity. Examples of this would include my current apartment, arranged similarly to my room at my parent’s home. Smells at a restaurant that smell like my mom’s home cooking could trigger those less literal built environment associations as well.

In a broader sense, my hometown can represent my identity and is associated with my family and their importance to me. The frameworks of things that support my perception of my hometown are often things of the built environment such as the Wisconsin capital, the UW campus, my church, Mendota or Monona Lake, the Badger stadium. My childhood consisted of all these places outside of my home, and within each includes many more frameworks of things outside of the built environment that allow these places to be associated with my idea of ‘home’ or ‘hometown’. Again, triggers of these associations in a new environment can make me feel more at home, more comfortable, and support who I am, because they support where I’ve come from.

A second major framework that affects or defines who I am is my life and work as a student at the University of Minnesota. Again, as I often do with my hometown associations, I begin categorizing frameworks within my student life into elements of the built environment. Actual lectures are defined by the classrooms, Rapson or McNeal Hall, and can then be associated with the information gained from the lectures, peers in the classes, or walks to and from the buildings. In my case, the built environment can offer the boundary of the framework that contains many other things and frameworks. Overall, the framework of my current education is defined by the University of Minnesota and the Twin Cities, which is immediately bounded by its built environment to contain all the other events occurring within. My associations might include Coffman Union, Northrop Mall, the IDS tower downtown, or the walking bridge across the Mississippi River. Each of these connect in some way to my time spent here, and therefore to the things that make up who I am as a student, what my passions are for a career, and the knowledge base I’m building to help define the rest of my life.

Clockworks, I have to admit, are a bit harder for me to wrap my head around. That is assuming I have, indeed, ‘wrapped my head’ around the ideas above. From class, clockworks were defined as having essential attributes, having frameworks in which things start with certain relationships, go through change, and return to the starting relationships making them stable, predictable, regular, and measurable. This definition sounds relatively strict….potentially discrediting my argument of identity as a phenomena. However, I do think that identity, my identity, does have some continuity to it, in fact, maybe the point is to gain continuity over time. If these initial environments or frameworks define my ‘start’, define who I am, and my childhood background, what am I doing currently and in the future to return to these frameworks exhibiting the change and reflection based on the initial experience. I begin at my parent house creating a foundation for my identity. I move, I learn, I grow as an individual, returning back to this beginning with newfound knowledge and experience. The same is true for my professional beginnings. I’ve started my career at the U of M, and will continue it elsewhere, returning to the start to constantly define and refine future goals and decisions. Maybe this is what makes them predictable and measurable…..because you have a starting point which you use as a base to evaluate and reflect upon all other experiences? Again, the built environment with its physicality helps to define the boundaries of initial experience, the U of M, to future experiences, professional firm, future residence or city. The built environment will mark the changes that occur to the initial relationships and frameworks.

If my identity is a phenomena, it consists or is perceived through facts, events, or by complex systems that incorporate things, frameworks, and clockworks, which I have (attempted) to explain above. Phenomena also have reason, are marked by beginnings, have meaning however known or understood boundary conditions, have duration, become evident in intervals, are comprised of internal hierarchies, and exhibit change and behavioral characteristics on a large or small scale. This is definitely too much for me!

Phenomena have reason, as do identities. Mine is defined by many different reasons, goals, and purposes. Each framework has a basic reason of contributing to the phenomena or identity as a whole. As the built environment helps to bound frameworks, it affects their contribution to the phenomena’s reason, and often can reflect the reasoning behind other phenomena such as modernism or sustainability. As the definition above explains, we may not be fully aware of the understanding of the reason behind frameworks, clockworks and phenomena, just as we are not always aware of the affects or purposes behind the things that make up our identity, as they can manifest themselves much later in life.

Phenomena have duration as identities have a life. This implies change which is understood in intervals and exhibit internal hierarchies and behavioral characteristics. Graduating from high school and moving to college marked a major change in my identity from child to adult, from living at home to being independent. As I graduate from college, it will mark a major change from student to professional. Among these major changes are more minor shifts within the frameworks, such as class changes, birthdays, anniversaries, which help to develop a hierarchy of ‘major’ and ‘minor’. While each has a purpose, some are more defining than others. These shifts, major or minor, are defined as a characteristic of the overall phenomena, such as a ‘good change’ or a ‘subtle change’ or a ‘revolutionary change’. These characteristics contribute to our understanding of them as ‘major’ or ‘minor’ independently from the period of time or place. The built environment, again, helps me to bind these experiences by place or setting. My high school building is the first thing I think of when I reflect upon the major shift into college. The Kohl’s center marks my graduation day. McNeal and Rapson Hall will define my college experience, and Northrop will most likely define my graduation experience from the U of M. In these ways, my identity, changing, altering, evolving, is defined and affected as a phenomenon by the built environment.

The oppositions between human and the physical realm underlie our experiences with the built environment help to explain why architecture and design can play a significant role in the definition of our identity phenomena. It influences our experience by contributing to our understanding though senses, other frameworks, and cycle of change. The oppositions help to further define a boundary of space in which an experience can take place, influencing our perception of that experience as occurring, its significance, it time, and its location. These varying oppositions help to connect frameworks through association of similarity or dissimilarity. Environments of warm climates and sunny beaches are associated with family vacations which help to define those relationships and in turn define my identity. Other buildings with copper roofs are associated with my experience and education at Rapson Hall and the University, which support my identity as a student.

If the study of phenomena, things, frameworks, clockworks, and oppositions has taught me anything, it would be that everything, much including the built environment and architecture, is interconnected. Each has an affect, with varying degrees of significance, on the outcome. In design, it is vital that we are aware of the significant role our built environments can play in the shaping of ideas or identities. Knowledge of these things forces me to take more responsibility in the design solutions as they relate to their users and their environment.