IDAT101 Group Project Interactive Installation Environmental and Contextual Observations

We went down to the children's jungle area when the space was relatively quiet to record some environmental observations. We can use these to help us plan the type of installation we want to put into our space and take into account the environment around it such as the type of shops that surround it, the space dimensions, the objects currently within the space etc.

Floor Plan : To begin with I made up a floor plan of the area so that we can clearly see what is within the space and the areas that we could use as the location for our installation.

The space is located in the centre of a long street in the centre of town. The street begins at the main shopping centre, Drake Circus, and continues all the way down to the bottom where it ends at a road. The walkway has a dissection running through it which is located along from our chosen space and this is where the sun dial is located.

Location : The space is located in the centre of this walk way with shops opposite on two sides and the walk way running through the middle. Around the edges of the area there are four brick flowerbeds that contain a number of different plants. These flowerbeds incorporate some seating at the sides presumable for pedestrians to sit down for their lunch or parents to use when they are watching their children on the play animals. There are also two poles located at either side of the area which contain advertisements for the shopping centre at the top and street lights.

Content/Social Interaction : The main attraction of the space are the children's play animals that are located at the sides. There seems to be a theme of jungle animals that could be incorporated into our idea for the interactive installation. The main attraction of the space seems to be the animals although whilst doing our observations we noticed that nearly everyone who entered the space did not purposely go there for the children's animals, most were passing through and did not stop. However the only people who did stop were those with children who wanted to play on the animals. We could aim our installation at this target audience as these are the people who are most likely to stop and use it and they may be more inclined to use it if they are waiting for their children playing on the animals. We found that those people who were not walking through the space were generally clustered around the animals at the two sides. This gave a clear gap down the middle so this is a possible location for our installation as it is the least busy area of the space therefore people will be able to group there whilst using our installation.

Dimensions : Because of the location of the space there is a limit on the size of the installation that we could install. The area is quite small and compact and very busy during the day time especially with parents and children. Our installation would have to be small and we would need to ensure that it did not get in the way of people walking and interacting with the area and our installation.


Utilities : There may also be a problem with the utilities we have available to us such as a power supply. We may be able to tackle this problem by basing our location as near as possible to the shop fronts and feed a cable from the shops to our installation but we would need permission. There is also the possibility of using the shop fronts as a location for our installation such as touch screens on the windows but again we would need the permission of the companies. 

Limitations/Constraints Imposed By The Environment : As the location is outside we would have to deal with different weather conditions. There is some shelter from the shops around from the wind and rain but the main area is still in the open so our installation would definitely feel the effects of the weather. This may also cause problems with light sources, although there is lighting set up in the walk way it would not be too bright so we may have to provide extra lighting to ensure that our installation could be used day and night. Security may also be an issue. This area is a very popular area day and night because of the shops and attractions like clubs that surround it so there will be people walking through it all the time. There is security in the main street but we would have to ensure that our installation was secure and could not be stolen.

Noise may also be an issue so we would need to address this whilst we were planning our installation. The space gets a lot of activity so there is always the buzz of people walking and talking and we noticed that often people are using mobile phones and Ipods, introducing a new noise into the space may disrupt people who simply want to pass through so a noiseless installation would probably be a better idea. If we did incorporate sound into our ideas we would have to ensure that the sound could be heard to those people immediately around the installation but would not disrupt those walking through.

The area is very dull and gray. There does not seem to be much going on in this space other than the children playing on the animals and it was not really a pleasant experience standing around observing for a long period of time especially when the weather was gray and cold. Adding a fun new installation into this space may encourage people to move out into this main street and make the street brighter and more attractive to shoppers. This could have a benefit on not only the shops but also the environment.

Movement of Individuals : We also noticed the flow of the pedestrians and people walking through the space. There was a larger number of people walking down the two sides of the space rather than through the middle. This area seemed constantly busy so putting our installation here may not be a good idea because it could get in the way. The central walkway was not that busy so putting out installation in this area would be better as people would be able to access it easily rather than stopping in the middle of the street.

I went to the space for the day and documented the number of people that went in and out of the area so get a rough idea of the flow of individuals within the entire space. I thought representing this data in a bar chart would be the easiest way to see how many people were in our space at a given time. I went to the space 5 times over the period of 8 hours, between 9 and 5, as I thought these would be the most popular hours of the day. I did this research on a Thursday, but I can estimate the the number of people in the space on a Friday or Saturday would be marginally higher. From this I can tell that the durability of our installation would have to be very high as there was a large number of people walking through the area at most times of the day as would be expected in the centre of town.