Final Map
Isolated map:
Final Map Drafts
(legends still to come)
Revised Forces
After some reflection, I felt I took too much of a marco focus with my initial forces: I identified a lot of green space, a lot of dorms, a lot of anteater landmarks, etc. But it was the geometry of the campus’ layout that I found the most interesting. This was the area of campus that I wanted to explore as I continued down this project.
So I did another round of observations, and I realized that despite having this large, beautiful park right in the middle of campus, the heart of campus activity is actually along the circular path surrounding the park. Students walk through the park, but they don’t really spend time there. So I wanted to identify the forces that were causing Ring Road to be the hub of student activity.
Force #1: Buildings
Force #2: Foot Traffic and Seating
Force #3: Food (and most importantly, coffee!)
Force #4: Bike Racks
Force #5: Flyers and Announcements
Previous Forces
In total, UCI’s campus spans more than 1,500 acres, but I’ve been focusing on the main area circling out from Aldrich Park. The primary forces I’ve observed are geometry in the campus’ circular layout; the abundance of green space, anteater landmarks, and student housing; and the heavy foot traffic among the 30,000+ students.
Geometry
UCI’s campus has a unique circular layout. Almost every undergraduate school is placed along Ring Road, a 1.4 mile circle surrounding Aldrich Park. Despite being a large university, UCI’s campus feels small: the circular layout makes it easy for one to get around.
Green Space
In southern California, it’s rare to see a place as green as UCI. There are more than 100,000 trees and shrubs throughout campus and in the heart of campus is Aldrich Park, a lush 19-acre oasis. On the north side of campus is a botanical garden and arboretum.
Landmarks
UCI students clearly have a lot of school pride (you see a lot of UCI apparel walking around) and images of Peter the Anteater (the school’s mascot) are everywhere. There are two anteater statues on benches by the Student Centers that students often take selfies with, a giant anteater statue by the Bren Events Center, and an anteater on the water tower.
Housing
There are two main freshman residence halls just off of Ring Road: Mesa Court, which recently unveiled brand new towers, and Middle Earth, where brand new towers are currently under construction. In addition, there is a smaller housing community with less students by the science library. There are also a host of privately owned and operated apartment communities just across the street.
Student Foot Traffic
There is a lot of foot traffic on campus, with the most densely populated areas being the Student Center plaza and the main academic plazas off of Ring Road. There is also a lot of congestion outside of Aldrich Hall where many student clubs and organizations table to raise money by selling food and boba. While cutting through Aldrich Park provides shorter routes for getting from point A to point B, it seems that most students simply walk along Ring Road to get to where they’re going.
Hey Joseph! First of all – excellent map! I love the way it looks aesthetically and I think it is very good at conveying the different elements that make up UCI’s campus.
What your map shows me is that this is a space that was carefully thought out and planned, not something that grew organically over time. Part of this insight comes from the shape of the layout, because no matter what you are looking for, you will find it if you keep walking on the circle. I think another piece is how all of the administrative offices are in the same location and that there are snack and coffee locations interspersed through out. You can tell it was a well-planned and thought out site.
Thanks Gillian! I’m glad the intentionality of the campus design came through in the final map – the circular layout was very much planned. In fact, while most of the undergraduate schools are placed along Ring Road, the graduate schools are further out, depicting concentric circles of knowledge based on educational attainment (that would have been an interesting force to map!). And I actually hadn’t considered that the administration/student support buildings were purposefully clustered together. I was thinking that was a reason there was heavy foot traffic in that area, but I hadn’t considered it was designed to be a hub of activity – great insight!
Hey Joseph,
I really like what you did with the revision. From a design and presentation stand point, your maps and forces are more impactful and draw me as the reader in. I like the symmetry of your map, and that you chose not to include stuff outside of the ring roads. I also appreciated the different graphics representing the different elements of your forces such as coffee and food courts.
Looking forward to seeing them combined. Keep up the good work.
– Joe
Thanks for the feedback Joe! Glad you like the different direction I went in. I definitely agree, I liked the aesthetic and symmetrical aspects of the circular map, but I think my new map does provide greater levels of context and depth. It was a fun experiment, but ultimately I don’t think the circular maps provided enough information. Would love to hear your thoughts about the new direction!
Joseph, I really like your final map. Your forces are pretty clear without the legend, and they make total sense with it. I also think it was the right decision to go with the extra map area, the context really helps me understand you mappings better. Excellent work! I still really like your vision with the old map, but in the context of this project and conveying usable info, I think this new version is on point. – Joe
Hi Joeseph!
I LOVE your revision. I hear the comments about wanting a bit more of the map to come back in as a reference. I kinda don’t want it back in, on an aesthetic level. I guess it could provide some additional reference about where precisely your maps are in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I think I would only bring back other items in a super light saturation or shading.
My favorite map is that about foot traffic to seating areas. It almost creates a sort of artery system for the area. I think it has much more impact than the maps which use icons. Maybe you could incorporate more of that solid color into the maps with icons?
Thanks for the feedback Christine! That’s actually exactly what I was thinking of doing! And I was going to use your music map as inspiration!
Hey Joseph,
I really enjoyed listening to your critique during office hours today. It’s amazing to see how your project has changed over the past two weeks and it was fun to see the progression.
At first glance, I really like how you created an abstract geometric ring cut out of the map. The different colored pieces of the map on the ring look like a beautiful abstract graphic. I especially like the buildings force and foot traffic/seating force — they have a great use of negative and positive space.
As much as I love the way your maps look aesthetically, I do agree with Jesse that you should include some of the map elements back in so it’s less abstract. I liked his idea of bringing the map back but graying it out to a very light opacity. I’m really excited to see your final product. It’s already very unique and outside the box.
Thanks Cassandra, I’m definitely going to take your advice and incorporate some detail back in (but still keeping it very light and minimalist). Thanks for the suggestions!
Repost feedback per office hour 11/8 (Th):
Forces can also be objects too (e.g., when mapping bike trails on Ring Road for UCI campus, think beyond the boundaries and trace the forces where bike trails can be extended and comprehensively captured).
Project 2 Part 3 is basically “turning on layers for all forces, and figuring out which forces that you have not thought about”; you may choose to focus on ideas such as (1) whether the objects trigger certain emotions, and (2) whether the objects elicit specific opportunities you want to create (e.g., are flyers posted on campus connecting to student traffic?) BTW, Project 3 will be a proposal for design intervention to respond to your map.
Your maps and portrayals of the forces are so clear! I know it’s supposed to be an anteater but that orange icon just looks like a dinosaur to me.
Also, I’m not really sure what the observable ethnicities force map means. Are those areas that you see people of different ethnicities interacting? A key might be helpful, or maybe visualizations of different ethnicities in different colors.
Yea… I added the word ‘observable’ because I can’t know exactly where there are the highest concentrations of different ethnicities, so the map is basically depicting the highest concentrations of student activity (where there are more students, I see more diversity!). I’m thinking I might need to alter what that force is.
Geometry was a great inclusion in your forces; I was curious what the intersecting circles were meant to be?
There are a handful of circular plazas throughout campus (a couple have literal circles designed on the ground). I’m wondering how I can make that more clear.