WOODBURY TOWN CENTER (PREVIOUSLY ALL HANDS CAR WASH)
Woodbury Town Center is a community plaza surrounded by new residential developments in Irvine, CA. The plaza is owned by the Irvine Company and is a part of City of Irvine’s master building plan. It is situated at the corner of a busy intersection between Irvine Blvd and Sand Canyon Ave.
Force 1: Traffic and Parking
The Woodbury Town Center has total of nine parking lots and seven entry points. The center’s major traffic flows from Irvine Blvd. side of entry point and Sand Canyon Ave. entry point. On weekends, parking lots by Ralphs, Trader Joe’s and restaurants are mostly full, making people park in other parking lots and walk towards Ralphs and Trader Joe’s.
Force 2: Locals
Woodbury Town Center attracts many local families. There is a playground for kids in the center, near all the restaurants where children can play while parents socialize and watch the kids. I see many multigenerational families of kids, parents and grandparents in this part of the center.
Force 3: Water fountain
A large water fountain is located in front of LA Fitness, in between restaurants and the playground. The falling water sound creates tranquil atmosphere by blocking out busy noise from all around traffic.
Force 4: Variety of Restaurants
All the restaurants, except one- Fish District are located in one section of the plaza. From sandwich to sushi, a wide variety of available restaurants.
Force 5: Hidden Alleyway
I found a hidden alleyway next to LA Fitness by accident. As I was taking photos of the water fountain, I saw a small alleyway in the photo. In my exploration, I found amazon’s locker in the alleyway.
#6: Create a map of each of your five forces
Force 1 map: Traffic and Parking
Force 2 map: Locals
Force 3 map: Water Fountain
Force 4 map: Variety of Restaurants
Force 5 map: Hidden Alleyway
5 Forces Combined: Final Map
5 Forces Combined: Final Map Revised
After reviewing all comments and suggestions, I have made an update to my final map. A legend is added as a quick reference guide to Woodbury Town Center. Varying levels of color transparency represents high and low volume. Also, the representation of people feels more natural in the final map revision. Download PDF
Hi Robin,
As your project 2 partner, my comments below are in the spirit of exercise 3.1.1’s “what do you take away from the map.”
As others have highlighted, the bright colors allow for easy identification of your forces. Based on the sheer volume of each color, my primary takeaway is that more space is dedicated to cars than people. Whether this reflects reality is slightly orthogonal. The emotion invoked, at least for me, is a meta-question about whether as a society we’re allocating space correctly. Perhaps confounding this feeling is that each force is statically mapped. But people aren’t stationary and go from car to building to the playground and fountain areas. So is there a way to show some forces being more fluid in nature. Rona’s map at one point used an interesting swirl effect that might be applicable. In this way you can highlight certain forces in a way traditional aerial maps wouldn’t.
Q, you bring up an interesting point about representing my local force to be more fluid in nature. I will consider more natural approach to illustrate my force(s).
Hi Robin, your forces are different. Water fountain is intriguing. I’m curious what it would intersect with and what it won’t : )
Hi Robin, your forces are different. Water fountain is intriguing. I’m curious what it would intersect with and it won’t : )
Hi Robin,
Love your forces! Specifically the water fountain and the hidden alleyway with the amazon locker – the fountain itself because I can imagine how people will hang around it and the sound that it emits affecting how people feel in the Woodbury Town Center. The amazon locker in that alleyway as well, that alone would probably generate foot traffic to that area as well!
For your maps, it is interesting to see just how concentrated the “locals” force is in the middle of the entire space, not surprisingly, right around the water fountain!
Nice use of the base background with bright, contrasting colors against it to highlight the forces.
Hi Robin! Great choices on your forces. I enjoyed your descriptions of each force. Your maps are very minimalist and simplistic and your choice of colors, as our fellow classmates already indicated, is impeccable. It really stands out from the base map. I frequent that plaza and never really appreciated the lot size in comparison to the stores/restaurants. It’s super spacious. I agree with Joseph’s comment about having some sort of gradient to depict congestion for traffic and parking. I would love to see your comment on the parking lots by Ralph’s and Trader Joe’s being the most crowded come to life on the map. What kind of details are you thinking about adding onto your map, if any? Is there a way you’re thinking about to take what you said in your description of the forces themselves in part 1 and bring them more into the map without using so much text? Are you trying to avoid labels and icons to reduce clutter? I think playing with different shades is definitely one way of doing so and maybe providing some sort of legend? I love this plaza, especially for shopping at Trader Joe’s and grabbing some pizza from First Class Pizza. Would you say you want to show what types of places are there? Or are you thinking more higher level? Overall, I think your choices are fantastic and I cannot wait to see the final version!
Hi Robin,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I like how you choose pop colors to highlight the force on the map. This makes me rethink of my map, and I will have to go back to relook at my choice of color.
I am impressive by the fact that the mall has 9 parking lots. There are so many cool shopping centers out there, and parking is a big issue for a lot of them. I hate it when it would take us almost an hour to find parking at some shopping plaza in LA. I am glad the newer malls have a better parking solution.
My question is, why did you choose hidden alleyway as a force? What impact do you think it has on the place you visit?
Funny you should ask about the hidden alleyway because Rona made relating comments as well. From PTA fundraising events to picking up Trader Joe’s bruschetta sauce, one can say I frequent Woodbury Town Center at least twice a week. Conversely, I have never seen or knew about the alleyway. Only by chance I saw it through my camera lens as I was taking photos of the water fountain. The hidden alleyway is not obvious and quantitative force like traffic, however, it impacts the site in ways of convenience for visitors who workout at LA Fitness or pickup and drop off at the amazon lockers.
Hi Robin. I loved your post. Specially the first part of the project. You have explained all the forces in detail and provided self explanatory photos. For the second portion of the project I liked the use of colors for illustrating the forces, however in my opinion you could take it to another level by adding a little more detail or zooming in to focus on the force rather than the whole area.
Thanks for the feedback! Yes, for my final map, I plan to add details that will reflect my forces better. I am however considering if I should zoom in to concentrate on specific location of the map.
Hi Robin,
I never actually explored the Irvine area so your maps and read were very interesting!
I do wonder how you can expand on the force of the hidden alleyway as I’m not entirely sure how it is a force that affects the area to be the way it is.
I sense some potential to expand the explanation or exploration of that force since there may be perhaps several hidden alleyways!
Hey Robin,
I love all of the photos you took of the space. It looks like a very vibrant, yet relaxing hub. It was really fascinating to see how much of the space is taken up by parking! I’m sure that’s how it is for most shopping complexes… but I’ve never really thought about it until I saw your aerial view of it.
Based on the current perspective and scale, it’s hard to see the bright blue circle in the center that represents the fountain area. Although it seems like the central hub and center of attraction, it’s hard to visualize and understand it’s importance. I think once all of the layers are combined, it will make much more sense and seem less lonely. I also think it’ll be easier to see how the fountain correlates to the flow and concentration of traffic in the “Locals” layer.
In general, I like all of the details that you’ve highlighted and I would love to see them with more detail. I suggest zooming in and changing the crop of the aerial view for the next round so we can see the smaller elements better. I also think it would be beneficial to upload files with a wider pixel width so that the images appear bigger on the post.
Hi Cassandra,
I agree with you in that I need to add a little more details like a key/legend. I generally like to keep my designs simple, however, if I am unable to communicate my visuals without a paragraph of descriptions, then I would have to revisit my designs. I appreciate the feedback!
Hi Robin,
I loved the sleuthing you did in finding the hidden alleyway. I’m curious if you took the time to see who’s taking advantage of the alleyway. Is it strictly people taking advantage of the amazon lockers?
I love the mapping of the space. Compared to the actual mall itself, you can see that they the land is primarily used for parking. Since I can’t see a parking lot, it seems like the developers made a conscious decision to not have tall structures that strictly store cars. They would rather have flat parking and have people walk to the town center.
I also liked the fact that you found the “center” of the town center. The water fountain brings everything together and creates a focal point for the town center.
Hi Daniel, thanks for your feedback! I didn’t see anyone access amazon lockers in the alleyway. However, one person did walk through to get to LA Fitness next door.
Hey Robin,
I felt compelled to comment on your post because the Woodbury Town Center is across the street from where I live! In fact, it’s included as part of my Architectures post! (http://sites.uci.edu/in4matx282f18/architectures-joseph-hornig/)
I love your maps. I agree with Tiffany that the bright colors really stand out and that the color choices themselves match well with their corresponding forces.
For traffic and parking, I would have liked a map with varying shades of yellow and orange to differentiate between the roads/parking areas that are more heavily trafficked than others. You’re right that it’s way busier by Ralph’s and Trader Joe’s (especially compared with the parking by Home Depot or Chick-fil-A). I also think the yellow portion of the map is incomplete. There are plenty of other car routes than just the one you’ve identified.
I also would have liked a zoomed in map in addition to the wide aerial view. Particularly for the locals, water fountain, and hidden alleyway maps, it’s hard to see the details of each of the spaces.
But you definitely picked an excellent location and identified some of the main forces at play. Combined, the maps as well as your photos really paint an effective picture of what the area is like.
Do you live nearby? I’m in Stonegate (specifically the Palmeras apartments) and my boyfriend and I are always at Shin-Sen-Gumi.
Hi Joseph,
We are neighbors! I live in Portola Springs. I am at Woodbury Town Center quite a lot as it is my go-to for everything basic. If I am not at the District for Whole Foods, then I’m at Trader Joe’s or Ralphs at Woodbury Town Center.
I appreciate your comments on “I would have liked a map with varying shades of yellow and orange to differentiate between the roads/parking areas that are more heavily trafficked than others.” I think you made a valid point. It was my conscious choice to keep my maps as simple. In that effort, although there are 7 auto routes in the center, I wanted to highlight the busiest routes that people use to enter and exit the Woodbury center.
You and Tiffany gave me some ideas on how I want to adjust my maps this week. Thanks!
Hi Robin!
I really like your aerial map view; it reminds me a little of a baseball field. When I read your observations, I couldn’t believe that all the parkings spots were taken (especially with 9 parking lots)! It wasn’t until I saw your first map of the spacial forces that I realized how much space the parking lots take up. I also love the use of color orange, it feels very impactful to me and really gives me an idea of how busy this area must be on weekends!
I like the colors you chose to depict each of the forces (as I mentioned with the orange). The bright colors make it easy to see and read. The map of the waterfall was really interesting to me. It feels like a pretty important spacial force yet it appears to be the “smallest” force in terms of area. I also like that you chose to use blue since I think of water whenever I see blue. Did you feel the waterfall was a gathering point for the locals as well?
Your photos of the space is beautiful too. The area where locals gathered is really unique and I can see how that it can be such a strong force. The scale you picked is great because it shows how some of the places or buildings that are “smaller” (in the center) could have more impact and spacial force than some of the bigger buildings (the perimeters).
Hey Tiffany,
I saw your comment just as I was making an update to my force #5. I thought the color I chose to represent the hidden alleyway was a bit dark and decided to change it for something lighter.
I live in what people call the “newer” part of Irvine. There are many new homes in this area but not many shopping centers. Woodbury Town Center is central to many new neighborhoods around. As you can imagine, most often than not, I will run into someone I know at Trader Joe’s, Starbucks or at HomeGoods. This is why I could never go out without my makeup!
You’re correct in that water the fountain is another gathering point for locals. The fountain is at the courtyard where all the restaurants are located. It is also in proximity to the grassy playground where families with kids come to hangout.