Palladio Mall:
The perfect place to shop, dine, and play. Spending time in this open mall is a delight. I happen to work at the offices situated here so, taking regular breaks is very appealing. Going for walks, getting a frozen yogurt, eating lunch in the restaurants and or if time allows watching a full feature movie release. These are some of the activities one can find at any time of the day.
Now the whole site is getting ready for the lighting the Christmas tree event. Other forces include:
offices: Palladio offers three full floors of office space to lawyers, builders, software developers, and other technology companies who occupy the space.
corridors: Pleasant and large corridors connect every corner of the open mall with a grace of modern architectural structures, and beautiful garden designs. These provide an inviting way into a consistent outdoor experience even into forgotten or less used corners of the site.
vacancy: The way unused space is utilized prevents visitors from feeling that the mall is empty. It always looks busy and inviting. Full color murals cover the vacant spaces, as seeing on the end of this passage below. Adding to the fashion exterior design of the area and contributing to an environment of high-end shopping experience.
vegetation: The vegetation is a traditional California feel with palms guiding the main roads of the mall and plenty of shrubbery and seasonal flowers accompanying visitors anywhere they go.
festivals: Palladio offers a variety of festivals and activities for local families and youth. These include rock and roll concerts, singers, aerobic classes, yoga in the park, and many other local activities.
water flow: Well placed water fountains continue the outdoor design theme by adding a touch of raw nature, sound, and an oasis-like relaxing feel to the visitor seating or walking throughout the venue.
vehicle parking: Palladio mall is designed with parking places on every internal street plus two parking buildings with two and three floors respectively.
Part 2 #6
Main Map.
offices force:
corridors force:
vacancy force:
vegetation force:
festivals force:
water flow force:
vehicle parking force:
Final Map First Attempt
I was not happy about my first effort in trying to combine these forces, it seemed a bit bland and boring. I wanted to differentiate my selected forces from the rest of the map elements, looking for a more drastic differentiation between them. One positive feedback I received about the organic way in which I’ve depicted the vegetation force, inspired me to look for a way to represent some of the other forces in a similar way.
Final Map
All 7 forces combined. I made several changes based on feedback from peers and meeting with Jesse on Monday. Rotated the map to better use available space. I also moved away from simply showing a block of color to represent a force. Added a level of simplicity and sophistication by reversing the color of the background image. And I was able to highlight more effectively the concentration of human traffic in the different areas of the mall. One can easily see the areas of greater human concentration loads and traffic within corridors, streets, and parking areas.
Final Final Map
Changes made after receiving feedback from my cohorts.
Team 8, Exercise 3.1.1
Hello Omar,
I commented a while ago on your force maps, and see that it has grown quite a bit into your final map! From the final, I can derive a couple of things:
-The most pedestrian traffic (where the festivals are held) is condensed around one of the two main water fountains. This says that the water feature acts as a central point within the Palladio Mall. Could that area also act as a corridor for people to explore? Maybe to define this better, you can spread the orange color to fill the area instead of just having it along the side.
-I also noticed that the area just above your map key is a little hard to distinguish. The lines make it seem as though it is a parking lot or road, but there seems to be maroon (indicating murals). Is this correct? Maybe to better visualize where the murals are, you can change that force in particular to be a specific icon or even a dot.
-There is quite a bit of vegetation around the mall, which is a nice bonus for anyone trying to enjoy their surroundings. It’s your most used force, and is well distinguished by it’s color and contrast to the background. After looking at your map more closely, I also realized that there were buildings there! This was a little bit hard to define, because the dark color blended into the background. Try lightening up the building color just a bit so that we can see all of your forces working around the building.
Great job!
Thank you so much Alexa!!! I appreciate your feedback and will be making some changes to the map to increase the visibility for buildings and murals. You and Joseph really honed in some aspects that my map needs improvement 🙂 Thank you!
Hi Omar, So this is the mall I’ve heard so much about from 281 :).
The black background on your final map is an interesting choice. I would be cautious of the contrast in what your mapping. Some of the colors, especially since you have a blur on them, blend into the black.
I went to check your pdf to see if this was less noticible on that, but i didn’t see it. Don’t forget to include a link so we can see the high resolution version of your hard work!
At any rate, my suggestion is to check the contrast levels, and make sure that information from the blur isn’t being lost. Perhaps consider lighter colors to help set them apart form the black background. The other thing, is that with everything be blurred, it felt like your map was almost out of focused. I know i’m responding to your post late in the assignment, but is there a balance between precision points and the blurring?
Hello Joseph. Thank you so much or the suggestions! I will be looking to increase the contrast a bit more. I find it difficult to represent traffic intensity because if i do the light traffic too visible there is very little contrast with the high traffic areas. But there is lots of room for improvement, so thank you again. And I just added the high resolution pdf 🙂
Hello Omar,
I really enjoyed reading your post. The area seems like a great place to observe all of the forces you’ve described. The one force I can comment on is the “vacancy” areas… are there a subset of forces that you see evident here? Maybe you can distinguish between architecture and murals, and even come up with a different title to better capture the force (this is not to confuse that I think the force itself is good).
Your map is very easy to read, with each force having enough contrast to see where it is located. For “festivals,” is that the only place in the area that they are held? Maybe here, you can distinguish between concerts and outdoor activities such as yoga!
Hello Alexa. Thank you for your post and observations. Yes I agree with you about distinguishing between festivals and other activities in the one area of the mall. But then, I changed the whole focus of the map and decided to represent each force with a gradient color. This change helps us appreciate the different intensities of human traffic and other forces in the mall. Cheers!!! 🙂
Omar,
I really like the simplicity of your maps. My favorite feature is the way you captured the vegetation. The color, shape, and repetition you used really reminds me of very planned and organized landscaping that is common in large outdoor malls like this. I’m wondering if you can bring some of the same ideas to your other forces, like could the shapes of the blue reflect water in some way? Our sites seem similar and I just colored the different rectangles different colors, so I’m going to take back my thoughts on your map and apply it to my own. I’m looking for a way to elevate my map so it’s not simply a mall directory, which is what it feels like to me now 🙂
Kathy, you are dead on something I was contemplating as well. Probably the vegetation is my best and it was the last map I made. Bringing the more biological shape gave the map a flair of cool. I don’t know how to bring that into the other forces. But While i was writing a comment on your maps I realized that the question I asked you is exactly what I need to do on my map. Vacancies (force) in this mall are shown by murals. So any wall with a mural is a vacant store. For the next steps on this map I have an idea to bring that artwork in the way of little graphics-icons… stream of consciousness… I need to keep developing this idea, may be we can collaborate as our maps are so similar. I wonder if it has to do with our similar career background 🙂
Wow Omar, I love how you present each force on your clean and neat main map. I think your map shows a good balance with your selection of forces. I like how it is simple, and the lightweight outline for the roads helps the other forces stand out very well. Could you share your story or your main idea when creating your main map? I also enjoyed reading your post and interpretation of your site, and especially like your observation on the vacant spaces. Great work! 🙂
Hello Young Sun, Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your positive view of the effort. The story behind is simple i just wanted to establish a hierarchy between the aspects (forces) we needed to expose and those other things that needed to be more in the background. Something I realized, thanks to the comments here, is that I need to do a better job representing each force so i am brainstorming what my next steps will be. 🙂 Cheers!
Omar! Excellent post!
I think you have a very unique way of looking even at these forces, but you have a very deep understanding of them. I was especially drawn to your description of the fountains as “Water Flow” because I feel that it embodies more than just water fountains – you add life and sound to the imagery that I don’t think many of us would have thought about before. With your help, I can imagine the lushness of the foliage, the bubbling fountains, and the vibrant murals lining each walkway.
I’m curious how you’re going to measure more temporal things, like festivals and vacancy, since these are going to change with the seasons. How do you envision this force affecting the space? I can’t wait to see!
That is a good question Graham. I am not sure yet how i will tackle those changes. The only thing i can think of is an interactive map, the paper maps will have to be reprinted every time there is a change and that is not cost effective 🙂 Great question you’ve got me thinking man!
Hi Omar,
Great job on displaying your forces! Love how clean the outcome is.
However, here are three points I wanted to address:
1) I was initially a little confused by the terminology “water flow”, since that made me think of something like a river where there is a flow of water. My recommendation would be renaming it to simply be “water fountain” to clear up ambiguities.
2) I am not too sure what is depicted by “vacancy”. Are these meant to depict murals? If so, I would personally call it “murals”.
3) Since “festivals” is more of an event and not so much an area, I would recommend renaming this to “main stage” (if it is a stage) or simply call it “festival area”.
I think that by specifying the names of the forces, the representations on the map will be much more clear. Hope that was useful for you! Again, great job on your maps!
Best,
Grace
I can see how changing the names can help. on the other hand this is how i see it, water flows in water fountains, murals are just a neat, clever way to show vacant sites without detracting from the beauty of the place and also adding to the shopping atmosphere, and the festival is just one activity that takes place there there are others but i chose festival because is the one that brings the most people all at once. A matter of perception i guess… But thank you for the suggestions Grace! 🙂
Hi Omar!
I like how you used different shapes, line densities and colors to show your five different forces.
I would love to learn more about the water source! Did you pick the different shapes because they are different type of sources or did you follow the shape of the original design?
I followed the shape of the original design. 🙂 Good catch!
Omar,
Appreciate you highlighting the space between spaces and highlighting the builders’ attempt to make the environment never look “empty.” In design we also quite often touch upon the importance of negative space. In observing did you get a sense of how they balanced these opposing forces – not looking “empty” versus designing the space to not appear crowded/clustered. Are there perhaps elements that provide orientation?
Have you given considered how you’re going to map festivals which are temporal and thus may only last a few hours/days? I’m similarly struggling with with how to map a temporal force – foggy weather.
Q you make a great point. I did not considered about festival being something that is temporal. I just highlighted the area where this type of force occurs. Not sure I can differentiate between areas that are permanent forces and those that are temporal. Perhaps, looking at three maps representing the vegetation, festivals, and corridor forces, one can extrapolate that multiple things occur there. In response to your comment about how they balance these opposing forces looking crowded vs empty. The architectural design provides the perfect framing for the murals. The design of this mall goes beyond anything I have seen before. When we moved here there were only a few stores, now the place is probably 80% filled with stores but the spacial impact, the look and feel, and the overall ambiance hasn’t change. There must be some serious architects-environmental designers behind the whole project. Very well balanced!
You got me thinking… Thank you!
Hi Omar!
The photos of your site look great – I’m glad you work at such a pleasant area to hang out for breaks. It seems like a well planned space architecturally with landscaping and water fountains. I’m curious what other examples you might have for the “vacancy” force aside from murals and how (and what) you’ll be mapping for this force in particular. I also like that you included festivals/social activities as this force is something that you experienced by being at this site often, and not something you may have been able to observe if you were only there once.
Great work!
I mapped what is currently under vacancy. Not sure I have other vacancy examples to show. If you mean other pictures Yes I can go get a few more, even closer ones to appreciate the good taste and design these murals provide.