This was another heavily research based project, relying on a strong understanding of the different types of mapping, and an in depth understanding of the chosen approach. As this was Difficult deciding which direction to head in considering we had three members whom all had different ideas, but after a few group meetings it was decided to use an emotional map to convey our idea best. This uses a mode of mapping known as psychogeography, which is the psychological response to different area which includes smell, sound, sight and touch, also taking into account the ambience of the area and the ways others use the area and of course the way the area is intended for use.

 

To collect data to map we had to decide on what we were to map when considering the topic boredom and adventure, we chose to monitor three ways in which an area was used, which were:

 

1.Physical

2.Emotional

3.Absense

We then moved onto which area to map along Brisbane Southbank, deciding on a newly established section known as ‘the Riverquay’, this area was built after the floods that tore through a few years prior and in a way is a shrine to the area. It has a strongly developed theme of geometric wood and a broad and contrasting demographic which falls under our chosen monitored users.

 

The only thing left to do was to figure out how to map the area, this was actually the most challenging part. First we figured out what defines each use, absence would be defined by a persons physical presence and use but not their mental, anyone on their phone, walking or sitting with headphones, using their laptop to work etc. Emotional would be those using the area by engaging with the physical and ambient properties of the area, families playing, couples spending time in the area, people not walking through, whose purpose was to be in the area and engage with it for it’s ambience. Physical was simple, those physically using the area but not for the area, runners, joggers, cyclists etc. We then used broke the area down into three quadrants, and placed a grid over the top of each, this was for us to mark where each action was taking place, each group member had a their own use to monitor, over the space of a week, we visited the site at three separate times, morning, midday and evening, getting a thorough result of data, at the end of the week we created an average for each section of the map and combined all the data to get a layout of which areas had which usage occurring the most.

 

 

Our stylistic approach was simple, keep it within what has already been established in the Riverquay, this was restrictive but working with a theme that has already been established was fun. We created a custom logo that reflects the areas heavy use of geometric wood textures, kept our photography black and white and our colour palette to blacks, greys and whites, as the buildings have that colour pattern already. There was little to no texture and pattern usage, so we applied the dark wood and geometric wood style tour finished product for the physical map, creating a physical 3D map from wood. As there are three topics we needed three separate maps to compare and contrast where which area had what use, to determine this we chose rosewood/jarrah for emotional mapping, light wood/pine/oak for physical and for absence dark wood/mahogany.

 

The idea of the map if for it to be interactive and updateable, so we capped the data a 10, anything above or below is scaled down accordingly. The movement and updating of the map would be accomplished by a piston like mechanism attached to a computer and server which is accessed and updated by the information recorded by users of the area on our app or map, this keeps it responsive as well as social, and not only is it physically interactive, it’s also interactive media.