With a friend from SC , Sylvia, who is also in the planning department I went to downtown LA, which is a stone's throw away from where I live (sortof), yet I rarely go there. Downtown LA is like a lot of downtown areas- it reminded me of the less fashionable sections of the Loop in Chicago, especially in the area around the Harold Washington Library on State Street- it's more than a little rundown around the edges. Yet there is evidence of its former glory in the delightful, yes I said delightful! pre-war buildings and architectural details. But it's hard to see the forest for the trees when the grime gets in the way. In other words, it has a long way to go before it can reclaim its former grandeur.
We had gone to what was described as "an interactive modeling workshop with James Rojas." This wasn't strip down and strike artful poses in the buff (thanks, but no) or looking emaciated in high-end couture, it was what I thought was going to be Mr. Rojas talking about his design process making little scale models of cities, etc.,
It wasn't that at all.
We walked into a converted art gallery- a rather narrow space with stark white walls, exposed duct work, etc., and a sparse selection of "art" on the walls- a few framed photographs of houses, some drawings, etc., We did our meet-and-greet with people we knew discussing our legal environment of planning mid-term that most people feel pretty confident about, but no one is 100% secure over, considering that it constitutes 50% of our grade!
After a while we were ushered into the back half of the gallery where there was a folding table strewn with bric-a-brac- bits of children's toys, broken necklaces, buttons, beads, oddly shaped little pieces of plastic, foam cut-outs, wooden blocks, etc.,
We were told that we were going to design our own visions of sustainable cities with the objects on the table.
A guy from my classes, Glen, who is also in my group project for history, and I collaborated and decided that our final design with a redesign of Amsterdam. We had started out constructing a canal composed of blue poker chips and built on our idea from there. Wooden blocks with buttons on top served as buildings with solar cells on top, little white tubes that lay between the buildings were urban gardens. We also designed a community center on one end of our proposed utopia, with a giant stage for gatherings and a light rail transit system snaked around the city.
After we were done we had to explain our vision and when everyone had presented, Mr. Rojas talked about how it is important, as planners, to think of ways to express how a proposed plan will look in order for greater visual comprehension. One can throw up a bunch of maps at a community meeting, but a lot of people are not receptive to that. People respond when they are invited to be involved and know that their opinions will be valued. Some people might like maps, others may want to see a model of a proposed project before they get on board, and still others would like to see images of what a potential scenario would look like. There is no one set way to guarantee cooperation or agreement from members of a community.
The same concept was conveyed in my History of Planning class with our first assignment. Part of the reason Dr. Sloane wanted it to be open-ended with no set parameters was because he wanted us to understand the importance of design in planning. But he also wanted us to understand that there is no one right way to convey an idea. One person might make a video, another might do a painting, other people put together presentation boards or construct models.
Regardless of how one goes about it, the importance that to effective communicate an idea, one can't rely on words alone.
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