GRDS 727 Information Visualization
When we first started thinking about this class the most obvious concentration was on preparing materials for the DO roundtables. However, that was primarily a temporal exercise and would only provide Waters Avenue Community stakeholders’ with more aesthetically pleasing and possibly more comprehensive repetitions of already available statistical data.
Philip Mak and Aaron Sutherlen discuss map assembly
What could we contribute to WAVE, in the long term, as well as the short-term that would inform in a different way and open dialogs of opportunity for the Conference and beyond? Following several readings, discussions and meetings with Community stakeholders, as well as reviews of previous classes and conversations with existing ones devoted to WAVE, it occurred to us that a “visual” record of the Corridor had never been pursued.
With that in mind we began the process of visually recording every building and lot on the 22-block long corridor. We then broke them down into broad categories; commercial, residential (S/M family), social/community and vacant. We compiled close to 150 photographs. Carlos Baez, with his undergraduate degree in Photo Journalism, coordinated the photography and all took part in the process.
The photos were then organized block-by-block and inserted into a Corridor map encompassing all 22 blocks on both sides of Waters Avenue.
Carlos Baez and Andrea Nordstrom critiquing design
The five Wards composing the Waters Avenue Community extend two blocks east and west of Waters Avenue. We extended those by three more blocks in each direction and plotted social nodes of activity; churches, playgrounds, schools, community centers, etc. This provided a sort of Feng Shui (interestingly, the root words here are wind and water…the Floridan Aquifer flows beneath Waters Avenue) analysis of people flow.
Opportunities and consequences began to emerge.
A major challenge, presenting itself, was whether or how to rate the residential blocks surrounding WAVE. In other words, some were quite wonderful while others represented the results of neglect. Rating them would, we agreed, probably be viewed as a negative for residents, and something they already knew. While valuable to those with economic interests we felt it was not productive at this point in our process.
The other consideration was how to prepare this so it would be useful to the community. The large maps will be valuable for the Conference as well as for general overviews in civic and community environments. However, these would be costly to produce and difficult to maintain, update and would result in a very short shelf life. We are also preparing easily editable cross-platform documents that can be printed by conventional printers in black and white and bound into eight and a half by eleven binders or spiral notebooks for meetings and discussions. We are also planning some sort of mobile application access to the photos and data. The photos themselves are being categorized and disseminated to the City of Savannah, historical societies, the Waters Avenue Business Association, and interested stakeholders.
The class was fortunate to have Ben Fry (noted information researcher and designer) visit when he recently lectured at SCAD. After a review of our work he was helpful in refining our focus and felt the potential was there for something quite effective.
The photo-geographic record will serve economic as well as cultural and social interests and highlight areas of opportunity as well as challenge going forward for all the community’s stakeholders. We are hoping it serves a central role in future place and space making.
Several ideas have already emerged in the collecting. One of the most interesting is a sign-painting workshop with the hope that mentoring opportunities will develop with experienced sign painters and community youth. The photographs can be used to exhibit sign painting opportunities as well as already existing examples of the rich African-American sign painting culture that exists in Savannah. We will also use them to exhibit opportunities for public art in the Community.
“Visualizing opportunity in the areas of health, food, security, economy, youth engagement, and self awareness is the goal of this project and we are all excited to be a part of the WAVE revitalization.” – Carlos Baez, Michael Feavel, Philip Mak, Andrea Nordstrom, Marina Petrova, Aaron Sutherlen and Carla Torres, all members of the class.
If you would like more information on our class or would like to contribute to our dialog, please visit our blog: http://flowsavannah.wordpress.com/