Category: Place S19

Blog about a particular environment that you like and why (from physical world, from a movie, a theater set, in a book, in a game…). Think about what makes it a place – something more than a space.

My favorite environment is the Escape Room I went with my friend two months ago. It was designed based on a story of an abandoned baby who grew up at a circus and became the clown. Our goal was to discover the life story of the clown and to release his soul from the ruins of the circus. The whole room consisted of four individual spaces, and there are several puzzles we had to solve in order to get into the next room. In the first room, we had to figure out the relationship between the ‘clock’ and how we hit the ball, and to press the correct pictures on the wall in order to start the whole game. After we entered the second room, the clown played us the song he always listened to during childhood and we had to sort out five clips of the song. Also, we needed to figure out how to adjust the lighting of the room based on the most happiest nights the clown could recall. Then I entered a wardrobe while my friend entered the third room. I had to solve the puzzles alone and pass the clues to my friend so that she could stop the ceiling from falling. I was locked inside the wardrobe for the whole time until my friend solved the puzzle in the last room with my help, and we finally escaped.

The reason why I liked the Escape Room was that it provided such an immersive experience, where we learnt about a well-organized story (although it was completely fictional). Unlike all the other games I played before, it combined physical interactions with the facility and mental exercise together, and required more than simply pressing the buttons. We were truly involved in the game and became part of the space, which was explorable.

One of my favourite places that I am comfortable in is a gaming room on campus (won’t specify where it is). I love gaming because it makes me not think about my surroundings and dive into another reality. One of my favourite games is Battlerite. It is a free to play game available on steam. “Battlerite is an action-packed Team Arena Brawler focused on competitive PvP combat. Fight side by side with teammates to the sound of the roaring crowd in vibrant, colosseum-style surroundings. The arena awaits!” (www.battlerite.com). It is a wonderful game, which makes me an arena gladiator where you don’t have to scale your character. Just pick one and off for battle!

Development blog 1. Blinov Maxim

My favorite environment is the town in Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is a game where you start a town and become a mayor of the town. The player is supposed to farm, pick apples, fish, talk to towns people in order to run the town. Every time I feel stressed out I feel the urge to play this game. It almost has a soothing value to it because of the music, lifestyle, and the characters.

As soon as you start the game, I can notice that the game has started due to the song. Animal Crossing has a very distinct music that plays as the player interacts with the game. Player can even make their own songs. Whatever, soothes the person can be played throughout the game.

It is also the lifestyle the game has. The objective of the game is not fighting against evil monsters nor becoming a hero. However, the game focuses on what a person would do on a daily basis if they lived outside the city.

The main reason why this game is my favorite environment is because it portrays the ideal lifestyle that I would like to live. The reason why this game is so popular, I believe, is that it lets people run away from the busy reality and lets them explore what its to like to live a simple life.

This game also reminds me of a transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden. The book is about the author living independently nowadays considered a ‘a manual for self-reliance’. Although it is seems almost impossible for me to actually life a self-reliant life, it seems possible through playing Animal Crossing.

At the end of last year one of the best animated series to ever grace the television screen came to an end. I am writing, of course, of the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. This animated series created by Pendleton Ward tells the adventures of two brothers, Jake the shape-shifting dog and Finn the human in the magical land of Ooo.

Ooo is an eclectic collection of environments from the minds of its designers. The opening sequence gives us a glimpse of a few of these. It consists of a kingdom of beings made entirely out of candy, a kingdom made of ice, a fiery kingdom run by demons, a cosmic realm that is home to the world’s strange gods including Party God (a dog head with a backwards baseball cap) and the cosmic owl (who invades the characters’ dreams from time to time) and many others (the strangest of which may be the kingdom occupied entirely by cats in boxes).

The world design alone tells a story around the main plot lines. The world has a dark side to which the viewer is gradually exposed in little snippets throughout the series.

What we aren’t told at the beginning is that Ooo is, in fact, a version of our world way in the future. We are given a glimpse of our planet, viewed from outer space, with a whole chunk blown out of it. Backgrounds are littered with debris from our present. Is the strange, fantastical landscape of Ooo the result of some kind of nuclear disaster? Is it the figment of the imagination of someone from a post apocalyptic world with elements of a devastated landscape inching into the fairytale?

What made the series so good for both kids and adults was its incredible world building. The landscape manages to be both  whimsical and devastated, post apocalyptic as well as fairytale. The landscape itself embodies a sort of nostalgia as we see elements of our present embedded into the landscape of our childhood imaginations.

After spending countless hours playing the game as a child, I became enthralled with the idea of living in the Clash of Clans world. Clash of Clans is a medieval online strategy game where players need to create, design and protect their home base location. Barbarians are the staple warriors in this world, and they are hailed by everyone because of their scary, fear-provoking countenance. However, there are a vast plethora of warrior types and they are all willing to die in battle in order to either protect their base location or contribute to the war efforts of expansion. As the owner of your base, you have the liberty of designing a layout that is capable of withstanding attacks from other clans with minimal damage caused. Most importantly, you must protect your clan castle as it is the symbolic statute that symbolizes your union to a wider community: your clan. The protection of your clan castle and anything that demonstrates your allegiance to your clan is valued so much that even the King and the Queen of your base become the most powerful warriors if need be, willing to defend the clan castle at all costs. This culture of brotherhood and belonging is what makes me desire to live in this alternate reality as these values are relatable to me regardless of the otherworldliness of the Clash of clan’s world. As someone who comes from a small, tight-knit family, I want to live in a place where I know that my peers and the rest of my community members have my back and vice-versa. In addition, I consider myself a really ambitious person and the idea of owning my own base and make it the best one around through my own efforts and ideas is definitely captivating.

Mohammed kept trying to run me over with his tricycle.  He was only four, but was already the tyrant of his little kingdom of the couches in the main room of the house and the small television that only seemed to play Spanish soap operas dubbed in French.  When anyone tried to invade his kingdom, he blew fart sounds into his or her face.

He defended his territory in such a manner when his older sister entered the room, but immediately stopped when his father followed in after her.  She laid a cloth on the floor and beckoned me to squeeze soap onto my hands and rinse them in the bucket. We all sat upon the cloth surrounding the silver platter on the floor and waited for the father to begin eating.  They used their hands and I used a spoon and they kept passing the best bits of the fish or the crispiest rice to my side of the platter. Every time I put down my spoon, the family would ask why I was not eating, was the food good, and other entreaties that made me pick up the spoon once more until my bursting stomach begged me to stop and say “sourna,” a Wolof word indicating the end of a meal.  They insisted I sit on the best couch, deemed so because it was closest to the fan, and so I rested until Mohammed woke me up with his farting sounds.

The next day, I bid farewell and let Mohammed reign in peace.  I took a quatorze-places back to Dakar. Literally translated, quatorze-places means ‘14 places’ in French, but the term was a bit misleading because though there were 14 people squished into the van, there were not 14 places. As I sat in the back row of the vehicle with four other people and a bird, I thought about Mohammed and his family and the town where they lived on an island made of clamshells. I remembered drifting in and out of the streets near their home and sitting on a bench near the sea. The water scattered on and off the shore and when I looked up, I could see the cemetery where Muslims and Christians are buried together, outlined by bright blue lights. In a nearby house, a man played reggae on the guitar.

Three years later, I can still remember this music, the town, and Mohammed. Though this was a space I intersected less than 24 hours, I remember Joal-Fadiouth as a vibrant place for its serenity and tolerance. Because I spent such a short period of time there and had no purpose there other than to observe, it felt more like a dream than reality that my memory has surely overromanticized, prompting the question: does the transience of an experience shape our perception of it? In our reading, Immersion, Janet Murray describes immersion as being a “movement out of our familiar world, the feeling of alertness that comes from being in this new place” (Murray 1). This sense of immersion is what gave this space meaning, a specific emotional context, and made it a place that I will remember.

My favorite environment is the NYUAD campus. First of all, I think what makes an environment an environment and differentiates the specific one from others is that a specific environment contains certain objective things which we can sense (lawn, clock, temperature, humidity, color, taste etc. ), the atmosphere these objective things created as well as the subjective feelings we have in the environment (chill, happy, calm or anxious).

Given my own understanding of an environment, I pick the NYUAD campus as my favorite environment because its comfortable weather and fresh air makes me feel chill and relaxing, the colorful designs in student lounges and well-groomed green lawn keep me fresh and sharp in mind, the friendly professors and hardworking peers push me work harder and have a greater pursue in my academic life etc, therefore the environment is the synthesis of the feelings that the objective things in it create for me – being in the NYUAD environment makes me feel GOOD, it’s a sum of all the pleasant feeling I have in the campus.

As for what makes it a place rather than a space, as far as I am concerned, a space only emphasis on the size and location of a certain area with no content, however as I mentioned before, an environment or a place has its unique content and characteristics made up by its objects and the atmosphere they created within the environment, and by sensing (smell, see, touch, feel etc.) these different objects, different person will have various feelings and experience, therefore the synthesis of all of these feelings, experiences together with the objects within a space create a place.

I am a big fan of Tokyo Disney Sea. But, that doesn’t necessary mean that I’m a Disney fan. I like theme parks, especially Tokyo Disney Sea. The first time I visited Tokyo Disney Sea was when I was in 2^nd grade. I still remember the excitement I felt when going there. I had heard about it but had never been there before.

Tokyo Disney Sea is separated into different sections with different themes. There is the section that is based off of the United States, the “Arabian” section, the mysterious section, and so on. My all-time favorite has been the “Arabian” section, because I like the atmosphere of that area. I wouldn’t call it authentic because there is an Indian curry restaurant in that area, and, more importantly, it is difficult to define what “Arabian” is. But, there is something special about that area which has the Aladdin attraction as its main venue. It takes me so far from the reality in Japan that it makes me feel as if I teleported to a different country.

The main reason why I like Tokyo Disney Sea is because it takes me away from the current reality, and provides an escape from my daily life. In a sense, I get to feel like a different person because I am removed from the tall skyscrapers and crowded trains. Also, I go to Tokyo Disney Sea to enjoy, and thus, when I have already completed work or don’t have urgent work to complete. Therefore, it is not only the space itself that I like, but also the mentality I go with to that space.

Because Tokyo Disney Sea is in Tokyo and I live in Osaka, I cannot go to Tokyo Disney Sea as frequently as I want to. I think that that makes it even more special. From Tokyo to Osaka, it takes about an hour via airplane, two hours and a half via Shinkansen (bullet train), or overnight via bus. Therefore, it is close, in a sense that it is in the same country, but far in terms of time and economic barriers. This close-yet-far location also adds on to making Tokyo Disney Sea my favorite environment/space/place/location.

“Arabian” Section at Night

All throughout high school I worked at an interior design firm. I worked both in the showroom and in the back, sorting fabric samples, cleaning glass, restoring pieces, etc. My least favorite part of the job wasn’t the hours of cleaning and organizing though, it was talking to customers. Mainly because all the customers at this place were snooty and rude and frankly very spoiled. Excluding the art curation and collection that was stored in the back and in several warehouses around town, everything in that store was overpriced, way way overpriced. The worst offender was these ugly as hell pillows. They were sized the same as the 10 dirham square pillows at Ikea, but these babies cost 600 USD a pop. FOR A PILLOW. It still blows my mind today. The rationalization is that they came from some valley somewhere in the mountain ranges somewhere in the Middle East, hand woven by the male lineage of some tribe who’s slowly going extinct. I get the import fees, but it still strikes me as exorbitant. The weirder aspect of this story was that you couldn’t even just buy the pillow, you had to do your homework on it. That crazy price tag came with a reading requirement(one full book on the weaving practice), descriptions of the seller and background(the woman who heads it is actually very nice, I met her in her warehouse in Brooklyn because of course that’s where she’s based), and attendance at a consulting session with the designers. These ridiculous pillows were a massive hit too, they sold out multiple times as word got out how hard they were to acquire.

The designers at the firm wanted to be sure that every piece that they placed in someone’s home was fully understood by the buyer. The pillows were some of the items that came with the most research, but everything bought through them was explained in great detail. Records were kept of every artist or firm or designer who had anything in their books, we’re talking names, schooling, statements, EVERYTHING. They’d even insist on giving their customers overviews of current and historical trends in design. It was their belief that if someone knew more about the origin and significance of what they were filling their homes with they would 1) be more willing to spend the big bucks and more importantly 2) be more fulfilled by the items presence. Knowing that that’s not just a mirror in your closet but it’s a piece of metal work originating from Mexico featuring a flower specific to that region makes the mirror seem more like art and less like, well, an ordinary mirror. The lesson the designers wanted to impart on their customers seemed to be that a personal space should be personal, whoever inhabits it should know each detail, each choice, each piece so well they can tell you a story no matter where they look too. It creates a greater appreciation for pieces as well as a desire for hints of intent and ergonomics in everything you place in your home. One of the lessons I took from that job is that when you understand the purpose of placement of what surrounds you, even if it’s purely artistic, you have a greater appreciation for your environment.

I definitely still practice that lesson today. I can tell you where everything in my room came from and why it’s there. On my desk there’s an angel with a turquoise heart my grandmother bought me in a street fair from an elderly woman who repurposed reclaimed wood found in arroyo’s, a sticker bearing the name of my hometown designed by a co-worker at a magazine, a wooden bowl I bought freshman year with my roommates from Ikea made of bamboo wood, and intermittently scattered bottles of perfume, photos, and nail polish, all arranged to form a U-shape so that it offers a more open look and makes the desk appear larger than it actually is. Typing that all out, I totally feel like Marie Kondo, but I get super anal about any arrangement I make. To me, the ideal environment offers control and curation, digital or physical. I may not spend $600 on a pillow, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about what I want in my living space. I know the placement tricks that will make my tiny dorm room look bigger than it actually is. I know how to fill white space and when to let it sit. I personally like environments where you can tell that everything was curated, even if you don’t know the exact reasoning behind it. And when you are aware of the minutiae of every piece(whether it’s a painting, a bowl, or even a exuberantly priced pillow) you appreciate the environment even more.

At both the homes of our clients and my bosses, you could almost feel how much effort went into every choice. Or it may have just been the fact that I was the one who sorted the architectural blueprints, paint swatches, furniture catalogues, design drafts etc. so I knew firsthand how much effort it took. Each room had distinctive color palettes, statement pieces, lighting picked to illuminate specific areas, art(textiles, hand blown glass, weaponry, folk and fine, portraits, and any and all else you can think of), hundred of tiny details that all merged together you’d never even notice each individual choice. Even the shape of the lightbulbs was something they’d take into account. That attention to detail always made movie sets stand out to me. Everything placed into a shot is put there for a reason. The items that surround characters are meant to subconsciously give you a closer look into their psyche. If a show’s camera focuses on papers strewn everywhere, you might conclude that the character is a struggling academic. Bright colors might indicate a character’s happy disposition, while stacks of take out boxes and mildew might say they are sad and slobbish after a devastating break up.  What people choose to surround themselves with says a lot about them, whether we realize that or not.

I like seeing environments that people create for themselves. I don’t like when everything matches perfectly, think the furniture sets as freemium prizes for so many apps on your phone or the massive churn out of Pottery Barn and their ilk. I like going to someone’s home and feeling that they chose everything there for a reason. Dorm rooms here on campus often do the trick. You can really only bring a few things from home or lug a few things in from Ikea here, so what people have tells you a lot about them. It makes our rooms distinctive, it gives you a peak at what makes people feel comfortable when they excuse themselves from the general public. For me, an environment should tell you more about what lives there. The same rules apply in zoology after all. A crocodile has sharp teeth because it’s a predator, it’s eyes reston the top of it’s head so it can look out from the water, it’s coloring is to camouflage itself in its environment. Humans are still animals after all, and while our design choices aren’t so Darwinian as a crododiles, they can still tell you a lot about the corresponding curator of a space.

A massive gate opens and you take a step forward. Tall walls now surround you from all four sides, giving you a sense of security from what is out there. Still, the snow on the ground and the sound of the wind remind you that it is as cold as ever, but now there is life. Children are running around, their laughter chiming in your ears as you pass by, the blacksmith is hard at work, the sounds of the simmering fire and the hits of a hammer on an anvil echoing out. Somewhere far away you hear the sound of someone chopping wood, preparing more logs to keep the cozy fire of their home going. You feel like you’ve found a place where there is warmth; hearth in the middle of a frozen wasteland of Skyrim.

This is the feeling and memories I get when I remember the city of Whiterun from the Bethesda Softworks game titled The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Located in the center of the Kingdom of Skyrim, this is the city that players of game visit very early on in the game while following the main quest of the game and will revisit quite a bit throughout their experience in the game. The city itself is composed of three parts each marked by an increase in altitude. The Plains district resides at the bottom level and is home to most merchants of the city. The Wind district is the district located in the center level and is the location of most of the residential buildings of Whiterun. Finally, we find the Cloud district at the very top of the city, where the ruler of the Whiterun, Jahrl Balgruuf, resides in his grandiose Hold named the Dragonsreach.

The Plains district of Whiterun is the first part of the city which the player get to experience and is the location of a purchasable player home, making it an important landmark for the player. A marking feature of this location are the NPCs (non – playable characters) inside the district that are always moving, talking or performing the tasks of their daily routine. As mentioned in my introductory description, you will find kids playing, a blacksmith making a sword or armor, a man chopping wood for his fireplace. More than that, the NPCs will actually try to engage with you. When you walk close enough to the blacksmith, he might greet you or warn you about not getting too close to the fire . If you go to the town marketplace, you will get shouts from all the merchants there trying to sell you fish, fruits, vegetables or jewelry. You can also enter some specialty stores on the sides such as an alchemist where you can purchase a potion, or visit the Drunken Huntsman, a local pub, where you can listen in on the local rumors and conversations between the inhabitants. A kid might even stop you during your walk through the city and ask you to play hide and seek with him or her! This makes the environment of the city feel dynamic, interactive and, after getting to know the NPCs in the city, even personal. As a player, this makes me feel immersed in the world. I cannot help but want to know the events and dramas that are going on in the city and see if I can get involved in one way or another. The active NPC interactions not only give the city of Whiterun an appearance of a functioning society, but also one that you can influence with your own actions. This is a very precious feeling in a world where the player is given full freedom in what he or she is allowed to do.

Another part of Whiterun that has always appealed to me is the way it contrasts cold and warmth. The land of Skyrim is in the midst of a mountainous area and as a result is cold, windy and is, for the most part, covered in snow. Whiterun does not let you forget that. While walking outside, you are met with a cobblestone path, accompanied by patches colorless grass off to the sides with remnants of snow still present on top of it. The sound of a breezy wind is heard all around. This always gave me a chilly vibe, even when the sun was shining bright in the game world’s sky. However, this changes drastically when you enter any building of the city. Immediately, before you even see the source of it, you are met with the crackling noise of a fire burning somewhere. Then, as you look around, you see the light emanating from a fireplace. This fireplace, found in every home of Whiterun, gives the player a link between cold outside world of Skyrim and the warmth found inside allowing me to experience the environment of Skyrim without actually feeling anything physically. This simple idea to play with sounds and light as you switch between an indoor and outdoor space for contrast makes a huge difference in how much attention I would give the climate and weather conditions presented in the game and is one of the big reasons that makes me want to believe that the harsh weather conditions have an impact on how the people of Whiterun live their lives. This is one of the many things that make the world of Skyrim feel like it has causality and gives it beautiful appeal both in terms of visuals and sound, making the world feel more immersive and enjoyable to the player experiencing it.

The last part of the environment of Whiterun that I want to address is the way it changes during the day-night cycle of the game.  As I already talked about, while the sun is shining the citizens are out and about doing their daily routines, trying to get through the day. However, when the sun sets, the city becomes empty. The only people to be found outside patrolling guards. Although the streets of Whiterun are now dark and only lit by small lanterns on the side of the streets, the sky is bright and detailed. On some nights nebulas, other galaxies or even aurora borealis is visible. Some of the mountain peaks visible from the city now turn into dark silhouettes, reminding you that they are just mere physical objects in the face of the divine skies. Among the other objects present in your view you find the two orbiting moons of the night sky; on some days as crater filled full circles and, on others, as two sharp crescents. Seeing this view in the safe environment of Whiterun brings to attention the ancient and magical nature of the world of Skyrim while reminding you of the vast world that is still left to explore within the game, making you thirst for more adventure. This sets the tone perfectly for the moment you reopen the massive city gates and venture out again.

I believe the factors I have mentioned, along with many more minor details that the creators of the game have put their time and effort into, make Whiterun feel like a city a player can believe in and immerse him or herself in. The daily actions of the citizens make them seem like they have a life, know the environment that they live in and adapt to overcome it. The contrast that the game creates between warmth and cold makes the player really feel like they are able to feel that difference in temperature as well. Finally the night in the city tells of the peaceful nature of the city with its empty streets, while the night sky reminds you of the adventure that it still to come in the game. The atmosphere that Whiterun creates is one that makes the player believe it is a place that could really exist and allows the player to make it more than just an arbitrary checkpoint inside a game, but rather a personal place they are familiar with. This is what makes me like the environment that Whiterun creates, and is the reason why Whiterun is one of the few virtual places I have visited that I can remember with little effort.