Sketch Installation.
The initial concept for my installation is in relation to the flow of people within Town Hall Station. The main thing I noticed from my visits was that the most congested platforms (1,2 & 3) had less surface area than the lesser populated platforms (4, 5 & 6). The stairs accessing the mid-level platforms from ground are double the width to accommodate the larger flow of commuters. However it is this increased stair width that reduces the space for commuters to wait for trains. The escalators that access the lower-level platforms from ground don't stop at the mid-level platforms, but the space required for them to access the lower-level means the platform space is reduced further. Sure this doesn't effect things during the quiet hours of travel, but during peak hour the trains running around city circle and mainstream routes (the most congested) stop on the platforms with the least amount of space for commuters.
The installation in my Town Hall model is going to be stairs on the congested platforms that retract in width during peak hour. This will give more room for passengers to wait for, and get on and off the trains. Even though the stair width has decreased, there are still four different access points and plenty of room for passengers to leave the station. The stairs will remain at the original width during regular hours to keep the symmetry of the platforms constant.
This change in width can be seen in the animation below.
Pro's & Con's of Documentation Methods.
As previously mentioned on my blog. We were quite limited in the resources available for our Town Hall documentation. This meant that without accurate references the "realism" of our models would be effected. A map of the "planned vision" for Town Hall Station was accessible, however this did not entirely match the current state of the Station.
For me, the camera was the most useful documentation tool. Even though you could not get exact measurements from the images, it gave you an overall feel for the environment, and was relatively accurate in terms of where the different elements were located. The biggest con of the camera was that other people at the station looked at you very suspiciously, and thought you were trying to invade their privacy and take photos of them.
The second most useful tool was sketching. Early in the process I did not even identify this as a suitable tool for documentation. However the times I visited the station I took quick sketches of the subway layout, critical objects, and also noted down specific measurements. Then when I continued on my model I found myself referring to my sketches even more than the images.
The tape measure was not as useful as I had hoped. It was really only used to get the stair heights and treads along with hand rail heights and thicknesses. The rest of the station was too big to successfully measure, and once again the general public seemed really confused as to what you were trying to do and CityRail employees were also a bit concerned.
I didn't end up using my video camera to document the station. I had planned to use it in order to analyse the flow of people and human interaction with the space. However I found that the still camera was weird enough for the general public, and felt that simply sitting on a chair and watching how people move and the way they travel through the space was successful enough.
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