Stuyvesant Square Park

Jiwon Kim

 The Stuyvesant Square park was split into two parts by a traffic light. The atmosphere and smells of the two parts were totally different. When I first visited the park with my group, I not only noticed the scent of the park, but I also subconsciously concentrated on all the details of the park, visually and acoustically, to sketch the map. I definitely struggled to catch all the scents. However, when I revisited by myself, I tried to canceled all my other senses. To do so, I bent my head down and watched only where I walked. To eliminate the visual senses and focus on the smell, some times I stopped  walking, covered my eyes, and took a deep breath through my nose. By following the path in the park, I checked the spots where I smelled certain things, such as food, flowers, or perfume, and made icons representing each of those smells.

 I revisited the park at noon and then again at night. It was definitely more crowded at noon than the morning when I visited with a group. At noon, I could easily smell food from everywhere as many people were eating their lunch and a few suited woman wore perfume. It was fresh, vibrant, and felt alive. In contrast, at night, the smell of exhaust from the cars, marijuana, cigarettes and an odd smell from homeless people made the park seem more gloomy, dark and dismal.To contrast the night and day time, I chose different texture and the color of the line to show the exact path I walked at the park and express my different emotions and mood.  The line for the day time is more smooth texture and bright pink color. The color represents my feeling of freshness and brightness. However, the brown line used to indicate my night walk and has more rough texture representing more stale and unpleasant. For the icons, I chose the colors yellow and blue to represent the day and the night, respectively and stick on the spot where I smelt.

 To design the digitalized map, I tried to make it as simple as I could, but details were important in making sure people could understand the map. I included fences, fountains, benches and garbage cans on illustrating map. Even after all of this, I realized this map is not enough to show a sense and emotions related to the park; however, I feel that I have learnt a lot during the course of the project. This project made me more aware of my emotions and of my senses especially since the atmosphere of the park changed at the different times of the day. By building up a sense to 3D, it easily reminds me of the emotions I felt, what I smelt and what I experienced more in detail.