During class, my group and I went to the 7th floor of the 6 East 16th Street building to observe the physical traces as described in John Zeisel’s text, “Inquiry by Design: Tools for Environment Behavior Research.” I noticed that there were holes on the wall and pins leftover on the chair, this led to the conclusion that the wall is used to pin up papers or assignments, perhaps for critiques. Another form of erosion I saw were the scratches on the floor from the people walking across daily. At the corner near the windows was a whiteboard, however, there were no markers or erasers. This draws the question of where these items would have went, if anybody even uses the whiteboard, or if it is just there temporarily. The layout of the floor was different from the others in this building. As you get off the elevator to the 7th floor there is a seating area on the left hand side with six sofas in a rectangular formation surrounding a table. The people sitting in this area moved the sofas closer together to make communicating with one another easier. Although there were no physical separations in the design of the floor, the seating areas with sofas was separated from the seats by the window by the aisle/walkway in between. There were several official public messages pasted throughout the walls indicating the layout and floorplan of the level, staircases, and fire signs. While observing the behavior of the people on the floor I noticed that there was a mix of people interaction and mingling on the sofas as well as others who kept to themselves, usually on their laptops or cell phones. The people waiting for the elevators were also communicating with each other, this interaction seemed forced because the elevators take time to arrive at the floor and the people would probably feel awkward just standing next to one another silently.
