Consider the many definitions of place expressed in this reading. How do you define place and what portion of this reading perhaps reinforces your opinion or what portion struck you most notably and why?
Prof. Torres-MacDonald
Place to me has a defined named, such as a park is a place and a park usually has a given name. There can be places within places. For example, your apartment complex is a place and your apartment is a place that is within a bigger place. Each place has its own character or feel given from its surroundings. Place is a location, a reference point.
In Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, some of my definitions of place can be found with what he writes. He talks about naming as a way space can be given meaning which is then a place. This is similar to my idea that place has a defined name. He goes deeper into this idea by saying that if a space does not have a name then it is just a space and not a place. I find this to be very true. This idea of place having meaning is somewhat similar to how I said place has its own character. It’s interesting how something can be a place to someone such as the native canoeists in the sea, but to a traveler in a new area may see the sea as just a bunch of space. Place needs meaning behind it which means that place is not always a place to everyone.
Cresswell relates place and landscape and how they are not the same. I found this idea to be very interesting and not something I would have thought of. He states that in landscape a viewer is outside of it and in place things are inside of it. This idea makes sense that landscape is not usually a place. I believe that my definition of place is somewhat similar to Cresswell’s. He just expressed more in-depth thoughts about place. I really liked his comparisons of place with space and landscapes.
Place can be defined in many different ways depending on how it's used. One example from the reading that I believe is the most truthful is the example of the new apartment you're staying for college. That apartment has been a place before or will become your place. It's the anonymous space which has a history you move in to make it a place. "Place is how we make the world meaningful and the way we experience the world". This quote really struck me the most in a way that it makes you think in what meaning or sense does that place have value to your history. How does that place say something about you? In my opinion, the best way to define place is to take a space and make it a meaningful location to you or to others and make it a place. Going back to the example of the apartment, the way you set and display your belongings in every room to express yourself to others gives the unique sense of the one and only place you can call home. People always say 'come on over to my place' referring to where they live. This can state that there is no other place that could be the same regarding to its meaning, surroundings and history that person creates to its comfort. That is the way I define the term Place.
There are many different theories and ideas about how one can define place. In my opinion, place is defined as an area that holds significant meaning and value to someone. This is what makes the difference between place and space, as space is everywhere, and place is a more defined area. For example, an empty room is just another empty space until one adds in a desk to make it a office or a bed to make it a bedroom. The addition of different elements and objects has the ability to change a space into a defined place.
In Tim Cresswell’s short introduction, ‘Place,’ he gives many examples that further explain the idea of defining place. Cresswell explains that spaces are areas that link places. A place is somewhere to stop in between spaces. He also explains that the naming of a space can also bring more meaning towards changing the ‘space’ into a ‘place’. For example a park without a name is just another open lot of space but once it is named and a walking trail has been added, and the park has the ability to become a significant place. There are some places, manmade we well as in nature, which are significant to some, yet are only looked at as ineffective space for others. Cresswell gives an example of this in the reading when he discusses how Captain Vancouver believed that the natives were making ‘nonsensical movements’ simply because he didn’t understand how they utilized the sea.
What is of importance to one person is not necessarily always important to someone else because of our differences. Even though we may name places ‘bedroom’ or ‘backyard’ the place can be redefined by its user. What one may see as a backyard may be another person’s sanctuary or a bedroom can become a safe haven. These different ideas throughout the reading reinforce my opinion that place is defined by significance to the user.
Before assimilating this reading, I saw "Place" as a mere noun and verb; I replaced everywhere I did not remember with the word place and sometimes used the word in my sentences.
Now I see place as a living organism that exhibits personality, emotions and identity (metaphor).
Personality: Every place has a distinctive trait such as a trees along both sides of a path, flowers, valleys and ponds. Sometimes it seems to reflect the personality of the people living in it. For example; The Bronx and Manhattan in the city of New York.
Emotions: A place sometimes depicts the mood and experience. For example, I would rather be in a park on a sunny day (happy)than a dark alley at night (fright). Surprisingly this same alley in the day time will be experienced differently.
Identity: Every place has characteristics that makes it recognizable. Most times places are recognized by its people, culture and environment.One can give a place its identity by naming it. Therefore the question is " Does a place define the people or Do the people define the place?"
The portion of this reading that struck me was Tuan's quote " If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place". I think this quote is true and informative. It does not describe place as a 2 dimensional object but as a 3 dimensional object.
In conclusion Place is everywhere but it becomes personal when people define the place by giving it meaning.
When I had read what was required for this particular reading "how do you define place?" I had immediately thought that a place is an area where meaning had been engraved in one's mind corresponding to the place where memories had been created. Tim Cresswell is right on point stating that a definition of space is considered "a meaningful location" and a "place of memory". For example, the past university campus which I had attended before I enrolled for Tech. Just as a kid decorates his room with his personal belongings, I established many memories across the campus through food drives, volunteer services, sitting on a bench, walking down the paths which led specific buildings or even simply laying down on shaded area. It is absolutely true, as Cresswell says, that when a human invests meaning into space it becomes their personal description of place, which is why I always find myself describing to my peers "Remember that place" or "we need to go back to that place where it all started". Indeed, I also even named the place as "comfort" to me when as I like to go back and reminisce when life used to be fun and quite frankly without so much responsibility. Regarding this, this is exactly what I had in mind, I think about it now and its concrete to say that I made that space meaningful so it became my definition of sense of place. Even now it's how I relate to my past experiences with other places. Study Abroad is yet another prime example, since I've been back in the U.S I always find myself thinking about how much fun Paris was, how much fun the city was, how much fun the place was.
Place, what does this word mean to me? In answering this question the part of the reading that helps me most is the quote from Tuan. "If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place".
This goes along with what I always believed a place is a space that a person habitats. It becomes a place as soon as you spend some amount of time in it. I feel like the space is given meaning when a person decides to reside in it, for example the seat in the classroom that you sit in everyday, that is a place to you because you give it that meaning.
As far as place goes for items it depends on the person to assign a place for that item and make sure that every item is in its place. The books on a shelf where the bed or desk or TV is located in a room, the user gives them their place. When that person moves from the college dorm to an apartment or a house the place changes and gets a new meaning.
Essentially it depends on the person to decide what is a place to them and what is not. With my point of view I see my classmates to sit in the same seat every time, use the same lockers, do almost everything in their day to day the same. I define that is their place and I have mine I do not invade their place unless invited. Place is what you make it.
In Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, he quotes a political geographer John Agnew. That there are three aspects to a place that make it meaningful and they are Location, Locale, and Sense of Place. To me these three items define place perfectly in the way of it being some where important to you. My place would be my home in Plano, Texas because Plano, Texas is a fixed location in the United States. The memories drive it to be a place because of the locale and growing up their. It's a feeling that I have as a sense of figurative ownership and not literal ownership of the home. As I get older this place of mine will change because we move on in life. So my place now will be different than my place in the future. Consider your places to be divided into three categories. The first being your childhood place, where you grew up and spent most of you childhood. Then you move on to your in between place, this could be at college or in the military. The last place is your adult place or the home you consider your families after getting married and having children. Overall the political geographer John Agnew nailed my meaning of place with location, locale, and sense of place.
Place can have many different definitions and interpretations, there is no shortage in the attempts that have been made to concretize what it means. The fact is that the definition depends on the person that is defining it.
I believe that space become place through the recognition of the physical elements, personalization and the interaction with the space, this is summed up by Yi-Fu Tuan, “ What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value”. An example would be the dorm room discussed in the reading. The recognition of physical elements is manifested by the walls that enclose the space, and then the desk is introduced. The introduction of the desk grounds the space into place because carries with it suppositions of what is used for, in this case it’s doing homework. Then you start layering physical objects, such as a chair, the relation between these two objects creates a sub place within the greater one. Cresswell states, Place is also a way of seeing, knowing and understanding the world”. As the layering continues to grow and moves outward so does our interaction and personalization, creating a world of micro and macro places that we move in and out of.
I define place very similar to one of the definitions given in the reading by Tim Creswell. Place is as an area of space that is personalized, whether that personalization is by me or someone else and that level of personalization can also vary. Personalization differs from place to place. Place is almost so simply taken for granted that we can quickly forget how complex it can become as Croswell says. What begins to better explain place in the reading is notion of ownership, which leads me to think about territorialism. I like the example given about a particular dormitory that has been occupied by various inhabitants and each one attempts to personalize it with objects such as posters, decorations, and other personal items.
One concept of space that I also find interesting is public space. It’s very interesting how a group of people can have the same concept of a shared space. Even more interesting is how people will take care of that space even though it is not exclusively their own space. To exemplify think of the example of the 11 community garden in Houston where every one can help grow different greens such as onions, spinach, turnips, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. It’s a shared space where the people who contribute to it can reap benefits from it and therefore have a sense of ownership from it.
Finally, I found is Croswell’s example of Captain Vancouver’s discovery between Vancouver and Seattle to be a very good example of perception of space. He explains how the Natives of the area travelled by conoe so comfortably whereas the colonialist felt much more comfortable by land. The description of how the Natives canoed through the water with such tact and how they knew the subtle nuances of where and where not to cross was intriguing and demonstrates the connection that the Natives had with the water, which in itself is not even considered a place for many of us.
The word place can be defined in many different ways, but it ultimately has a different meaning to everyone. To me place can be defined as a space that is personalized or holds significant value to someone. The quote by Tuan that summed it all up for me was “What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it and better endow it with value.” The dorm room example discussed in the reading really grasps the meaning of place. The room was just a white piece of canvas until one starts to make it unique. At the beginning of this semester I started my practicum in Dallas at RTKL Associates, and on the first day after orientation I was taken to my desk area. To me this area was just space that included a desk, computer, telephone, and other essentials. This space had no meaning to me until I slowly stated to give it my own sense of style and started to display my belongings and make it unique. Place is an area that holds a significant meaning to someone.
Before reading Tim Cresswell’s article “Place: A short Introduction,” my view of place was a specific location. I used place in the context of telling someone where a specific item, etc. was located. There have been times that I have used space and place interchangeably throughout my life, and after reading Cresswells’ article, I have come to the consensus that a place can always be a space, but a space cannot always be a place. In his article, Cresswell offers the idea that, “Space given meaning becomes place” (9). I can think of a few examples that this could be the case. The first example that comes to mind is the open prairies of Western Kansas. Most people would just consider this a vast space, but if I was to specific my grandfather’s ranch-house 15 miles east of Liberal, Kansas on Bluebell road, it instantly becomes more meaningful, and can be viewed as a place. With this example, it allows me to better understand how space with meaning can really be a place.
The portion of the reading that specifically reinforced my opinion of place was discussed on page 7 of Cresswell’s article. “One answer is that they are all spaces with people have made meaningful. They are all spaces people are attached to. This is the most straight forward and common definition of place – a meaningful location.” This concept that Cresswell addressed allowed me to re-examine why I viewed place the way that I did, and it allowed me to take a deeper look at the way I address the terms ‘space’ and ‘place.’ It helped give me a better idea of what they both mean; hopefully, I will not misuse or use them interchangeably after reading this article.
Reading 4: Defining Place When defining place, I agree most with the definition "a meaningful location." A place to me is a space with meaning. This space may be stationary or moveable. Events and memories define spaces, and events and memories attached to objects which are then displayed in a space make that space a place. That reminds a bit of why hoarding exists, but I digress. There are many meaningful places that are shared among people. For instance, one of my most favorite places is the beach in Panama City. Probably millions of people have experienced this place over its existence, yet it still holds special meaning to me. Maybe a place that holds a shared experience can connect you with humanity, thus propelling its meaning onto a different plane - one that is less tangible. I believe that sharing in a place with others you are close to also heightens the vividness of an experience laden space. By experiencing a space with others you can easily relive it with those people, and it is easier to do so the closer you are to them. The reliving of these memories creates a place from that space. Any space can have or develop meaning. it only takes one element - the reinforcing of a different memory through similarities or differences, a sensation, smell, touch, sound, or the higher cognitive reasoning that creates new adaptations and understandings. It is difficult to put a definition on the word place. The word place has many different and even divergent meanings. However, my sense of the word place is that it is personal, yet worldly. It is private and public. It has different meanings to everyone, even if a shared experience is created by its existence.
I tend to align my understanding of place with that of John Agnew. I think that there are three outlining principles that define place. 1. It has a geographical location, it exists as a point on a map 2. It has a 'locale', "Material setting for social relations" there is, in most cases, a form attached to the place that people conduct their lives around. 3. There is a 'sense of place', meaning that there are emotions and subjective attachments that people have to a particular place.
I believe place always stems from this outline, the most basic example I can think of is anywhere I have called home. When I move into a new house/apt. I consider the place foreign, it only meets the first two conditions of Agnew's outline. It is easily defined to me as the location and what the space is designed to be, living room, bedroom, bathroom, closet. I consider it a place because it has location and locale, but it is not attached to me until I have spent time and invested in the material setting. the article draws the point about the dorm room. It has its own set of previous user's and you can see that. It becomes your place once you start putting your things in it. Whether through rearrangement of furniture, pinning up of poster's, and so on. The sense of place comes after this step. Once you have molded the material setting to your vernacular and begin to use it as your own, you then begin to draw attachment to it and you reach the third level of 'sense of place.' At that point I would call that place my home. I think that all three of Agnew's points need to be there for there to be a meaningful connection. until all three conditions are met, the place exists but it will not be known to us other than through a point, form, or event.
I feel that place is a space that you inhabit, it takes on meaning. This "place" is somewhere you feel comfortable and that you have made unique. I also feel that these places change as you move through life and the old places lose that sense of connection. They become Landscapes. "If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place". This quote by Tuan helps me. It's all space until you stop and begin to make it your own place. I also found Tim Cresswell's theory of Place and Landscape very true. I've always considered the Panhandle to be my home, my place, but in actuality it's one of my landscapes. I still have family and know people there, but I don't have the daily interactions that make it unique to me. I am a visitor now and my view of the panhandle is looking through a post card. It's a very interesting way to look at ones place and how it changes with new experiences. Billy Henly
Place for me, up until a few years ago, was merely a representation of an event or activity, something that created a lasting memory. For example, my “grandparent’s house” could never be described by just the house itself but would have to include the acres of land that it sat on seeing that since I was a child that was the entirety of my experience at their “house”. It can even be as simple as a description of an experience or trait for a place when trying to determine restaurant to eat at; “Oh you mean that place that has the awesome fajitas?” However, within recent years I have broadened my understanding of place to include a deeper sense of location, a physical point of reference on Earth, but have also adapted Tim Cresswell’s understanding of Agnew’s definition of locale and material form into my experiences.
I have always found that for me to connect to a place, much like most I assume, there has to be a meaningful representation of said place. I have never been much for names and forget them on a regular basis but the interactions and physicality of the world around me is something I don’t forget often. When Cresswell references the materiality of place in regards to imagery within a novel and how this engages the human capacity to produce meaning, I conjured many different examples pertaining to this meaning easily. Though I am not strongly connected to it, names as a form of a place defining characteristic is not lost on me and I don’t discredit the notion. This reading has however shown me the strength that a name does have. Such an example would be describing the tall, elegant tower that poses gracefully upon four legs of arching beauty within the heart of Paris, France, when one could simply call it by name, The Eiffel Tower. Either one of these would probably bring the same image to mind and allow someone to know which place I am referring to but the name was much easier to use.
The definition of Agnew’s ‘sense of place’ is what stood out most in this reading. It supported my notion of place as a subjective and emotional attachment that people develop about a place. Such as when referencing my “grandparent’s house” I can recall the emotions and experiences of the place better than the true location of the place. To this day I am still influenced by my connections to place than other aspects that Cresswell discussed but his insights have allowed me to become more aware of the other meanings.
Place is space with another defining aspect. Cresswell mentions many places in the reading and each example has a different aspect defining it as a place. Therefore, place is situational. It has a different meaning for everyone experientially. John Agnew explains how he breaks down a meaningful location into a 1.location, 2.locale, and 3. sense of place and that a place can be defined as a meaningful location. While I believe this to be true I do not think it to be absolutely true for all uses of the word place.
When I think of a place that stands out to me, I think of my grandparents ranch in Dripping Springs, TX. The ranch consisted of a house, 2 barns, and a creek that ran through it and sat on 720 acres. The information that I just gave about the property is what most visitors might define as this place, but I do not.
The ranch consisted of many places that fell within these 720 acres of geography. Along the creek alone there were a series of locales that consisted of the dam, the pasture, the road intersection, the treefort, the turtle hole, and the spring. When these locales are told in this order it also explains a progression from the front of the property to the back of the new property along the creek. To a visitor, these locales are meaningless and without a name and a sense of location then that person would not be able to consider it a place.
Similarly a foreign landscape without a built form does not have a sense of place to an outsider. But with a map that defines a place within that landscape, the places are revealed to the outsider. Therefore, a place is not defined by an experience or a meaningful location it is a space that is defined in some way and revealed to a person. Hopefully then, the place can be enjoyed and experienced to become meaningful.
Place is a complex word that has many meanings depending on the syntax of the conversation. Tim Cresswell discusses this during the introduction of his book dealing with place. As architects, we are trained to understand place and space. Our education is a testament alone to the complexity that is space. I think the main question when talking about place is what is not a place? When you think about it, everything can be defined within the realm of place. Personally, place is more of an experiential element than it is a geographical or actual element. I always seem to relate place to a particular experience. For example, I remember my neighborhood park as a child. I do not remember the geographical elements down to the last blade of grass, but I do remember all of the times I climbed the many trees, the hill in which me and my friends ran up and down for no apparent reason, the graffiti on the basketball courts. What was most important about this park was the fact that it served as a meeting point for my friends and I, but there was just an aura of community pride about the park. Every chance people got to gather and have basketball or baseball tournaments, or cook out, or exercise, or do whatever they wanted do then it happened in the neighborhood park. What struck me most about this reading was seeing how many places that appear to be decimated and undeveloped are actually centers of pride for a group of people. Reading about the community gardens Puerto Rican immigrants established in New York triggered an emotional response from me. Growing up in Puerto Rico, I had an immediate visual of the place being discussed in the reading. I was encumbered by a sense of nostalgia and felt discouraged upon reading that a large number of these gardens were destroyed by a city government. The government probably saw these gardens as more of an actual geographic location and failed to really see the impact that it had on the local community.
I believe that most of us underestimate the definition of “place”, meaning that we really do not pay enough attention to a relationship you create with a specific space or place. It is not until you begin to analyze why you remember about a place and dig deep about what feelings you have for this place. Millions of people can be gathered in the same place and more than likely most of them have different memories and feelings for it. But the truth is that we all have certain connections to place and there are specific reasons why it is important to us and why we keep going back to it, either by memory or physically. It is wells mentioned in the reading as stating it as a “meaningful location”, some places may have to importance than others but they all have a meaning to us. I am not saying that all places have positive impacts on us, but that it is exactly what makes a place important, you begin to feel, smell, hear, and see the different aspects of a location and from there you establish a connection to it, either positive or negative. After finishing the reading, a meaningful location for me would be Petco Park, which is the baseball stadium for the San Diego Padres. It is important because I have a lot of my childhood memories in that stadium, and it was not only the stadium but a specific seat, since my father, my brothers and I all had season tickets and were assigned a specific location. Like I mentioned before, this is a place that is shared by thousands of people but every single one of them think differently about it. For me it is the memories, watching my favorite team and most importantly knowing that I had something in common with the rest of my family and that was our time to spend our quality time.
Before reading Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, I had always defined place in terms of location, and never thought of its definition beyond the common sense level. Now I understand that “place” is a term with many definitions and can be defined different through various disciplines and for this reason place can be simple and complicated to understand.
A portion of the reading that reinforces my definition in a more detail manner is John Agnew’s three fundamental aspects of place as a “meaningful location”; location, locale and sense of place. As stated by Cresswell, Agnew explains that place is used in every day communication to simply refer to “location”. Something interesting he mentioned is that place is not always stationary; a ship, which can become a place for some people is constantly changing location. Also, by “locale” Agnew refers to the physical environment that shapes a place and by this he defines place as a material thing. Finally, by “sense of place” he means the emotional attachment people have to a specific place. With this, in order to define place, first it has to be located somewhere, second it has to exist or have some sort of physical environment and third, it needs to be meaningful.
Something interesting I found in this reading was the example of the room in college accommodations. Cresswell explains how this particular room has an anonymous history of its space and that it meant something to other people. With this we understand that the space in the room was a place for someone else. But then if someone new inhabits the room, when they add their positions automatically space transforms into place. The Continuous transformation from space to place and vice versa shows that the definition of space and place can be constantly changing back and forth.
A space can be meaningful to me and for that reason can become a place to me, but what happens when the same space doesn’t have a meaning to other people? That space is still just a simple space. For that reason I think the definition of place is subject to each individual.
Place is a way of understanding the world and typically these ideas of what constitutes a place is quite vague upon reflection, as stated in the reading. Yes a place has some very normative parameters such as location, locale and sense of place. I enjoyed the example he gave of a ship because there is no exact location yet it may have a strong sense of place. I would almost argue that location is not a prerequisite for place because a similar place may be created in different cities on different nights due to a particular social compact or event. As David Byrne said, “this must be the place.”
With that being said, although not absolutely required, I agree that a place commonly affected by the location, which is directly affected by the people who occupy the location. It is almost as if the place makes the place. If you are drawn to a place, that likely means you are drawn to the idea of what you believe that particular place represents. What a place represents creates the landscape as much as the buildings due because essentially the ideas create form. Buildings are created for the people by the people. There is no argument that certain places have identifiable landscapes that represent the prevailing ethological mold.
A particular Place is not a region because it cannot clearly be defined in scale. The purpose of defining a place varies from conversation to conversation. The purpose may be a generalization, may explore the decline of the place, give praise or gain a better understanding of the cultural dynamic. My understanding of place is going to be different than your understanding because we all have different motives for gaining that particular understanding. My goal is to gain insight on many different cultural levels depending on my programmatic agenda, so that I may design a successful yet responsible building. I enjoy this idea of place because it is directly linked to the way human beings operate under a certain set of conditions associated within an environment. To have a full understanding of a particular sense of place you must know the history, the nobles, the peasants, what they do and how they act in their daily lives.
Place to me has a defined named, such as a park is a place and a park usually has a given name. There can be places within places. For example, your apartment complex is a place and your apartment is a place that is within a bigger place. Each place has its own character or feel given from its surroundings. Place is a location, a reference point.
ReplyDeleteIn Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, some of my definitions of place can be found with what he writes. He talks about naming as a way space can be given meaning which is then a place. This is similar to my idea that place has a defined name. He goes deeper into this idea by saying that if a space does not have a name then it is just a space and not a place. I find this to be very true. This idea of place having meaning is somewhat similar to how I said place has its own character. It’s interesting how something can be a place to someone such as the native canoeists in the sea, but to a traveler in a new area may see the sea as just a bunch of space. Place needs meaning behind it which means that place is not always a place to everyone.
Cresswell relates place and landscape and how they are not the same. I found this idea to be very interesting and not something I would have thought of. He states that in landscape a viewer is outside of it and in place things are inside of it. This idea makes sense that landscape is not usually a place. I believe that my definition of place is somewhat similar to Cresswell’s. He just expressed more in-depth thoughts about place. I really liked his comparisons of place with space and landscapes.
Danielle Smyth
Place can be defined in many different ways depending on how it's used. One example from the reading that I believe is the most truthful is the example of the new apartment you're staying for college. That apartment has been a place before or will become your place. It's the anonymous space which has a history you move in to make it a place.
ReplyDelete"Place is how we make the world meaningful and the way we experience the world". This quote really struck me the most in a way that it makes you think in what meaning or sense does that place have value to your history. How does that place say something about you? In my opinion, the best way to define place is to take a space and make it a meaningful location to you or to others and make it a place. Going back to the example of the apartment, the way you set and display your belongings in every room to express yourself to others gives the unique sense of the one and only place you can call home. People always say 'come on over to my place' referring to where they live. This can state that there is no other place that could be the same regarding to its meaning, surroundings and history that person creates to its comfort. That is the way I define the term Place.
There are many different theories and ideas about how one can define place. In my opinion, place is defined as an area that holds significant meaning and value to someone. This is what makes the difference between place and space, as space is everywhere, and place is a more defined area. For example, an empty room is just another empty space until one adds in a desk to make it a office or a bed to make it a bedroom. The addition of different elements and objects has the ability to change a space into a defined place.
ReplyDeleteIn Tim Cresswell’s short introduction, ‘Place,’ he gives many examples that further explain the idea of defining place. Cresswell explains that spaces are areas that link places. A place is somewhere to stop in between spaces. He also explains that the naming of a space can also bring more meaning towards changing the ‘space’ into a ‘place’. For example a park without a name is just another open lot of space but once it is named and a walking trail has been added, and the park has the ability to become a significant place. There are some places, manmade we well as in nature, which are significant to some, yet are only looked at as ineffective space for others. Cresswell gives an example of this in the reading when he discusses how Captain Vancouver believed that the natives were making ‘nonsensical movements’ simply because he didn’t understand how they utilized the sea.
What is of importance to one person is not necessarily always important to someone else because of our differences. Even though we may name places ‘bedroom’ or ‘backyard’ the place can be redefined by its user. What one may see as a backyard may be another person’s sanctuary or a bedroom can become a safe haven. These different ideas throughout the reading reinforce my opinion that place is defined by significance to the user.
Jessica Badoe
Before assimilating this reading, I saw "Place" as a mere noun and verb; I replaced everywhere I did not remember with the word place and sometimes used the word in my sentences.
ReplyDeleteNow I see place as a living organism that exhibits personality, emotions and identity (metaphor).
Personality: Every place has a distinctive trait such as a trees along both sides of a path, flowers, valleys and ponds. Sometimes it seems to reflect the personality of the people living in it. For example; The Bronx and Manhattan in the city of New York.
Emotions: A place sometimes depicts the mood and experience. For example, I would rather be in a park on a sunny day (happy)than a dark alley at night (fright). Surprisingly this same alley in the day time will be experienced differently.
Identity: Every place has characteristics that makes it recognizable. Most times places are recognized by its people, culture and environment.One can give a place its identity by naming it. Therefore the question is " Does a place define the people or Do the people define the place?"
The portion of this reading that struck me was Tuan's quote " If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place". I think this quote is true and informative. It does not describe place as a 2 dimensional object but as a 3 dimensional object.
In conclusion Place is everywhere but it becomes personal when people define the place by giving it meaning.
Esther
When I had read what was required for this particular reading "how do you define place?" I had immediately thought that a place is an area where meaning had been engraved in one's mind corresponding to the place where memories had been created. Tim Cresswell is right on point stating that a definition of space is considered "a meaningful location" and a "place of memory". For example, the past university campus which I had attended before I enrolled for Tech. Just as a kid decorates his room with his personal belongings, I established many memories across the campus through food drives, volunteer services, sitting on a bench, walking down the paths which led specific buildings or even simply laying down on shaded area. It is absolutely true, as Cresswell says, that when a human invests meaning into space it becomes their personal description of place, which is why I always find myself describing to my peers "Remember that place" or "we need to go back to that place where it all started". Indeed, I also even named the place as "comfort" to me when as I like to go back and reminisce when life used to be fun and quite frankly without so much responsibility. Regarding this, this is exactly what I had in mind, I think about it now and its concrete to say that I made that space meaningful so it became my definition of sense of place. Even now it's how I relate to my past experiences with other places. Study Abroad is yet another prime example, since I've been back in the U.S I always find myself thinking about how much fun Paris was, how much fun the city was, how much fun the place was.
ReplyDeletePlace, what does this word mean to me? In answering this question the part of the reading that helps me most is the quote from Tuan. "If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place".
ReplyDeleteThis goes along with what I always believed a place is a space that a person habitats. It becomes a place as soon as you spend some amount of time in it. I feel like the space is given meaning when a person decides to reside in it, for example the seat in the classroom that you sit in everyday, that is a place to you because you give it that meaning.
As far as place goes for items it depends on the person to assign a place for that item and make sure that every item is in its place. The books on a shelf where the bed or desk or TV is located in a room, the user gives them their place. When that person moves from the college dorm to an apartment or a house the place changes and gets a new meaning.
Essentially it depends on the person to decide what is a place to them and what is not. With my point of view I see my classmates to sit in the same seat every time, use the same lockers, do almost everything in their day to day the same. I define that is their place and I have mine I do not invade their place unless invited. Place is what you make it.
Bradley Rich
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ReplyDeleteIn Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, he quotes a political geographer John Agnew. That there are three aspects to a place that make it meaningful and they are Location, Locale, and Sense of Place. To me these three items define place perfectly in the way of it being some where important to you. My place would be my home in Plano, Texas because Plano, Texas is a fixed location in the United States. The memories drive it to be a place because of the locale and growing up their. It's a feeling that I have as a sense of figurative ownership and not literal ownership of the home.
ReplyDeleteAs I get older this place of mine will change because we move on in life. So my place now will be different than my place in the future. Consider your places to be divided into three categories. The first being your childhood place, where you grew up and spent most of you childhood. Then you move on to your in between place, this could be at college or in the military. The last place is your adult place or the home you consider your families after getting married and having children.
Overall the political geographer John Agnew nailed my meaning of place with location, locale, and sense of place.
Matthew Thoma
Place can have many different definitions and interpretations, there is no shortage in the attempts that have been made to concretize what it means. The fact is that the definition depends on the person that is defining it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that space become place through the recognition of the physical elements, personalization and the interaction with the space, this is summed up by Yi-Fu Tuan, “ What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value”. An example would be the dorm room discussed in the reading. The recognition of physical elements is manifested by the walls that enclose the space, and then the desk is introduced. The introduction of the desk grounds the space into place because carries with it suppositions of what is used for, in this case it’s doing homework. Then you start layering physical objects, such as a chair, the relation between these two objects creates a sub place within the greater one. Cresswell states, Place is also a way of seeing, knowing and understanding the world”. As the layering continues to grow and moves outward so does our interaction and personalization, creating a world of micro and macro places that we move in and out of.
I define place very similar to one of the definitions given in the reading by Tim Creswell. Place is as an area of space that is personalized, whether that personalization is by me or someone else and that level of personalization can also vary. Personalization differs from place to place. Place is almost so simply taken for granted that we can quickly forget how complex it can become as Croswell says. What begins to better explain place in the reading is notion of ownership, which leads me to think about territorialism. I like the example given about a particular dormitory that has been occupied by various inhabitants and each one attempts to personalize it with objects such as posters, decorations, and other personal items.
ReplyDeleteOne concept of space that I also find interesting is public space. It’s very interesting how a group of people can have the same concept of a shared space. Even more interesting is how people will take care of that space even though it is not exclusively their own space. To exemplify think of the example of the 11 community garden in Houston where every one can help grow different greens such as onions, spinach, turnips, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. It’s a shared space where the people who contribute to it can reap benefits from it and therefore have a sense of ownership from it.
Finally, I found is Croswell’s example of Captain Vancouver’s discovery between Vancouver and Seattle to be a very good example of perception of space. He explains how the Natives of the area travelled by conoe so comfortably whereas the colonialist felt much more comfortable by land. The description of how the Natives canoed through the water with such tact and how they knew the subtle nuances of where and where not to cross was intriguing and demonstrates the connection that the Natives had with the water, which in itself is not even considered a place for many of us.
Emmanuel Castrellon
The word place can be defined in many different ways, but it ultimately has a different meaning to everyone. To me place can be defined as a space that is personalized or holds significant value to someone. The quote by Tuan that summed it all up for me was “What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it and better endow it with value.” The dorm room example discussed in the reading really grasps the meaning of place. The room was just a white piece of canvas until one starts to make it unique. At the beginning of this semester I started my practicum in Dallas at RTKL Associates, and on the first day after orientation I was taken to my desk area. To me this area was just space that included a desk, computer, telephone, and other essentials. This space had no meaning to me until I slowly stated to give it my own sense of style and started to display my belongings and make it unique. Place is an area that holds a significant meaning to someone.
ReplyDeleteHector Zumalacarregui
Before reading Tim Cresswell’s article “Place: A short Introduction,” my view of place was a specific location. I used place in the context of telling someone where a specific item, etc. was located. There have been times that I have used space and place interchangeably throughout my life, and after reading Cresswells’ article, I have come to the consensus that a place can always be a space, but a space cannot always be a place. In his article, Cresswell offers the idea that, “Space given meaning becomes place” (9). I can think of a few examples that this could be the case. The first example that comes to mind is the open prairies of Western Kansas. Most people would just consider this a vast space, but if I was to specific my grandfather’s ranch-house 15 miles east of Liberal, Kansas on Bluebell road, it instantly becomes more meaningful, and can be viewed as a place. With this example, it allows me to better understand how space with meaning can really be a place.
ReplyDeleteThe portion of the reading that specifically reinforced my opinion of place was discussed on page 7 of Cresswell’s article. “One answer is that they are all spaces with people have made meaningful. They are all spaces people are attached to. This is the most straight forward and common definition of place – a meaningful location.” This concept that Cresswell addressed allowed me to re-examine why I viewed place the way that I did, and it allowed me to take a deeper look at the way I address the terms ‘space’ and ‘place.’ It helped give me a better idea of what they both mean; hopefully, I will not misuse or use them interchangeably after reading this article.
-Joshua Pape
Reading 4: Defining Place
ReplyDeleteWhen defining place, I agree most with the definition "a meaningful location." A place to me is a space with meaning. This space may be stationary or moveable. Events and memories define spaces, and events and memories attached to objects which are then displayed in a space make that space a place. That reminds a bit of why hoarding exists, but I digress.
There are many meaningful places that are shared among people. For instance, one of my most favorite places is the beach in Panama City. Probably millions of people have experienced this place over its existence, yet it still holds special meaning to me. Maybe a place that holds a shared experience can connect you with humanity, thus propelling its meaning onto a different plane - one that is less tangible.
I believe that sharing in a place with others you are close to also heightens the vividness of an experience laden space. By experiencing a space with others you can easily relive it with those people, and it is easier to do so the closer you are to them. The reliving of these memories creates a place from that space.
Any space can have or develop meaning. it only takes one element - the reinforcing of a different memory through similarities or differences, a sensation, smell, touch, sound, or the higher cognitive reasoning that creates new adaptations and understandings.
It is difficult to put a definition on the word place. The word place has many different and even divergent meanings. However, my sense of the word place is that it is personal, yet worldly. It is private and public. It has different meanings to everyone, even if a shared experience is created by its existence.
Cynthia Helms
I tend to align my understanding of place with that of John Agnew. I think that there are three outlining principles that define place.
ReplyDelete1. It has a geographical location, it exists as a point on a map
2. It has a 'locale', "Material setting for social relations" there is, in most cases, a form attached to the place that people conduct their lives around.
3. There is a 'sense of place', meaning that there are emotions and subjective attachments that people have to a particular place.
I believe place always stems from this outline, the most basic example I can think of is anywhere I have called home. When I move into a new house/apt. I consider the place foreign, it only meets the first two conditions of Agnew's outline. It is easily defined to me as the location and what the space is designed to be, living room, bedroom, bathroom, closet. I consider it a place because it has location and locale, but it is not attached to me until I have spent time and invested in the material setting. the article draws the point about the dorm room. It has its own set of previous user's and you can see that. It becomes your place once you start putting your things in it. Whether through rearrangement of furniture, pinning up of poster's, and so on. The sense of place comes after this step. Once you have molded the material setting to your vernacular and begin to use it as your own, you then begin to draw attachment to it and you reach the third level of 'sense of place.' At that point I would call that place my home. I think that all three of Agnew's points need to be there for there to be a meaningful connection. until all three conditions are met, the place exists but it will not be known to us other than through a point, form, or event.
zachary mitchell
I feel that place is a space that you inhabit, it takes on meaning. This "place" is somewhere you feel comfortable and that you have made unique. I also feel that these places change as you move through life and the old places lose that sense of connection. They become Landscapes.
ReplyDelete"If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place". This quote by Tuan helps me. It's all space until you stop and begin to make it your own place. I also found Tim Cresswell's theory of Place and Landscape very true. I've always considered the Panhandle to be my home, my place, but in actuality it's one of my landscapes. I still have family and know people there, but I don't have the daily interactions that make it unique to me. I am a visitor now and my view of the panhandle is looking through a post card. It's a very interesting way to look at ones place and how it changes with new experiences.
Billy Henly
Place for me, up until a few years ago, was merely a representation of an event or activity, something that created a lasting memory. For example, my “grandparent’s house” could never be described by just the house itself but would have to include the acres of land that it sat on seeing that since I was a child that was the entirety of my experience at their “house”. It can even be as simple as a description of an experience or trait for a place when trying to determine restaurant to eat at; “Oh you mean that place that has the awesome fajitas?” However, within recent years I have broadened my understanding of place to include a deeper sense of location, a physical point of reference on Earth, but have also adapted Tim Cresswell’s understanding of Agnew’s definition of locale and material form into my experiences.
ReplyDeleteI have always found that for me to connect to a place, much like most I assume, there has to be a meaningful representation of said place. I have never been much for names and forget them on a regular basis but the interactions and physicality of the world around me is something I don’t forget often. When Cresswell references the materiality of place in regards to imagery within a novel and how this engages the human capacity to produce meaning, I conjured many different examples pertaining to this meaning easily. Though I am not strongly connected to it, names as a form of a place defining characteristic is not lost on me and I don’t discredit the notion. This reading has however shown me the strength that a name does have. Such an example would be describing the tall, elegant tower that poses gracefully upon four legs of arching beauty within the heart of Paris, France, when one could simply call it by name, The Eiffel Tower. Either one of these would probably bring the same image to mind and allow someone to know which place I am referring to but the name was much easier to use.
The definition of Agnew’s ‘sense of place’ is what stood out most in this reading. It supported my notion of place as a subjective and emotional attachment that people develop about a place. Such as when referencing my “grandparent’s house” I can recall the emotions and experiences of the place better than the true location of the place. To this day I am still influenced by my connections to place than other aspects that Cresswell discussed but his insights have allowed me to become more aware of the other meanings.
Nathan Pope
Place is space with another defining aspect. Cresswell mentions many places in the reading and each example has a different aspect defining it as a place. Therefore, place is situational. It has a different meaning for everyone experientially. John Agnew explains how he breaks down a meaningful location into a 1.location, 2.locale, and 3. sense of place and that a place can be defined as a meaningful location. While I believe this to be true I do not think it to be absolutely true for all uses of the word place.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of a place that stands out to me, I think of my grandparents ranch in Dripping Springs, TX. The ranch consisted of a house, 2 barns, and a creek that ran through it and sat on 720 acres. The information that I just gave about the property is what most visitors might define as this place, but I do not.
The ranch consisted of many places that fell within these 720 acres of geography. Along the creek alone there were a series of locales that consisted of the dam, the pasture, the road intersection, the treefort, the turtle hole, and the spring. When these locales are told in this order it also explains a progression from the front of the property to the back of the new property along the creek. To a visitor, these locales are meaningless and without a name and a sense of location then that person would not be able to consider it a place.
Similarly a foreign landscape without a built form does not have a sense of place to an outsider. But with a map that defines a place within that landscape, the places are revealed to the outsider. Therefore, a place is not defined by an experience or a meaningful location it is a space that is defined in some way and revealed to a person. Hopefully then, the place can be enjoyed and experienced to become meaningful.
Matt Vaclavik
Place is a complex word that has many meanings depending on the syntax of the conversation. Tim Cresswell discusses this during the introduction of his book dealing with place. As architects, we are trained to understand place and space. Our education is a testament alone to the complexity that is space. I think the main question when talking about place is what is not a place? When you think about it, everything can be defined within the realm of place. Personally, place is more of an experiential element than it is a geographical or actual element.
ReplyDeleteI always seem to relate place to a particular experience. For example, I remember my neighborhood park as a child. I do not remember the geographical elements down to the last blade of grass, but I do remember all of the times I climbed the many trees, the hill in which me and my friends ran up and down for no apparent reason, the graffiti on the basketball courts. What was most important about this park was the fact that it served as a meeting point for my friends and I, but there was just an aura of community pride about the park. Every chance people got to gather and have basketball or baseball tournaments, or cook out, or exercise, or do whatever they wanted do then it happened in the neighborhood park.
What struck me most about this reading was seeing how many places that appear to be decimated and undeveloped are actually centers of pride for a group of people. Reading about the community gardens Puerto Rican immigrants established in New York triggered an emotional response from me. Growing up in Puerto Rico, I had an immediate visual of the place being discussed in the reading. I was encumbered by a sense of nostalgia and felt discouraged upon reading that a large number of these gardens were destroyed by a city government. The government probably saw these gardens as more of an actual geographic location and failed to really see the impact that it had on the local community.
Sergio
I believe that most of us underestimate the definition of “place”, meaning that we really do not pay enough attention to a relationship you create with a specific space or place. It is not until you begin to analyze why you remember about a place and dig deep about what feelings you have for this place. Millions of people can be gathered in the same place and more than likely most of them have different memories and feelings for it. But the truth is that we all have certain connections to place and there are specific reasons why it is important to us and why we keep going back to it, either by memory or physically. It is wells mentioned in the reading as stating it as a “meaningful location”, some places may have to importance than others but they all have a meaning to us. I am not saying that all places have positive impacts on us, but that it is exactly what makes a place important, you begin to feel, smell, hear, and see the different aspects of a location and from there you establish a connection to it, either positive or negative. After finishing the reading, a meaningful location for me would be Petco Park, which is the baseball stadium for the San Diego Padres. It is important because I have a lot of my childhood memories in that stadium, and it was not only the stadium but a specific seat, since my father, my brothers and I all had season tickets and were assigned a specific location. Like I mentioned before, this is a place that is shared by thousands of people but every single one of them think differently about it. For me it is the memories, watching my favorite team and most importantly knowing that I had something in common with the rest of my family and that was our time to spend our quality time.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading Place a short introduction by Tim Cresswell, I had always defined place in terms of location, and never thought of its definition beyond the common sense level. Now I understand that “place” is a term with many definitions and can be defined different through various disciplines and for this reason place can be simple and complicated to understand.
ReplyDeleteA portion of the reading that reinforces my definition in a more detail manner is John Agnew’s three fundamental aspects of place as a “meaningful location”; location, locale and sense of place. As stated by Cresswell, Agnew explains that place is used in every day communication to simply refer to “location”. Something interesting he mentioned is that place is not always stationary; a ship, which can become a place for some people is constantly changing location. Also, by “locale” Agnew refers to the physical environment that shapes a place and by this he defines place as a material thing. Finally, by “sense of place” he means the emotional attachment people have to a specific place.
With this, in order to define place, first it has to be located somewhere, second it has to exist or have some sort of physical environment and third, it needs to be meaningful.
Something interesting I found in this reading was the example of the room in college accommodations. Cresswell explains how this particular room has an anonymous history of its space and that it meant something to other people. With this we understand that the space in the room was a place for someone else. But then if someone new inhabits the room, when they add their positions automatically space transforms into place. The Continuous transformation from space to place and vice versa shows that the definition of space and place can be constantly changing back and forth.
A space can be meaningful to me and for that reason can become a place to me, but what happens when the same space doesn’t have a meaning to other people? That space is still just a simple space. For that reason I think the definition of place is subject to each individual.
-Luis Velasco
Place is a way of understanding the world and typically these ideas of what constitutes a place is quite vague upon reflection, as stated in the reading. Yes a place has some very normative parameters such as location, locale and sense of place. I enjoyed the example he gave of a ship because there is no exact location yet it may have a strong sense of place. I would almost argue that location is not a prerequisite for place because a similar place may be created in different cities on different nights due to a particular social compact or event. As David Byrne said, “this must be the place.”
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, although not absolutely required, I agree that a place commonly affected by the location, which is directly affected by the people who occupy the location. It is almost as if the place makes the place. If you are drawn to a place, that likely means you are drawn to the idea of what you believe that particular place represents. What a place represents creates the landscape as much as the buildings due because essentially the ideas create form. Buildings are created for the people by the people. There is no argument that certain places have identifiable landscapes that represent the prevailing ethological mold.
A particular Place is not a region because it cannot clearly be defined in scale. The purpose of defining a place varies from conversation to conversation. The purpose may be a generalization, may explore the decline of the place, give praise or gain a better understanding of the cultural dynamic. My understanding of place is going to be different than your understanding because we all have different motives for gaining that particular understanding. My goal is to gain insight on many different cultural levels depending on my programmatic agenda, so that I may design a successful yet responsible building. I enjoy this idea of place because it is directly linked to the way human beings operate under a certain set of conditions associated within an environment. To have a full understanding of a particular sense of place you must know the history, the nobles, the peasants, what they do and how they act in their daily lives.
Two vary different places on a large scale may be “east coast” compared to “west coast.” West coast is not limited to a region but is limited to an idea of personality type. A Californian may argue that only California is west coast, then once you narrow the region, sub regions occur such as SoCal and NorCal. With a large scope the sense of place is usually more general or cliché compared to smaller regions more purpose driven and accurate in their diagnosis. Once you get in get to socal you will gain a better understanding that this is a cultural demarcation and not a physical one. If you live in LA you may be one of those people or you may be SoCal. Typically SoCal may be identified San Clemente and south. All these conditions create a clear understanding of place but understanding how people operate is very intuitive and very philosophical, such as nature vs nature. Often times a narrow mind is the worst tool to have when trying to identify and what are the driving factors that make up a place.