My sketch was done as if I was a cartography making a map of the city. My focus was not on how individual buildings appeared but rather how locations related to each other spatially. After finishing my sketch, I took a look at an actual map to find a glaring error in my sketch staring at me: the size of Harvard Yard. I had completely underestimated the size of the yard, making it about a fourth of its actual size. Another error, although unexpected, was my map’s orientation. I had always thought of Harvard Yard’s square shape to be representative of the cardinal directions, but apparently the Yard’s top right corner points at an angle of 25o from North. It looks I included all the buildings I know about correctly. On some lots with tall structures I actually drew 3d towers because they were so vital in my perception of the place. There is also the weird phenomenon of lots getting larger and larger the farther away from the Yard they got. This really highlights how I make the places I care about larger than they actually. Although the Yard is important, to me, to much more goes on in Harvard’s houses, which is why I imagined them to be bigger. Then again, when I think of campus, I picture the Yard as its center so I started with that and drew outwards, so its possible that everything else grew larger because I started out with a Yard that was too small.
While visiting the Copley Place shopping mall, what initially struck me was the ways in which the physical design of the mall affected my experience of the space. Several aspects of the materials and design of the storefronts make the interior of the mall seem like an outdoor space, much like a commercial street. The floors of Copley Place are composed of several different types of marble tiles and bricks laid out in irregular patterns that frame the winding hallways of the mall, giving the illusion of a street system outlined by sidewalks. The shops have unique storefronts composed of vastly different materials and articulating with the walls of the mall at different heights and angles. This gives the effect of many separate buildings, rather than a unified shopping center. The large windows in the ceilings and at each of the entrances flood the space with natural light, and the large fountain with surrounding greenery at the center of the mall further emphasize the outdoor, nature-like component of the space. In contrast to the inhomogeneous shops within Copley Place, the commercial area of Newbury Street is visually and spatially unified in many aspects. The red brick buildings lining nearly the entirety of the street are similar in coloring and style, and rows of regularly spaced trees and street lamps make the street seem insulated from the surrounding urban grid. Newbury Street is situated between a residential district and a metropolitan business area, and the tops of the skyscrapers nearby are visible from street level. The street is bounded on one end by parking lots and public transit stops, which also contribute to the isolated nature of this commercialized outdoor space. While the buildings lining the street appear to be superficially homogenous and unified, the oversized windows and protruding store fronts, as well as the exterior signs and split- level entrances, clearly distinguish the commercial areas from the residential and noncommercial areas. These rare noncommercial areas are largely defined by gates, withdrawn entrances, and small gardens.
Both Copley Mall and Newbury Street may be large commercial shopping centers open to the public, but that is where their similarities end. Copley Mall is a mazelike network of hallways and escalators. For the most part, it is dark and close; visitors are closed in on both sides by stores and the occasional restaurant. There are few windows, immersing the visitor in the shopping experience. Although the mall is dotted with occasional open spaces featuring skylights, potted plants, and benches, the space is, by and large, designed for movement through and up. I tried to convey that emphasis through my sketch, focusing on escalators and stairs and the angular, dynamic lines that dominate the space. Newbury Street, on the other hand, is a mall in open air. Visiting right after having spent time in the mall with its antiseptic, mildly claustrophobic feel, I was struck by how natural the area felt by comparison. Of course, the space still manipulates its visitors to move through it in specific ways (namely, up and down the main street), but its being outside was, to me, the most noticeable feature of the area. For this reason, I decided to make one of the trees along the street the centerpiece of my sketch, with the shops that line the street appearing only indistinctly in the background. The other main feature of the sketch is the line of the street bisecting the page, which dictates the motion of the people and cars passing through.
Copley Place and the Prudential Center were most similar in their spatial layouts, and Newbury Street tries to copy that, however only Copley Place features a space for reflection and integrates nature. Both Copley and the Prudential Center feature a relatively bright, well-lit, open layout. The side bays, which feature mostly shops, converge on what seems to be a central area, as I depict in my sketches. However, at Copley, this area represents a respite from the commercial activity taking place in the side walkways. Plants line it, and there is a fountain that restfully roars. The raised edges of this area separate it from the surrounding shopping wings and signify that a different type of activity occurs here. The geometric, bright red floor patterns, coupled with the sounds of the water foster pensiveness here, and there are benches upon which to think and socialize. In contrast, in the Boylston Arcade, there are no benches nor significant greenery and instead, the area features only shopping booths. There is less of a sense of “zen” due to the absence of natural elements. This space is bare and almost washed out due to a larger dome — and has simple, white floor patterns. There is no elevation, and this central space features shopping signs. It therefore does not distinguish itself from shopping activity. Overall, the two locations are tied together in a sort of trapezoid shape — through elevation from the street and the central walkway connecting them, indicating that they are similar in the types of activities that take place — but they offer some different opportunities for activity. Newbury Street certainly mimics some of the shared qualities, namely convergence of different side roads into a central, more bustling area. However, it is more similar to the Prudential in its focus on commercial activities. Its buildings feature repetitive structures and there are very few places to sit (unless you are dining). There is some vegetation, but the more prominent, numerous shops seem to overpower it.
After visiting both the Prudential Center and Newbury Street, a strong irony in their respective designs stood out to me, and it manifested in particular in degrees of naturalness and of symmetry/uniformity in the designs. The irony was that the Prudential Center, the indoor environment that was centrally designed, seemed more natural and less symmetrical/uniform, while Newbury Street, the outdoor thoroughfare that did not develop under centralized planning, was less natural and more symmetrical/uniform. In the Pru, I was struck by the natural elements the designers built into the building, especially in the Huntington Arcade, which is the area I illustrated. Up above, the rafters were large skylight window pains that allowed mid-morning to afternoon and early evening sun to shine through. Along the center of the arcade, there were large dirt-filled areas in which trees and bushes rested – I counted around a dozen or so, and all held numerous plants. While Newbury street was lined with trees on both sides, they did not compare to the dense, green foliage that occupied the Huntington Arcade. Plus, the effect that being outside had on the degree of naturalness of the environment of Newbury Street was, in my opinion, easily dissipated and overcome by the appearance and smell of exhaust fumes and pollution. Additionally, in the Pru, the Huntington Arcade had a windy, inconsistent pattern. The skylights on one half of the ceiling did not have uniform patterns, instead curving to make way for an adjacent building structure. The pathway with plants was interspersed with kiosks in no consistent form. Meanwhile, the buildings on Newbury Street exhibited a remarkable degree of likeness: each had a set of stairs leading up to a door, large bay windows, triangular brick structures with windows towards the top, half-hexagon brick protrusions with windows, etc. I can imagine a reason why the designers of the Pru created a natural environment – it seems like they intended that arcade to be a place where people came to sit and relax, as exhibited by the numerous benches where I noticed people sitting and even the occasional passerby walking his/her dog. However, I don’t quite understand why the Pru designers made a varying pattern to the progression of the arcade, and I’m struck by how uniform the design of the buildings were along Newbury Street. The reasons that the centrally designed structure was not uniform and that the non-centrally designed street was do not seem readily obvious to me.
To me, a juxtaposition of Boston’s Newbury Street and Prudential Center ties in very neatly with the comparisons we’ve been drawing between urban and suburban landscapes. Obviously both sites exist within an urban environment. But the slight variations in the environments and experiences each commercial space offers align extremely well with what I see to be the main distinguishing factors of residential spaces across the nation. Newbury Street, in the very fact of its existence, highlights spontaneity and change. The first few floors, and often basement, of every building on the strip has clearly been repurposed from an old, residential brownstone into a high-end commercial storefront. Most spaces are relatively small, storefronts are stacked on top of each other; often businesses with very different target demographics share a facade. People are shopping, but adults also stroll leisurely. And I imagine the space above storefronts is still residential. Newbury Street highlights all the qualities people treasure about urban life - the miscellany, the history, the compact spaces, and the charming character. If Newbury Street emphasizes the city, then the Prudential Center displays everything valued in suburban life. Everything appears to have been planned and built at the same time. Storefronts are clearly thoughtfully organized and placed - useful and practical, but perhaps overly intentional. There aren’t any local, unique boutiques or coffee shops. Everything is a national chain, and everything takes up a lot more space. Teenage girls do the strolling here, perhaps because it feels more enclosed, therefore more safe. There are still plants, but many are species not native to New England. It’s all very practical, functional, and modern. But to me it seems fake. However! The Free People in the Prudential Center has a larger sale section than the Newbury Street location. So that’s a pretty big plus.
The theme that I focused on in my sketches and observations was the notion of inside/outside. I found that the two spaces each conveyed a sense of an interior and exterior, blurring the lines between what is actually outside or inside throughout the shopping experience. Upon observations, the distinction between the two became less clear in the Copley/Prudential Shopping Center as indoor gardens or facades gave the illusion that the corridors and hallways were actually exteriors rather than interiors in the shopping complex. In comparison, the interior/exterior dichotomy was much more direct in Newbury Street as the "hallways" of the shopping center were in actuality the sidewalks of the street itself -- the only interior in Newbury was the actual interior of the shops themselves. This resulted in a difference in how people interacted with the spaces as the perception of interior/exterior forced shoppers in Copley/Prudential Shopping Center to be wander more in the stores than loiter in the hallways between them, similar to how the people at Newbury were forced to go into stores if they wanted to sit and rest some place due to a lack of benches on the street. Although I didn't have much of a chance to express it in my sketches, there were many different elements such as flooring or the exteriors of the shops in the shopping center, replicated from outdoor malls such as Newbury, that conveyed this sense more clearly as well.
When tasked with creating a sketch of Harvard University from the athletic fields to the law school, I made the assignment into a personal challenge to exhibit how accurate and expansive my knowledge of Harvard was. In reality, that challenge was not the assignment I was given. For this sketch of Prudential Center and Newbury Street, I wanted to focus more on the experiential aspect of the two spaces and make more of statement on the space I encountered. The first time I went to Newbury Street, I only wanted to eat; however, I found that most of the restaurants felt overpriced for the food they offered. The first time I went to the Prudential Center, I ate at least twice. Of course, expensive restaurants existed in the mall but the entirety of the mall didn’t feel as class restrictive. With this information in mind, I approached this sketch as a social commentary on class aversion to certain spaces based on food accessibility and pricing. I walked through both areas solely marking the cafes and restaurants I encountered and the pathway I took. I put dollar signs on each store location based off my perception of the price of food in comparison to the amount of food received. None of the restaurants on Newbury St. dropped below two dollar signs; all the shops where you could buy food provided seating. Nor were all restaurants on Newbury Street accessible to people of all abilities. Meanwhile, not every store front that served food had seating but the Prudential Center itself had more space for public seating, in the sense of green spaces, benches and a food court. The places that were expensive provided more private seating. Overall, I think Newbury Street poses as an inaccessible space for those of lower socioeconomic class and non-abled bodied people. I hope these findings came through in my sketches.
In my sketches of Newbury St and Copley Place and the Prudential Center Malls, I focused on two different themes that I noticed while walking through each. What immediately struck me in Copley Place and the Prudential Center Malls was a feeling of constant movement surrounding me in the somewhat narrow-feeling halls of the mall. If I stopped walking for a moment, the groups surrounding me would continue so that I had to pull myself to the side of the hall to stay out of their way. In the various wings of the Prudential Mall, direction seemed uniform between the hundreds of people surrounding me. It was easy to find myself following the crowd on my side of the hallway for the entire wing without noticing. However, once you reach central areas, where halls converged, there was a confusing mixing of directions. Perhaps I am not used to such crowded malls, which made this characteristic of Copley and the Prudential stick out to me. On Newbury Street, I started my walk near the Hynes Convention Center and Massachusetts Pike and as I continued down the street, the architecture had a very evident pattern. While my walk began with smaller, flat-faced brick buildings, it evolved to the characteristic larger curved-faced brick buildings, until I reached larger-still department stores, hotels, and churches that dominated my surroundings before I reached the Public Gardens. This change in building size made me feel like I was advancing into a larger more advanced city than the initial architecture hinted. Also it is important to note that the buildings on Newbury Street are so unique that my sketch paid less attention to the straight nature of the street, and more to what a shopper finds themself observing to their right and left. I indicated hypothetical individuals in both sketches by money signs, because of dominating theme of high-end shopping in both settings.
For the purpose of this assignment, I took on the perspective of Copley Place and Newbury Street’s target audience: a young, professional woman who likes fashion. The vast majority of shops in Copley Place are luxury goods, just enough above a younger woman’s salary to be aspirational. Asides from the central waterfall, there are few places to sit, indicating that Copley Place is not meant for families or for tourists, but rather as an addendum to the luxury hotels for people like Emily to shop while in Boston. The connected Prudential Center has more traffic, although the vast majority of visitors are still professionals working in the buildings connected. In both, places to eat are few and concentrated in small areas, indicating that the primary purpose of the mall is for shopping and not for leisure. The structure of the ceilings of both is to allow for the maximum amount of natural light in a controlled, air-conditioned environment to facilitate ease of shopping. On the other hand, Newbury Street appears antiquated in comparison, and most likely, far less appealing to young professional women wishing to consume. Because the street is outside, the shops are denied the opportunity to broadcast aspirational messaging or images. The stores themselves are more obscure, and towards the edges of the shopping districts, the businesses become cheap salons and cafes—much less high end than Copley Place. Stores must advertise through limited window space, and although buildings are curved to allow for maximum commercial exposure, the sidewalk is slightly raised and adjoined to the stores by a narrow staircase. Altogether, Newbury Street is much less conducive to bringing in potential customers. The traffic on Newbury street is also significantly more mixed, and the audience catered to is less controlled than in Copley Place. For a young professional, Newbury Street might be a quirky brunch spot, but definitely would not be the center of consumption.