My sketch representation of the Harvard campus differs dramatically as distance from the campus center increases. I began by drawing the Yard and Tercentary Theater meticulously, given that it’s the part of Harvard I am most familiar with, and the area that I feel is most central to student and academic life. As you move away from the yard, you can see more gridlike patterns – not necessarily because the reality is a grid, but because I had to rely on roads rather than buildings/landmarks to recreate the campus. The scale also increases as accuracy decreases, as I had to become more arbitrary with my drawings. One notable point about my sketch compared to an actual map is that I drew the quad as a separate bubble. Because I mostly take the shuttle to and from the quad, I don’t have a good grasp on the orientation of the quad relative to the Yard/River. I also see it as an entirely separate location from the rest of the campus, which is why I encased it in a figurative and literal bubble. Another distinguishing feature of my map is that I chose to only draw Harvard buildings. I felt that if I drew non-Harvard residential and commercial buildings, it would clutter the sketch with meaningless rectangles and draw focus from the more important structures.
Upon looking at a map of the actual area on Google Maps, I found that my memory didn’t fail me too much; the relative placement of most of the buildings was fairly accurate so the overall product didn’t look entirely different. However, and this is something I struggled with while actually sketching, I clearly have no sense of roads or streets and failed to fully incorporate them into my sketch. The fact that I couldn’t remember roads and similar divisions but could remember the buildings isn’t very surprising to me – even when I am driving or walking somewhere, I have always directed myself in terms of landmarks (“I pass building X and keep going until I reach building Y”). In addition, drawing to scale was very difficult and it was impossible to consider how large and spaced out the buildings were relative to each other; I eventually focused solely on remembering their relative placement. Along with roads and streets, the biggest discrepancy I noticed between the sketch and the map was the amount of space that existed between buildings. I treat roads and streets as a means to get somewhere, so they don’t figure prominently in my mind; I also don’t remember lawns and social areas but, ironically, I would remember the lack thereof if they weren’t there.
The path I choose to draw is the path or two points that I have spent most of my time in. Since I am studying Engineering I tend to spend most of my time around Maxwell Dworkin. As I was trying to picture my usual path I only really remember my general path. The curves, relative distances between turning points, and the major land marks. Once I compared my map to google maps I noticed that the general structure is the same but the relative distances between road crossings and turning points are way off. Compared to the crisp cleans lines on google maps mine are chaotic and more free flowing since my path changes all the time.
In my sketch, I attempted a bird’s-eye view of the Harvard campus from the Harvard Law School to the athletic facilities across the river. Being a second-semester freshman, I was fairly confident with my judgment of the Yard, the Science Center Plaza, and the general area around Mass Ave and Harvard Square. However, I have little more than rudimentary knowledge about locations and streets that I am not required to visit often; areas such as the River houses, the Quad, the athletic facilities across the Charles, and the Law School are not quite on my radar. A comparison of my sketch to a map confirmed these suspicions that my drawing was accurate in some places and less accurate in others. For me, I believe my sketch suggests that I relate to the city as an area of both work and living. As a college student, I essentially work where I live. Thus, I’m more aware of the area around where I both work and live – that is, around the Yard and Science Center Plaza. On the other hand, my lack of knowledge about other areas shows that I do not appreciate the parts of the city where I do not either work or live. So, as opposed to viewing the city in an exploratory manner (as perhaps a tourist would), I view it as both a workplace and an abode.
Harvard Square is a really interesting place for our first sketch assignment because it’s an area that I spend so much time in on a daily basis, but I have never given much thought to it from a design perspective. Harvard Square is really interesting to me because it is the confluence of so many different types of movement. This movement is what I focused on for my sketch. For me, the center of Harvard Square is the T station because it is found at the boundary between Harvard proper (Harvard Yard) and the businesses of Harvard Square. It also serves as the main connection point between Harvard and Boston, and it’s the first thing that many people see when they come to Harvard Square for the first time. In my sketch I tried to indicate some of the defining buildings of the immediate area, but more importantly, I indicated the train (red), bus (yellow), traffic (blue), and pedestrian (purple dots) routes. I think it is really interesting how the Square is definitely dominated by busy pedestrian routes. I also think that like many places in Boston, it is interesting to think about how Harvard Square is where architecture that is centuries old meets very modern buildings. Also, a sketch of Harvard Square is very brick red because so many things are made out of brick (sidewalks, buildings). For the next sketch, I definitely want to focus more on the “diagraming” aspect of it because that is what is most interesting to me, and because drawing is not my strong suit. When doing this from memory, I definitely got the basic components, but I missed out on a lot of the architectural details of the buildings and some of the subterranean features (for example, there are bus routes that run through a tunnel under Harvard Square as well).
For this assignment I chose to draw a plan of the pathways from my dorm, Greenough, to the yard. I walk this pathway multiple times each day, and it is an integral yet monotonous part of my routine. I thought that my familiarity with this area would grant me an advantage in attempting to map it from memory. In comparing my drawing with an actual map, it is clear that my only familiarity with this space is in transit. I realized in drawing the space that I have never stopped to simply observe or take in the space, and I have never been in any of the buildings on this route. I think it is because of this that my drawing gets most of the paths correct; however there are many details missing and the proportions are largely incorrect. It is also worth noting that I placed almost all of the trees and hedges correctly. I think this shows that there are certain aspects of transit- focused spaces which we begin to focus on, perhaps because they are the beautifying aspects of these spaces, the aspects which bring some life and happiness to these spaces.
The end result of my map sketch, while being nowhere close to completely accurate, was actually considerably more on target than I had anticipated. While working on this project, I realized how many spaces on campus I pass through regularly without ever taking a moment to consider my environment. This was a disappointing realization for me to make, as I like to think that I am in tune with my surroundings, and I often make a point to appreciate the world around me. However, to me, this experience points out a difference between appreciating scenic beauty, such as the trees or green ivy against a brick wall, and truly considering your environment, including the dynamics of how the space is used and how it was designed. Throughout the process of this sketch assignment, I became a bit more aware of my surroundings, especially when passing through unfamiliar areas and areas of high traffic. I was much more conscious of the way certain streets fit together, of the walkways people tended to prefer—sometimes astray from the intended path—and the areas where people tended to congregate. It encouraged me to take routes I less often travel by and was an excellent exercise in mindfulness.
In terms of relative distances and directions, my map is more accurate than I thought it would be. When I line up my map with the actual map in the same orientation, the large areas of importance (such as the Quad, the Yard and the Stadium) are generally in the correct location relative to each other. The sizes of these various areas are less realistic. On my drawing, the Yard is too large, as are the Science Centre and Memorial Hall. However, the Quad and the Cambridge Common are fairly true to their actual size. The way I laid out the streets is similar to the actual map, although I did not fill in some of the outer areas that I am less familiar with. I think that the differences can mainly be attributed to the fact that I only view things from street level and thus rely solely on remembering what I see ahead of me when I am traveling to get the directions correct. Additionally, I positioned everything relative to landmarks that I am familiar with and this is probably why places like the Science Centre are much larger than they should be. Everything is simplified to reflect the parts of campus that are important in my life.
As a senior, I expected this sketchbook assignment to be relatively straightforward: a mapping of an area I feel relatively comfortable with. However, this sketchbook assignment really tested my knowledge of the Harvard Square area and helped me realize which features of the square stand out as important to me. When I first started sketching my ideas of how the square looked, I initially started with the Radcliffe Quadrangle, which was unsurprising since I live and spend a majority of my time there. However, as I transitioned to other parts of the sketch, this “quad­centric” perspective clearly shaped my interpretation of the rest of the square. This is apparent when comparing my sketch to an actual map. My rendition of the square tends to be more accurate and larger for buildings in closer proximity to the quad and less so as the distance from the quad increases. This could suggest that our perception of space is in relation to our residential or living spaces. Two other noteworthy conclusions can be drawn from my sketch of the square. The first is the choice of buildings that appear on my sketch. Mostly academic buildings, the buildings I use most frequently, appear instead of commercial buildings on the square. The second is the flow of people either taking shuttles or walking/biking between the quad and Harvard Yard. What stood out to me was that that pedestrians often traversed green spaces like the yard or Cambridge commons. The key takeaway for me from this sketchbook assignment was that the information we most understand about our environments are contained in the activities and spaces we come into contact regularly.
My sketch of a map of Harvard Square and the Harvard Campus was not that far off from the actual layout of the area; however, there are many major differences. First, the orientation of my sketch is so that JFK Street runs directly north through the square. In reality, JFK St runs northeast more than directly north. This shift in orientation is likely due to the fact that, while living on campus, the river seems “down” and the area around the science center and the Law School seems “up,” so my orientation made them directly north and south. Another major difference is that the Quad in my sketch is almost directly west of the yard, when in reality it is northwest, almost closer to north. This difference is likely due to the fact that the road to the quad seems to be perpendicular to the yard; however, it is only actually perpendicular for a moment and then bends slightly north. Another major discrepancy of my sketch is the river houses. Because I live in the Quad, I am much more familiar with the route to and from the Quad and the area around the yard; I am much less familiar with the exact layout of the buildings and streets around the river, and my sketch reflects that. I tried to include some paths that I use frequently in the yard, in Cambridge Commons, or in JFK Park, though some of those were not exactly accurate either. Overall, this sketch really made me reflect on how the different areas around Harvard’s campus are connected, and made me appreciate the very strange circular and triangular layout of some of the roads around the square.