Jason Goodman

Jason Goodman

I sketched a few routes that I’ve recently walked, along with landmark buildings that come to mind when I think about neighboring areas. My path is in red, landmarks are blue, and I made the sketch on top of a horizontal black grid to organize my thoughts.

The fact that naturally wanted to use a grid made me realize that my perception of Harvard is in layers of distance from the river—and that most of my navigation is by getting to the right layer before walking “east” or “west” (as I perceive it) to my destination. My layers turned out very accurate in terms of scale and component buildings, though the actual grid is distorted by about 30 degrees above and below the Yard and varies somewhat in layer width.

What was especially inaccurate about my drawing is the size of buildings and their horizontal alignment within the layers. For example, Chipotle is barely west of the Yard, and I botched how the SEAS buildings near the top fit together. I also couldn’t recall most street names (a detail I didn’t attempt to include) and names of businesses around the Yard that I don’t frequent but walk past regularly. These seem like practical details not to know, since they aren’t important to navigation. What matters is getting to the right horizontal layer and walking in the correct direction.