Helen Bae

Helen Bae

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.