Project Statement

Ubiquitous Street Bureau: A design research project to study the thresholds of walking in a driving culture.

Developed and explored by Daniel Lara, Ana Ramos, and Alex Braidwood

Final Presentation

(Click on the images to view them full size)

Sole Scans

Every sole tells a story. By collecting images of the bottom of people’s shoes along with some additional information collected form the provided survey, this inquiry looks to investigate the roll that footwear plays in our determining when and where to walk.

[continued ...]

Real Space Sampling
While driving around the city of Los Angeles, I stumbled upon an area in the back corner of a parking lot where a hole had been in a chain link fense so that homeless people and transients could gain access to the protective area underneath a bridge over the LA river near a train yard. The most interesting aspect of this space of the city was the hidden and overlooked nature of both the location itself and the people who used it. In order to develop an audio and visual profile of the city, chose to documented some unseen elements within the space, more specifically, invisible typography with the location. While on-site, I used a radio scanner to record communications from the airwaves at the specific location. I then edited the sound down to only mentions of letters and numbers, including the ways in which police officers communicate letters by stating words. Visually I was attracted to the discarded memorabilia that was littered about. Much of it had been there for many years and was well ground into the dirt. I focused my collections on those items that contained small typography and interesting forms. I then explored these items back in the studio using macro photography.

The Location

Audio results of radio scanning the area for the typographic audio form

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Macro photography explorations of other-worldly textures and typographic forms

[continued ...]

For the second visit to the space, I decided to further my intrigue with the discarded typography of the first study. I actively sought out objects form the space around the transient fence opening that contained letter forms in some fashion. Some of these were printed, some where embossed and some where molded directly into the plastic. The typography specific to these objects begins to give them a context in which history can be known. Information such as time period, function and even levels of use can be extracted from the typographic forms.

[continued ...]

The Place

The Discovery

[continued ...]