Loci Communes

Editorial

Małgorzata Kądziela — 2022-06-21

Three Tools for Sonic Rupture: Translating Ambiance, Biophilic Sound Design and More-Than-Human Listening

Jordan Lacey — 2022-06-28

Sounds of the city shape everyday perception; thus, as sounds change, so do our moods and responses to the environments in which we live. This article is part of a discourse trying to recognise the essential role that soundscape design should play in urban planning to improve quality of life experiences. It aims to discuss three tools for creating sonic ruptures in urban environments: translating ambiance, biophilic sound design, and more-than-human listening. The three tools are related to the sonic rupture concept, introduced as a form of soundscape design focused on improving the quality of life for urban dwellers and creating new possible approaches for urban design. Translating ambiance leverages ambiance theory to explore the prospects of translating the affective qualities of the natural world into cities. The biophilic sound design tool combines biophilic design and field recording practices to discover innovative ways to bring the sounds of nature into
the city. The more-than-human listening tool explores the possible recordings that multi-microphone arrays can make in natural environments that, while impossible to hear with the human ear, can be integrated into urban installations. In combination, this suite of tools presents new ways of thinking about the roles artistic
research can play in urban soundscape design as a means to expand the range of human experience – and thus the quality of life – in urban environments. The nature term, as used here, refers to those expanses of land free of urban development that present unique sonic experiences and expressions to the artistic researcher, which can be applied to urban design. The described approach has been tested in the creation of the Sonic Gathering Place, an installation that integrates the three post-sonic rupture tools, which will be touched on briefly in this paper.

Cities and Human Experience – the Touchpoints of Space Perception and Wayfinding Systems in the Communication Design Perspective

Kamil Olender — 2022-06-28

This paper introduces the topic of wayfinding systems and the related concepts of touchpoints between spatial user experience design and empirical research. It discusses the operationalisation of the concept in the light of various scientific fields and provides the outline of the individual necessary steps crucial to design a signage system that would be the closest and most accurate in the context of spatial cognition, as well as the indication of the most frequently discussed guidelines for designers in both scientific and professional literature.

Searching for Identity in the 20th-Century Lithuanian-American Food Exhibitions

Jurgita Senuliene — 2022-06-28

In this case the author of the article, using quantitative and qualitative analysis of the selected periodical publications, examines ethnic food fairs held in the USA in the 20th century. Focusing on the issue of food as an expression of ethnic identity, the article aims to reveal how Lithuanian emigrants, by organising and participating in ethnic food exhibitions, disseminated and aspired to maintain their ethnic and national identity. The theoretical approach of the research is based on the theories of coexistence of multicultural societies, that is the “melting pot” and a “salad bowl”. The author addresses the following questions: 1. How have world and food fairs developed in the USA? 2. What impressions did the Lithuanian diaspora leave in world and ethnic food fairs? 3. How was identity fostered at Lithuanian exhibitions of “national dishes” during World War II? and 4. What role did ethnic food exhibitions organised by the Lithuanian diaspora play in the construction of identity? The author concludes that exhibitions of “national dishes” organised by Lithuanians brings to light a certain fragmentation of the diaspora in terms of food and ethnic identity.

The Dilemmas of a Culturologist

Ewa Kosowska — 2022-06-28

The article concerns the recently published book by Marek Pacukiewicz, Landscapes of Context. The author presents the dilemmas of a culturologist – a theoretician and anthropologist of culture struggling with the multifaceted discourse of contemporary humanities. Leading representatives of these sciences, making
culture the declared subject of their research, are often content with the presentation of various epistemological strategies aimed at learning about selected aspects of social practices. The practices they analyse, including those of thought, are relatively rarely embedded in broader contexts, and the concept of culture itself is contested as cognitively non-instrumental. Contrary to these tendencies, Pacukiewicz tries to stand up for the metaphysical dimension of culture and proposes to study it as a self-existent being independent of subsequent methodological fashions. He considers landscape and context to be key concepts for the proposed approach.

Through a Machine Lens: Case Studies of Computer Vision and Machine Learning in Design Methodology

Andrew Witt — 2022-06-28

Machine vision (MV) and artificial intelligence (AI) offer strange new augmentations and transformations of how architects perceive and conceptualise both the creation of buildings and the analysis of existing architecture. Seeing through machinic eyes allows architects to amplify their intuitions and engage in a flood of digitally sensed imagery in more quantifiable and extensible ways. Through a series of case studies of projects developed through the design office Certain Measures, this article argues for the potential of machine vision and artificial intelligence in the creative practice of design while situating these new developments in the history of mathematical ways of seeing and conceptualising architecture. These case studies, across large and small scales, combine ideas from human and machine perception and mathematical geometry to create new architectural approaches.

Perceptual Immersion, or What Computer Games Can Be Used for in Architectural Education

Justyna Szmel — 2022-06-14

In this case study, the authors suggest that the introduction of computer games to architectural education may contribute to the broadening of architects’ knowledge of the processes connected to sensory perception as well as the development of their perceptual awareness and sensory sensitivity. This thesis will be supported by the analysis of selected factors enabling sensory immersion (namely motor, vision and sound) in several fragments of two games: “Half-Life: Alyx” (3D game in VR technology) and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (game for a desktop computer platform). The abovementioned competencies are essential in the process of designing both objects and spaces on a different scale and critical in projects for recipients, especially from the so-called spectrum of neurodiversity.