Site Survey: University of Queensland

Site: University of Queensland (UQ)

Date: Tuesday, 5 May 2015, 1pm

Site Obs:

• This is a sunny day. The site survey is mainly in UQ Lake.
• In the lake, there are a lot of fishes, turtles. A prohibition says, “Do not feed animals” and told the reason.
• There is a long bridge on the lake, links Collaborative Design Laboratories to UQ Lake bus station.
• A prohibition at the beginning and ending of bridge says, “Bicycle dismount”.
• There are three pathways at the beginning of bridge. One pathway is go to building 78; one pathway is walk to great center, the last one is a ladder to building 49.
• A restaurant is near by the lake; a lot of people have lunch or drinks there.
• Besides the restaurant and the lake, some students have a rest on the lawn. This lawn is very big.

People Obs: 

Most of them are students, some teachers and staffs. Most relationship of them is classmates, friends, and lovers.

Walkers
20 * individual male, ~30
15 * individual female, ~30
12 * groups, ~25
Forms of group composition: 2 girls. 2 boys. 1 girl and 1 boy. 1 boy and
2 girls. 1 girl and 2 boys. 3 boys.

People who are seating on the lawn
4 * individual male, ~25
6 * individual female, ~25
Individual persons are: reading book, using smartphone, sleeping, having lunch

9 * groups, ~25
Group members are: talking
Forms of group composition: 3 girls. 2 girls. 3 boys. 2 boys. 1 boy and 1 girl. One group is 3 girls and 2 boys.

Skateboard
1 * boy, ~22

People who seat in the restaurant
36 at all
7 * individual male, ~60
4 * individual female, ~50
Individual persons are: using smartphone.
25 people are in groups.
Forms of group composition: 2 girls. 3 girls. 2 boys. 3 boys. 1 girl and 1 boy. 2 boys and 2 girls. 2 girls and 1 boy. One group is 3 girls and 4 boys.

Theses Considerations:
“Public spaces are anti-social spaces”
Student is a target group in the university campus. UQ build a lake and a large size of lawn for students. This is a good public space for people to talk with friends and have a rest. However, there are also a lot of individual people and they may also want to join a group. This place may support some devices to active people interact with each other.

“Society has too many prohibitions and too few invitations”
This place forbids people to feed animals. However, there still some people feed the animals even though they saw the prohibition. I support this prohibition because it is good for animals. We cannot do wrong things to other due to interesting. Another position is bicycle dismount. I also support this because it is considered safety. Therefore, I deny this thesis.