27 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2016
    1. Position Piece

      Position piece means there will be a call to action!

    2. uch an approach also goes beyond advertising the aesthetic value of the campus open spaces for student recruitment purposes to recognizing the entire campus landscape as a learning space and advertising its educational value – that is emphasizes something deeper than what meets the eye.

      This is an annotation about the entire piece: I find it strange that this entire article fails to mention the rise of online learning. Online learning from my personal experience requires even more direct attention than learning in a traditional classroom setting, thus making the need for nature restoration even more crucial.

    3. Kathleen G Scholl, Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi

      What is their relevance to this topic? No title present means lack of credibility for the author.

    4. Such an approach also goes beyond advertising the aesthetic value of the campus open spaces for student recruitment purposes to recognizing the entire campus landscape as a learning space and advertising its educational value – that is emphasizes something deeper than what meets the eye.

      It is not merely an "aesthetic" approach to campus design, is is enhancing educational value. This is important to remember when writing the summary.

    5. provide visionary and heuristic scenarios for a university of the future, we need a vision for integrating a systemic view of what these integrated campus nature networks would like in the future. In addition, there is a need to conduct more focused and nuanced research on identifying the human-nature mechanisms that lead to (among others) attentional resource benefits.

      Here is the call to action! We "need" and "there is a need."

    6. However, a student’s learning experience is not often balanced by unstructured or structured opportunities for drawing forth effortless, indirect attention that occur in human-nature interactions (Valles-Planells, et. al, 2014).

      I must have missed something because I read this article as a bunch of examples of how college campuses are designed to create a balance. I will have to reread to understand the aspect of unbalance.

    7. Interaction with natural environments (especially green nature) employs faculties of concentration not normally used – involuntary ones – thus allowing the neural mechanisms underlying directed attention a chance to rest and replenish.

      This is so interesting. Going to school in the city, it is much harder achieve this because of constant stimulation. I struggle with this on a daily basis and often times be as drastic to leave the city on vacation in order to reset.

    8. After a period of prolonged cognitive demands and mental saturation, difficulties in concentrating, reduced performance on tasks, higher rates of irritability and tension, and more impulsive and hostile behavior may arise

      My theory is, the point in which people start to have trouble paying attention after a prolonged period of cognitive demands, reflects a bell curve in relevance to age. A young elementary aged child can only pay attention for so long before he/she becomes distracted. The length becomes longer and longer through adolescence and college age and most of adult life, and then once a person starts to become elderly, it declines.

    9. nature or natural environment as the… “physical features and processes of nonhuman origin that people ordinarily can perceive, including the “living nature” of flora and fauna, together with still and running water, qualities of air and weather, and the landscapes that comprise these and show the influences of geological processes” (Hartig, et al., 2014, p. 21.2)

      Operational definition of nature

    10. Furthermore there is a subjective component to the concept

      There is pretty much a subjective definition to everything. The definition of any single word can be defined subjectively based on a persons personal experience of that word.

  2. Sep 2016
    1. Morrill Act of 1862 required new buildings to be built with laboratories and observatory space for agricultural, technical education, and scientific research

      This is shocking to me that the shift from classical learning to a more science based learning happened so early in history. I began to research classical learning in America and this article makes it seem as if the 19th century was still heavily practicing classical learning. Therefore, this paragraph is misleading.

    2. university founders desired to create an ideal community that was a place apart, secluded from city distraction but still open to the larger community, enabling their students and faculty to devote unlimited time and attention for classical or divinity learning, personal growth, and free intellectual inquiry

      This is the historical goal when planning and building campuses. Interesting to read while being a student at Georgia State University, a school placed in the middle of a busy city. The every day distractions brought about by being in the city may be hurting us more than most think. Also, the term "unlimited time" is particularly captivating. I cannot think of any person who devotes "unlimited time" to college and learning, which is quite sad!

    3. two concepts that have been addressed in two different domains, bringing them together to help conceptualize future campus planning in relation to student learning.

      The point of the article is to explain ways to "conceptualize future campus planning" remember this quote when writing summary

    4. “one fifth of a student’s time is spent in the classroom, contributing about one quarter of the total learning variance (Radloff, 1998, p. 1).

      With the growing popularity of online learning, it is reasonable to conclude that the amount of time spent outside of the classroom will continue to increase. Thus increasing the importance of other campus space.

    5. Questions of where, when, how, and with whom today’s college students learn, confront the traditional notions of how university spaces are designed and used for effectiveness (Hashimshony & Haina, 2006

      What makes a college campus effective? I would operationally define "effective" in this article as: a campus that facilitates learning and student social and academic engagement.

  3. Aug 2016
    1. paradigmatic

      Did not know the definition of this word. Paradigmatic: adj. Something that is ideal or standard.

    2. abstract. The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals—often poor people and people of color—to access certain places.

      Rhetorical situation of this article: April of 2015, published in a scholarly journal. Audience is most likely people interested in academics, particularly in law or urban planning. The author is a Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law. The message is to expose the injustices brought about in the "built environment" by architectural exclusion.

    3. Although exclusion is perhaps the most important stick in the bundle of property rights, and although certain forms of exclusion can have beneficial results,18 this Article focuses on forms of exclusion that result in discriminatory treatment of those who are excluded.

      Major road projects are typically voted upon by people in the community, are the people from lower-income areas not properly represented?

    4. Although the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area is known for its car-centric, sprawling development patterns, it has a subway system: the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority (MARTA).

      In my experience with public transport including cities in the US such as Chicago, and cities in Europe such as London, I personally find MARTA comparably hard to use and not easily accessible. Chicago's "L" is widely used among all people across very diverse socioeconomic groups. Practically everyone in London uses the "Tube" to get from point A to point B. Atlanta's public transport is subpar at best.

    5. Walled ghettos are a well-known example of physical segregation.90 Jewish people in Europe were made to live in separate, walled areas, as were Arab and European traders in China.91 This form of physical exclusion by walls and barriers is nothing new.92 However, it is not only a remnant of the distant past, but also exists in more modern examples.

      These examples vs other examples of exclusion are different in nature, and I don't fully agree that they are comparable. Jewish people being forced to live in a separate area is blatant racism. Whereas the vast majority of other examples of exclusion by architectural means in this article are not blatant acts of racism. I do not believe the other examples are justifiable, I just do not think they are comparable to this particular example.

    6. In contrast, although people of all socioeconomic groups use public transit—buses, subways, and light rail—in larger metropolitan areas, low-income people and people of color often rely more heavily on public transportation than people from other groups.

      An example of this is the context in which people from different socioeconomic groups use public transportation. Higher-income individuals typically use public transportation as means of getting to an entertainment event, such as a sporting event or concert. Whereas people from lower-income groups use public transportation as means of getting to and from work.

    7. Sometimes transit will allow a person to get close to a given area, but not all the way there, leaving the rider in a dangerous situation.

      Another obstacle of finding means of transportation in affluent suburbs is the lack of taxi's. If the public transport doesn't take them to the exact location of where they need to be, the person would really have no other option than to walk. Whereas in a city, if you are not right were you need to be once departing public transport, there are taxi's readily available to take you that last leg.

    8. If someone wanted to walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself.

      GSU's campus is extremely not bike-friendly. I am not sure if everyone feels this way but in my experience, I find it hard to bike around campus. With parking being so expensive due to overcrowding, I would think bikes would be more encouraged as a means of transportation for students. I wonder how their lack of bike lanes relates to themes in this article?

    9. specifications for bridge overpasses on Long Island, which were designed to hang low so that the twelve-foot tall buses in use at the time could not fit under them

      What was Moses's claimed reason for designing the bridges this way? I looked up the year it was built, 1951. This is extremely important in terms of social context. WWII was over and suburban life was beginning to boom. Also, civil rights efforts were in full swing. The 50's was home to some of the most famous civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, where separate but equal was deemed inherently unequal. Moses used his "power as an architect" to establish Long Island as a suburb for middle class white people.

    10. In the case of the cafeteria, the architectural constraint is that it is physically difficult to reach or see the junk food, and thus it is harder to access.

      This is also the case in grocery stores. More expensive foods are at eye level, where the consumer is more likely to make their selection, resulting in the store making more money. This makes me curious if a particular food company can partner with a grocery store chain to pay and get their foods in particular locations in the store. Such as eye level of a shelf, or displayed up front by check out where everyone passes.

    11. Supporters of this measure argued that it would ostensibly reduce traffic and noise, in addition to promoting safety.

      I am asking this NOT in response to the context to this exact case. Is it possible to remove race from a safety situation? Regardless of primary race in a neighborhood, if there is proven increased crime in that said area, is it racist or wrong to restrict a road leading to an area of reduced crime, in order to maintain reduced crime levels in that area? It is an enormous concept to understand, and I am not positive there is even a right answer to that question.

    12. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.

      Within the past year, this exact thing happened in the town I am from, Johns Creek, GA. There was a proposed plan to have a Marta stop in our city to reduce traffic. It was shut down for this exact reason. Here is a link about the decision to not extend the Marta line into North Fulton.(http://raycomgroup.worldnow.com/story/30571840/johns-creek-says-no-to-marta)