25 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2016
    1. 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.

      This is implying that campuses or at least areas designed for students to study are needed to often allow them to balance out their minds and relax while working to keep them in a set pace where they don't feel obligated or frustrated inside a building or type of closed-in room.

    2. 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

      Feeling constantly stressed out can cause a student or a person to latch out in assertive behavior.

    3. Interaction with nature, in particular, can help to maintain or restore cognitive function such as direct attention, problem solving, focus and concentration, impulse inhibition, and memory, which can become depleted from fatigue or with overuse

      Human to nature interaction usually can reflect from one another as the human becomes almost "one with nature" being able to communicate and circulate through it whereas if the human was in a structured environment, they almost feel as though they are a bird caged.

    4. natural scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigorating to the whole system

      This implies that a natural environment instead of a structured one urges to ease the mind to be open and circulate, not feel closed up or to cause any pain to it.

    5. The inclusion of the automobile on campus resulted in parking lots claiming large areas of natural open space within a “ring road” type of plan, in which vehicles were mostly kept outside the pedestrian oriented campus core

      Because most campuses were designed for students being capable to travel by foot or through pavement, the parking lots or decks or garages for those who either commute to campus or the faculty and staff of the campus are usually placed in the outer barrier of the campus because of the structure that has been already primarily set. Plus, in a way to eliminate any danger of those traveling to class being struck by a vehicle on the way.

    6. Open space and “zones” for disciplines became far more common than closely clustered buildings previously designed to protect students from the lures of the outside world

      Traditional college campuses that have been around for nearly over centuries were created in rural territories to keep students in separating them from the "outside world" while living amongst it. Recently, newer college campuses are built in either urban or suburban areas to expose the student to the world around them. For example, when I previously went to Valdosta State, the school campus is all in one area and the city of Valdosta surrounds it making the campus the center of the city. Transferring to Georgia State, the campus is so expanded that it takes 15 minutes for me to walk from my dorm to the classroom buildings whereas it was a quick 5 minute walk from my dorm that was across campus from the classroom buildings back in Valdosta.

    7. increased technology use within today’s multitasking society is likely to hijack a student’s attentional resource placing her/him at risk of underachieving academic learning goals and undermining success at a university

      This I don't believe to be true. Mainly because the advancement of technology has made it quicker and easier for the student to be able to obtain information especially because "back in the day" it was difficult to get so much information all at once because the researching process was brutal. Being able to "google" a research thesis for a certain type of project gives the student immediate access to what they need and are looking for. It cuts the research process down nearly 5x.

    8. Thus, university students as a group are at a higher risk of attentional fatigue.

      This is true, and I'm not just saying as a college student myself although the personal connection is intact. Even though adults with families and labor jobs are more likely to go through the same thing, I believe personally it is true for college students because of the pressure of having to attain a degree to get a "good-working" job, and then financial struggles of being a college student due to loans if taken and the cost of supplies for certain classes and courses.

    9. in fact, the entire campus, including its open spaces, must be perceived as a holistic learning space that provides a holistic learning experience

      This is implying that the structure of a college campus must be almost closed in to be a "proper" learning environment for its students.

    10. American higher education institutions face unique twenty-first century changes and challenges in providing good, holistic learning spaces for the diverse and evolving needs of today’s college student.

      These changes include how the environment and structure of such colleges and universities have changed.

  2. Sep 2016
    1. Further, the design of many suburban communities, with their cul-de-sacs and curvy streets, makes them confusing to outsiders who cannot see what lies on the other side of the neighborhood.

      These street structures were built to prevent and trick non-residents and travelers to believing that nothing is there for them to trespass upon or seek.

    2. One mall retail store owner recalled a conversation with a mall official who said something like, “The people who rode the Walden Avenue bus were not the kind of people they were trying to attract to the Walden Galleria.”

      That conversation right there explicitly presents that because of racial stereotyping and profiling prevents certain groups that "they did not want to attract" from getting to the mall. It's unfair and doesn't make sense to have a bus stop right on the other side of the highway and not thinking about who rides the bus that works at the mall. If they're allowing charter buses inside the mall then why couldn't they do the for such public transportation transits? I hope with such an incident as a minor losing their life having to walk a dangerous route to get to their work place opened their eyes and made them aware of their decisions and the impacts it makes on certain people and seek to change it for the better because it shouldn't have to take a life lost for accessibilities to be made.

    3. The inability to use public transit to access the suburbs is one of the primary barriers preventing black people from obtaining suburban jobs.

      The limiting of routes to reach such areas are leaving potentials unemployed.

    4. As one scholar acknowledged, “race has been a factor limiting the geography of transit.

      This states that because of one's racial background and class, a certain group overlooks them as undesirable because they do not want them or others like them in their territory.

    5. n all these instances, the barriers and road closures were instituted, installed, and approved based on their purported relationship to public health and safety. While these barriers are often related to traffic, they have marked secondary effects: they often intentionally restrict access by a certain class of individuals

      While some traffic barriers have been made for the benefit of helping innocents, they also been regulated to prevent any harm or wrongdoings reaching innocents from such violence and crime from thugs and gangs.

    6. The Rosedale residents wanted the fence to keep out crime and keep their property values up, and “there was a not insubstantial vocal segment of the Rosedale whose racist views were made readily apparent.”

      These racist views on putting up walls and fences on a particular property to isolate and separate another is stereotyping the other group thinking that if they block out crimes and violence by having a barrier that it won't get to them. It's also stating that one must great lengths to run errands because the resources they seek to reach aren't exposed or available right outside the door for them. The residents think primarily of themselves claiming it's for safety but fail to be considerate for the other groups seeking for efficiency and equality.

    7. The wall still exists today—a legacy of discriminatory government policy—and though Detroit has experienced declines in segregation in recent years, this city is still the most racially segregated metropolitan area in the United States.

      Despite the wall still being there as a way to segregate a community from another, racial groups are still isolating from one another in the city. Also, I have looked up pictures for this and along the sides of the wall, there are painted murals that showcase art and the meaning of the wall in an expressed manner.

    8. Moses’s biographer suggests that his decision to favor upper- and middle-class white people who owned cars at the expense of the poor and African-Americans was due to his “social-class bias and racial prejudice.”

      His biographer was right. Considering that he acclaimed Jones Beach and was biased preferring a certain class and race group over another, drove him to constructing a landscape that prevented the groups he did not favor accessing them. He basically played a role of racial favoritism because of his prejudices.

    9. Boddie points out that “law overlooks the racial identifiability of spaces,” and Clowney notes that “landscape is one of the most overlooked instruments of modern race-making.”

      Courts and laws tends to not see the details within the big picture as to how and why some landscapes and architecture are created to exclude certain minority groups. Back when there were racially divided seatings among places, they're believing that just because their hasn't been signs around for nearly half a century "regulating" and yet segregating where and what races should sit that certain infrastructures that are mentioned that have been built are not used to separate and isolate certain accepted groups from marginalized others.

    10. For example, a cafeteria manager who places healthier food items in a more visible and accessible location than junk food in order to nudge people toward healthier choices is guiding actions through architectural decisions.

      This example sets a prominent visual that in order to control and alter people's decisions without them knowing it, they make whatever they believe is a better choice more visual and reachable to them rather than make what they believe is not good nearly unaccessible.

    11. Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps.

      I recall reading an article years before that a certain city or country (I do not remember if it was stated in the US, I believe it was Canada but I could be wrong) placed spiked-like figures on the seating and the backs on the benches almost resembling a needle bed to prevent homeless people from laying on them. I even remember how a majority of the responses were saying that's cruel or has gone too far and how that's unfair because it's treating them poorly.

  3. Aug 2016
    1. Architectural regulation is powerful in part because it is unseen; it “allows government to shape our actions without our perceiving that our experience has been deliberately shaped.

      This describes that the government and the system makes changes and creates regulations that benefit certain groups while limiting and restricting it for others.

    2. Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities

      The "wealthy, most white residents" opposed to this because they're stereotyping minorities believing if public transportation systems were to be installed into their neighborhoods that it would lead to unwanted crime and violence when that's not the case. Most minorities are trying to get to their work places because they do not have their own means of transportation and rely on the public transits.

    3. According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them.

      This shows that a person in authority is limiting the transportation system needed for people to reach certain destinations.

    4. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones.

      Public transportation to some places became limited due to architecture because of discrimination. They were used to isolate minority groups from such "wealthy" and white neighborhoods.