Week 1 Evaluation and Reflection

Below is what I wrote for the first blog entry:

 1. The city is nestled between a river and mountains. The city is formed to the natural edge of the water, bending around in a smooth motion, whilst it is restricted by the harsh and steep mountains in the background. Forming yet another city edge and boundary. The layout of the city is quite organic yet it seems to have a structured and tidy plan .
2. Some of the pictures show the changing heights on which the buildings are built on. Each neighbouring house different to the other. This higjlights that they were not restricted by the topography of the land and again shows that this is an organic plan. With these two points in mind it suggests that this city was created originally for produce and harvesting. Most likely fishing or farming.
3. The large building is clearly the dominant form within the city. It is proportionally out of scale and has no reference to its surroundings either historically or naturally. The materials are different and it doesn't even form a similar shape in coherence with the existing buildings or refernce the beutiful skyline forged by the mountains in the background. 

It is very interesting to go back an see what I did write almost 13 weeks ago. I believe that the premise of my explanations were quite basic but did contain a small portion of what we were to learn this semester, however, I lacked the explanation and application of the ideas that Mirko has taught and explained. 

Probably the most important thing I could say about my thoughts from week 1, was that I describe "What I Saw" and totally disregarded, "How the City Worked, Why it is like this and What affect it my have."

If I was to now apply the knowledge that I have it would be definitely would be more thorough.As highlighted below:

1. The city is of an organic layout. There is no defined grid system but rather a natural placement of buildings.

This is similar to my comment about the city nestled between the river and the mountains, yet I was not able to define the correct term.

2. The large building is a prototype and landmark. It is the first building of its kind particularly in the area of location. It also acts as a landmark due to its scale. It gives the people a point of reference. It could possibly even be defined as a monument.

3. The building has no roots to the cities heritage. It acts as a loss of memory of the cities past. It is purely there fore commercial interests. This reflects the cities change towards urbanism and the importance of tourism to the area.