Interviews
After observing they way in which people move and interact with each other within a public space I decided to chat to people about there experiences in public spaces. Within these short informal interviews I wanted to find out:

What they do whilst they are waiting within these types of spaces?

Do they have any memorable experience of waiting for a journey to begin?

Do they like spending time in these types of environments?

Before the interviews I created a small leaflet for the interviewees, to stimulate them into thinking about public waiting spaces and their personal experience within them.

Interview number 1

Feedback
Euan couldn’t find a hotel whilst delayed, so decided to sleep in the airport with his friend. Another passenger who was in the same situation joined them; this made his experience slightly more sociable than it may have been. No shops were open, but it was not an unpleasant experience, as he was excited about the trip he was about to embark on.
He usually finds waiting in public spaces very boring and takes music and books with him to pass time. Whether he enjoys these spaces is dependant on his purpose of being within space

 

Interview number 2

Feedback
Nicola doesn't like the large area of public waiting spaces, normally finds them very disorientating and gets lost easily, especially in bus and train stations. She also doesn't like the movement of lots of people around her.

She finds the space within airports could be anywhere in the world, as they are very non-cultural and generic, nothing special within them makes you remember the space.

The layout of these types of spaces make her feel very trapped; all the amenities are on the outside of the space, with the seats in the middle, feels like she is always in someone's way positioned in the centre of the space, as thought you are stuck in an island in the middle of the space.

Normally within these environments she tries to avoid speaking to people as she doesn't like awkward conversations.

Nicola thinks that in train station and airports people always seem to be in a rush, but bus stations have less people passing through, and people seem to have more time to spend together.

 

Interview number 3

Feedback
Ian enjoys watching people in public spaces whilst listening to music, he creates stories for people that he observes.

Shaun likes the clinical feeling of public waiting areas -such as airports- they are monuments to modern culture almost like shopping environments, very clinical and impersonal. He also enjoys people watching and tends to buy things he doesn't need just because those facilities are there.

When he would travel to school on the train he began to lose the thought of being in a station and became it a very boring daily routine. Within small train stations there is nothing to look at or do; the built environment is very different to larger stations.

Ian enjoys spending time in airports as there is always a very diverse set of people to watch, however in bus stations people are more similar.

Shaun agrees with Ian, bus stations and airports have a residual class difference. He tends to try and not speak to people in stations or airports.

Ian does speak to people on the way to a sporting event because they have a common interest, which makes it easier to chat to other travellers

Shaun thinks that waiting in a station and airport are very different experiences, there is different class sets between train, plane and bus travel. Air travel is still seen as very glamorous from the jet set of the 1950's, but the bus is the exact opposite. You go on a bus because you can't afford a car.

Ian agrees, air travel is even glamorised in music by people like Frank Sinatra

Shaun agrees with Ian; a song about the tube station by The Jam - Down in the Tube Station, is about mugging. Another example is Kraftwerk - Transeuro Express, does not speak well of that form of transport, the tube is a very confined space, but the tube in some ways is better than other forms of travel in cities; its very cultural and place located.

(I decided to join the conversation)
Opinions differ between different forms of travel, has made me think about the different groups ad classes of people that use each form of transport, which leads me to think about crime in these spaces, where would be the best place to locate an installation piece, would I be best to exclude certain public waiting spaces, like tube stations? When I think about the spaces, my first design idea works well within the tube environments, but it wouldn't sit well within a large open train station or airport lounge, where there are few walls in the central space.

Shaun - If you have a wall-based piece, it would sit better in the connecting corridors between the main waiting are and the departure gates within the airport.

In these public waiting spaces there is a loss of innocence, especially when people talk to you, you automatically assume they are weird or going to do something bad to you.

Technology doesn’t have to be work, in public spaces it should be free and fun, look at work at the drift table; its pointless but its fun and engaging.

Interview number 4

Feedback
She always takes books and music with her when she is travelling but only ever listens to music because she always sees something interesting to look at.
She never feels comfortable in these environments because of the constant move of people around her, and doesn't feel safe because people walk into her comfort zone.

She feels that the environments that are created for waiting in are very false, with lots of advertising and shops; not sociable at all.

However she will go of her way to talk to people when she is travelling abroad. When she is abroad she feels the spaces are good to meet fellow travellers but at home, just switches off when she is in these spaces.

Reflection on the interview feedback
Opinions differ between different forms of travel; this has made me think about the different types of people that use each form of transport, which leads me to think about crime in these spaces. Where would be the best place to locate an installation piece? Would I be best to exclude certain public waiting spaces, like in tube stations? When I think about the different types of spaces, my first design idea works well within the tube environments, but it wouldn't sit well within a large open train station or airport lounge, where there are few walls in the central space.

The feedback from the interviews influenced me to think about the shape of the types of environments are linear and courtyard shaped spaces. Within a linear shaped environment, common to small areas, the movement is restricted to 2 directions, however within a courtyard shaped environment, there is a larger amount of destinations to visit. Like the linear shaped environment, the waiting area is central, but the flow of movement within the space is more complex.

Thinking back to interview number 2, I would imagine people with similar mind sets would fell embarrassed to interact with the piece if it as a wall situated in the centre of a space, I feel it would be to much like performing for a crowd. Thinking more about the layout of large waiting spaces, people are separated into blocks of seats, but there is still a collective conscience that they don't want to talk to each other. Utilising this layout could be a new non intrusive way to communicate.

The project aim is to bring people together that isn't a game or a set of computers: to connect people to their environment instead of else where via means of there phone or the internet etc.

Thinking about peoples perceptions of these spaces, and the layout of these spaces, helped me move my idea forward again, leading me to my second design idea