Brand—Space

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SECTION THREE
Perceptions of Place
Space, place and how humans perceive and treat these areas.
How space becomes place and the ‘perspective of experience’.
Firstly, what is place? How do we visualise it,
perceive it and how do our cultures factor into it.
Space and place are separate entities, space can
be anywhere or anything we perceive to be
empty or vacant but may still serve a designated
purpose i.e. parking space. Space then becomes
place when our perceptions change, a meaning
has been associated to it, or it has been defined.
Our subconscious identifies somewhere as a
place, we recognise it and remember our past
experience of it. Once we associate memories –
experiences – our perception of that place soon
changes, it becomes defined and it has meaning
to us.
Yi-Fu Tuan, a professor of geography formerly
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains
‘Place is a pause in movement’. Continuing later
to explain:
Place is whatever stable object catches
our attention. As we look at a panoramic
scene our eyes pause at points of interest.
Each pause is time enough to create
an image of place that looms large
momentarily in our view. The pause may
be of such short duration and the interest
so fleeting that we may not be fully aware
of having focused on any particular object;
we believe we have simply been looking
at the general scene. Nonetheless these
pauses have occurred. It is not possible to
look at a scene in general; our eyes keep
searching for points of rest. 10
These simple yet significant identifiers allow
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Tuan, Y. (1977)
us to map out space in our mind; they shape Space and place:
our experience by affecting our recollection
the perspective of
experience. London:
of locations or events. Authenticity is what
Edward Arnold. p.161
drives these feelings, people want an authentic
experience, and they want to try out a product
or service in the right environment. This is
something Architect Gerry Hamill would argue
for, as he believes in creating comfortable,
non-intimidating environments to attract
returning customers. We will look at this in