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Personal Space
Personal Space created by town construction
City Enabling Personal Space Establishment
by Reo
Imagine a city that you live in. You will imagine some buildings, streets, grocery stores, and convenience stores in your town. All of these elements are necessary conditions for the city to establish its own meaning. The interesting part of the subject for our class is considering the city Kabukicho. More in-depth, our group would focus on a specific place: Golden-Gai. This is to reveal how the city is having the environment to lead the visitors to think that they are having their personal space. In other words, the elements of the city are constantly leading the customers to construct their own image of Golden-Gai, feeling they have their personal space.
This analysis limits itself to the effects of physical, perceptible objects. There are other influences on imageability, such as the social meaning of an area, its function, its history, or even its name. These will be glossed over since the objective here is to uncover the role of the form itself. It is taken for granted that in actual design form should be used to reinforce meaning, and not negate it (Lynch. 1996)
Map
Drawn based on (Shinjuku Golden-gai Shoten-Gai Shinko Kumiai, 2017)
The City Elements: Distinguishing Golden-Gai From Kabukicho
Roads
The road here is different from the streets. They are bigger and have cars passing by. To access the road, you go either up or down, but the closest is the road down below shown on the map. The way road surrounding Golden-Gai emphasizes the existence of Golden-Gai. Roads are always distinguishable from the streets in golden-Gai and allow people to feel the difference. Being inside Golden-Gai or getting out of Golden-Gai, is always easily noticeable.
Streets
Streets allow the Golden-Gai to be Golden-Gai since they are always almost narrower than other roads in Kabukicho. Just by taking a look at the picture below, the street is long but not wide. A woman in the bar told us that these streets are not public owned but privately owned. People usually use these private streets.
Streets here are always a way to get into shops. The reason is that these are mostly the only solution for visitors to get to the destination. When they soon enter these streets they feel Golden-Gai. Small, private, and narrow create the feeling of being there.
Streets are interwinding with each other creating a certain characteristic of this place.
Edges
They are the boundaries between two phases, linear breaks in continuity: shores, railroad cuts, edges of development, and walls (Lynch, 1996).
Take a look at the map at the top of the page. You will notice that every intersecting point of streets and roads is a place you can feel the edges. The streets and the road always intersect in Kabukicho and create an edge. Going over this edge from outside Golden-Gai and into this place enables people to immediately see and sense the difference.
By observing Golden-Gai edges, I was able to notice 7 edges. These edges are the ones that connect to the outside world. This small town is distinguished by these small edges created by roads and streets as explained in the previous sections. There are some potential edges seen in G1 street but they are not edges since when you walk out from this space you are still in Golden-Gai.
Short Cuts (Paths)
Some of these are useable and some of them are not. Some have tons of trash and some have air conditioner outdoor units. These paths are usually narrower than the streets and usually made between buildings and are often seen in the G1 and G2 sections.
Small short cuts in Golden-Gai create a shady image; shady in the sense, more private. You might not want to use this if it's not necessary to use this. These do not exist a lot in other parts of Kabukicho which makes this place to be distinguished.
Buildings
How many of you have actually seen a building this small, narrow, and close? Immediately entering the Golden-Gai enables you to find out that the town has this interesting feature that remains in people’s minds as the characteristic of Golden-Gai.
Most of the buildings are closely connected to each other. They are sometimes separated by having paths between them but most of the time, buildings just do not have a space. Simple walls separate the shops. In addition, getting inside the shops allows you to notice how small the building is. There are only a limited number of chairs and small tables. This is due to the buildings being close to each other giving people a comfy spot or maybe they would feel too small…
And So What?
When visitors see these places, they feel they are in Golden-Gai. They feel that they are home. The way the town is different in terms of construction allows customers to always feel the difference between other places and as soon as they come back to their home, they feel that they can start drinking. Personal space is created when people interpret these elements as theirs.
Sections
Personal Space