I looked closely at two resources, This American Life and Space Syntax. What I enjoyed about looking at these sites, and what I think makes them compliment each other well, is the way in which they both capture a variety of ways mapping can be used. This American Life, Mapping, episode 101, begins by emphasizing the amount of maps that exist in our world today, everyone uses maps and often they are used without a conscious acknowledgement that it is a map, weather maps, bus routes, etc. The discussion of maps using all senses addresses the ability to take the idea of mapping, and transfer it into all realms of life, creating maps for things that seem “unmappable”.  Space Syntax was fascinating due to the variety of maps all of which were composed using strong visual graphics.  There are maps very simply composed of hand pencil sketches all the way to complex, 3D maps using color and transparency for clarity. Space syntax uses a variety of ways to depict relationships, color, adjacency, overlap, opacity, etc. Many of the graphics are complex, capturing multiple ideas, verses the maps on This American Life, which focused on one element per map then compared the elements together, rather them putting them on one map.  What I also thought was interesting about This American Life, was the ability to discuss maps and create a visualization for the listener without having a physical map to view. I took the idea from both of these sites and tried to make some diagrams/maps with the combined principles. I looked at East Portland at a larger scale, connecting the neighborhoods surrounding Gateway. The idea of these diagrams was to take one idea, as in This American Life, and then stack them on top of each other to create a diagram seen in Space Syntax capturing multiple realms.

Diagram 1- The neighborhoods and the blur between them

Diagram 2- How streets become grids and grids become the "in-between"

Diagram 3- Grids and Green

I then did some diagrams looking at a smaller scale yet still large enough to include the context around the site.  I elaborated on the concept that we explored a couple weeks ago “Green and Gray” to create new ideas about how the gray connects to other elements in a community.

Green and Gray- In this diagrams green and gray have to exist together, gray is eventually blurred with green and there becomes no line between the two.

Yellow and Gray- Yellow represents neighborhoods and how they relate to the site and need to interact with the gray.

Red and the Lack of Gray- This diagrams explores the idea of people and site. The site reaches out to all types of people and becomes a haven of support for them. Gray is left out of this because in my mind, the built should always support people and become a place for them.