Minutes December 20 2011

Lecture by Professor Mohammed Masoud Al-Abdullah

Professor Masoud from University of Dammam, Saudi-Arabia, gave some theoretical background on documentation and assessment of behaviour patterns. The theory was shown with a case study related to a large beach recreation area that has been designed recently for the city of Dammam. Mr Masoud provided interesting insights into the outdoor behaviour patterns of traditional muslim societies. The discussion highlighted again the importance of analysing behaviour patterns as part of the design process in landscape architecture.

The recording is available here:

• 'Behaviour Patterns' by Professor Mohammed Masoud

Tasks for the next session

Comments to your Group Members

• Write a comment on your group members' discussion pages until 5th of December. In this comment you may explain what you think is a relevant character feature of this area. This judgement should be based in what you have learned from the wiki page and the discussions so far.

Capturing Behaviour Patterns

The second part of the seminar will be dedicated to observing and reflecting people's behaviour in the everyday landscape you have chosen.

There are different ways of how you can gather this information. This list is not complete, but it should help you to identify approaches that are suitable for your area. You may pick out 2-3 of them and develop your personal approach to this theme:

• observe people and identify repeating aspects, these can be clustered to form patterns
• ask people about what they frequently do in your area. This may give you additional information on summer activities which you may not find at the moment (at least not in Europe). You may also get some valuable information about people's attachment to the place.
• identify the patterns on a map (all this can be hand drawn if you wish)
• identify the most frequent paths/directions/circuits on a map
• sketch/draw/design pictograms of the behaviour patterns
• make a small movie with your mobile or any other device, add it to youtube and add the link to this wiki
• collect photos illustrating behaviour patterns (but be careful with this: you are not allowed to publish images of people who have not explicitly agreed on being published)

Questions for the Group Discussion on 13th of December

• Which behaviour patterns are characteristic?
• Do you find any surprising behaviour patterns?
• Do space and behaviour correspond?
• How does people's behaviour change the place?

Time Frame

• Results need to be uploaded by Monday, 12th of December
• Please add short explanations
• Again, your findings will be discussed in parallel small groups on 13th of December and eventually also on the 20th of December