Paul DeFazio

Alright.

I was not thinking.

For the audience listening at home…

She’s going to be Paul.

My six blog followers.

We…

We had a…

The recording…

Oh, I’m trying to explain what happened, but I’m so brain dead.

The recording stopped maybe 15 minutes from the end, but we got all the air vents and now we’re debriefing.

Okay, now we can go.

So what were people saying?

I honestly don’t remember what I was going to say.

How do you feel?

I feel…

I feel pretty good.

Yeah, I feel like we did some stuff.

I think we learned a lot.

But I think we forgot to put a dot here, Paul.

Remember in the corner of the U?

Don’t we need to put one right here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let’s put one in there.

We didn’t put that one down.

Because I do agree there’s one on the other side.

You don’t think it’s this one here?

Because isn’t this one we found on the…

No, no, that was the other side.

I agree.

I kind of missed that too, and then I felt the other one.

Maybe that’s it, I don’t know.

I just want to give a shout out to Kevin’s bump dots and all these different colors and things.

I didn’t get the nickname Kevrithing for nothing.

Whoa.

Kevrithing?

That’s a great name.

That’s a great nickname.

That’s a great nickname.

Okay, so Hannah says, you did great.

Good job, everyone.

Yes, everyone did a great job.

Oh, I remember what I was going to say now.

Initially going into this, I was like, oh, obviously we know what the two buildings are.

But you were like, oh, we don’t know what buildings we’re actually between.

You know, I was like, oh, I’m like, shoot.

I was like, oh, shoot.

It’s like, how do we figure that out?

I’m like, oh, this is going to be a long day.

We had a slow start when we started.

We had a slow start, it’s true.

I feel like that’s my fault.

No, no, that was good though.

It also wasn’t a fault.

It was just like, what happened?

Yeah, where I was like, oh, well, that’s another thing we have to figure out.

And I guess if you made the footprint, you’d probably know.

Wow, this is so clear now that I’m looking at it.

I was like, we’re in a maze prison.

Now I’m like, oh, it’s a path.

You see the path on the other side too?

Yeah, so it’s actually, you’re right.

Because if you’re just looking, it is so clear that you’re like, okay, there’s a straight line from this building to that building.

Yes.

Yeah.

But if you’re not, then.

Yeah, you have no idea.

Yeah.

Or knowing that both these railings are equal lengths.

Like not one super long and one shorter.

Because I mean, the buildings are kind of parallel.

So Caroline, one thing I’m noticing also based on the sort of like over, look at that.

Do we just walk right under that protrusion or did we walk around it?

We’ve never been on that side.

We didn’t go to the building behind you.

Oh, okay.

But I think that’s also actually a really good point because I think a lot of the lessons we got from this was actually because of the footprint of this building.

Because like the other building, the smooth building would have been so much easier to like orient ourselves around because the footprint is so much simpler.

Like one U.

Yeah, it’s like one U.

So I feel like, oh, like if we had done that one, we wouldn’t have like encountered all the problems that we had with like echoing and like not knowing which direction we were in.

Like I feel like, you know, and the courtyard and things like that.

Like I feel like so many of those learning moments were so like integral to like the shape of the building, which I thought was like really interesting.

So let’s like maybe go over some of those.

What were some of the big learning moments for people when we were going around?

The echoes was one for sure.

Like we realized that sound does not travel in a straight line always.

It can bounce and come from somewhere else or get diffused or I don’t know, maybe it goes through a tree.

I feel like that’s my fault.

No, no, you’re right.

But no, I agree though.

Like if we were to do this again, like then if we did the next building, right, maybe we would have a different strategy now.

And we also don’t know if the paths were actually going to hug the buildings.

Like I like that.

Like I like obviously know the paths are going to hug the buildings.

But then Paul’s like, well, you don’t actually know that.

But then we could keep track.

Well, we still sound close to each other.

I don’t suddenly sound super far away.

Yeah.

It was confusing when we started doing that.

If I stopped trailing, like or if I had to come back to the path, because I feel like I like knew where I was if it was a unbroken thread of me moving around the building.

But then I became lost pretty quickly if I was just like walk out into the building.

Yeah, same.

Without a landmark at least to reorient me.

Well, I also think, I mean, that’s also another thing too that I feel like, oh, the distance from the building like makes it, the farther you are from the building, the harder it is.

Yeah.

Like that’s why I don’t think we could have done this like the smoother building because you have to come all the way out here in order to get around it.

But like we wanted to hug the wall and so like this one was like not an option.

I almost wanted like in that moment, yes, sorry.

No, no, sorry.

I interrupted you.

I was already my own thought before listening.

So you’re saying, what were you saying, Hannah?

That we were hugging the building or what was that?

Like, well, sorry, I was kind of going off the point where you were saying like, oh, like once you left the wall, like orientation was like much harder.

And so I was saying like, oh, yeah, like the farther you get away from the building, like the harder it is to like go back and like orient yourself to like where it was.

Right, unless you, I mean, there’s probably techniques to do that, I imagine.

The one, I was going to say something actually, which is very related to what you’re saying, which is that, I mean, there are multiple ways to do it.

I almost at one point was like, it’d be nice if I had like a little locator beeper so that if I walked away from the boundary, I could go back to it.

Yeah, like that would be pretty easy to do.

I could literally set an alarm on my phone.

I could just be like, okay, I’m going to go this way.

And then I was like, or we could continuously have a beeper on all of us.

And then we’ll hear each other in space all the time.

But there are other ways also, I think, to return to your spot.

There must be a more, a way that doesn’t require some sort of like gadget that we can be like, okay, I’m going back to Caroline.

And then like, you know, just finding a landmark.

Like wearing bells.

Yeah, or being mindful of like saying, well, I’m talking about the situation where you, like I walk over to you on the sidewalk and then I’m like, where am I?

I don’t know where I was.

Like we did that and I like, you were like, okay, turn this way.

And I was like, okay, I’m going to go this way.

And then I was like, I don’t know where I am.

And then I walked away all the way into that big U instead of finding the wall.

Like that was a moment where my thread was sort of broken.

Like I was like, oh, I don’t know where, like I don’t know that I didn’t come upon an air vent or that I didn’t miss an air vent.

Cause I.

Oh, you might have skipped.

Yeah, cause I jumped from one point to another.

That’s, I like this, like missing your thread.

So like I had that on the third wall.

You can see that the third wall, we were kind of like, oh, giggly.

And it was a lot of jiggly stuff.

After we left the cottage, I’m like, I don’t know what’s going on.

That’s what I was like, I’m going to go on the sidewalk because there’s too much wiggly going on.

Well, it is like.

You can actually feel the wiggly.

You can feel all the wiggliness on this wall.

There is a lot TBH going on.

It’s not a smooth wall.

So the technique of trailing the building, what do we think?

Did that, it had some problems, right?

Like you can, you run into plants and stairs and weird like ramps and things that are going into the building that might be gross and spidery.

But we felt, you know, when we were in the second wall and then y’all were in like the plants, I’m like, guys, we don’t hear any air vents.

Yeah.

But we confirmed we’re in a U, so let’s just keep going.

Right.

Like sometimes you don’t have to, because like I think there is.

Sometimes you don’t have to go into the crevice and skip it.

Yeah.

I do think there is benefit that trailing the wall though initially that will help with scale.

Remember Hannah was like, well, we don’t know how big this protrusion is.

Is it 10 feet or 10,000 But like, you marked here.

Okay.

Potentially, like, I’ll have to go look because…

This sounded pretty air-conditioned.

I don’t know.

Yeah, like, I might have missed one because I did go grab my lunch.

Yeah, you went home, yeah.

But I was here when Paul was over in this area because that is literally the front door to an Agnes.

Yes.

You know what?

It was probably the second floor because people do live on the second floor.

They do, yeah.

So I’m like, nothing should be on the lobby level.

But yeah, I think these were two, yeah, on the second floor.

Can we just see what… Yep, that was another air conditioner.

Yeah, these are all, like, second floor air conditioners.

Except for what I think was really funny, it was, I think, this one.

You were so close to touching the air conditioner.

Like, you were almost there to finding out it was an air conditioner, and then you turned around.

It was, like, the one and only one that was on floor level, and I was like, oh, is this one we’re gonna, like, figure out that there are air conditioners and air vents on that? And you turned around, and I was just like, okay. I feel like it’s useful to have those, like, mistakes. But if that was air vents, like, you did very good. They do sound very similar. Right, well, yeah, I mean, air conditioners are air vents. Yeah, yeah, it’s a different kind. It’s just a different kind of, I mean, it’s similar technology. It is interesting because it’s not, if we’re starting with Caroline’s premise that, like, these are really permanent. Yes. Then we did not find permanent landmarks on the campus for people to use, but we did find something else that we didn’t expect. Well, I also think that goes back to, like, the fatigue thing that you had mentioned. And I think Kevin had actually mentioned it last time, too. About, like, oh, the idea that, like, we’re making all of these mistakes now and, like, figuring out all of the problems. So that, like, I mean, obviously we want the students to encounter, like, some challenges, but they don’t have to go through, like, the grueling, like, two hours. Like, oh, those were actually all air conditioners. Yeah. So I think, like, yeah, I don’t know. I just think there’s, like, yeah, just being able to do this I think will also just cut down on the time, like, so much. Like, even if we did it, like, right now again. Like, we could probably do it in half the time, if not less. You know? Yeah, I think we could do it fast. And also, like, I think students will start slower than we are. Sure, sure. Because we’ve been doing this. Yeah. And we know, like, it’s sort of like how my architecture professor would be like, oh, this will only take you, like, it only took me, like, an hour. And then I’m like, well, I have to learn how to use a laser cutter, so it’s not going to take me an hour. But so just, yeah, I’m always mindful of that when I’m trying to teach design is that to make sure that, you know, I’m not giving people an absurd amount of work and pretending it’s not very much. You know, I think that happens a lot in architecture school. Oh, it does. But what about, you know, when you first started explaining this, I thought we were going to do this inside. I thought we were going to go, I thought we were going to use interior moments of air hitting you as a wayfinding tool. Like, like where a vent, like, blasts air at you, which I thought was also interesting. And I’m still actually kind of interested in that idea. Yeah. Because I think that’s another way that you could use air. I mean, that’s a, that’s a form of navigation that could work for someone who’s deafblind, too. Right. Uh-huh. A guide dog user, walker, wheelchair user. I made a movie theater for blind people my first, my second semester in architecture school. And like, I used that, like, the idea that like, oh, it would change temperature and humidity and like all those sorts of things. So it’s definitely a thing that happens. That’s cool. Also, all the random people, like, walking their dogs or whatever was going on, like, I don’t know who they were, but I was like, I just stopped caring. I was like, whatever. I don’t think any of them even looked over at you. I think they’re all people who live in Watertown and are so used to walking on this campus and seeing random blind people doing random things. Running into bushes. Yeah, normally it’s like a screaming child and like someone else chasing after them. So I think they were just like, oh, three people just walking along a building. This is the calmest thing I’ve ever seen on this campus. Yeah, it’s like if you’re like rubbing sandpaper, for example. I was like, I don’t want to look at this anymore. Yeah. It was easy to find the handle because I just put my cane vertically and moved left, right. Handle, boom, and then braille there.

That’s how I found the one in Agnes easier than the one at Glover. Handle, boom, braille. Handle, boom, braille. You need that on a t-shirt. Yeah, handle, boom, braille. People are going to be like, what the heck is this?

We need to put that in architecture schools. Handle, boom, braille. Okay, I feel like that maybe is a good place to pause for now.

I feel like we’re all kind of tired. So let’s go get some food. Also, if you guys check your phones, I sent some of them.