Throughout this website I will be using various critical lenses to communicate my ideas. This page serves as a brief introduction to the critical ideas I will be utilizing to advance my claim.
Third Space
- Peter Salovey: Salovey is a Dean at Yale University. In his opening address to the Class of 2008 he encouraged students to find their “third place”, which is a place where a student feels comfortable to take risks and be creatively different. This place is “third” because it is not somewhere where a student spends most of his time, like their room or their favorite place to do work. Salovey contends that this space is directly linked to success, saying that “inspiring places bring together inspired people who, together or individually, do remarkable things”. This website offers an insight to a third place at Dartmouth College.
- David Fleming*: Fleming is a professor at New Mexico State university and his paper “Spaces of Argumentation” looks at how public spaces can be designed to be “good spaces”, with the initial contention that good spaces are ones that promote public discourse. These ideas will supplement Salovey’s definition of a third place and this discursive element will become a requirement of my idea of a third place.
- Buzz Yudell: Yudell is an architect and spacial critic who teaches about the balances that are required in a good public space. One of these balances is between the elements of a space that are permanent and the elements that are flexible. Some spaces in a building must be fixed, like dining areas, yet good spaces also have a factor that allows them to adapt to the different uses it may see. This characteristic is another that I consider when determining third spaces.
An example of what Yudell defines as a good space, courtesy of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects
Names
- Graham Coriel-Allen: Allen is the author of a book called New Public Sites, which examines the most insignificant and forgettable public spaces around us, like grass medians on highways and empty parking lots. He goes on to give these places creative names to attempt to raise more public discourse around these spaces. It follows that more discourse will improve these spaces, and this is the logic I employ when thinking about Room 65, that a good name can improve its standing in the the campus setting.
- Laurel Sutton: Sutton is the founder of Catchword Branding, a company that names things. This may seem like a niche market, but it is a big money business that has a role in many different areas, from software programs to customer loyalty cards. Her company gives names based on a spectrum that ranges from specific and deliberate, to arbitrary and goofy. Often times they go through at least 2000 names before they decide on a final list. Her theories assist me in coming up with options for an alternative name for Room 65.
Catchword Branding came up with the name of the basic Photoshop Package, “Elements”, Courtesy of B&H Photo
*Acknowledgment
Fleming, David (1998). The Space of Argumentation: Urban Design, Civic Discourse, and the Dream of the Good City. Argumentation 12 (2):147-166.
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