Inferences
Notional Map Comparison
The notional maps from all 4 cases, when placed in a tabular format, can be helpful to compare the different notional landscapes that develop in each case. They were helpful in identifying the ‘why’s of the animal’s behaviour, but when compared, one can build a comparison of the spatial connotations on the psyche of the animal.
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The first case has patches of varying notions, making the space either perilious or exciting to navigate.
There are several spots for procuring water and food, and also friendly humans who sit outside their homes on beds.
The second case has very distinct notional spaces. The space outside the canteen and the garbage dump becomes a space to procure food while the space outside the kennel and the homes of the street dwellers becomes a space of resting. The perpendicular road has far too much movement, and is frequented by the dog only beyond business hours.
The third case has notions of friendliness across the site since the street animals have been raised in close proximity of humans. The only ‘fear’ notion is regarding the movement of vehicles on the main road, but is efficiently avoided since the mother of the pups and the pups themselves sit on the scooter of the feeder and cross the road.
The fourth case’s railway footbridge moment has a very blatant pattern, with ‘fear’ notions along the central path of the footbridge and the sides which are rarely frequented by movement of travellers becomes the resting space for street humans and subsequently the street animals.
Spatiality of Cases
Case 1: P. D’Mello Road: Adjustments as an inter-species social arrangement
The dog in this case is constantly scrutinising activities in the vicinity, and constant decision-making for flight or fight responses are made through the day.
Case 2: Mahalaxmi: Friendship as an inter-species social arrangement
The feeders and care-givers are the enablers which allow an attachment to form for humans. The animal finds its way around highly dense spaces, without being threatened.
It developed a sense of friendship and inter dependency with humans as well as the cats outside the kennel and the dogs down the street.
Case 3: Metro Theatre: ‘Gharwaala’ (‘family member’ in Hindi) as an interspecies social arrangement:
The female dog in this case shares all spaces with their care-givers, breaking notions which may result in human-animal conflicts, and conflicts amongst humans regarding animals. The animal perceives dangers and is limited by a human-centric landscape, but while with its caregivers, it is able to explore and experience its context.
Case 4: Railway Stations: Human-centric inter-species social arrangement
A space where the pace of life (pace being regularity of eating, speed of movement, resting) is across a vast spectrum for the animals and humans. There is a blatant distinction of spaces only because of spaces either being uncomfortable to be occupied by a human (low height under a footbridge, under a chair), or patterns of movement (linear movement on the footbridge) The distribution of the animals in such spaces, let alone movement paths and experience of the surroundings, now is limited to spaces which are ‘stray’, which are abandoned, difficult to occupy, unattended and such.
Thermal Comfort Analysis
The thermal comfort analysis provided further proof regarding the reason why, out of all the spaces safe for a street animal to occupy, only certain spaces are occupied.
The first case had several cooler spots owing to the cooling provided by the street dwellers’ homes and the taller warehouses. Other scattered spots were created by the paraphernalia when their homes overflow onto the street with the beds on the street, water tanks, drying clothes and such.
These objects also carry the scent of the humans, providing either an informed notion to flee or of familiarity and comfort.
The second case, due to bare minimum tree coverage has a varying thermal comfort chart. The blue spots were majorly created due to the high rise under construction in the neighbouring plot and the shading devices extending from shops and street stalls.
The third case’s thermal comfort chart is dominated by the bamboo and tarpaulin shades erected by the street dwellers where the street animals occupy spaces as well.
The thermal comfort analysis is infinitesimally less important in this case since the reasoning for occupying space is more so, due to the friendly disposition of the street dwellers who share a friend-like relationship with the street animals.
The three charts of the fourth display show very different conclusions.
The first chart of the railway station platform has cooler spots only under seating and staircases leading to footbridges.
The second chart of the footbridge has certain cooler spots which provide sufficient evidence as to why the street dwellers and the street animals occupy said spaces.
The third chart of the space outside the railway station under the flyover has a very distinct chart of cooler spots due to the shading provided by the flyover’s wall.
Conclusion & Absurdities
The desire for clinical, geometric cities curbs inter-species interactions. The interactions get diluted as the enablers are reduced, or are of a derogatory tone. This desire must develop from connotations derived from a very distorted, superficial idea of ‘success’ and ‘luxury’, leading to high rise development, and blatant ignorance towards ecological co-existence.
Concretisation invariably makes the metropolitan city an olfactory bore, dulling out the sensorial possibilities of landscapes rich in smells, touch, and taste. An animal has no sense of ‘cleanliness’. Recognition involves rich smells, varying materials, and such distinctions. Clinical, concrete spaces on the other hand create drastic limitations, curbing their movement, and existence at a macro scale. Their energy, instead of being utilised for a healthy life and for sustaining the species, is drained in fight or flight decisions and actions for immediate survival.
The pre-conceived idea of ‘urbanisation’ is a ‘tabula rasa’ concept, a modern thought. A human hence becomes desensitized to the well-being of the other. Ecological thinking, then, becomes one of privilege, which speaks about home gardens, orchids, parks. Spaces which unknowingly disallow some persons, individuals, animals, activities, while permitting other.
There seems to be a majority of persons who are indifferent to the presence of
the street animal, provided their paths don’t cross. Mild interventions are observed from an unwanted relationship. These absolutely absurd practices include one very commonly seen outside homes in a slum. A bottle is filled with red liquid, based on ridiculous assumptions and rumours about dogs being ‘allergic’ to the colour red. Such uncanny practices start to emerge in the urban.
Afterthought
The streets, if observed as institutional arrangements, as HOMES for the animal, will start pointing at certain objects scattered on the street. These objects have varying affordances; a doubleness in their purpose, where their forms were conceived for a specific purpose, but they are occupied in different manners by, not only different humans, but different manners by differenct species as well. An interesting methodology for building a spatial concept for the dissertation excercise which is to follow, is to identify these objects (enablers as identified in the introduction) and through the ergonomics of a human AND an animal, through the notional understanding of it by the animal, and through several parameters, to understand what is it, that these objects on the street, and the street as a whole can afford.