Case Study 1: P D'Mello Road - Chappal Chor (Footwear Thief)
Field Notes
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A dog named 'Chappal Chor' ('Footwear thief in Hindi) had, a few months ago, wandered into this lane and ended up staying. He used to swipe the footwear placed outside homes, run away with it, and bring it back in a tattered form. Chappal Chor got along just fine with the other dogs in the vicinity, being much younger than all others.
A few people in the area feed him during the day, some giving him refuge under an erected tarpaulin sheet, some let him sit basking in the sun outside their homes.
Some are indifferent to his, and other dogs in general, existence.
Many are fed up with his delinquent behaviour of flicking footwear and chewing them to rags.
Field Observations
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Mornings see a corner busy with women washing clothes.
Men leave from home during these hours
Hawkers set up shop outside homes
Lot of movement of trucks through the area
Afternoons are lazy. Cots are set up outside homes, chairs in circles occupied by people gossiping
Clothes are hanged to dry on stands on the street
Evenings are for filling water either from a water tanker or a couple of municipal taps along the homes
Nights are usually quiet apart from a few rowdy bikers speeding through the lanes
Nodal Mapping
The mapping exercise involved duplicating the space in a digital environment to recreate the stage where interactions happen.
Notional nodes of eating, sleeping, biting, familiarity, fear and such, are marked across the 3D environment.
Once the nodes are isolated, the remaining layer provides a notional landscape, one which is a visualisation of the way in which the context is perceived.
The landscape gives a certain idea as to WHY fight or flight decisions were made by Chappal Chor. The locations where he is able to procure food from feeders, sit under cots outside people's houses, while also the locations of people who aren't fond of him, might fling stones at him, all are marked in a 3D landscape.
Notion Landscape
Across the entire site, the notions are marked.
As a whole, to depict the sensorium developed through activities, smells, sensations and notions, these nodes were programmed to follow each individual in the activity, including from children playing (light blue), women washing clothes (purple), familiar spaces (yellow), spaces to procure food (green) being the water in the gutter and organic waste disposed on the street, and notions of fear (red)
These marked notions start to overlap and distort based on the programs. Any moment paused during the sensorium projection can be further analysed to understand the reason behind the actions of the animal.
Moment Articulation
Few moments paused during the sensorium projection are further analysed to understand the reason behind the actions of the animal and to predict its movement.
2 moments have been considered here. The patterns emerging from the Notion Landscape map the tones allotted to spaces by the animal based on its experience with humans, observing other animals, sensing with smell and touch.
In these moments, when the dog is placed in the situations, distortions in patterns is observed. These distortions are a result of varying senses acting together. A space or an activity may physically be further away, but visually after being identified, is also smelt as a whiff coming from a space AHEAD, hence telling the time of the future (an activity TO COME)
Decisions of movement, fight or flight are then made based on these notions.
Thermal Comfort Analysis
Few moments paused during the sensorium projection are further analysed to understand the reason behind the actions of the animal and to predict its movement.
The end of the street that meets the main road (P D’Mello Road) has bare minimum tree cover, and hence is the hottest throughout the year. The blue patch in the centre emerges as a long stretch, owing to the constant but slow movement and parking of trucks on the street. The blue patches around the buildings are cooler because of the shading from the slum dwellings coupled with the taller warehouses. The remaining patches remain fairly cooler compared to the main road, with a few patches of blue, a result of regular and constant parking of vehicles outside the dwellings.
Hover over the numbers for the images for select spaces.
1. The beds outside the dwellings provide decent shading for street animals, a perfect place to occupy when the occupant in the bed is a friendly human.
2. The centre of the street remains comparatively cooler because of the constant slow movement or parking of trucks.
3. The space outside homes remains relatively cooler with the regular parking of vehicles and the paraphernalia placed outside homes.
4. The paraphernalia outside homes like extended shading devices, drying clothes and such keep the outside of homes cool.
5. Houses inset have their entrances decently shaded by the walls of the neighbouring houses.