Placemaking Project Part 3

McKeldin Mall

Observations & Field Report:

   Date: October 25, 2018
   Time: 2:00 - 2:30pm
   Location: Bench by the fountain in the center of the mall

The weather was cold and windy. The air was dry and the sky was fairy cloudy. It feels like winter is setting in quickly as just a few weeks ago it was very hot and sunny. By the end of my observation period, I was ready to get inside to warm up. I saw many people walk, run, bike, and skateboard across or along McKeldin Mall. I even saw a golf cart drive through the grass at one point. Other than the people, I looked around at the trees and the buildings of the mall. The large Willow Oak trees were losing their leaves and the buildings looked historic. It made me feel like the mall was in fact a crucial part of our campus. I mostly heard the falling water of the fountain and of the people talking who passed by me. I looked at the walkways across the mall and noticed that they are placed in directions where a lot of foot traffic would be. I also noticed a few spots where I thought a walkway would be helpful. During my 30 minutes at the mall, I saw well over a few hundred people pass through or by the mall. These people ranged from students, to professors, to faculty, to families visiting, and even some people who brought their dogs to play. Many different kinds of people were there. I saw people who were laying in the grass under the trees on the sides of the mall. I saw people play with their children and their dogs. I saw people take pictures. I mostly just saw people in a rush to get to where they were going though. Most people just passed through the mall quickly, but some people stayed for longer. These people sat down to rest, to study or do work, to read, to talk to each other, to nap, and to just enjoy the cold weather finally settling in. There was a man laying in the grass when I got there and was still there when I left, so he could have been there for awhile. People interacted with people by talking to each other. Some people talked as they passed through the mall and some people stopped to talk to each other. Most people just passed by each other on their ways. There looked like some sort of organization by McKeldin Library where they would stop passing people to tell them about their organization. I saw two guys play with a frisbee for about ten minutes, but struggled due to the wind. I think this space was designed to be the heart of the University of Maryland Campus. It is a place many people come to congregate and enjoy the day. It is a place many people come to so they can get to where they are going faster as they pass by. The mall was meant for people to come and to stay. That is why I think it is the heart of the campus. The space is currently a place where people walk across to get where they are going, but also a place where people can use to enjoy their favorite activities at. People do so many things here and that makes the mall a special place for the people who come here. Something different can be happening on the mall everyday. The space is used as it was designed for. People are drawn to the mall because of its central location and the important buildings that surround it. It has established itself as a focal point of the campus.

A problem with McKeldin Mall that I have noticed is that, like previously mentioned, I think there are some potential places that more walkways would be useful to people who cross the mall. I also think that the stairs that come down from McKeldin Library onto the mall could use an area like the fountain area for people to hang out at, so the steps do not just lead down to grass. I feel like this space can be better utilized and would make that part of the mall look better as well. Thirdly, I think that the mall can use more plants and trees around it's sides to enhance its beauty, but to also make it feel like more of its own place on campus. This would give it some privacy to the campus and make it feel like an easy escape from the stress that people get from school. I like how the front and end of the mall highlight the library and the administration building so that should not be bordered off, just the sides.

Improvement Plan:

My first improvement would be to redesign the walkways that go across the mall. I think that many of them are already strategically placed where many people need to walk, but they could be better. There are sections of the mall where another walkway could be useful instead of just grass. The mall's walkways are also not symmetrical like pictured above. I think that making more walkways and making them symmetrical would make the mall more aesthetically pleasing, but would also provide people with faster routes to their destination without walking on the grass. This would spread out the foot traffic as well. I think the walkways could be more connected to one another like in the picture too. This would promote more civic engagement and make the mall even more of a place people would come to, expanding the community. The picture above shows how nice and appealing a symmetrical quad area can, so imagine that in a larger scale with our mall. The mall would be more sustainable because it would be promoting more social connections as a more social environment with symmetrical and connected walkways. It would also help with less soil compaction if less people walked the same paths on the grass since more walkways would be put in. This also kills the grass in these paths. 

Currently, there is a set of stairs in front of the library that leads down onto the mall, but as soon as you get off the last step down, you are on grass. I believe this could be improved by creating an area much like the mall's center (with the fountain and sundial). The stairs going down into the grass has always looked off to me and like something was missing. An area with some benches could be added down there to make it more of a place for the community and enhance the mall socially. Much like the picture above, a set of stairs that leads somewhere is much more inviting than one that leads to nothing, but grass. I think the stairs and the mall would be used more if there was another area for people at the bottom of the stairs there. An additional area and some benches would promote civic engagement as well as improve social sustainability of the place. That area could be useful for people protesting or for speakers that come to our school. This could be a nice place for those types of events and that could have some sort of economic value as well depending on what happens there. 

The third improvement that I would make is to bring more plants and trees to the mall, especially the sides of the mall where Willow Oak trees sit currently. This not only would make the mall prettier and more appealing, but would also improve the environmental sustainability of the place, of course. By creating these edges, it further separates the mall from the rest of campus and creates an almost sanctuary-type place for students and everyone to enjoy. Like in the picture above, the trees enclosing the quad area would make it feel more safe and make it more inviting for people to stay longer. This promotes more social interactions and engagements as well as promoting a more sustainable social environment. I think some more flowering trees and plants like above, would enhance the mall as well. It would bring new life to the mall. 

In class, we discussed how adding borders in public spaces such as trees or low laying walls/fences would enhance the public space. Trees allow people to see under them into the public space and fences allow people to see over them into the place. Trees also block the higher up view from inside the public place, which creates privacy and separates the place to be more open to itself rather than its surroundings. This is why I think McKeldin Mall could use more trees on its sides to provide it more of a sense of it being this beautiful place in the center of a busy, building-filled campus. This would definitely increase the social sustainability of the mall. 

We also discussed how places to sit are very effective in making or breaking a public place. People like to sit, whether it is by themselves or with others, sitting promotes more civic engagement and improves a public places. It brings more people in to stay or to stay longer. We also talked about how places need different types of seating. McKeldin Mall only really has small metal benches that can only fit 2-3 people next to each other. The mall's social engagements would be improved if more seating and more types of seating were dispersed across the mall. Some picnic tables would allow more people to sit together and to face each other instead of all facing the same way. More people could come do work together on the mall or have lunch on the mall. More seating on the edges of the mall would also be nice as I mainly see people sitting on the grass in the shade of the trees. Benches here would bring more people to come rest at the mall. This would also improve the social sustainability of the mall.