Visual Impairment, Embodied Walking, and Alternative Readings of the Urban Fabric

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Lily Papadopoulos

‘’ Visual Impairment, Embodied Walking, and Alternative Readings of the Urban Fabric.’’

M.Arch Architecture/ M.Arch History and Theory: Year 4 HT5: Jacob Paskins/ Senses and the City

Fig1, The Pedestrian (2010)

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Contents Page

Introduction. ................................................................................................................................. 3 Methodology. ........................................................................................................................................... 4

Theoretical Overview ............................................................................................................. 5 Reading the City ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Landmark as Point of Discovery. ....................................................................................................... 7 Sequential Reading vs Simultaneous Seeing. .............................................................................................. 8

Case Study Analysis ................................................................................................................. 9 Church of Hagia Sophia, Nicosia, Cyprus. .................................................................................................. 10 Church of Faneromeni, Old City of Nicosia,Cyprus. .................................................................................... 13

Conclusion. ................................................................................................................................... 16 Bibliography. .......................................................................................................................................... 18

Word Count: 4394

3 Introduction ‘’Rain has a way of bringing out the contours of everything; it throws a colored blanket over previously invisible things; instead of an intermittent and thus fragmented world, the steadily falling rain creates continuity of acoustic experience. I hear the rain pattering on the roof above me, dripping down the walls to my left and right, splashing from the drainpipe at ground level on my left, while further over to the left there is a lighter patch as the rain falls almost inaudibly upon a large leafy shrub. Further out, the sounds are less detailed. I can hear the rushing of the water in the flooded gutter on the edge of the road. The whole scene is much more differentiated then I have been able to describe, because everywhere there are little breaks in the patterns, obstructions, projections, where some slight interruption or difference of texture or of echo gives an additional detail or dimension to the scene….Usually when I open my front door, there are various broken sounds spread across a nothingness’’ (Hull, 1990:55).

John M. Hull, a blind writer, gives us a personal account of his acoustic experience of a typical rainfall. His reflections give an insight to the topics discussed within this research essay. Rain can be interpreted as a type of ‘landmark’ which assists in orientating and situating one in ‘place’. Spontaneous natural events paint a superimposed layer upon the existing skin of the city and a mental image of the invisible environment is instinctively constructed.

The method the blind use to read the urban fabric differs from our preferable photographic view of the city.

Blind people adapt to a technique of collecting information, through an embodied experience, where the city is read through a buildup of active and permanent moments. Hull feels this moment as a fragmented whole; the instrumental acoustic experience unfolds a sequential scene in front of him. Through the variety of the city’s materiality touched by raindrops, one develops a lyrical method of orientation. An empty space of ‘nothingness’ begins to gain meaning, becomes an interactive three-dimensional map, where one is eager to take the next step and explore the rest of the city.

The 1920’s new machine age, needed to find a new style to express itself. In Paris, Le Corbusier’s Voisin Plan aimed to erase most of the historic city and replace it with grids of identical towers interlinked by highways.

Buildings came to be seen as independent, standardized entities and their relation to the urban fabric were never addressed (Recivilization, 2008). These methods of stripping down the city to its purest form could

4 suggest a naked city. By reducing the urban fabric to a vast, white clean slate, the non-visual senses have nothing to grasp onto, possibly developing spaces which ensure the blind feel out of place (Kitchin, 1998).

In what ways does the embodied walk of the visually-impaired create alternative readings of the urban fabric? Often forgotten, the considerations of all spatial qualities are significant, because not only are the nonvisual qualities acting as reading devices or referential points but form a sequential perception of a space as a ‘place’ with its own unique culture and identity.

‘’Connecting with, and even enjoying, the complex realities of different kinds of body could act as an unexpected design generator’’ (Boys, 2014).

If disability is conveyed in a design dialogue, it could unfold new knowledge; explore potentialities, creating multi-sensorial experiences that could enliven the urban fabric of cities. By discovering the way blind people navigate we may discover potential design methods which could be implemented in today’s cities and spaces to be experienced by all.

Methodology I have structured my essay to inform the reader about the blind walker’s reading of the city, the importance of landmarks for orientation and sequential perceptions of the urban fabric. An analysis of case studies and interviews at the School of the Blind, Nicosia, Cyprus, discuss the differences between ‘open’ and ‘polluted’ spaces and depict a possible reason why one of the public squares in Nicosia radiates the feeling of belonging more than the other.

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Theoretical Overview

Reading the City “Reading is a linear activity, when you have a book you start at the beginning and go through to the end, you start at the top of the page and go to the bottom, there is a clear pattern that you follow versus a sighted person who takes in an image which is something you do instantaneously, in a single gulp’’ (Kleege,2014).

Georgina Kleege, a non-sighted English academic, interprets the notion of a narrative movement which builds up to create an experience of the senses. Grammar which forms part of the literary text can be compared to the non-sightseer’s journey through the city. A full stop could be compared to when one reaches their destination and a comma could be similar to when one waits at traffic lights. Speech marks could be seen as the moment where one is talking next to you and an exclamation mark could be seen when there is a sudden change/event in the surroundings.

Kleege mentions that her navigation does not involve an aerial view, that of a visual or tactile map but it is an embodied perception of walking through the city. The unfolding characteristics of the route will build the identity of that particular trail and allow for its comprehension. To the blind the radius cane or guide dog creates an invisible sphere around them where they use all sides of their body to sense their surroundings.

Awareness of their surroundings through touch, smell and sound is in constant motion. Their perception regularly shifts from what their feet are feeling, the sounds that are echoing from the cane, traffic and pedestrian movement to the most discrete sound of the shatter of plates deriving from a distant window. This sensory understanding of the city creates a phenomenological urban walker, who experiences and perceives the dynamic city in detail, developing a sense of place. The dynamics of the city enlivens the mind and connects them with their surroundings. In Macpherson’s article (2009:180), an interviewee mentions that she can feel through her feet the texture of what she is walking on; instead of anticipating with the eyes and constructing images with the brain she analyses her surroundings with her body.

Michel de Certeau’s (1980) account of walking describes the city as a dynamic text being written by citizens through their everyday practice. Certeau notices that normally citizens perceive the city while moving through an urban environment without understanding it:

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‘’They are walkers, whose bodies follow the thick and thin of an urban “text” they write without being able to read it; For a moving body a city emerges as a configuration of obstacles and their absence ,which influence the routes and the rhythms of the walker’’ (Certeau, 1980:96).

These patterns of obstacles shape the bodily experience of walkers. Certeau reveals that conversion into visibility robs people of certain richness that is experienced in the process of embodied walking ‘in the act of composing a path’ (1980).He describes a tower which conveys people as readers who look down at Manhattan, making the complexity of the city understandable. The ‘texturology’ of the city, viewed from above seems like a mere visual picture. This contrasts with the complex labyrinth at street level that has been shaped by dynamic and sequential events.

‘’Their story begins on ground level, with footsteps…They cannot be counted because each unit has a qualitative character: a style of tactile apprehension and kinesthetic appropriation. Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities. Their intertwined paths give their shape to spaces. They weave places together. In that respect, pedestrian movements form one of these real systems whose existence in fact makes up the city’’ (Certeau, 1980:97).

Similar to Macpherson’s ideas about the embodied navigation process and thinking through the feet , Certeau displays the act of walking as a meaningful process in contrast to viewing the city from above as a pictorial map. One comprehends the urban fabric as he moves through it, when the body acts upon the tactile surroundings and the senses identify the surroundings and identities of the places. As one navigates through the city, according to their memories, preferences and knowledge they compose their routes ignoring the regulated planned pattern of the city. Opposite to walking ‘’to drive is to preclude sensory immediacy, to reduce the world to flow of images over which the driver has no control, and about which they can form no meaningful conclusions’’ (Sinclair, 2004:147).

7 Landmark as Point of Discovery Orientation for the blind is not enough just by knowing one specific route through the city. One has to be able to compare this route with others and locate its position in a bigger space (Dischinger, 2000:120).

The identification of spatial relations between objects, routes and places depends mainly on the existence and awareness of landmarks.

The blind person does not only memorize and learn his daily route, intersections, landmarks, events but also employs an embodied walk which controls the ‘memory of their rhythm and duration in time’ (Dischinger, 2000:96). Dischinger implies that the greatest reason for disorientation and interruption of this rhythm are obstructions along their route. She gives an example of this situation in the city of Florianopolis, Brazil. A paper collecting process is in constant motion; a box which collects the material can be found in the middle of the street, on the edge of the pavement; its position continuously influenced by daily activities. This description reveals informality in the city centre where for the passerby it comes across as something unexpected; however for the blind this type of obstruction which shifts can interrupt one’s memorized path. Physical obstructions are not the only elements which create disorientation; but excess of noise, human activities, rain or wind, could also be the reason which hinders the blind walker to reach his destination.

A landmark, even when it is not visual is a key tool in structuring one’s spatial perception. The body of the walker reacts to the built and ephemeral forms of the city becoming a crucial process for collecting information from the surroundings. Dischinger (2000:229) categorizes landmarks into groups. These spatial references vary depending on their steadiness in time and space, in their extent of transformation, and their key qualities which make them reliable for orientation and understanding of places. A permanent landmark is a concrete object that has been in a location for a long time and has not been through any change in appearance. This durability and eternalness allows for this type of landmark to classify as a good tool of orientation, identification. A cyclical landmark is an element that has permanent or periodical location in a given space that endures considerable periodical changes in its form and features. These types of landmarks allow orientation but not necessarily identification of a space depending on the time of year and the nature of change. Dynamic landmarks are natural or artificial elements that are for a rather short period in a given location. Their existence may affect the features and uniqueness of a place allowing or hindering a place’s identity. I believe that in order for one to understand his position in space and time, both active and permanent landmarks are collected through an embodied walk until a break in the city pattern allows for them

8 to pause and understand all their spatial readings. In an absolute neutral, clinical environment the various references are missing and one cannot grasp his location.

Sequential Reading vs. Simultaneous Seeing Vision provides instant information and allows us to foresee distant objects in a given location. As we are more aware of the information collected by vision, this data overlaps with the information brought to us by our sensory system (Gibson, 1966). We tend to not appreciate the richness of places and do not recognize the structure which forms the built environment. Hidden information is important in giving meaning to a static object, allowing us to understand it and give us the bigger picture of a situation or location. Each perceptual system picks up information that varies in type and effect. To look at a tree, is different from the feel of its trunk, the sound of the leaves moving, its autumn smell, and its shade.

‘’We will commit the same error if we considered spatial representations as equal to ‘pictures’ of places for those who can see. It is important then to know how, in the absence of vision, spatial ‘images’ are construct’’ (Dischinger, 2000:232).

Vision is the only sense that can instantaneously grant us information about the ‘inner horizon ’and the ‘outer horizon’ of an object (Husserl, 1977).The inner horizon of an object is applicable to the shape, construction and function. It is what we could feel in our hands and perceive. The outer horizon of an object (its context) is always a relation of the object and its neighboring structure. If we see a door as an artifact, its outer horizon can be the house. When vision is missing, the individual has to reflect and to relate information provided by the other senses in order to ‘construct’ an image of the object’s outer horizon (Gunnar, 1996).

This process of constructing an image is interesting as it hinders that instantaneous reading of a place, but slows down the reading process, where meaningful relationships of one’s body with the surroundings can develop. The understanding of spatial layouts and their meaning can depend on the individual’s memories, experience in space, the structure of the landscape, and the human dynamic in it. The spatial images constructed are unique every time depending on elements of transition such as a seasonal market or a windy day walking to work. Classen (1998) talks about how for blind people knowledge is built up cumulatively. In the observation of the park for a sighted person an overview image is seen whereupon it is easy to focus on

9 details, the park gradually happens as one feels the coldness and humidity of the bench, the temperature with the skin and the wind on the face.

According to Revesz (1950) one perceives a structure by means of the tactile sense, whereas one perceives shape by means of the visual sense. This characteristic is in accordance with the intuition that congenitally blind people's experience of the whole tends to be about the structure of objects rather than their shape. An experience of the structure of the object requires, at least initially, a putting together of the different "parts" over time, which is different from the instant gulp of shape for sighted people. We can link this theory to De Certeau’s reading of the city as a whole, which is different from reading all the pieces of the city’s structure in an urban walk. It could be said that for one to understand the whole and create meaningful relationships with the city one must understand the parts of its structure first.

Case Study Analysis

Marta Dischinger(2000:6) distinguishes two types of spaces which could disorientate the blind; ‘open’ and ‘polluted’ spaces. In open spaces points of reference are absent and complicated to identify destinations, whilst the latter contain obstacles which interrupt one from accessing the valid information for orientation.

These two types of spaces are analyzed in my case studies which are based in Nicosia, Cyprus; two public squares which are situated around churches. The reason why I chose to analyze the public spaces of churches is because it is a common social activity for the elderly and disabled to attend church services regularly.

I consider historic change in the insight of cathedrals could help us draw a link with the two churches in Nicosia. Sitte (1965:99) discussed that in the middle ages, cathedrals would tightly lean against other buildings, th

so that as one turns the corner, they can be taken by surprise. In contrast to this, 19 century municipalities had the notion that they would improve the view of cathedrals by clearing the space encircling them. However by translating them to free standing buildings, they abolished relationships with the surrounding urban fabric.

10 Church of Hagia Sophia, Nicosia, Cyprus

Fig2, Map of Hagia Sophia, (2014)

Fig3, Vastness and Smoothness of the Public Square (2014)

11 The church of Hagia Sophia had finished construction in 2008 and its goal was to replicate the Hagia Sophia Church of Istanbul. It is considered to be the biggest church in Cyprus. The layout of the space consists of three buildings which are encircled by an open public space.

Reflecting back on the comments of Sitte, this church seems to be a free standing unit, extracted from the city surroundings (fig2). It feels like it’s lacking tactile impressions, acting as a photogenic feature. The space sits into the ground, an inclination allows people to enter the space, ramps follow into the church and the vegetation and smooth floor is kept intact (fig3) however as Hull mentions:

‘‘The problem for the blind person is not falling over, but knowing where he is’’ (Hull 1990:103).

A blind group of ladies I interviewed at the school of blind argued that this open space was too empty (fig4).

There were no points of references for them to read. The sound of the traffic and the vastness of the square masked the echo their cane transmitted upon all surfaces. When one can’t read their surroundings a feeling of loss and confusion emerges and one feels out of place. I interpret this space as unpredictable, ending at any moment, where there is no way of situating yourself (Fig5).

The quote below forms a link between the openness of being in the sea and the openness of standing in a space; a blind lady describes her day at the sea:

‘’ To be out there, anchored in the open sea ... It is so good to have the opportunity to be on my own, to feel the freedom and independence; no overcrowded beaches, and …diving out in deep, open water’’ (Stine, 2008).

In interviews conducted by Anvik (2008) Stine interestingly describes the way she forms her own space through the movement of her body, her contact with the water; a type of ‘landmark’. As she has experienced confusion and disorientation in large open spaces while having ground under her feet, she experiences swimming in the open sea as another type of space. Stine describes that in order to understand her surroundings she needs to collide with them. All the obstacles which she tried to avoid were elements which built up her knowledge, directing her in devising her own route. For a sighted person, open areas are seen as the best places for the blind as they do not present any danger of falling over (Anvik, 2008). Stine’s interview

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Fig4, Lack of References (2014)

Fig5, Unpredictable (2014)

goes against the conservative theory that obstacles serve solely as disorientating elements. I consider that when the obstacle serves to build up a meaning of a place and assist one to orientate then its existence is vital.

‘’Therefore reading the space means to measure it first bodily, with fingers, palms, elbows, arms, or feet before translating it into numbers’’ (Vitruvius cited in Diaconou 2011:25)

When one’s body reads and measures the space he reacts according to what he can grasp. Something that cannot be embraced would be conceived with great difficulty (fig6). As discussed in the theoretical overview the blind walker will move according to what lies close to their body. When the space does not provide fragmentary information then the walker cannot locate the pieces which make up the unified whole.

Fig6, Square Analysis (2015)

13 Church of Faneromeni, Old City of Nicosia.

Fig7, Map of Faneromeni (2014)

The second place of investigation is the Church of Faneromeni which is situated in the Old City of Nicosia.

Encircling the church is Faneromeni Square which is an important historical square located with the Venetian walls of Nicosia, built in 1872. The square is bordered by several neoclassical buildings featuring mainly Greek, as well as, local Cypriot architectural influences. The square is surrounded by pedestrian streets which are scattered with cafes and shops.

This church can be best compared with Sitte’s (1965) image of the medieval cathedral which fits in place within the intertwining streets of the old city (fig7). It remains hidden behind the skin of the built surroundings, acting as an element of surprise when one reaches it. Its smaller, fragmented scale produces an intimate environment an ‘inner horizon’ which can be read and interpreted.

Fig8, Dynamic Events

Fig9, Transition into the Square

14 Referring back to Certeau’s text, as Faneromeni church is wrapped by ‘dynamic’ and ‘permanent’ references (fig8), walking towards it is a sequential sense-making process. I believe that for the blind person it is a slower process, one where every footstep interprets the structure of each object and how it comes together to create a whole scene around them. By moving through space, the city is read and then written like a narrative.

Once one enters through the ornamentally detailed gates (fig9), you automatically feel the transition from the street to the square. As time has inscribed this place with meaning and memories the blind feel like they belong. The unruly vegetation and the wet signs of rain flowing from one crack to another are dynamic as landmarks, enlivening the senses and the space. The informalities may produce more obstructions than the open space but these ‘landmarks’ help people identify the location, acknowledge the place’s characteristics.

Because of the rich materiality of the space, a palette for rain (fig10) is produced where an acoustic experience can be experienced. Smells from the close-knit shops act as local landmarks where memory is activated and a place is recognized. We can relate this to Dischinger’s article (2000) where she questions way finding in cities and the way urban planners rely on visual landmarks to guide tourists to their destination. People with a visual-impairment will rely on other aspects of the built environment –to auditory, haptic and olfactory qualities.

Fig10, Rain Palette (2014)

15 The enclosures and openings of the square frame scenes in the visual sense, but they also create different qualities of sound where one can feel the transition when moving from one space to another (fig11). Public seating is provided where one can rest and take in the surroundings. Textured patterns and ornamentation cover windows and walls, fresh smells decorate the place and sounds of children playing are part of the dynamic identities which are always in transition, evolving over time and placing the blind walker within a place, helping them belong and enjoy the animated life of the city.

Fig11, Sequences (2014)

Fig12, Sequences (2014)

Fig13, Sequential Landmarks (2015)

16 I consider that even though dynamic landmarks are not permanent they unfold into spontaneous moments (fig13), forming a crucial role in outlining an identity and character of a place as without these type of references a place would appear neutral, a space of ‘nothingness’. As sighted, we may think that the less frequently blind people move around, the less are the odds of hitting into something; and that the surroundings must emit danger and barriers. At the School of Blind, I talked to a psychologist who said that when one meets an object it is then that they realize their surroundings. It is a way of relating to the world, feeling independency and freedom.

Faneromeni square praises the human scale of a historical urban centre, reducing the simultaneous gulp of the photographic, prestigious view and accentuating feelings of security, protection, familiarity, selfexpression and enhanced identity.

Conclusion

“When you are travelling along a road punctuated by lots of houses and trees, you have a definite sense of speed and the passage of distance and time. When you start to travel through the trackless waste, through the desert, through a featureless world, you lose that sense’’ (Hull, 1990,68).

Throughout this essay I have gained an interest in the sequential type of embodied reading that visuallyimpaired people adopt; a footstep, a sense of touch or an acoustic experience act as momentary mental constructions which evolve into alternative and rich interpretations of one’s surroundings. Blindness can be used as a critique against pure aesthetic and functionalistic design which is directed towards the visual –sense and bring forward new ideas of an embodied architecture. As Davies and Lifchez(cited in Imrie,1988) have argued , the popularization of architecture as ‘pure design’, is underpinned by a capacity to bring about an impersonal, often alienating practice, given that what architects recently focus on; the aesthetic to create a pictorial building.

Spaces are currently organized to keep disabled people `in their place’ and `written’ to portray to disabled people that they are `out of place’ (Kitchin, 1998). I feel space which has been designed to give priorities to

17 people without disabilities enhances the issue of segregation in society, annihilates disabled peoples’ independence and freedom, locking them out of spaces which should be accessible to all.

As the body becomes re-imagined within architecture, we need to question what kind of bodies we are designing for and in what ways this figure moves against the existing city fabric. The Maison Bordeaux by OMA should be celebrated because it pushes the conservative boundaries of disability by making the ‘problem’ of accessibility the design author. However it is worrying because the project reproduces the notion of disability as an unequal, different from the normal; as a one off issue/client and makes it highly apparent in the design.

I believe that in order for disability to not be left to regulatory guidance we should look into the qualities it has to offer to the wider population and implement it into our designs. By connecting with, and observing, the intricate realities of diverse kinds of body could lead to an unexpected design generator.

In the case of extracting qualities from the blind’s way finding, promenade architecture could be analyzed as a ‘’sequential ordering of a series of apperceptions in the experience of space’’ (Avermaete,2009, 242). Unlike the modernist notion of the ‘open plan’ a sequential architecture would communicate the building as an evolution, accentuating the importance of relational ‘landmarks’. The way music is experienced in a sequential notion, architecture could build upon the same qualities, ordering different types of spaces; allowing for the flow of sounds and smells to enliven them. By isolating, and allowing for architectural transitions to occur one can focus on individual moments, allowing these fragments to construct a meaningful and rich understanding of a space. In this way we allow ourselves to sequentially read in depth the built environment rather than simultaneously perceiving a holistic entity with which we never truly connect.

18 Bibliography

Books Avermaete, T., Havik, K. and Teerds, H. (2009). Architectural positions. Amsterdam: SUN Publishers, pp. 242 Classen, C. (1998). The color of angels. London: Routledge, pp. 25-35 Devlieger, P. (2006). Blindness and the multi-sensorial city. Antwerp: Garant, pp. 15-60 De Certeau, M. (1980). Walking in the City. In: M. De Certeau, ed., The Practice of Everyday Life, 1st ed.

California: University of California Press, pp.90-120.

Diaconu, M. (2011). Senses and the city. Wien: Lit, pp. 15-130 Gibson, J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pp.25-45.

Husserl, E. (1977). Phenomenological psychology. The Hague: Nijhoff, pp.45-56 Hull, J. (1990). Touching the rock: An Experience of Blindness. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 50-120.

Kleege, G. (1999). Sight unseen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 9-50 Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The eyes of the skin. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, pp. 15-45 Révész, G. (1950). Psychology and art of the blind. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, pp. 110-130 Saxton, M. and Howe, F. (1987). With wings. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

Sinclair, I. (2004). Dining on stones, or, The middle ground. London: Hamish Hamilton, pp. 120-150.

Sitte, C. (1965). City planning according to artistic principles. New York: Random House, pp. 32-99 Vitruvius., and Reber, F. (2004). De architectura libri decem . Wiesbaden: Marixverl, pp. 93

Journal Articles Gunnar, K.G, 1996. The Experience of Spatiality for Congenitally Blind People: A PhenomenologicalPsychological Study. Human Studies, 19, 303-330 Macpherson, H.M, 2009. Articulating Blind Touch: Thinking through the Feet. Senses and Society, 4/2, 179– 194.

Journal Articles (Online) Anvik, C.H.A, 2008. Embodied spaces in the making: visually impaired people, bodies and surroundings.Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, [Online]. 11/2, 145-157. Available at:

19 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15017410902830710#.VLZhXCusVMs [Accessed 01 January 2015].

Boys, J.B, 2014. Doing Disability Differently. The Architectural Review, [Online]. 1/1, 1-3.

Availableat:http://www.architectural-review.com/view/doing-disability-differently/8668802.article [Accessed 11 January 2015].

Imrie, R.I, 1988. Oppression, disability, and access in the built environment. Chapter in Shakespeare, T. (ed.), The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives, [Online]. 1/1, 129-146.

Availableat:http://moodle.fhs.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/19134/mod_resource/content/0/Imrie_Access_and_built _environment.pdf[Accessed 01 January 2015].

Kitchin, K.R, 1998. `Out of Place’ , `Knowing One’s Place’: space, power and the exclusion of disabled people. Disability and Society, [Online]. 13/3, 343-356. Available at:http://eprintsprod.nuim.ie/3924/1/RK_out_of_place.pdf [Accessed 13 January 2015].

Interviews Kleege, G. (2014). Reading the City as a Blind Person. Interviewed by Global Urban Humanities, Plus.18 September.

Papadopoulos, L. (2014). Interviews at the School of The Blind ,Nicosia.

Thesis Dischinger, M. (2000). Designing for all Senses ,Accessible Spaces for Visually Impaired Citizens. PHD. Department of Space and Process School of Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology.

Hadjiphilipou, P. (2005). The Contribution of the Five Human Senses towards the Perception of Space. PHD. Department of Architecture, University of Nicosia.

Websites Recivilization. (2008). What is Urban Design?. Available: http://recivilization.net/UrbanDesignPrimer/001whatisurbandesign.php. Last accessed 12th January 2015.

20 Photographs Figure 2, Photo by Author, (2014) Map of Hagia Sophia Figure 3, Photo by Author, (2014) Vastness and Smoothness of the Public Square Figure 4, Photo by Author, (2014) Lack of References Figure 5, Photo by Author, (2014) Unpredictable Figure 7, Photo by Author, (2014) Map of Faneromeni Figure 8, Photo by Author, (2014) Dynamic Events Occurring around the Square Figure 9, Photo by Author, (2014) Transition into the Square Figure 10, Photo by Author, (2014) Rain Palette Figure 10, Photo by Author, (2014) Rain Palette Figure 11, Photo by Author, (2014) Sequences Figure 12, Photo by Author, (2014) Sequences

Illustrations Figure 6, Illustration by Author, (2015) Square Analysis Figure 13, Illustration by Author, (2015) Sequential Landmarks

Online Image Figure 1, Dereck, F. (2010). The Pedestrian. [image] Available at: http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/05/dear_giorgio_my_toronto_includes_graffiti/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2015].

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