Foundations: Junctions

Originally posted here on March 1.

[Abstractions of Junctions]

Junctions can be found in and between design along with the culture that influences it. A junction by a definition that is not abstract is a place where two or more things come together, I think that this can be interpreted in a physical state or in the abstract sense of something not so literal in interpretation.

Artifacts

Artifacts themselves are story telling tools for past and present on how a space or something in nature can be categorized as a junction. A literal interpretation are street signs at a major interception, one or more roads coming together, telling the people interacting in the area where to go and how to go safely as artifacts for the space.

Nature

Junctions can occur in natural things as well as things that are man-made. In the beginning of the idea of creating something successful in architecture and design, the early Mesopotamians used nature incorporated with their designs by utilizing the land's curves and building with the land. It wasn't until the Egyptians, later leading to the Greeks and Romans formed a rift in this ideal and started building against the land or on top of it that a junction or crossing of ideas in the way things were thought to be successful design, two ways of thinking, one a more dominate change for centuries to come in the world of design and still a major influence in our own lives and how we view design itself.

People

A way to think about junctions in terms of people makes me automatically think about when we delved into the Roman chapter and learned about the Romans and their superior idea of building things to glorify Rome and make Rome most important. Though a system of roads isn't really anything of great grandeur it is considered a junction in a physical sense because the large distance the roads expand to intersect with neighboring cities and towns to connect all the Roman empire together. It is a junction in that people are constantly walking through the intersections of road and seeing others.

Space

Space withing pieces of architecture can create junctions for people as an idea of circulation through out an area with many people interacting within it. As a modern day example, the Moore Humanities building [MHRA] has a sense of junction within a spacial area. People come and go throughout the normal class day, interacting and intermingling with people coming ad going to class as well as teachers coming in and out. The train terminal of Grand Central station is the epitome of a junction as a space with the coming and going to trains and other systems of transportation from place to place with people in and out of New York City.

::Sources::
Roman Road image and added information