Signifiers: The door handle is polished metal, which visually distinguishes it from the wooden surface of the door. The door handle is roughly the width of a human hand. The horizontal position of the door handle, as well as the depth off of the door surface, signifies grabbing. The door handle is roughly waist-height, roughly where the hand hangs while walking and standing. Affordance: Duh. The door handle affords opening the door. Feedback: The door hardware and mechanisms are extremely resonant and satisfying to operate. Hidden Affordance: While I fumble with my office keys, the door handle provides a precarious ledge to rest my coffee cup and hang my umbrella. (RWU, Bristol, RI).Signifiers: The handrail on the stairs is polished metal, which visually distinguishes it from the painted surface of the wall. The handrail diameter is roughly the interior volume of a human hand. The horizontal position of the handrail, as well as the depth off of the wall surface, signifies grabbing. The handrail is roughly waist-height, roughly where the hand hangs while walking and standing. Affordance: The handrail affords added stability and support while walking on stairs. Feedback: I generally find polished steel pleasant to the touch. I especially enjoy tapping the handrail with my ring. It feels satisfying for some reason. Hidden Affordance: Apparently the wall-mount for the handrail provides a charming little storage pocket for a bag of Ruffles? Or Cheetos? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. (RWU, Bristol, RI).Signifiers: The winter hat and gloves are both textile, which communicates its material flexibility in its folds and draping. Affordance: The winter hat becomes a pocket when it is not on your head. The winter hat affords storage for the gloves. Think about proportions of scale and perspective: Your hands fit inside your head! This is a metaphor for design practive and creativity. Your capacity to create/make is determined by your conceptual/critical capacity. Feedback: Visually, this object is easy to locate when I am leaving for the day. I love how easy this is to find and grab. Hidden Affordance: Nobody needed to teach you how to do this. People have been wearing hats and gloves dating back roughly 30,000 years. This storage technique might be that old! This technique is especially ideal for storage during summer (RWU, Bristol, RI).Signifiers: The concrete spikes are contiguous with the surrounding concrete of the window frame. The spikes are slightly rounded in shape, and seem to have been epoxied to the surface. A few spikes are missing from the pattern.
Affordance: The “anti-homeless” spikes (Hostile Architecture) afford the impossibility of a person resting or sitting here.
Constraint: Duh. The concrete spikes are a physical constraint, they makes it impossible to rest comfortably on this surface. This is obvious and uninteresting. Our analysis must go further than this.
Secret Signifier: The owner of the property is too cheap to hire on-site managers. This is a cost-reduction measure. I would argue that any self-respecting municipality would pass legislation to make this illegal on the grounds of community beautification. Everyone deserves dignity, both in terms of how they’re treated and how their community looks. This is both a human righs issue (UDHR: “Everyone has the right to rest…”) and a community beautification issue. As a designer, I believe everything deserves to be designed, or thoughtfully considered. The concrete spikes are not a thoughtful solution to this issue.
Feedback:
It would not be comfortable to rest here.
(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)Signifiers:
The opening in the metal column of the traffic signal is about 42 inches - 48 inches off the ground. This is the mounting position for a pedestrian “beg button”. This is also about the mounting height for a light switch, so I would argue that your brain is slightly primed to interact with physical actuators at this relative position.
Secret Signifier:
The little notch that hangs down from the top of the opening looks like a nozzle on a beverage dispenser.
Affordance: The opening in the metal column affords holding a styrofoam cup in a very satisfying way.
Hidden Affordance:
You can imagine all number of strange and enigmatic things that might have gone into this cup over time in Downtown Los Angeles.
Constraint:
The hole in the metal column provides a shocking optical contrast of the darkness against the brightness of the sunlight on the styrofoam cup. That’s the primary source of visual interest in this image. The visual simplicity of the rest of the composition is the other source of visual interest.
Feedback:
I don’t want to touch, for fear of disrupting the gentle sense of balance.
(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)Signifiers:
The cacti are such an iconic visual device of West Coast cultural imagery. The proportions of the concrete “Traffic Signal” panel are extremely satisfying for the visual construction of the image. The image uses a simple Rule of Thirds composition, with a playful twist wherein some of the thirds are entire objects, like cacti, stairs, and a concrete panel.
Secret Signifier:
Perhaps the panels were stolen? This could be read as a playful teasing of urban ephemera. A road crew might have placed a stack of panel covers on a curb during a road construction project, and the propery owner helped themself to a few?
Affordance:
The concrete “Traffic Signal” panels afford a planter for large cacti, perfectly fitting the existing dimensions of the small planter space.
Hidden Affordance:
Cheap, if the panels were acquired for free.
Constraint:
Maybe some road crew notices and decides to takes the panels back?
Feedback:
The concrete displays some visual “crazing“, or hairline fracturing, which might be a helpful way to determine moisture needs for the cacti (like terra cotta and other planter materials)
(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)Signifiers:
The screws and wire are rusty, and the rust is staining the vehicle surface.
Secret Signifier:
A little bit punk. Clearly this person is showing some serious D.I.Y. skills.
Affordance:
Duh. The screws and wire afford not paying a bodyshop for the repair.
Hidden Affordance:
Everyone gets to see how crafty your are.
Constraint:
Dunno.
Feedback:
I think this probably makes weird noises at high-speed, or on bumps.
(Chicago, IL)Signifiers:
A projected car rental service representative at the airport terminal. I think this is a rear-projected interface, the projection screen is shaped like a human silhoutte. The hardware also includes microphones and speakers (I assume), possibly cameras.
Secret Signifier:
It turns out that an error message in the software makes for a nice scarf.
Affordance:
I assume this thing just tells you where the counters for various car rental companies are located?
Hidden Affordance:
???
Constraint:
I did not interact with this projection.
Feedback:
The projection did not interact with me.
(LaGuardia Airport, New York)Signifiers:
Mayhem. The debris of an automobile accident on a city street.
Secret Signifier:Affordance:Hidden Affordance:
The traffic barrier is used by the LADOT as a messaging platform to discourage drunk driving.
Constraint:Feedback:(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)Signifiers:Secret Signifier:Affordance:Hidden Affordance:
Hidding the data tower as a palm tree is ironic.
Constraint:Feedback:(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)Signifiers:Secret Signifier:
The height marks on the door are unobtrusive.
Affordance:Hidden Affordance:
The markers on the door frame allow the bank employees and security cameras to provide a more accurate estimate of the height of a criminal suspect. They are probably also useful for machine vision and AI analysis purposes.
Constraint:Feedback:(Downtown Los Angeles, CA)
