Essay for Social and Behavioral Analysis

For this assignment, I choose to analyze my own room. I am consistently in this space and therefore know about the circulation and the functions that occur. Making observations here is quite simple since I have experienced what works and what doesn’t. So, my room’s function is whatever I make it to be. In this case, it is a place to sleep, a dressing room, study area, and relaxation space. I am the only one to use this space, so it does not need to be too large. The lighting conditions are, well, at a minimum. I live in a fairly old structure and it has no light fixtures in the bedrooms. When I moved in, I had to bring a floor lamp and a table lamp. There are two windows that let in natural lighting, but they aren’t perfect (I will get to those later). The furnishings in the room compliment the functions. A bed for sleeping, a dresser for clothes, a chair for studying, and a TV for entertainment/relaxation are all necessary. There is only one entrance/exit and although this works, there could be something else that would help the space. Overall, it works okay for what I need it for but, there definitely could be changes. Here is a plan of the space with dimensions:­

The layout of the space is how it works for me. There are other configurations, of which I have tried, but I enjoy this way the best. 

Here are a few volumetric rough sketches of the space:

·         The visual environment is comfortable. I like my own space to be a further extension of character and personality as well as a place to go and relax. The colors are warm and inviting. The walls are painted a bone color, which makes it easy to change the ‘decorations’ if needed. My furniture is all various dark woods. The color pop in the room is my quilt which has many patterns and colors in it, leaning more toward red tones. The room is quite bright during the day and warmer after dark because of the yellow-toned lamps in my light fixtures.

·         Since there are so many angles in the space, noise is constantly being bounced around. It is not annoying since I don’t have loud, already obnoxious noise going on in the space but, if there were to be yelling and such, I can tell that would be a problem. The house is located in close proximity to the street and train tracks, so it receives much traffic noise.

·         In reference to the olfactory space, I do not sense a problem. It smells like me. Each person that would come into the space would find it that way.

·         The thermal space is interesting. Since this room is upstairs, it gets much hotter than the lower level. The vent for the heating and air is above my bed.

·         If someone else were to walk in the room, they would learn about me. They could see what I like and therefore what I don’t like.

·         All of these things come together to provide a comfortable space for me.  The big thing that hits me first is the colors in the space. These really define me as a person; simple with points of interest.

·         Each one of these effects are something nice to me, whatever sense is being utilized, and they form a wonderful, peaceful space for me.

·         I feel that the smell factor has been overlooked and de-emphasized. I do not think it is important for there to be one type of apparent smell in the space. It would then be over-emphasized. I think my smell is a compliment to the room, not a huge statement, which is fine by me.

·         The lighting in the original structure of the space was over looked completely but I think they way I have added it to the space does the job well.  

As far as changes to make in the space, I have a few. First of all, I would have a lighting fixture/fan on the ceiling. It is entirely too hot and keeping the air on all the time is not an option. Right now, I have a free standing fan set up at the foot of the bed, but it is too close to me and not aesthetically pleasing. The light sources I have now work somewhat; they are at different levels and areas of the space. A table lamp that has a warm glow for reading next to my bed and a floor lamp that provides more overall light for the rest of the room are what I use now. For the noise in the space that sneaks its way in from outside, I would install curtains alongside the windows. Thicker material would probably be better. This would absorb some of the noise while providing more privacy, visual appeal, and diffuse the strong amount of light that sometimes shines in the morning time. The entrance to the room is in the only available location unless the entire upstairs was to be re-configured. The aspect I would change about it though is that of the bathroom door. The entrance is in the hall before you reach my room, yet it would make better sense to have put the door in my room, next to my room entrance. No one else uses this except me and there is a guest bathroom downstairs. It makes no sense to me that the door is in the hallway. There is even a blank wall in the bathroom that has more than enough space for a door. Throughout all of these changes, I wish that the room was changed even more, though this would affect the entire upstairs. I can really see how interior architecture would have helped in this situation. No way that the architect dwelled on the layout of furniture very much if at all. He/she built it to be cute and have ‘character’. This is where we come in. We can make it look appealing on the outside and function smoothly (along with appearance as well) on the inside.