(in the style of my investigative note taking)
I identify two readings to relate to my investigation, the first being ‘The Street’ by Georges Perec (1974) and the second pp.3-19 of Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (1972).
Perec’s text relates to my process. I wrote copious notes during my investigation in an attempt to, what Perec calls, “see more flatly” (1974, p. 51), noting that he claims the route there is by mental force.
I make an attempt at force through repeated notetaking over several mornings on site, always morning to avoid another variable (and it suits my schedule and mental clarity in the morning). I note the time, the people, their basic actions, I record fauna, flora, building materials, in basic terms.
I’m paying attention to the fact Perec is present in his writing exercises: his interest in watching women (p. 51) and self-deprecating remarks (p. 53). These hints at the person behind the pen (I make a technological assumption) help me to understand that this flatness needn’t read as objectivity, that in the act of observing the observer can’t help but be present.
My site is small, an area of roughly 5mx2.5m of Bagely Walk, a landscaped walkway on the canalside of Coal Drops Yard shopping mall. This small area consists of a single garden bed with two benches facing the canal, surrounded on all sides by paved walkway.
I work in horticulture, on a community farm and previously in gardening, working on sites similar in style to Bagley Walk, though more actively private sites with ticketed entry or behind secured gates. So to be observing a site with a garden meant I was bringing some baggage: some knowledge, bias and assumptions. I thought of seeing this site flatly as a way of exposing or trying to pull apart some of my assumptions.
With that in mind I am drawn to Venturi and Scott Brown’s explicit call to take a “non-chip-on-the-shoulder view” (1972, p.3) and the non-authoritarian possibility of learning from everything (1972, p.6).
Learning from Las Vegas relates to theme, as my chosen site is part of a larger commercial site, not like the Strip in Las Vegas but not completely unlike it either. Bagley Walk doesn’t fit within the “primitive vernacular architecture” that is being assessed on the Strip, it is more in line with the more agreeable forms of industrial vernacular (Venturi and Scott Brown, 1972, p. 6) being a redevelopment of a Victorian industrial site and removed from the vernacular as it is part of an architecturally designed development project (Kings Cross, no date).
I isolated aspects of the site to concentrate my investigation, the plants and the visible traces of contact with other beings. I record through notes, drawing and imaging with a microscope and wonder how this micro-scale relates to the “megatexture” (Venturi and Scott Brown, 1972, p. 13) of the larger commercial site1.
- Perhaps the “megatexture”, in relation to the planting on Bagley Walk, is partly the realm of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design — something for future explorations.
References
Kings Cross (no date) Fish and coal buildings. Available at: https://www.kingscross.co.uk/fish-coal-buildings (Accessed: 14 October 2025)
Kings Cross (no date) Planting that celebrates the seasons. Available at: https://www.kingscross.co.uk/bagley-walk (Accessed: 14 October 2025)
Perec, G. (1974) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Reprint, Penguin Classics, 2008.
Venturi, R. and Scott Brown, D. (1972) Learning from Las Vegas. New Edition. Edited by Hardingham, S. and Rattenbury, K. Routledge, 2007.
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