February 2, 2015 - 22:53
I struggled a bit with finding a sit space that felt right. I initially thought I would sit outside, either in Taft Garden or Morris Woods. I quickly realized, however, that as much as I stare in wonder at the fluffy white snow, I can't stand to be in it if I'm not walking somewhere. I wandered the campus for a bit after this, looking for a space that was still connected to outdoors, but without actually being outdoors. In the end I decided on Collier Library in Park Science Building. I walk past the library each day going to class and its impossible to miss the lovely glass atrium on the front of the building. I realized I have never been into this atrium, though, and only had a vague idea of how to actually get in there.
It turns out this is the perfect space for me. It is not a familiar space, or what I pictured my space looking like, but it is a place I want to explore and understand a bit more. To get into the atrium, I headed to the back of Collier library and turned into the East Wing. It turns out that many of the geology resources are kept in this wing, which is full of rolling bookshelves. Considering my major, it'll be good to create familiarity within this space as I'm sure I'll be researching in it more next year. I wasn't sitting within these bookshelves, however, as I wanted to have a view of the space outside.
With a few plants and the gridlines of the window as my foreground, I look out and watch the hill that leads down to Park Science. Being at the bottom of the hill cuts me off from a good portion of the campus as I can’t see over the crest, but I don’t mind the isolation. I think It will be interesting to watch the flow of people in and out of the sort of science ‘bubble’ that the Park building creates. I completed my first sit during the evening, just before dinner, so there wasn’t much movement, but I was a bit surprised to find that just as many students were arriving at Park as there were leaving. I know this will shift depending on when I sit there in the future, but that’s part of the draw. I guess the people are just as much a part of my space as the architecture.
