Tactile plans

Tactile plans are architectural plans in relief used to communicate architectural concepts to visually impaired people but others also. These tactile plans have been developed for consultation workshops with local disabled members of the public in Newham, East London. They have been successfully used during 5 years of consultation for the Stratford City Olympic Legacy City development project with the Stratford City Consultative Access Group (SCCAG).

Through working closely with SCCAG, I have been able to identify a technique which was suitable for visually impaired people as well as for everyone else in the group making this mode of communication truly inclusive. The methods used have been developed and tested especially by working closely with Sam and Ron, both visually impaired members of the group. We identified ways to communicate difficult architectural language into simple diagrams by using different visual and tactile elements like using colours for visual people and black raised lines and signs for visually impaired members of the group. David Bonnett Associates have been pioneering this communication technique since 2006.

Method developed by Tamara Kocan for David Bonnett Associates

St Paul's Sound map

These 'sound maps' are my first attempt to understand what impact sound has in cities, what we actually hear when walking through a space and what we could listen to if we would stop. And maybe slowly understand what it needs to create quality public spaces.


Soundmapping on Carter Lane Quarter near St Paul's Cathedral
Monday 29.11.10
Time of recording: 15:40
Very cold 0C

Recording 1

Location 1 - Near Christmas tree inner part, not many people

0:30 People pass by + Lorry
1:00 Other people
1:32 Buses
1:50 Buses


Recording 2

Location 2 - Sound mapping -recorder on floor near information point
- Sounds louder than previous location

People approaching information point:

0:45 Spanish business men
0:55 French tourists
2:20 3 tourists
2:25 St Paul's bells ring
3.15 Police car sirene
3:30 4 Swiss german tourists
3:47 People walking by, high heals


Recording 3

Location 4 - walking (pink dots on map)

0:37 Police loud near crossing
0:45 Stopped near crossings

General comments:

• This area acts as rest area for tourists and passers-by in between Tate Modern and St Paul’s Cathedral.
• Enables people to locate themselves on maps, at the adjacent tourist information centre
• It is not really a place to stay, more a ‘tampon’ garden
• It is calming as the surroundings are very busy

Sound, tactile, social sustainability maps....

Since deciding to go back to study sustainable urbanism, I have been concentrating on understanding what sustainable urbanism actually meant and what the different elements composing it related to.

The process I have started to analyse these components have been multiple: wandering across cities; taking pictures of public spaces, of people using the spaces; looking at what I thought were fun and well designed landscape elements; staying and observing people in those spaces; writing down in tables what was there, what seem to be missing; gathering information from all my friends architects, landscape designers, urbanists, sound geeks and others.

I have always had a love for maps and tools for visualising and simplifying very complex structures. After struggling many months trying to put to paper these bits and pieces of information I had gathered over the years, I decided to illustrate some of the findings using different mapping systems. And below are a few examples of them. Some gathering theoretical information like what it actually takes to create a socially sustainable city or what elements are needed for an environmentally sustainable place.

My latest experimentation came about after some walks through London with an urbanist/sound specialist friend and some other experimentation with sound and spaces with the MUSARC choir I am part of. These 'sound maps' are my first attempt to understand what impact sound has in cities, what we actually hear when walking through a space and what we could listen to if we would stop. And maybe slowly understand what it needs to create quality public spaces.




Urban Social Sustainability map

Urban Distances map - distances of activities / services related to ones home



Urban Environmental sustainability map




Sound mapping experiment

Sound, tactile, social sustainability maps....

Sound recording map at One New Change London
Date of recording: 01.11.2010
Time of recording: 14.15