Urban Explore - Windows of Old Town

I went to Arthur’s Seat, Portobello Beach and Dean Village two weeks before. During these tours, I found out something common but also rare happening in this city. Some inevitable impact has been happening this year because of the COVID epidemic on everyone living in this city.

The bars where conversation flowed freely before, are erected with transparent partitions between tables. The shop windows which were decorated wonderfully now hang some face masks made in China. The French meal restaurants where the beautiful waiters used to stand has been replaced by a table with hand sanitizer.

I want to try record the epidemic in Edinburgh through visual languages and I chose the Old Town in Edinburgh because of its wide variety. There are so many residential buildings, office buildings, school buildings, shops and restaurants here.

I chose the window as my specific perspective, or medium to explore because...

Windows are everywhere.

Windows support visual connection between people inside and outside the building.

Windows separate people on a physical level but they also reduce the vision distance.

Windows enhance connection and cooperation which is important during this epidemic time.

After some more explorations on the Old Town paths during this week. I took some pictures through the windows to record what has happened. And I tried to present them in different ways.

I drew some outlines of the face masks, hand sanitizer, separator boards, notice boards, etc.

The color blocks on the pictures represent the changes happened because of the epidemic. Most of them are the notice papers on the shop windows which tells: "Social Distance", "Please keep 2 meters apart when entering the store", "Only takeaway available", "We need your help to stop the spread of coronavirus"...

I also made some pattens of the windows of some residential buildings, school buildings, office buildings and stores to see what further design I can do on the 'Windows' topic.

For further exploration, I have also drawn a mind map of windows based on what I have seen and what I have thought of during the exploration I did before.