Assignment 1: Schematic maps

[rasagy]

Hi everyone,

As discussed in the class, let’s pick our hometowns and create schematic maps for tourists, or a specific use case. You can see some of the previous maps created for reference.

Process of a schematic map:

1. Scale, Audience & Purpose
2. Sketch of your mental model
3. Tracing relevant aspects
4. Abstraction: Grids & geometric shapes
5. Simplification vs Minimal
6. Elements of the city
7. Visual hierarchy
8. Details: Icons, Typography, Legend, Context

Here are some references to go through:

Schematic Maps:

Get inspired by the story behind the most seminal schematic map: London Underground Map by Harry Beck, and a critique of the old design along with some interesting alternatives in this TEDx talk on usability of metro maps.

Closer home, have a look at the Isometric & Schematic map of the IIT B by Prof. Mandar Rane.

Here is the process behind one of my schematic maps: Andamanese Language Map.

A Guardian article featuring animations transforming schematic maps into geographically accurate representations.

A great collection of schematic maps of most cities around the world created by INAT, like Delhi & Mumbai.

Cartography / Map Design: Essays on Digital Cartography by Justin O’Beirne.

David Rumsey’s huge map collection for some vintage cartography inspiration.

The Five Elements for forming a mental model of a city, from Kevin Lynch’s book The Image of the City.

Resources:

Maki icon set for using quick icons under CC0 license, do try editing them in the Maki Editor if you want to customize them.

[projectpolymer]

Abhilash

Schematic map of Chandigarh

_Why Chandigarh?_

Even though I was born in Hyderabad, my father got transferred to Chandigarh, and because of which I have spent my entire life (School, College, and first job) in Chandigarh. This place is special for me in so many ways and has shaped me into what I am today.

Chandigarh is a planned city and was designed by the Swiss-French modernist architect Le-Corbusier. It has an area of 114 Km^2 and has a population of 10.6 Lakhs approximately.

Chandigarh is also known to be the green city and has preserved about 46% of its total area under forest and green cover (includes parks and preserved wildlife) ([read the article here]. This earns the city the title of "The city beautiful" and makes it an ideal place to take a stroll or a slow drive on a lazy summer evening/night.

Being a planned city, the roads in Chandigarh are straight, wide, and has minimal to no traffic. Such scenarios again call out for a long drive in and around the city.

---

My affinity towards and personal experience in Chandigarh as a city stems from the following parameters, which I'm looking forward to mapping on a schematic representation of the city.

• A lazy person's drive in the city➖ being planned and structured makes the city a spot to have a carefree long drive in certain areas. People have come to address such areas as Geri routes which come from the Punjabi word "Geri", which means- "To drive around slowly". It would be interesting to see and map such routes and can act as a rider's guide to Chandigarh.

• Eateries➖ Chandigarh comes together as a home to multiple sets of people: Punjabis, Himachalis, Haryanavis, and many more. The varied culture offers a wide spectrum of cuisines to look for. Also, having a high population rate of working professionals, makes it a hub for pubs to hangout

• In Chandigarh, Peace doesn't come in short supply➖ Chandigarh is a calm, peaceful city. There's plenty green, space, and little-to-no traffic. There are places in Chandigarh one can visit to relax on a lazy summer evening or bask in the afternoon sun of extremely chilly winters. Mapping such places can act as a guide for people who've come in search of it.

That said, all the said points vary greatly according to the weather conditions of the city. Chandigarh is extremely hot and dry during summers, windy and covered in leaves during autumn, and extremely chilly in winters. This largely affects the places you are visiting. A filter of climatic conditions and their effects on the city can be explored.

---

Mental Model of Chandigarh

Sketch of the Chandigarh map I did long back. (Doesn't reveal anything other than being an art piece)

Tracing the map of Chandigarh:-

Abstraction of The Chandigarh's grid and the Geri routes

Tracing all the necessary routes you would go for a "Geri". Thinner lines are inner sectors, which might show a linkage between different sectors and all the routes for a "geri"

Decided to do away with inner sector lines as they weren't adding any significance other than showing too much information. Decided to focus just on the original plan

Forming a closed shape with routes

I also tried to align it as close as possible with the original map

the shape of a "Heart" emerged out of all the connected routes of the iconic grid layout of Chandigarh architecture

adding symmetry to the shape:-

Adding hierarchy to the main and inner routes

Made small icons of must-visit places while you are on a drive

Schematic map of routes to drive on and places worth having a meal from while you are at it:

Feedback:-

1. Move placemarks away from roads to their actual positions
2. Add a halo to labels
3. Show routes moving out of the selected shape boundary
4. Add shapes to show parks

Iteration 2:- Added halo to labels moved placemarks to their actual positions and away from the roads added green patches to show parks

an added minimap of entire Chandigarh and focused region of interest, to add some perspective.

Adding the link to the final version with a presentation for the same:- https://www.behance.net/gallery/124354731/Schematic-Map-of-Chandigarh-A-Cartography-Assignment

Final Version:-

[sashacherian]

Sindhi Food in Chembur, Mumbai

Purpose To showcase history of Mumbai suburbs through its food and people.

Audience This map would be helpful for anyone would like to have Sindhi food around Chembur area.

Context Chembur is a residential suburb in Mumbai with a majority of the Sindhi community. It was one of the spaces allotted as a refugee camp post the India Pakistan partition. A huge portion of land next to Bombay Presidency Golf Club was allocated for building refugee camps. As more and more Sindhis began to settle dow in Chembur, they brought a part of culture with them. Sindhi presence is found in street and colony names like Choitram Gidwani Road and Navjivan Society and restaurants like Sindh Puri House and Vig Restaurant.

Map Tracing

Abstraction 1

Reflections: There are specific cluster of Sindhi food places in the previous two alterations to the top left and the bottom right. They are currently placed on the corners map and identifying them could be hard as they aren't placed in the centre. A zoomed out version would help the viewer understand the space better.

Next Steps: Retracing the map with a clear idea of the spaces I like to include. (restaurants, parks, major landmarks)

Restaurants

1. Vig Refreshments
2. Gopal's Tandoori Chicken
3. Sindh Pani Puri House
4. Sindhi Dairy Farm
5. Lakhumal Kundanmal Farsan Mart
6. Raj Bar And Restaurant
7. Jhama Sweets
8. Sainath Dhaba
9. Satus Sweets & Snacks
10. Guddu da Dhabba

Landmarks Presidency Golf Gulb Chembur Camp Post Office

Sketch

Possible Direction: Food trail on the streets of Chembur Camp suggesting foods to try out based on the time of the day since you often tend to miss out of certain places since the cramped and crowded street.

Thoughts Although aligning geographical spaces to a grid helps one understand spaces and directions better, does the geographical shape help give a nature of the space based in my case which I'm focusing on Sindh cuisine and space? Context or the area where this is placed matters

Comparison between curved and straight lines

Layering Information of what might seem helpful for someone who wants to eat on Chembur Camp street

1. Distance from shops
2. Categorisation of restaurants | starters, main course, deserts
3. Road Names
4. Other landmarks
5. Direction vehicles moving on roads
6. Whats best to eat where

Alterations

A map exploring Parsi restaurants around Fort area of Mumbai. Explored using patterns and a denser map this time.

[Bhanvee]

Schematic Map of Kanpur

Why Kanpur? Kanpur happens to be my hometown and a city where I've spent close to 18 years of life, growing up. So of-course, I know if for what it really is and what it is not, in its essence.

As a local, what stands out to me, about Kanpur, after having lived in other cities, is all this (as listed below) : It's food and signature taste (local, rustic. And a unique blend of awadhi + punjabi + bihari + marwari tastes + with addition of south-indian food as well) and how life rotates in and around it. It's local 'unbranded' markets (traditional sarees etc.) It's lingo (thanks to varied many movies like 'Tanu Weds Manu', 'Bala' etc. Kanpur gained limelight. Plus, series like Mirzapur and Panchayat add to relatability) It's industrial-town yesteryear image (thanks to Britishers), and quite pronounced textile (kapda) and leather business

Round 0

Also, many food delicacies are seasonal. So, time of visit of the year is also important.

Round 1 Zoom-out

Zoom-in

Round 2. Further abstraction

Round 3 Further more abstraction. Implementing Orientation aspect + 'Insert'

Round 4 Exploring grids and further abstraction. Implemented hexagonal grid @rasagy

further, to add names of the food-joints, their speciality, landmarks, directions and put it in a composition with a context

Round 5 Further detailing @rasagy

Round 6. Final one @rasagy Hi Rasagy, this was the final version that I did. Thanks!

[vimalav]

Culture map of Thrissur.

Thrissur is known as "Cultural Capital of Kerala" due of its cultural, spiritual and religious leanings throughout history. Thrissur was once the capital of the Kingdom of Cochin. One of its main cultural events is the Thrissur Pooram, which attracts quite a number of tourists and travellers.

It is the third largest city in Kerala after Kochi and Kozhikode, and the 21st largest in India. The city is built around a 65-acre (26 ha) hillock called the Thekkinkaadu Maidaanam which seats the Vadakkumnathan temple.

Compared to other districts in kerala, Thrissur probably has the most number of temples. Well-known temples including the Vadakkumnathan temple, Thiruvambadi Sri Krishna Temple and Paramekkavu temple, and the Guruvayur temple as well as two churches, the Our Lady of Lourdes Syro-Malabar Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral and the Our Lady of Dolours Syro-Malabar Catholic Basilica, the largest Christian church in India. India's first mosque, Cheraman Juma Masjid, opened in AD 629.

---

Map in my mind

All I know is that the shape of the district resembles a 'K' and the following details I have depicted in the following blind map. I would like to map more places of cultural and tourist significance adding layer of road and rail network. This map can help tourists as well as locals to understand more about the place.

---

Tracing the map

My mind map of Thrissur isn't too off after all :) and also got many places on the right spot. I started tracing the actual borders from OSM and marking the main spots I wish to highlight in the map. A WIP view of the trace:

WIP - Abstraction of the map boundaries and aligning the roads and on to a grid. The shape resembles a festival flag which is an important artifact in the festivals. Flags are hoisted in a ceremony to denote the beginning of festivals.

ToDo - Make the roads more prominent and label the locations. Clean up the grid lines a bit. Work on the palette. Add a simple legend.

Map update - Added more details, tweaked colors and trying out a composition

[arunkumaryes]

Indo-Saracenic Buildings of Chennai

Indo-Saracenic architecture represents a synthesis of Islamic designs and Indian materials developed by British architects in India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The hybrid, combined diverse architectural elements of Hindu and Mughal with cusped arches, domes, spires, tracery, minarets and stained glass, in a wonderful, almost playful manner.

Currently, many of these buildings are still breathing accommodation to many government based functions of the city. The aim of this is to schematically represent those buildings in the map of Chennai.

The categorization can be of its current usage (College, Railway station, etc.)

Mind Map

Plotting the structures in Google Maps + Connecting them with arterial roads ☟

Trying out abstraction with the shape of dome ☟

Plotting points & Connecting with metro stations of the city ☟

Applying stylization inspired from building colors ☟

Updated map

1. Changed orientation
2. Added labels
3. Added green areas and abutting roads @rasagy

Final edit

[Rajshree0111]

Place - Noida

Audience – For Young adults choosing Noida as a place to stay for work reasons. Incorporating leisure/hangout spots, entertainment sources, eateries, and connectivity aspects within the city.

Purpose – Make the place more inviting and livelier.

Map

Steps Followed

Plotting points and areas on the abastracted map.

Feedback Connecting paths for pedestrians Removal of unnecessary patterns that might mean something else Setting the hierarchy of Tags/names

---

---

Almost finished, need to make the main road lil slanted for better Hash (#) representation

[rajeeshNite]

Kannur city: Kannur city is a coastal city in northern Kerala. It was once an ancient trading port. Enduring monuments such as 16th-century St. Angelo Fort, once occupied by European colonial forces, show the city’s significant role in the spice trade.

Area: 78.35 km²

Audience: for the project audience is someone who came to the city and wants to know the main attractions in the surrounding area

Mental map of Kannur city

Feedback day 1: map has to concentrate on the attractions in Kannur city, non-important things can avoid from the schematic map. Connect the roads and mobility centers to the city attractions

While figuring out the important destinations in Kannur city I find out things to explore are seen on the border of the city (mostly beach area).

Tracing the actual map with important destinations in the city Marking important places to visit in Kannur city

Connecting with the important roads

Simplifying and finding geometry in the road navigation

Zoning and categorizing destinations, highlighting important roads by the thickness

Bird-like geometry evolved on the map

Birds in Kannur beach A lot of sea birds are in the Kannur beach area particularly in the Mappilay bay area

Feedback: Try to work in the grid and simplify the irregular geometry

Final Map update.

Theyyam (god worship) is the famous art form and culture of the Kannur people. A theyyam color palette is created and try to represent in the Bird geometry and in the whole map theme, a“Theyyam -Bird” concept.

[ankeeta-93]

Selected Place Bhubaneswar

Context There's a specific area of the city which visually looks beautiful in any time of the day. I wanted to map the roads and landmarks that contribute to this visually aesthetic part of the city. I walked around this place taking photographs of terminating vistas and emphasis buildings for an architectural assignment. That helped me remember the area mentally.

I traced the actual map only after drawing out the place from my mental model.

EDIT Heritage Walk- White Town Since, I spent the last weekend in Pondicherry, I thought that is a good opportunity to explore the place walking in and around the White Town. Since it is a pretty small area, I could cover a lot and memorize the routes easily. So I mapped the landmarks, historical buildings and buildings to look out for while taking a walk through the streets of white town. So this map would help a first time tourist in the town to visit all the important places, and everything in between.

EDIT 2.0 Board game approach (Uploading soon) This is the transition towards abstraction of my map. I visualized to show it as a board game of connecting squares and how easily a viewer would be able to navigate through the same using the mental model of a monopoly-like board game. Finished Piece

[manjwho]

Manjusha

[14-15 April update]

Heritage Walk around MG Road, Bangalore

Purpose
To bring to surface the hidden stories in familiar places.

For whom?

• Primary: people who know the day-to-day of the city but who haven't dug into its historical ties.
  
• Secondary: For people who are visiting the city and want to plan things to see outside conventional tourist spots.
  
  

First I tried to gather all the information I already had from my previous casual reading on the topic. [Link to the Miro board]

Why did I use old images as the starting point?
Because there is something powerful about standing in front of a space and seeing an image of how it used to be / who used to use it / how it was used. I want to incorporate the photographs in the outcome - if not in the map itself then in some kind of interactive extension of the project that the reader can use when going on the walk.

The images naturally fell into 3 time groups:

1. British Era
2. Early Days after Independence
3. 70s-80s onward (before Metro)

I then plotted the places identified on the Miro board onto a Google Map as an exploratory visualization. The 3 groups were added in 3 layers of different colored icons. [Link to the Map]

The colour coding and symbols helped me decide on the boundary of the map. I knew I wanted this to be something that can be covered by foot, which already limited the geographic span. I ignored much of the yellow icons in the periphery (which I didn't have any pictures or interesting stories yet), and identified a walkable distance of 4km that connected many of the main locations in red, blue and purple. It conveniently had Kosheys in the middle, which worked out as a historical refreshment stop.

1. Part 1: Cubbon Park Side (Starting at Vidhan Soudha Metro, uptill Kosheys) - 3km
2. Part 2: MG Road Side (Starting at St Marks Cathedral, uptill Samsung Opera House) - 1km

I tried to make a sketch of how I think of the area without referring to Google Maps:

Some observations:

• I am generally quite bad at directions, I do not pay attention to the road and therefore I have only a vague sense of where different areas are wrt each other. This shows in the mental model. I need to simplify and include how the areas are linked (lines, nodes?)
• Starting and Ending landmarks are important when remembering / making sense of a place.

Next: Work on more iterations of the map sketch to figure out a structure that works on metaphor or geometry.

Possible directions: Weekend Plan or Treasure Hunt

Feedback (15 April):

• Go for Weekend Plan with Guided Walk,
• Zoom in and focus just on the Cubbon Park and MG Road sections (ie leave out Commercial street) to make the task simpler and focus on the objective.

---

[16 April Update]

I tried to trace the map and find some metaphors in the shapes (but failed):

This is feeling too forced. Instead I tried to simplify and align the paths to a grid - Curves for Cubbon and Squares / Angles for MG Road:

There are a lot more landmarks in the MG Road section than in the Cubbon Park section. This means the right half will have to be made longer to accommodate those spots.

• Next: Mark areas, landmarks, refine the cross roads, make inner roads thinner.
• Question: does node = cross roads? (ref. Image of the City)

Trivia: The official name for Cubbon Park is Sri Chamarajendra Park, but it never caught on!

---

[April 19 Update]

Determined to find a metaphor (!)

Trying to see what comes of the walking paths (different for different end points):

Going back to drawing board, clarifying which roads to show:

Metaphor of TIME! Apt for a walk in through the past.
CON: On showing other people, they felt it look like Harry Potter's Snitch.

Playing with the shapes to reduce 'snitch-ness' and increase - 'time-ness' of the form:

Cleaning it up on a custom grid (15 deg, 240 deg, 330 deg):

[anupruban]

Place : Chennai City houses several Famous Temples, churches, mosques, museums and historical places.

AIM : To create a Tourist Map which shows the places to visit and the public transport nearby .

Mental Map

Iterations and Explorations

Yet to label Tourist locations and Public transport stops (WIP)

[sujayk16]

Cultural & Heritage Spots in Pune

Audience: New Residents, Tourists

Pune is known for its cycling routes and has the highest number of cyclists in the state.

I'll be coming up with a cycling map for a heritage ride around the city.

[sunairrajd]

//Sunair

Purpose & Audience: To highlight the green spaces & fun activities Surrounding 'Hussain Sagar, Hyderabad'. For tourists visiting Hyderabad and wanting to explore the Hussian Sagar area for recreation and spending time together with their families

Trying to recollect all the place around Hussain Sagar from the past experiences and highlight them on a hand-drawn mind map

[ashish-livefree]

The "Metro" City Delhi

My hometown is actually Patna but I had spent substantial growing-up time in Delhi doing my bachelor of architecture and my first job. While living in Delhi you learn that its a city of seven kingdoms and over the years gotten numerous significant monuments from each of those empire. Being an architecture student you kinda visit most of them and in the process realising that Delhi is huge city and these historic locations or settlements are quite far from one another and requires a lot of travel time. Also, Delhi has the largest network of metro rail tracks around the city in India and now connects almost very corner of the city.

My goal is to build a illutative map which one could refer to navigate and reach these monuments by just using the metro services. Anyone new to the city will actually have to decipher a lot connections and references to finally decide, how to reach somewhere using which metro line and the closest metro station. A monument map of Delhi connected through the metro lines.

Imagine this blank space to be Delhi

These are the extensive metro lines in Delhi

These are some of the famous monument's locations with the metro lines

A rough idea of what I intent to create

[rasagy]

Async feedback

@projectpolymer: Good work on finding a nice abstraction! I would still explore a way to retain all the other roads, but they could have a color that distinguishes them from the rest (say light gray). That way it won’t break the context & familiarity of the Chandigarh grid structure, but only focus on the key roads that you want to show.

Look forward to seeing more progress with other elements (from Kevin Lynch’s framework) added as well.

@sashacherian: Good progress, great improvements around the backgrounds + colored labels. Would you want to match the colors of Landmarks in the same way?

Add a short attribution (Who made it, why) and I think this is pretty much done.

@Bhanvee: Interesting grid approach, . See if you can have most of the elements aligned to the grid (not just the central lines). Look forward to seeing how this evolves.

@arunkumaryes: Will there be hierarchy of places? More inner roads? Or more context of regions (localities)? Labels for metro, simplification of the edge of sea & other details of park will keep the focus on the main area.

[rasagy]

Hope you all had a great jury! Please take a few minutes to update your final map design if you haven’t already. Look forward to seeing more exciting projects from you all.

[Bhanvee]

@rasagy Hi Rasagy, I have updated my section/thread with the final version. Hope that works! As an added reference, I'm enclosing the final version here as well. Thanks, Bhanvee

[ashish-livefree]

Hi Rasagy, I am uploading my final work here. If points I would like to mentions:-

1. The Hindi spellings are a bit off as I was not able to get the correct spelling on Illustrator.
2. I would want to further work on make the dotted line connecting the metro station and the monument proportional to the actual distance between them but wasn't successful in doing that at the moment.
3. I would also want to replace the numbers representing the monuments with their illustrative icons.

[projectpolymer]

Rasagy,

Updated my original comment with the final version.

Thanks Abhilash