The area for our group is Clampham which is in the postcode area SW4.At the beginning of this project, each member in our group chooses one type of resource which shows on brief to do research on. Xiao and I both choose “gallery”, so we did our research together. First, we found there are only two galleries in Clampham, one is called Pond Gallery which is located at the 26 Pavement Road, and another one was called Clampham Art Gallery at No 40-48 Broomall Road which now has closed. After taking many photos, we went to the library to find some historical materials on the location during the period while London was developing. However, there was not enough information about Clampham. The only thing we found interesting is that there are many churches around Clampham. After linking all the cross-signed points showing on the map, I found the two galleries are surrounded inside a triangle and the three edges are churches at the beginning. After linking the fourth cross-sign, I found out that the Clampham art gallery is just on the intersection of the two paths,
So Xiao and I decided to use the edges as a clue to find out the two galleries. Moreover, the public telephone boothes outside the station create a triangle as well so we collected all of their numbers to design the next clue.
Before the second time Xiao and I went to our location, we found some shops on the “Time-Out Shops & Services 2008”. Both of us thought those sources would be interesting as clues because of their characteristics and the important roles they play in the area. In this case, we went to each of those shops and document some item’s details to create other clues. One of the shops I found was called “places and spaces”, it’s a unique home accessories shop which sells many amazing pieces from recent designers. At last, Xiao and I created 8 clues which are linked together and all the places are just inside of the two triangles.
However, during the Group discussion, some of our group members do not agree with some of our clues. Both of us were tried to explain about our thought on idea of churches’ locations joining together as a clue. We thought it would be interesting because those churches are the older buildings in this area. Also, the link itself is actually very mysterious and it can represent the former character and landscape of the place. One of the churches which are in the middle of a green space made us think a lot. We finally got the conclusion that they can actually link to other clues which are also about green spaces. Unfortunately they still think this is not quite a good idea at the end, and the original clue change to cutting map into pieces (triangles) and point out where the pond gallery is by a dot. For Clamplam art gallery, I used a Sudoku with a heart inside, when the group solves the Sudoku, they will find out the missing number which is 4, and then they will get the numbers of that road. And I ask them to find the gallery which is closed. Our group also used the public telephone idea as the first clue of the whole game, and they all like the idea that the shop “places and space” to be the last source of the game.
After finishing the entire project of the game, I think group project is a very idea based project. The quality of the project depends on how well group members communicate with each other and how well they work really as a group. In this project, I don’t think I did really well on communication. A lot of my ideas are rejected because I didn’t communicate them in an effective way so other members didn’t quite understand it. I still think out group should have introduced the point of churches in the game. Personally I think when doing research on a place, we should not only focus on those things which float on the surface such as studios, little shops and retails and modern architectures. Sometimes, maybe we should pay some attention on the history and the development of the site. Of course, the rejection of this important source was caused by lacking communication on presenting the idea.
Finally, with the help and effort of all the group members, we got the twenty clues and successfully finished the project. I learned a lot in this project, not only on how to work and communicate in a group, but also on how we do research and analyze a site in depth.
