Sol y Sombra

After a walk around Washington Square on a really sunny and hot day...20th june 2008...

Today I’ve been thinking of a new categorization of users in public parks:

The shaders, and the sunners.

The shaders will find a shade, cool or remotely darker space in the desert. They will almost be consider as photophobic. You don’t whether they had a sun-trauma, sensible skin, sun panic, they don’t have sunglasses or they just don’t like to frown.(I’m not obviously part of that group).

The sunners are considered the foolish irresponsible souls that expose themselves to skin cancer and other sun diseases. People never think that they might have taken a sunscreen bath or they are the missing link of a Mesozoic reptile and they need the high temperature to warm up their blood.

They normally wait for any occasion to interact with Lorenzo (Spanish name for the sun).

Who are those users?

The shaders: Elder people. Hairy-Dog owners (not the cruel ones). Big consensus reached mixed groups of shaders and sunners. Eaters (that don’t like melting ingredients). Readers (that don’t like to frown). Homeless. Working out persons.

The sunners: Young people. Elder leathery people. Laying down attitude. Time consuming (non)activity.

Those 2 groups coexist “normally” (without social problems or bloody quarrels).They are not confronted. The exemption comes if 2 different users are in a relationship. That’s when you can see couples traveling along shades divided by a perfect delineated line on the ground.

The problems appear more between the specimens of the same groups when the shaded or the sunny space is limited. This is the case of sites with extreme weather conditions (too hot, or too cold) where specimens switch and are temporary part of the-other-group. I am not considering the case for this study, it will be too variable and complex (just like humanity).

A bigger study needs to be done after just this reflection/comment. Maybe we could find out the percentage of these users in population to establish a common and equitable coefficient to calculate the shade space needed in public spaces.

"What percentage of the population is a shader? How much public shaded space is needed in this area?" would be the question, and the answer will be a number.

It will be for sure an interesting design factor, since shades moves (as the sun) along the space. "How this movement can change the ground floor?" would be the next question, and the answer will be a design.