Carleton College, Sense of Place Study
Northfield, MinnesotaIn September 2001, as part of community input for an upcoming campus master plan, HGA helped the Carleton College Facilities Department to conduct a survey in "participatory photography" to create a framework for the plan. HGA gave nearly fifty students, faculty, neighbor and staff participants disposable cameras to take pictures of the qualities of Carleton that they value and to write about why they took each photo.
When a site or event was photographed and described by more than 5 (or 10%25) of the photographers, we called it a "consensus photo." Ultimately, the Carleton group took about 500 photographs each with a written description. We developed three broad categories for attachment to Carleton.
They are:
The Sense of Place at Carleton
Together, images and text add up to a powerful combination of pointing something out through the camera lens and then interpreting that scene through words. The individual detail and the common findings of the study are currently the basis for developing a campus plan that accurately reflects Carleton's unique academic community.