space essay 1st draft
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Milewski 1
Matthew Milewski
Professor Rios
ENC 1102H
3 Feburary 2014
UCF's Marketplace and Considerations of Space
Movie theaters, parking garages, convenience stores; all of these are considered places, or
more broadly, spaces. Spaces are, put simply, either conceptual, lived, or practical areas. UCF's
Marketplace is one example of the latter, and it serves as an overall good example of how spaces
can be constructed to properly serve their intended purposes. The UCF Marketplace constructs
its space to serve food to students, be easily accessible, and provide a reflexive atmosphere.
As the University of Central Florida's main lunchroom (another one, Knightros, can be
found near the arena, but it has far more restrictive hours), the primary audience of the
Marketplace is the student population. More specifically, it targets students who have housing at
UCF; they're the most likely to frequent it, particularly on the weekends. It's also the focus of the
space's advertising; information on meal plans is prominently displayed outside and inside the
Marketplace.
In any case, the Marketplace's main goal is to efficiently serve food to a large number of
students. With a fairly limited amount of space, I'd argue it has managed to do just that. The
Marketplace can be divided into three different areas: the actual lunchroom, which is placed
directly at its entrance, and two dining halls on each side. The lunchroom area can be further
divided into several different spaces where food is served (or "food stations" as I will be
referring to them). The types of food at these food stations include: Pizza, deli sandwiches, salad,
grilled offerings, hand-fried food, home-style meals, and dessert.
Milewski 2
There are two main attributes about the Marketplace that prevent the buildup of long
lines. For one, four of the seven food stations I mentioned above (specifically pizza, deli
sandwiches, salad, and dessert) can be manually served by the student without the assistance of a
lunchroom worker. The second design decision to prevent buildup has to do with the remaining
three food stations; they are separated from each other by a great deal of space. This means long
lines from one section of the lunchroom rarely intersect with others. It's a testament to the space
that it is able to do this with a relatively small area.
The Marketplace is also constructed to provide easy access to the attending students. It
could, to a degree, be considered an example of universal design, which Jay Dolmage describes
during a speech on the subject as "advocating the use of multiple and flexible strategies to
address the needs of all students." Simply put, Universal Design's main goal is to make it so that
students of all sorts can have a nearly identical experience in a space. For the purposes of this
essay, I examined whether a person in a wheelchair would have additional problems with the
Marketplace's structure.
Fortunately, I didn't find this to be the case for the most part. The lunchroom itself is
fairly small, but there's enough space in-between the food stations that it doesn't seem to present
a problem for navigation. One potential hang-up comes from the height at which the food is
placed; the deli sandwiches, for example, are about four feet off the ground, and placed behind a
plastic screen. This could present some difficulties; fortunately, lunchroom workers are available
at each one of these areas that might present problems, so this is mostly a minor issue. Seating is
also pretty accommodating, as most of the tables have chairs that can be pulled away (aside from
a few booths).
Milewski 3
The areas where the Marketplace tends to falter in its design has less to do with its actual
space and more to do with where it's positioned within UCF. As stated, the Marketplace's
primary audience are students that have housing at UCF, so it would make sense to place it
equidistant from the various living communities. Instead, it's placed disproportionately close to
the Apollo community (right next to it, in fact), which leaves students from other communities
with a significantly longer travel time. There was also a puzzling decision made to put the
student bathrooms outside of the Marketplace proper; this seems like more of a shrewd business
decision than anything else.
The Marketplace also aspires to create an atmosphere that can be appreciated by the
majority of students. That might sound counter-intuitive at first glance, especially considering
the myriad of differences between groups of students, but it's actually a fairly simple solution;
each dining hall has an entirely different intent. The dining hall on the right is slightly larger, and
it's intended to appeal to students that want to eat fairly quickly before heading to their next class
or activity. In contrast, the dining hall on the left is slightly smaller and designed for students that
want to remain there for a long period of time, whether just to study or talk with other people.
This is indicated by the fact that a section of the room is actually obscured, providing somewhat
of a sound buffer from the rest of the Marketplace.
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