Notating the environment: guidelines for the visual survey: an overview of approaches to and methods of recording visual aspects of the environment

Abstract

Notation is, in a phase, a shorthand graphic language. This report looks at types of notation systems as means to record visual aspects of the environment. By firstly examining the theoretical bases of environmental perception from which these notation-based studies spring and secondly, by critique of the methods them-selves, the study explores the possibility of one comprehensive graphic language. Such a language would give the architect or urban designer a systematic method for any visual survey he might undertake. In attempting this goal the study reaches a conclusion that notation systems cannot replace conventional methods of recording visual aspects but can only exist and be utilised effectively in conjunction with them.