OBSERVING PHYSICAL TRACES I'll

analyzing suicide notes. The categories they develop are not all equally suited
to solving E-B questions. For example, they use the term accretion to describe
any type of physical trace left behind, without specifying the manner in which
it was left—the actor’s environmental intent. All but one of the categories dis-
cussed in the following pages and several discussed in Chapter 14, on archival
methods, are examples of accretion. For clarity I have avoided the use of this
important but broad term.

By-products of Use

Fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and
Lord Peter Wimsey are masters at detecting and correctly interpreting side
effects of behavior—worn-away stair treads, a smudge on a door, or a glass
wiped suspiciously clean of fingerprints. These examples represent three types
of by-products: erosions, leftovers, and missing traces.

o Erosions. Use can wear away parts of the environment, as when grass
is trampled where people walk from a parking lot to a nearby building entrance
or grooves are cut into the top of a butcher’s block table. Some erosion traces,
such as the scars in the butcher’s table, indicate to the interested researcher that
planned and predicted activities have taken place; others indicate that the envi-
ronment is being used in a new way, such as the path across the lawn. Because
most environments sustain some wear and tear, observers must be careful to dis-
tinguish between erosion traces that signify bad design, those that reflect uses
designers planned for, and traces left when new and appropriate activities took
place. Observing erosion traces and by—products of use can be the first step in
finding out what those who use the setting feel about it.

 

 

Erosions
Left: Shortcut path in the snow, New York, New York.
Right: Well-used bathroom door in architect’s office, London, United Kingdom.

0 Leftovers. As the result of some activities, physical objects get left
behind: cigarettes in ashtrays after a party, dishtowels hung on kitchen-cabinet
knobs next to a sink, open cans of food stored on windowsills in a veterans’ res-
idence. Like erosions, leftovers may indicate activities that have been planned
for, such as parties, and unplanned for, such as residents eating soup in their
rooms. Such leftovers as the dishtowel, however, tell you about planned-for