iClake1959.This "negative

iclarke1959.

This "negative space" is a new term to me. I'll look it up.

I think the question would be for your space is, what day and time of day do you want to depict?

Quote from the book for reference.

“Examples of negative space include any open area devoid of structures or three-dimensional man-made elements. Examples include: fields, parking lots, vacant lots, non-descript “scenery only” zones, and forested areas.”

Interesting; I fall into

Interesting; I fall into being a "negative space" fan then, as I love modelling fields and spaces without structures.

I don't think I fall into

I don't think I fall into that category,...ha...ha

Congrats Deemiorgos!!!

Here is a little more explanation on the subject.

https://www.thomasklimoski.com/post/2019/01/25/negative-space

Space and interesting things

One of Lance Mindheim's blog posts on scene composition:  https://lancemindheim.com/2015/12/scene-composition-2/

It doesn't actually use the term negative space, but it dances all around it.  The key phrase for me is "crop, don't compress".  Good diagrams to illustrate what he means by that in the blog post.

Same scenes, but different setting

I see the two pairs of "matching" pictures as depicting different settings even though the same scene.  In the more crowded version of each, it feels like an industrial/urban area on the "wrong side of the tracks" of a crowded city.  The less crowded version of each gives more of a feel of a smaller city or perhaps at least a less hectic business area, maybe behind buildings on a main road, and not so much the rat race.  Of course those are just personal impressions, but my point is that either could convey the desired artistic feel depending on what/where you are modelling.  I am not a big fan of entire layouts that have that crowded look, but as a scene within the larger context if it gives the impression/feel you desire than it is right for you.

-Ed

 "To conform to the

No, you just need to leave negative space between the end of that scene and the next busy or otherwise more detailed scene. The idea is to let the viewer focus on a specific scene without adjacent clutter drawing their eyes away. If your layout is all one big city the negative space will still be buildings but they should be bland uninteresting buildings between the more detailed scene defining buildings.Same concept for a mountainous layout, don't make it end to end waterfalls and rock spires, interspice some meadows or forests in between....DaveB

To answer the actual question...

To answer your actual question, if you want those lots to be negative space you need to leave the clutter of cars and people out of them.

The next question of course is do you want them to be negative space?  Try leaving them as you have them in the second photos for a while and see if you end up liking it more that way, after you get used to the difference.

Reply to Ken

Since I agree with the premise that negative space is important and these are the only spots available on my small city layout then the answer is YES. Therefore I will follow your suggestion and leave it uncluttered for a while and see how it looks/feels..

Thanks to you and everyone else for their input.

I think it depends on the era your modeling.

It also may depend on where your modeling to some extent.  The last time I was in the North East was 1973, and I wasn't a model railroader at the time.  I've lived in Southern Cal. since then.  I worked in the trucking industry for most of that time except for the 11 years that I worked in Long Beach or Los Angeles Harbors.  When I first moved out here, Vernon, City of Comerce, Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahay & South Central Los Angeles had a lot of warehouses.  Since that time most of the warehousing have moved out of town, and many of the old buildings were either torn down or converted to other uses. 

The typical warehouse now takes up about 1/4 mile square with over 100 doors on two sides.  If the warehouse is too big for one company, then multiple companies will rent as much space as they need.  When I first moved back out here, the max trailer size was 42 feet long.  They've since been allowed to go to 45', then 48', and finally 53' in length.  In addition since there is no max length of the combination the cab over tractor has almost been eliminated, and most trucks bringing in cargo or hauling it out over the road have long conventional tractors with larger sleepers.  

There is no place to put those big warehouses in the downtown area, and many streets and allys are just too small and tight for those big rigs to manuever.

There used to be lots of vacant land out in Fontana, Chino, Realto, San Bernardino, & Riverside.  The result is that the huge warehouses with wide streets to allow big rigs to manuever have been built out there, right out to the foot of Cajon Pass.  A crowded City scene of a small warehouse with space for less than 12 trucks and tight alleys has pretty much disappeared form the down town area.

Most of the old downtown area has either been "gentrified" with new housing, apartments,  or some of the old buildings converted to industrial service companies like industrial hardware companies, machne tool dealers, paint & coating dealers, etc.  A couple of the meat packers are still there, but most moved out of town.  The L.A. Produce market is still on 8th street, but it was built in the late 60's I think to replace the old L.A. produce market and has had 8th street widened at Alameda Street in and blocked off at the other end to keep most automobile traffic out.  8th Street in the produce market is probably 200 feet wide to give plenty of room for trucks to turn around and back in to the warehouse doors.

There may be a few places left that look like what model railroaders build for the downtown warehouse district, but unless you are modeling 1960 or earlier, those places are more rare now in California as well as most of the West.

  "Since I agree with the

Don't overly focus on the negative space concept. A city is a busy place and often appears cluttered, so if your layout is small and there's no room for "negative space" just ignore it. For the loading dock area I'd leave the trucks there but would remove the weeds from the pavement as they wouldn't survive that heavy traffic. Add some tire tracks from the loading docks to the road showing how and how many trucks back in there. I'd also eliminate the flag as i doubt they'd want a flag on the rear of an industrial building, it would be more likely to be out front at their public entrance where we can't see it from our viewpoint......DaveB

I grew up in an urban area....

and negative space was just not there....every space was packed with buildings, equipment, and the detritus of urban life and industry.   Trucks blocking streets, cars double parked. trash and scrap everywhere, and not much space....so for the scene you've got crowded is a good thing!  I think it looks right....my 2 cents.

Peace Bill

Reply to Russ

I really appreciate your detailed description of how things have changed over the years in regards to trucking and warehousing.

Design vs replication

The best reasoning about negative space came from an interior designer friend of mine who described negative space as a means of giving the eye a place to rest.  It’s the reason why that really special piece of furniture looks great when you place it against a wall by itself or why an art gallery leaves a lot of space between important works. In that regard, the design sense, negative space is really effective.

When it comes to modeling, I would side with Lance on the whole.  We as modelers then to compress everything rather than editing out those things that add less impact. In my opinion when you do edit property, ie keeping those things that affect the operation of the layout or help to contextualize your railroad, things look better.  Sometimes that is 100% realistic, sometimes it’s a bit more of good design than prototypical accuracy.

In the case of the OP, even in cities, there are areas of negative space, especially around railroad tracks.  Grade transitions along a slope, an area where there’s a removed track or building, access roads, etc.  Industrial areas usually have some sort of negative space in the form of empty lots (I would argue that trailers lined up in a lot can be negative space), wide areas in a street or areas around drainageways.

Between the two sets of pictures, I like the second set. I think the OP should take it further and remove a building and see as well.  There is a balancing act and when in doubt, I suggest at looking at to some historical pictures to see what things actually looked like.

I think it means both,

as modelers we tend to fill up space with details ala George Selios, his scenes are chock full of super details and people, etc. Your scenes work either way, you’re modeling an urban setting, judging by vehicles, circa 1960, lots of cities were crowded and space at a premium. Go with what makes you feel happy. 

Hard to say from your pictures

The thing is, your pictures are framing a scene, just because they have edges and that's all we can see. We can't identify where one's eyes are drawn because the pics force us to look up close at a specific place. So we don't know where the edges of your scene(s) is/are.

They're not advising you to put negative space in the middle of a scene, you're supposed to put it at the edges, between different scenes. With each pic showing one scene, we can't see the places where negative space should be. Where I think it shouldn't be is right in the middle of your alley scene.

That may be confusing. It's certainly at odds with what some others have said.

What I think you need to do is step way back and show a wide angle shot of most of the layout, including unfinished parts, identify the separate scenes you are modelling, and think about space between them. If all you have is a one city scene layout or module, there's nowhere that negative space should be, so you should ignore that shibboleth.

The scene needs to be

The scene needs to be plausable.  Your first image every truck dock space is full, some with just trailers, yet you staged a truck leaving the scene.  Where did it come from?  There's no space for it.  The second scene, the first image has a small truck at loading platform and a second large truck/trailer, but theres no platform or dock for it, why is it there?

Every possible spot doesnt need to be crammed with something.   Look at real world examples, every dock space at a factory/warehouse/building is rarely full at the same time.  Yet we almost always model them that way. 

It has to be believable, for me your second set of images is way more believable than the first.

Just my two cents.

Great negative space scenery example

One of the best "negative space" scenes I've ever seen is this rural farm scene on Mike Confalone's Allagash. It's in the middle of a dogbone track loop, and it's just superb. Shows how powerful a "lot of nothing" can be scenickly.

100% Agreement!!!

That scene is quite remarkable in its simplicity and really does slowly draw your eyes to the main subject just like a painting.

Balance

To   lclarke1959,

From a design professional, the Mike Confalone layout photo is a perfect example of negative space on a layout whereas George Sellios's layout is all positive space. I'm a big advocate of this in all design, although my critique is that the best scenes have both positive and negative space more in balance. Think of it as a visual pulse effect where your eye soaks up an element of interest and moves on to a non-descript intermediate space and then on to the next element of interest. 

These elements should be realistic though. For an urban scene, maybe a vehicle scene, followed by a vacant lot, followed by a junkpile, followed by a non-descript brick wall, followed by an interesting storefront sign with a unique facade, followed by an empty street. Really look at an urban landscape. What is there? What is NOT there? Even in the busiest cities, there is a lot of dead space, empty walls, vacant lots, and empty alleys.

Modeling What Isn't There

Loren,

Sean Murphy made a great comment in "modeling what isn't there".  On my layout, on a city street in the "older section" (retail) of town, I have modeled a gap between two buildings.  But I dug a "basement" out of the pink foam under the layout surface, painted it gray, weathered the heck out of it, and am slowly adding debris into the basement area.  And a fence across the gap between buildings, keeping my curious LPs from falling into the hole.  That tells a story - what kind of building was there?  What kind of businesses were there?  What happened to it?

To me, rather than cram another building onto the layout, I created some negative space and told a story, too.

George Sellios - the master of crowded urban scenery from the Depression years.  But I think I read a few years ago that he realized he had too much stuff on his layout and was slowly removing some of it.  This was before Lance's book came out, but maybe George and Lance get their inspiration from the same place...

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

Iclarke1959, Thanks for the

Iclarke1959,

Thanks for the link.

My new module will be an attempt to create a negative space with only one track, a water tower, and bridge in a 19.5 sq foot area. I might not put in the pump house. 

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/41123?page=15

Negative space down under...........

Al,

I love your basement example and think that it actually doubles the negative space because it adds a depth component as well.

For my layout I have decided to go ahead and leave the two spaces uncluttered as I think that it does give someones eyes a place to rest from all of the business of an active city.

I really appreciate all of the input on this subject. The MRH folks that participate in these forums are most certainly some of the best of the best in the hobby.

Loren