Discourse in web design An Essay by Jason Santa Maria v5.jasonsantamaria.com A website is its own, singular thing. We know it isn’t a book, a TV show, a film, or a song, but our language is limited to talking about it in those restrictive boxes. A website is a mix of all of those things, and none of those things. It is influenced by place and time. A website changes with age. It can evolve and regress. It was then I wondered if the problem wasn’t that web design lacked its own Emigré. What if we actually lacked a shared language to critically discuss web design? Art, architecture, and even graphic design, have critics and historians that give context to new work through the lenses of culture and important work from the past. wwwcritique
Protected, yet tuned in Karen Terry's house in Sante Fe, designed by architect David Wright, is perhaps one of the most compelling passive designs. Stepping down its hillside site in four tiers, it nestles low into the ground. Thick adobe sidewalls create a strong sense of shelter and its banks of windows look resolutely to the sun. The image is very much of a house attuned to sun and earth. Rather than providing the convenience of a constant indoor temperature regulated by a thermostat, a passively solar-heated house may go through an air temperature flux as great as 20ºF per day. People learn to live with this flux. Living in a solar house is a whole new awareness, another dimension. I have the comfort of a house with the serenity of being outdoors—protected, yet tuned in. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture Deep InterlockIntroduction to Permaculture239. Small Panes sustainability