The notion of a thermal optimum persists There is an underlying assumption that the best thermal environment never needs to be noticed, and that once an objectively "comfortable" thermal environment has been provided, all of our thermal needs will have been met. The use of all of our extremely sophisticated environmental control systems is directed to this one end—to produce standard comfort zone conditions. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture heatcomfortenvironmentux
Interlocking "The art world is highly invested in the idea that you can take an object and set it in a room, and the internal relationships will be so strong and so meaningful that all the kinds of change that take place on the object as a result of its being in a new environment will not critically affect our perception of the object. If that is the given assumption, then the object can be moved from one environment to another without its being critically altered, which then gives rise to the illusion that it can be moved from culture to culture, that it has the ability to transcend its cultural specificity, which in turn gives rise to the ultimate illusion that the object can transcend time. Because what is being claimed is that there exist certain objects isolated and meaningful enough to be transcendent, that they have the power to go on and on, that they are, as it were, timeless. "Well, one of the things that I was becoming involved in at that point in playing artist was the growing suspicion that this breaking down of the edge, the idea of the painting's moving into its environment, was putting the whole heightened rationale of the art object into doubt. There is simply no real separation line, only an intellectual one, between the object and its time environment. They are completely interlocking: nothing can exist in the world independent of all the other things in the world." Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees Deep Interlock contextchangeenvironmentobjects
Little sense of season The real world of technology denies the existence and the reality of nature. For instance, there is little sense of season as one walks through a North American or western European supermarket. Just as there is a little sense of season, there is little sense of climate. Everything possible is done to equalize the ambiance – to construct and environment that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology naturecyclesenvironment
The receiving end At times it helps to rephrase an observation in line with a perspective from the receiving end of technology. When my colleagues in the field of cold-water engineering speak of "ice-infested waters", I am tempted to think of "rig-infested oceans". Language is a fine barometer of values and priorities. As such it deserves careful attention. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology valuesenvironmentlanguage
Walden A Book by Henry David Thoreau The quality of the dayI went to the woodsI love to be aloneQuiet desperationA new wearer of clothes+2 More Upstream ColorThoreau 2.0Upstream Color Original Soundtrack naturesolitudeenvironmentlabor
Seeing and Knowing An Essay from The Beauty of Everyday Things by Yanagi Sōetsu The results of intuition can be studied by the intellect, but the intellect cannot give birth to intuition. Scholars and criticsUnderstanding its essence knowledgeintuitionseeing
Scholars and critics Let us take a look at how one of these scholars or critics goes about his work. Let’s say he is going to write a commentary on a particular painting. If he is not a man of intuition, certain features will characterize his approach. First he will try to place the painting genealogically, or he will try to define the painting by assigning it to a particular school. He feels uneasy unless he succeeds in doing this. But more than anything, he is extremely wordy. He seems incapable of speaking of beauty without innumerable layers of adjectives. critique
Understanding its essence One can study an object and note its features, but that only touches the surface. A knowledge of an artwork’s properties does not lead to an understanding of its essence. understanding