Restrained beauty Braun design had a beauty that was more than skin deep. It would be wrong to say that because the Braun approach spurned fashion in an ongoing quest for functional and useable perfection, it ended up with this beauty by accident. There is a very strong aesthetic sense in both the proportion and materials of nearly all the products of the Rams era. They have a ‘restrained beauty’, he admits. Braun products designed by Rams and his team have a haptic aesthetic as well: when you pick them up, handle them, and use them as the tools they are supposed to be, you become aware of the effort that has gone into making them sit comfortably in the hand, of the texture, weight and balance they possess, and of the satisfying click of the control buttons. Sophie Lovell & Dieter Rams, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Such an unholy alliance beautytouchtexture
This tactile form of doodling Paper clips have also served as objects of more inwardly directed aggression by providing something for the fingers to twist grotesquely out of shape during phone calls, interviews, and meetings. This tactile form of doodling may consume only a fraction of the twenty billion paper clips produced each year, but it underscores the almost limitless functions to which a single form can lead. Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things In ways you didn't anticipateAll sorts of ways to use the machineStretching the product drawingtouch
What is this static modernism? Why can't office buildings use doorknobs that are truly knob-like in shape? What is this static modernism that architects of the second tier have imposed on us: steel half-U handles or lathed objects shaped like superdomes, instead of brass, porcelain, or glass knobs? The upstairs doorknobs in the house I grew up in were made of faceted glass. As you extended your fingers to open a door, a cloud of flesh-color would diffuse into the glass from the opposite direction. The knobs were loosely seated in their latch mechanism, and heavy, and the combination of solidity and laxness made for a multiply staged experience as you turned the knob: a smoothness that held intermediary tumbleral fallings-into-position. Few American products recently have been able to capture that same knuckly, orthopedic quality. Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine The door handle is the handshake of a building modernismdoorstouchobjects
Time turned into shape A pebble polished by waves is pleasurable to the hand, not only because of its soothing shape, but because it expresses the slow process of its formation; a perfect pebble on the palm materializes duration, it is time turned into shape. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses timetouchform
Vision reveals what the touch already knows Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses touchvision
Crown A Poem by Kay Ryan www.poetryfoundation.org Too much rain loosens trees. In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees. You can touch parts you have no right to— places only birds should fly to. naturetreesmelancholytouch
To see, to caress A Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The hands want to see, the eyes want to caress. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses touchseeing
The heart of systems engineering While the client has some knowledge of his symptoms, he may not understand the real causes of them, and it is foolish to try to cure the symptoms only. Thus while the systems engineers must listen to the client, they should also try to extract from the client a deeper understanding of the phenomena. Therefore, part of the job of a systems engineer is to define, in a deeper sense, what the problem is and to pass from the symptoms to the causes. Just as there is no definite system within which the solution is to be found, and the boundaries of the problem are elastic and tend to expand with each round of solution, so too there is often no final solution, yet each cycle of input and solution is worth the effort. A solution which does not prepare for the next round with some increased insight is hardly a solution at all. I suppose the heart of systems engineering is the acceptance that there is neither a definite fixed problem nor a final solution, rather evolution is the natural state of affairs. This is, of course, not what you learn in school, where you are given definite problems which have definite solutions. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn What the problem isComplete and consistent requirements