waste
Ending is better than mending
Less, but better
Flying a kiwi
The mirror-image economy
Wasting light
- Poured
A timeless quality
Of all Rams’s products, the 606 Universal Shelving System is perhaps his most successful in fulfilling his own principles of good design. It is still in production today, some fifty years after its conception. The system is distinctive yet unobtrusive, and when the shelves and cabinets are filled, its slim profile allows it to fade quietly into the background.
Its ‘plainness’ lends it a timeless quality that has transcended the vagaries of fashion like no other of Rams’s designs. It was conceived in such a way as to optimize its function as simply and in as many different situations as possible, while still permitting upgrades and alterations without falling into obsolescence: all later adaptations and additions could still be integrated into the original structure and sizes.
"Fashion objects are not capable of being long-lived," said Rams in 2007. "We simply cannot afford this throw-away mentality anymore. Good design has to have built-in longevity. I believe that the secret of the longevity of my furniture lies in its simplicity and restraint. Furniture should not dominate, it should be quiet, pleasant, understandable and durable."
Consumption
The proponents of technology in the 1840s were very enthusiastic about replacing workers with machines. But somehow I find no indication that they realized that while production could be carried out with few workers and still run to high outputs, buyers would be needed for those outputs. The realization that though the need for workers decreased, the need for purchasers could increase, did not seem to be part of the discourse on the machinery question. Since then, however, technology and its promoters have had to create a social institution – the consumer – in order to deal with the increasingly tricky problem that machines can produce but it is usually people who consume.
The Factory Photographs
A Book by David LynchI love industry. Pipes. I love fluid and smoke. I love man-made things. I like to see people hard at work, and I like to see sludge and man-made waste.
Bowellism
A DefinitionLloyd’s Building, London.
Bowellism is a modern architectural style heavily associated with Richard Rogers. The premise is that the services for the building, such as ducts, sewage pipes and lifts, are located on the exterior to maximise space in the interior.
Muda, Muri, Mura
An ArticleEliminating waste is the key to efficiency – in the Toyota Production System, this is termed as:
Muda (waste),
Muri (overburden),
and Mura (irregularity).Working with Brian Eno on design principles for streets
- Think like a gardener, not an architect: design beginnings, not endings
- Unfinished = fertile
- Artists are to cities what worms are to soil.
- A city’s waste should be on public display.
- Make places that are easy for people to change and adapt (wood and plaster, as opposed to steel and concrete.)
- Places which accommodate the very young and the very old are loved by everybody else too.
- Low rent = high life
- Make places for people to look at each other, to show off to each other.
- Shared public space is the crucible of community.
- A really smart city is the one that harnesses the intelligence and creativity of its inhabitants.
Design Thinking
Ducks and decorated sheds
A duck is a building whose confirmation is a complete symbol or icon. A decorated shed is a building to which symbols, often commonplace signs, have been attached.
Clinging to ideas
Another aspect of design thinking that was evident in the foregoing case studies is the tenacity with which designers will cling to major design ideas and themes in the face of what at times might seem insurmountable odds. Often the concept the designer has in mind can only come to fruition if a large number of apparently countervailing conditions can be surmounted.
Even when severe problems are encountered, a considerable effort is made to make the initial idea work, rather than to stand back and adopt a fresh point of departure.
A concept of style
It is a concept based not on the classification of various physical features of architecture and urban design but on the problem-solving process itself. We have seen that the final outcome of a design process is strongly determined by at least three aspects of that process:
- the subject matter of the organizing principles which are adopted,
- the manner in which these principles are interpreted and reinterpreted in the context of the problem at hand, and
- the sequent of applying such organizing principles.
Consistency in style among the output of designers can thus be understood as a habitual way of doing things, of solving problems.
Form and figure
Form applies to “a configuration with natural meaning or none at all,” whereas figure applies to “a configuration whose meaning is given by culture."
Design skirmishes
it is apparent that the unfolding of the design process assumed a distinctly episodic structure, which we might characterize as a series of related skirmishes with various aspects of the problem at hand.
As the scope of the problem became more determined and finite for the designer, the episodic character of the process seems to have become less pronounced. During this period a systematic working out of issues and conditions took hold within the framework that had been established. This phenomenon is not at all surprising when we consider the fundamental difference between moments of problem solving when matters are poorly defined and those with clarity and sufficiency of structure.
Within the episodic structure of the process, the problem, as perceived by the designer, tends to fluctuate from being rather nebulous to being more specific and well-defined. Furthermore, moments of "blinding" followed by periods of backtracking take place, where blinding refers to conditions in which obvious connections between various considerations of importance go unrecognized by a designer.
Such plans were deemed efficient
The terrain of cities was subdivided along the lines of distinct and discrete patterns of use, with very little opportunity for mixing (separation and concentration of functions). After all, the home environment should be just that…while places of work should be aggregated and serviced with their appropriate supporting functions.
Such plans were deemed efficient.
Constrained by the medium
The inevitable reciprocation that occurs between the act of drawing and the thinking associated with it. The hand moves, the mind becomes engaged, and vice versa. We might ask: How much does the medium of expression actually constrain a design process?
A medium has a way of constraining our choices, and this influence may not involve conscious choice at all. The planner, in the end, sees and understands only those things for which they can provide expression.
Autonomous constraints
Autonomous or independent constraints do not derive from the problem as given and understood…there was nothing in the problem statement, or brief, that required any reference be made to it. This constraint, introduced by the designers, usefully transcended the givens of the problem situation.
Unless the entire problem at hand can be solved using strictly problem-oriented constraints, we have to step outside the known problem context in order to continue problem solving activity.
The strange familiar and the familiar strange
The problem solver, when confronted with a new and yet unsolved problem, overlays the structure of the unsolved problem with an apparently similar problem with which he or she is experienced.
Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange are also principally based on the use of analogy.