Style consists in distinction of form Writing about style in architecture, the nineteenth-century theorist Viollet-le-Duc asserted that "style consists in distinction of form," and complained that animals expressed this better than the human species. He felt that his contemporaries had "become strangers to those elemental and simple ideas of truth which lead architects to give style to their designs," and he found it "necessary to define the constituent elements of style, and, in doing so, to carefully avoid those equivocations, those high-sounding but senseless phrases, which have been repeated with all that profound respect which most people profess for that which they do not understand." Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, The Evolution of Useful Things Having quite lost sight of the principle style
The usages of life A Fragment by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc victorianweb.org During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries architects not only paid attention to internal arrangements, but subordinated the designs for the exterior to them. The usages of life dictated the arrangement and the arrangement suggested the form of the building. This was the dominant principle in times of Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Timeless Way of BuildingForm follows function architecturefunction
Discourses on Architecture A Book by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc Style consists in distinction of formHaving quite lost sight of the principle
Nobody gives a hoot about groupthink An Article by Baldur Bjarnason www.baldurbjarnason.com Two relatively common ‘fashions’ today are real-time collaboration and shared data repositories of one kind or another. Both increase productivity in the naive sense. We work more; everybody is more active; the group feels more cohesive. The downside is that they also both tend to reduce the quality of the work and increase busywork. On that of the highest authorityPersonal Information Management (PIM) productivitycollaborationinformation
On that of the highest authority The consequences of this design should be obvious. The group’s opinion will converge on that of the highest authority present. As soon as an authority of any kind makes their opinion known, the group will shift in that direction. Even the most rational will tweak their responses after that. After all, who wants to risk going up against an authority? Interns will hesitate to comment. All objections will be a little bit more qualified or toned down. Generally speaking, if you are writing a document and want to get the most out of a group’s feedback, each contributor should be able to form their opinions independently and give their responses without fear of social or community repercussions.
Personal Information Management (PIM) Organising information so that it’s easy for a group of people to find the documents they need is very hard. The alternative is to solve it the same way we did with email: shared data, individual organisation. You don’t need to know how your colleagues organise their email. You only need to know that they get it and respond. The same applies to most work documents. In Personal Information Management (PIM) this is often called “the user-subjective approach”.