The Shape of Design A Book by Frank Chimero shapeofdesignbook.com Near and farWhy we should readWe hear a voice whisperNeeds more loveOne candle can light another+9 More designcraft
The Web's Grain An Essay by Frank Chimero frankchimero.com Start drawing, then put the box around it We are working against the grain of the woodA passive beauty of right structure
Fermi Estimates and Dyson Designs An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com A Fermi estimate is a quick-and-dirty solution to an arbitrary scientific or engineering analysis problem. Fermi estimation uses widely known numbers, readily observable phenomenology, basic physics equations, and a bunch of approximation techniques to arrive at rough answers that tend to be correct within an order of magnitude or so. The term is named for Enrico Fermi, who was famously good at this sort of thing. …It struck me that there is counterpart to this kind of thinking on the synthesis side, where you use similar techniques to arrive at a very rough design for a complex engineered artifact. I call such a design approach Dyson design, after the physicist Freeman Dyson, who was one of the best practitioners of it (not to be confused with inventor James Dyson, whose designs, ironically, are not Dyson designs). designphysics