Thermal Delight in Architecture A Book by Lisa Heschong Our thermal environment is as rich in cultural associations as our visual, acoustic, olfactory, and tactile environments. This book explores the potential for using thermal qualities as an expressive element in building design. Until quite recently, building technology and design has favored high-energy-consuming mechanical methods of neutralizing the thermal environment. It has not responded to the various ways that people use, remember, and care about the thermal environment and how they associate their thermal sense with their other senses. Not only is thermal symbolism now obsolete but the modern emphasis on central heating systems and air conditioning and hermetically sealed buildings has actually damaged our thermal coping and sensing mechanisms. The Cinderella of architectureTwo thermal archetypesSonorisms IIIAnasazi dwellingsMigration within buildings+21 More The fire of oak logsInglenookThe Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the SensesPredicted Mean VoteThermal DelightThe spirits' bath house
The Top Idea in Your Mind An Essay by Paul Graham paulgraham.com I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That's the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they're allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it. Which means it's a disaster to let the wrong idea become the top one in your mind. ideas