What Le Corbusier got right about office space An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com In the 1960s, the designer Robert Propst worked with the Herman Miller company to produce “The Action Office”, a stylish system of open-plan office furniture that allowed workers to sit, stand, move around and configure the space as they wished. Propst then watched in horror as his ideas were corrupted into cheap modular dividers, and then to cubicle farms or, as Propst described them, “barren, rathole places”. Managers had squeezed the style and the space out of the action office, but above all they had squeezed the ability of workers to make choices about the place where they spent much of their waking lives. ...It should be easy for the office to provide a vastly superior working environment to the home, because it is designed and equipped with work in mind. Few people can afford the space for a well-designed, well-specified home office. Many are reduced to perching on a bed or coffee table. And yet at home, nobody will rearrange the posters on your wall, and nobody will sneer about your “dog pictures, or whatever”. That seems trivial, but it is not. workpersonalityownershipmodularitychoice
Can maintenance save civilisation? An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com Maintenance is a low-status affair: you can confess to being unable to change a tyre in a way that you would never confess to being unable to name a play by Shakespeare. …We understand the expertise of janitors, plumbers and mechanics, and we suffer mightily in their absence, yet somehow we take them for granted. We take for granted, too, the most basic maintenance of all — preparing food, washing clothes, changing dirty nappies. Nobody would boast at a dinner party or on a first date about doing any of this, yet it is essential. …This is about more than breaking bridges and breaking bike chains. There is a missed opportunity here to find something rather wonderful in maintenance. repaircivilization
Ideas behind their time An Article by Tim Harford www.ft.com These days I am more interested in the reverse case [of Da Vinci's helicopter]: ideas that could have worked many centuries before they actually appeared. The economist Alex Tabarrok calls these “ideas behind their time” Curious minds want to know why these ideas appeared so late — and whether there might be anything that would prevent delays in future. One explanation is that the ideas aren’t as simple as they appear. The bicycle is not as straightforward an invention as it seems. To move from ox-hauled cart to human-powered bicycle requires smooth-rolling wheel bearings, which in turn need precisely engineered bearing balls. Modern steel ball bearings were not patented until the late 1700s, and demand from the 19th-century bicycle industry helped to improve their design. Materials and how to employ them inventionideas
The joy of the humble brick An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com The brick is one of those old technologies, like the wheel or paper, that seem to be basically unimprovable. ‘The shapes and sizes of bricks do not differ greatly wherever they are made,’ writes Edward Dobson in the fourteenth edition of his Rudimentary Treatise on the Manufacture of Bricks and Tiles. There’s a simple reason for the size: it has to fit in a human hand. As for the shape, building is much more straightforward if the width is half the length. I am hereWhat the material wants to beWhat the brick really wants. materialbuildingmodularitygeometry
The Elements of Style A Book by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White www.gutenberg.org Choose a suitable design and hold to itMake the paragraph the unit of compositionUse the active voicePut statements in positive formSpecific, definite, concrete+9 More The Elements of Typographic StyleThe Elements of Graphing DataThe Sense of StyleThe superficial aspects of what someone else is doing writingcommunication
Choose a suitable design and hold to it A basic structural design underlies every kind of writing. Writing, to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily the order in which those thoughts occur. This calls for a scheme of procedure. In some cases, the best design is no design, as with a love letter, which is simply an outpouring, or with a casual essay, which is a ramble. But in most cases, planning must be a deliberate prelude to writing. The more clearly the writer perceives the shape, the better are the chances of success. Such tortuous syntax
Make the paragraph the unit of composition As a rule, begin each paragraph either with a sentence that suggests the topic or with a sentence that helps the transition. More commonly, the opening sentence simply indicates by its subject the direction the paragraph is to take.
Use the active voice "I shall always remember my first visit to Boston” is better than "My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me."
Put statements in positive form Make definite assertions. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion. "He was not very often on time” becomes “He usually came late.” “She did not think that studying Latin was much use” becomes “She thought the study of Latin useless." Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is. If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority.
Specific, definite, concrete Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. examples
Omit needless words When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentence short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. Less, but better brevitysimplicityminimalism
The principle of parallel construction This principle, that of parallel construction, requires that expressions similar in content and function be outwardly similar. Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs in the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Structural parallelism form
Steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion Here we leave solid ground. Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised. There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rule by which writers may shape their course. Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.
Design informs even the simplest structure Design informs even the simplest structure, whether of brick and steel or of prose. Even the kind of writing that is essentially adventurous and impetuous will on examination be found to have a secret plan: Columbus didn’t just sail, he sailed west, and the New World took shape from this simple and, we now think, sensible design.
Do not overstate When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise. A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole.
Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end The proper place in the sentence for the word or a group of words that the writer desires to make most prominent is usually the end. The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to the words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition.
Writing is one way to go about thinking And the practice and habit of writing not only drains the mind but supplies it, too. Expressing ideas helps to form them thinking
Style is not separate from substance Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style - all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity. The young writer should learn to spot them - words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning but that soon burst in air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound. style