Humans are spatial creatures Humans are spatial creatures. We experience most of life in relation to space. We sit in a circle with our family. We drive down the left side of the road in Ireland and try to stay in our lane. We ride scooters down a path along the water. We sculpt a human body out of stone. We follow signs to our train. We walk, through arches, or on crosswalks beside bike lanes, or to follow our brother across a bridge. We position our camera to frame the shot while our friend leans out over a balcony. We sense ourselves in space in relation to all of the other objects in our environment. And this is powerful knowledge that we've left out of lots of software. In fact, while most obvious in 3D, this thinking does work outside of just three-dimensional software. Almost any software can use spatial concepts to become easier to understand. John Palmer, Spatial Interfaces body
The tacit wisdom of the body It is evident that the architecture of traditional cultures is also essentially connected with the tacit wisdom of the body, instead of being visually and conceptually dominated. Construction in traditional cultures is guided by the body in the same way that a bird shapes its nest by movements of its body. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses Architecture Without Architects bodytraditionhistory
A simple pleasure that comes from just using it People have a sense of warmth and coolness, a thermal sense like sight or smell, although it is not normally counted in the traditional list of our five senses. As with all our other senses, there seems to be a simple pleasure that comes from just using it, letting it provide us with bits of information about the world around, using it to explore and learn, or just to notice. There is a basic difference, however, between our thermal sense and all of our other senses. When our thermal sensors tell us an object is cold, that object is already making us colder. If, on the other hand, I look at a red object it won't make me grow redder, nor will touching a bump object make me bumpy. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture sensesbody
Half-winged, half-imprisoned The contrast between man’s ideological capacity to move at random through material and metaphysical spaces and his physical limitations, is the origin of all human tragedy. It is this contrast between power and prostration that implies the duality of human existence. Half winged—half imprisoned, this is man! Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook ideasbody
(an architectural stem cell that might transform itself into any organ for living) Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan euphonybodyarchitecturespace
We have turned our faces towards the future During the modern era, we have even changed our bodily position in relation to the flow of time; the Greeks understood that the future came from behind their backs and the past receded away in front of their eyes, but we have turned our faces towards the future, and the past is disappearing behind our backs. Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture timebody
In our bodies We tend to think of our memory as a cerebral capacity, but the act of memorizing engages our entire body. Remembering is not solely a mental even; it is also an act of embodiment and bodily projection. Memories are not only hidden in the electrochemical processes of the brain; they are also stored in our skeletons, muscles, senses, and skin. Robert McCarter & Juhani Pallasmaa, Understanding Architecture memorybody
The same material as the sun I have to apologize. I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun. It makes it impossible for you to look directly at me. It has always been this way. Shane Carruth, Upstream Color bodysurrealism
A Brief Rant An Essay by Bret Victor worrydream.com Like, just a post complaining that screens should be better designtechnologywwwinteractionbody
The body image A Quote The body image is informed fundamentally from haptic and orienting experiences early in life. Our visual images are developed later on, and depend for their meaning on primal experiences that were acquired haptically. Metaphors We Live ByGods of the WordThe Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses bodymeaning
On Greatness What’s important to you in the development of a product? One of the things that really hurt Apple was that after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease — I’ve seen other people get it too — it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work, and if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can just go off and make it happen. The problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts, because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it, and you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs you have to make, there are just certain things you can’t make electrons do, there are certain things you can’t make plastic, or glass, or factories, or robots do. And as you get into all these things, you find that designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain, these concepts, and just fitting them all together and continuing to push to fit them together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover a new problem or a new opportunity to do it a little differently. And it’s that process that is the magic. Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview The idea grows as they workThe Design SquiggleThe Nature of Product ideascraft