A diversity within its unity The vital power of an imaginative work demands a diversity within its unity; and the stronger the diversity, the more massive the unity. Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker diversity
The heat death of design Losing the design diversity means falling into a singular narrative of how design must be done, which grants unfair and self-reinforcing advantage to the mainstream while discouraging, stifling, or even punishing the idiosyncratic designers who bring unorthodox but remarkably innovative processes to the table. The true opportunity cost is the diverse future that humanity can no longer access. A future without diversity is fundamentally stagnant: imagine designs so standardized that you can’t tell them apart. While every design is guaranteed to be good, none will be great. New designs are marginally better than previous ones with the rate of improvement eventually approaching zero. We have reached the heat death of design. Chuánqí Sun, The vanishing designer diversity
Obsessed with absolute numbers Modernist planning was obsessed with absolute numbers, including the minimum dimensions of rooms, open space per capita, and the one-size-fits-all head counts of neighborhood units. This was often pegged at five to seven thousand and was used as a formula for determining the distribution of schools, shops, sports fields, and other facilities. The failure of such planning is not in its effort to be comprehensive or to equalize access to necessary facilities. It is, rather, the attempt to rationalize choice on the basis of a homogeneous set of subjects, a fixed grammar of opportunities, a remorseless segregation of uses, and a scientistic faith in technical analysis and organization that simply excludes diversity, eccentricity, nonconforming beauty, and choice. The utopian nightmare. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan Desired qualities of lightPredicted Mean Vote planningmetricsdiversity
The number of ways in which things work The importance of diversity is not so much the number of elements in a system; rather it is the number of functional connections between these elements. It is not the number of things, but the number of ways in which things work. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture diversityconnectionnetworkssystems
Exuberant diversity in a city's streets To generate exuberant diversity in a city’s streets and districts, four conditions are indispensable: The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function; preferably more than two. These must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common. Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent. The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones so that they vary in the economic yield they must produce. This mingling must be fairly close-grained. There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they may be there. This includes dense concentration in the case of people who are there because of residence. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities diversitystreets
Don’t Be an Ostrich An Essay by Chuánqí Sun medium.com You just handed off a major redesign. Three months of research, twenty-seven major revisions, and hundreds cups of coffee have all culminated in this pinnacle of glory. It’s finally done! Except it’s not. It’s not, even after you have answered every single question the developers have about your red-line. It’s not, even after you have addressed all the technical constraints developers encountered during the implementation. It’s not, even after you meticulously documented all the patterns and styles into a library for reference and reuse. It’s not, because neither you nor the developers have talked to a real user. At the bottom of your heart, you are secretly wishing: My design looks great on paper, so let’s keep it on paper. You are an ostrich. Post-occupancy evaluation
Post-occupancy evaluation Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is a practice in the building industry where an architect would visit the building after its occupancy and interview its residents. It sounds like a great opportunity for collecting feedback and learning from mistakes, but it’s rarely practiced. Why? Many awe-inspiring, prize-winning architectures are half building, half sculpture. Often made of specially molded concrete and steel, they are extremely expensive to alter, let alone any alteration would also attack the architect’s prestige and pride. So whatever usability issues the POE identifies will remain as issues, unless the architect wants to accept the public criticism and shame that comes with the remodeling. In fear of criticism, an architect would turn down the opportunity for POE, and continue to design the same roof that would leak water in future projects. In fear of criticism, a developer would use customer service representatives as a shield against user complaints, while focusing on the “technical” aspect of things. In fear of criticism, a designer would close the contract as soon as the client accepts the design, even though none of the real users are represented by the client. architectureux