engineering
Live your ten years
I'm sorry, I love engineers
Strength from both mass and form
Warmed by the afternoon sun
Textbooks on water-system engineering state that supply mains are generally installed on the north side of the street in the Northern Hemisphere and on the south side in the Southern Hemisphere, so that the sun will warm them. In both hemispheres they are supposed to be on the east side of north-south streets, on the premise that the afternoon sun is warmer than the morning sun.
An emblem of friendship
Bridges make connections; they bring people together—a role that has made them a traditional emblem of friendship. Consider the town of Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina. When fighting between ethnic factions broke out there in the 1990s, nothing symbolized the social disintegration more clearly than the destruction of a sixteenth-century stone-arch bridge that had linked the two parts of the town on opposite banks of the Neretva River. And the emblem of efforts to heal the divisions is a rebuilt bridge, opened with fireworks and fanfare in July of 2004.
Routine design
When we think of bridges, it is the dramatic and monumental long spans that come to mind first, especially the lithe suspension bridges such as the Golden Gate and the pure geometric arches such as Sydney Harbour. But the majority of bridges are not such spectacular structures. Most of them are ordinary overpasses, with spans of 30 or 40 feet, carrying roadways or rails across other thoroughfares or over small streams. You see such bridges by the dozen on any drive down the Interstate. They may be lacking in glamour, but they are more representative of a bridge builder's art.
The engineering and construction of girder bridges are pretty routine these days, but the bridges are not quite standard items you order from a catalogue. The girders, whether of steel or concrete, are custom-build for each bridge, then trucked to the site and hoisted into place with a crane. The designer still has scope for variation and creativity, and it shows out on the highways: some overpasses are prettier than others.
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
A Book by Richard HammingThe Art of Doing Science and Engineering is the full expression of what "You and Your Research" outlined. It's a book about thinking; more specifically, a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived.
Design Links & Learning
A Blog by Nick TrombleyCollections of articles, links, and other material from around the web, relevant to software design and engineering.
“Design” is now “Product”
An Article by Dorian TaylorDesign has very little to do with what tools or methodologies you use, or what your job title is, or what you have a degree in, or even anything like “creativity”; design is about your relationship to constraints. Rather: to what extent are you defining constraints rather than just obeying them? Design is about taking a universe of possibilities and converging onto exactly one outcome. Being handed a set of constraints which you treat like immutable laws of physics (because many of them are) and solving within that envelope is what engineering is. To wit: what most designers are doing most of the time is actually a form of engineering, and engineers are always doing at least some design.
This is because genuine design—the power to define constraints—is a privileged political position within an organization, and not everybody can occupy it. In other words, the “seat at the table” comes first. Design is Steve Jobs infamously dropping an iPod prototype into his fish tank, pointing at the bubbles coming out and yelling at his staff to make it thinner. It doesn’t matter what your title is; Jobs is the designer in that scenario.
Are We Really Engineers?
An Essay by Hillel WayneInnovation in Structural Art
A Book by Eladio DiesteDieste's unique and innovative method of design, a melding of architecture and engineering, elevated these often humble buildings to masterworks of art.
Don’t Be an Ostrich
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 (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.