The notion of a thermal optimum persists There is an underlying assumption that the best thermal environment never needs to be noticed, and that once an objectively "comfortable" thermal environment has been provided, all of our thermal needs will have been met. The use of all of our extremely sophisticated environmental control systems is directed to this one end—to produce standard comfort zone conditions. Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture heatcomfortenvironmentux
Interlocking "The art world is highly invested in the idea that you can take an object and set it in a room, and the internal relationships will be so strong and so meaningful that all the kinds of change that take place on the object as a result of its being in a new environment will not critically affect our perception of the object. If that is the given assumption, then the object can be moved from one environment to another without its being critically altered, which then gives rise to the illusion that it can be moved from culture to culture, that it has the ability to transcend its cultural specificity, which in turn gives rise to the ultimate illusion that the object can transcend time. Because what is being claimed is that there exist certain objects isolated and meaningful enough to be transcendent, that they have the power to go on and on, that they are, as it were, timeless. "Well, one of the things that I was becoming involved in at that point in playing artist was the growing suspicion that this breaking down of the edge, the idea of the painting's moving into its environment, was putting the whole heightened rationale of the art object into doubt. There is simply no real separation line, only an intellectual one, between the object and its time environment. They are completely interlocking: nothing can exist in the world independent of all the other things in the world." Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees Deep Interlock contextchangeenvironmentobjects
Little sense of season The real world of technology denies the existence and the reality of nature. For instance, there is little sense of season as one walks through a North American or western European supermarket. Just as there is a little sense of season, there is little sense of climate. Everything possible is done to equalize the ambiance – to construct and environment that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology naturecyclesenvironment
The receiving end At times it helps to rephrase an observation in line with a perspective from the receiving end of technology. When my colleagues in the field of cold-water engineering speak of "ice-infested waters", I am tempted to think of "rig-infested oceans". Language is a fine barometer of values and priorities. As such it deserves careful attention. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology valuesenvironmentlanguage
Walden A Book by Henry David Thoreau The quality of the dayI went to the woodsI love to be aloneQuiet desperationA new wearer of clothes+2 More Upstream ColorThoreau 2.0Upstream Color Original Soundtrack naturesolitudeenvironmentlabor
The signature It has long been understood that striving for originality as an end in itself is the mark of an inferior artist. The personal style of a good artist is never something that has been deliberately cultivated and forced but something that has appeared unsought as inevitably as the personal style of a man's handwriting. But since artists of note are seen to have a distinct personal style, no artist can hope to make a reputation in a competitive society unless he too can show a distinctive style which easily differentiates his work from that of other artists and draws attention to it. Therefore artists of little capability or uncertain vocation will take great care to make their work look 'different', whereas those with any certainty in them will know that their work cannot help but look different from that of other people any more than signatures can. It is worth reflecting that the fact of the unmistakable individuality of each man's signature is one foundation of modern commerce everywhere. To establish the individuality of it one need not write it vertically up the page in letters two inches high. And yet there are only twenty six letters, and everyone else uses them too. David Pye, The Nature and Aesthetics of Design Over-imaginationA fresh focus of power style