1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
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  3. Abo, Akinori 9
  4. aesthetics 19
  5. agile 30
  6. Albers, Josef 17
  7. Alexander, Christopher 135
  8. Alexander, Scott 5
  9. Allsopp, John 4
  10. Ammer, Ralph 6
  11. Anderson, Gretchen 7
  12. anxiety 9
  13. Appleton, Maggie 5
  14. Aptekar-Cassels, Wesley 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Auping, Michael 6
  21. Aurelius, Marcus 14
  22. Bachelard, Gaston 12
  23. Baker, Nicholson 10
  24. beauty 58
  25. Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 7
  26. Bell, Larry 3
  27. Bjarnason, Baldur 5
  28. Blake, William 5
  29. blogging 21
  30. body 11
  31. Boeing, Geoff 7
  32. boredom 9
  33. Botton, Alain de 38
  34. Brand, Stewart 4
  35. Bringhurst, Robert 16
  36. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  37. Broskoski, Charles 6
  38. brutalism 7
  39. building 16
  40. bureaucracy 12
  41. Burnham, Bo 9
  42. business 15
  43. Byron, Lord 14
  44. Cagan, Marty 6
  45. Calvino, Italo 21
  46. Camus, Albert 13
  47. care 6
  48. Carruth, Shane 15
  49. Cegłowski, Maciej 6
  50. Cervantes, Miguel de 7
  51. chance 11
  52. change 16
  53. Chiang, Ted 4
  54. Chimero, Frank 17
  55. choice 8
  56. cities 51
  57. Clark, Robin 3
  58. Cleary, Thomas 8
  59. Cleary, J.C. 8
  60. code 20
  61. collaboration 16
  62. collections 31
  63. Collison, Simon 3
  64. color 23
  65. commonplace 10
  66. communication 31
  67. community 7
  68. complexity 11
  69. connection 24
  70. constraints 25
  71. construction 9
  72. content 9
  73. Corbusier, Le 13
  74. Coyier, Chris 4
  75. craft 65
  76. creativity 58
  77. crime 9
  78. Critchlow, Tom 5
  79. critique 10
  80. Cross, Nigel 12
  81. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  82. css 11
  83. culture 13
  84. curiosity 11
  85. cycles 7
  86. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  87. darkness 28
  88. Darwin, Will 10
  89. data 8
  90. death 38
  91. Debord, Guy 6
  92. decisions 9
  93. design 131
  94. details 30
  95. Dickinson, Emily 9
  96. Dieste, Eladio 4
  97. discovery 9
  98. doors 7
  99. Dorn, Brandon 11
  100. drawing 23
  101. Drucker, Peter F. 15
  102. Duany, Andres 18
  103. Eatock, Daniel 4
  104. economics 13
  105. efficiency 7
  106. Eisenman, Peter 8
  107. Eliot, T.S. 14
  108. emotion 8
  109. ending 14
  110. engineering 11
  111. Eno, Brian 4
  112. ethics 14
  113. euphony 38
  114. Evans, Benedict 4
  115. evolution 9
  116. experience 14
  117. farming 8
  118. fashion 11
  119. features 25
  120. feedback 6
  121. flaws 10
  122. Flexner, Abraham 8
  123. food 16
  124. form 18
  125. Fowler, Martin 4
  126. Franklin, Ursula M. 30
  127. friendship 6
  128. fun 7
  129. function 31
  130. games 13
  131. gardens 26
  132. Garfield, Emily 4
  133. Garfunkel, Art 6
  134. geography 8
  135. geometry 18
  136. goals 9
  137. Gombrich, E. H. 4
  138. goodness 12
  139. Graham, Paul 37
  140. graphics 13
  141. Greene, Erick 6
  142. Hamming, Richard 45
  143. happiness 17
  144. Harford, Tim 4
  145. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  146. Hayes, Brian 28
  147. heat 7
  148. Heinrich, Bernd 7
  149. Herbert, Frank 4
  150. Heschong, Lisa 27
  151. Hesse, Herman 6
  152. history 13
  153. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  154. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  155. home 15
  156. Hoy, Amy 4
  157. Hoyt, Ben 5
  158. html 11
  159. Hudlow, Gandalf 4
  160. humanity 16
  161. humor 6
  162. Huxley, Aldous 7
  163. hypermedia 22
  164. i 18
  165. ideas 19
  166. identity 33
  167. images 10
  168. industry 9
  169. information 42
  170. infrastructure 17
  171. innovation 14
  172. interaction 10
  173. interest 10
  174. interfaces 36
  175. intuition 8
  176. invention 10
  177. Irwin, Robert 65
  178. Isaacson, Walter 28
  179. Ishikawa, Sara 33
  180. iteration 13
  181. Ive, Jonathan 6
  182. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  183. Jacobs, Jane 54
  184. Jacobs, Alan 5
  185. Jobs, Steve 20
  186. Jones, Nick 5
  187. Kahn, Louis 4
  188. Kakuzō, Okakura 23
  189. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  190. Keith, Jeremy 6
  191. Keller, Jenny 10
  192. Kelly, Kevin 3
  193. Keqin, Yuanwu 8
  194. Ketheswaran, Pirijan 6
  195. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  196. Kitching, Roger 7
  197. Klein, Laura 4
  198. Kleon, Austin 13
  199. Klinkenborg, Verlyn 24
  200. Klyn, Dan 20
  201. knowledge 28
  202. Kohlstedt, Kurt 11
  203. Kramer, Karen L. 10
  204. Krishna, Golden 10
  205. Kuma, Kengo 18
  206. language 20
  207. learning 29
  208. life 59
  209. light 31
  210. loneliness 12
  211. love 25
  212. Lovell, Sophie 16
  213. Lupton, Ellen 11
  214. Luu, Dan 8
  215. Lynch, Kevin 12
  216. MacIver, David R. 8
  217. MacWright, Tom 5
  218. Magnus, Margaret 12
  219. making 77
  220. management 14
  221. Manaugh, Geoff 27
  222. Markson, David 16
  223. Mars, Roman 13
  224. material 39
  225. math 16
  226. McCarter, Robert 21
  227. meaning 33
  228. media 16
  229. melancholy 51
  230. memory 28
  231. metaphor 10
  232. metrics 19
  233. microsites 49
  234. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  235. Mills, C. Wright 9
  236. minimalism 10
  237. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  238. Mod, Craig 15
  239. modularity 6
  240. Mollison, Bill 31
  241. morality 8
  242. Murakami, Haruki 21
  243. music 16
  244. Müller, Boris 7
  245. Naka, Toshiharu 8
  246. names 11
  247. Naskrecki, Piotr 5
  248. nature 51
  249. networks 15
  250. Noessel, Christopher 7
  251. notetaking 34
  252. novelty 10
  253. objects 15
  254. order 10
  255. ornament 9
  256. Orwell, George 7
  257. Ott, Matthias 4
  258. ownership 6
  259. Pallasmaa, Juhani 41
  260. Palmer, John 8
  261. patterns 11
  262. Patton, James L. 9
  263. Pawson, John 21
  264. perception 22
  265. perfection 7
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  267. Perrine, John D. 9
  268. Petroski, Henry 24
  269. philosophy 6
  270. photography 20
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  272. Pinker, Steven 8
  273. place 14
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  275. Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth 18
  276. poetry 13
  277. politics 9
  278. Pollan, Michael 6
  279. practice 10
  280. problems 31
  281. process 22
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  286. progress 16
  287. Pye, David 42
  288. quality 25
  289. questions 8
  290. Radić, Smiljan 20
  291. Rams, Dieter 16
  292. Rao, Venkatesh 14
  293. reading 16
  294. reality 13
  295. Reichenstein, Oliver 5
  296. religion 11
  297. Rendle, Robin 12
  298. repair 28
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  300. Reveal, James L. 4
  301. Richards, Melanie 3
  302. Richie, Donald 10
  303. Rougeux, Nicholas 4
  304. Rowe, Peter G. 10
  305. Rupert, Dave 4
  306. Ruskin, John 5
  307. Satyal, Parimal 9
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  309. Sayers, Dorothy 32
  310. Schaller, George B. 7
  311. Schwulst, Laurel 5
  312. science 17
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  314. Sennett, Richard 45
  315. senses 11
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  317. Shakespeare, William 4
  318. Shorin, Toby 8
  319. silence 9
  320. Silverstein, Murray 33
  321. Simms, Matthew 19
  322. Simon, Paul 6
  323. simplicity 14
  324. Singer, Ryan 12
  325. skill 17
  326. Sloan, Robin 5
  327. Smith, Cyril Stanley 29
  328. Smith, Justin E. H. 6
  329. Smith, Rach 4
  330. socializing 7
  331. society 23
  332. software 66
  333. solitude 12
  334. Somers, James 8
  335. Sorkin, Michael 56
  336. sound 14
  337. space 20
  338. Speck, Jeff 18
  339. speech 6
  340. spirit 10
  341. streets 10
  342. structure 13
  343. Strunk, William 15
  344. Ström, Matthew 13
  345. style 30
  346. Sun, Chuánqí 15
  347. symbols 12
  348. systems 18
  349. Sōetsu, Yanagi 34
  350. Sōseki, Natsume 8
  351. Tanaka, Tomoyuki 9
  352. Tanizaki, Jun'ichirō 15
  353. taste 10
  354. Taylor, Dorian 16
  355. teaching 21
  356. teamwork 16
  357. technology 41
  358. texture 7
  359. thinking 30
  360. Thoreau, Henry David 8
  361. time 54
  362. Tolkien, J.R.R. 6
  363. tools 32
  364. touch 8
  365. transportation 16
  366. Trombley, Nick 44
  367. truth 15
  368. Tufte, Edward 31
  369. Turrell, James 6
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  371. understanding 32
  372. urbanism 68
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  375. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène 4
  376. vision 7
  377. visualization 34
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  382. Wang, Shawn 6
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  386. Webb, Matt 14
  387. Wechler, Lawrence 37
  388. whimsy 11
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  390. Wirth, Niklaus 6
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  393. Woolf, Virginia 11
  394. words 35
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  397. Wurman, Richard Saul 18
  398. www 88
  399. Yamada, Kōun 5
  400. Yamashita, Yuhki 4
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  403. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
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  • Assemblages

    Radić's texts are almost always assemblages of several pieces or paragraphs that, although written by an architect, do not attempt to refer to a particular project or work (and if they do, it is always laterally, avoiding explanations of the how and the why, or demonstrations and apologies).

    Like notes from a fragmentary diary or a review of a collection of memories, at times they share the melancholy tone of the writings by Aldo Rossi and at other times they recall the obscure density of John Hejduk's poems.

    — Patricio Mardones

    Smiljan Radić, Every So Often a Talking Dog Appears
    1. ​​Fragments​​
    2. ​​Compositions of desire​​
    • i
    • writing
  • Its place in the web of nature

    This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.

    Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa, A Pattern Language
    1. ​​Crafting repair​​
    • i
    • making
    • nature
  • The lightnings trembled

    And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
    And in his Soul a vain repentance,
    And evil dread so ill dissembled,
    That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

    Lord Byron, Prometheus
    • i
    • defiance
    • silence
  • A pair of ragged claws

    I should have been a pair of ragged claws
    Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

    T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
    • i
  • Nodal points

    I started thinking about all the other important “nodal points” (I don’t know what else to call this) of people, places, books, albums, websites, etc. that all played a part in shaping who I am as a person and what I think is important. These points are a combination of seeking things out myself and getting a recommendation that felt like it was actually for me. A mixture of both passive and active knowledge acquisition.

    ultimately, it's the totality of those “nodal points” that indicate one’s own unique perspective. It doesn’t matter if you specifically sought out the nodal point or not, it’s the recognition that counts. When you encounter a piece of life-changing information (no matter how large the change part is), you are simultaneously discovering and creating “yourself,” becoming incrementally more complete. Your perspective (where your gaze is directed) is made up of a meandering line through these points. Learning (or maybe some precursor to learning) is a lot about developing the intuition to recognize when something you find in the world is going to be a nodal point for you.

    Charles Broskoski, On Motivation
    1. ​​barnsworthburning.net​​
    • identity
    • networks
    • information
    • i
  • And thus the heart will break

    They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:
    The tree will wither long before it fall:
    The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;
    The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall
    In massy hoariness; the ruined wall
    Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;
    The bars survive the captive they enthral;
    The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;
    And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:

    Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
    1. ​​Scenery​​
    2. ​​A little act of hope​​
    • time
    • love
    • melancholy
    • i
  • Fragments

    These fragments I have shored against my ruins

    T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
    1. ​​Assemblages​​
    2. ​​Extract (n)​​
    • i
  • The innocence of the eye

    The perception of solid form is entirely a matter of experience. We see nothing but flat colors; and it is only by a series of experiments that we find out that a stain of black or grey indicates the dark side of a solid substance... The whole technical power of painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye; that is to say, of a sort of childish perception of these flat stains of color, merely as such, without consciousness of what they signify, as a blind man would see them if suddenly gifted with sight.

    John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing
    1. ​​The skill of perception​​
    2. ​​the innocent i​​
    • i
    • seeing
    • perception
  • Five barns worth burning

    I walked around with a map, penciling in X’s wherever there was a barn or shed. For the next three days, I covered four kilometers in all four directions. Living toward the outskirts of town, there are still a good many farmers in the vicinity. So it came to a considerable number of barns—sixteen altogether.

    I carefully checked the condition of each of these, and from the sixteen I eliminated all those where there were houses in the immediate proximity or greenhouses alongside. I also eliminated those in which there were farm implements or chemicals or signs that they were still in active use. I didn’t imagine he’d want to burn tools or fertilizer. That left five barns.

    Five barns worth burning.

    Haruki Murakami, Barn Burning
    1. ​​barnsworthburning.net​​
    • i
  • A blue glow

    The neurons that do expire are the ones that made imitation possible. When you are capable of skillful imitation, the sweep of choices before you is too large; but when your brain loses its spare capacity, and along with it some agility, some joy in winging it, and the ambition to do things that don't suit it, then you finally have to settle down to do well the few things that your brain really can do well - the rest no longer seems pressing and distracting, because it is now permanently out of reach. The feeling that you are stupider than you were is what finally interests you in the really complex subjects of life: in change, in experience, in the ways other people have adjusted to disappointment and narrowed ability. You realize that you are no prodigy, your shoulders relax, and you begin to look around you, seeing local color unrivaled by blue glows of algebra and abstraction.

    Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine
    • i
    • creativity
    • thinking
    • life
  • A distant fire

    I am a distant fire and a far-off sword.

    Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
    • i
  • I keep getting older

    Every morning, I still run past those five barns. Not one of them has yet burned down. Nor do I hear of any barn fires. Come December, the birds strafe overhead. And I keep getting older. Although just now and then, in the depths of the night, I’ll think about barns burning to the ground.

    Haruki Murakami, Barn Burning
    • i
  • The first in ages

    “Can I ask you one more question?”
    “Sure.”
    “Have you already decided on the next barn to burn?”
    This caused him to furrow up wrinkles between his eyes; then he inhaled audibly through his nose. “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I have.”

    I sipped the last of my beer and said nothing.

    “A great barn. The first barn really worth burning in ages. Fact is, I went and checked it out only today.”
    “Which means, it must be nearby.”
    “Very near,” he confirmed.

    So ended our barn talk.

    Haruki Murakami, Barn Burning
    • i
  • Mind of no mind

    To you, mind of no mind, in whom the timeless way was born.

    Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building
    • zen
    • i
  • These loose notes

    These loose notes are one possible description of our city. A city that, as in Constantin Cavafy's poem The City, is and always will be the same, in the same city again.

    Smiljan Radić, A Guide to Abandonment
    • cities
    • identity
    • i
  • Umbrella

    Nick on the Eishin campus

    From the curator's visit to a place that captures all the beauty, depth, and wholeness it attempts.

    Christopher Alexander, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth
    • i
  • Kicks Condor: barnsworthburning

    An Article by Kicks Condor
    www.kickscondor.com
    Screenshot of www.kickscondor.com on 2021-08-29 at 11.57.31 AM.png

    Directories aren’t surging. There isn’t this nascent directory movement fomenting - ready to take on the world. Directories aren’t trending.

    But there is a certainly really sweet little directory community now. From the Marijn-inspired stuff listed in Directory Uprising to the link-sharing ‘yesterweb’ collected around sadgrl.online - or the originals at Indieseek and i.webthings.

    Barnsworthburning (by Nick Trombley) is a very formidable addition to this community - a clean, multilayered design and an innovative bidirectional index.

    1. ​​barnsworthburning.net​​
    2. ​​Some Things: Laurel Schwulst​​
    • notetaking
    • microsites
    • i
    • indexes

    Just want to say: HOLY SHIT I WAS LINKED BY THE KICKS CONDOR. And not just as a "here check out this cool link", but as a thoughtfully written review that describes much of this site better than I could myself.

    This is a big deal for me.

  • That the mind may not be taxed

    A Quote by Thomas Farnaby
    mycommonplacebook.org

    In order that the mind may not be taxed, moreover, by the manifold and confused reading of so many such things, and in order to prevent the escape of something valuable that we have read, heard, or discovered through the process of thinking itself, it will be found very useful to entrust to notebooks...those things which seem noteworthy and striking.

    • commonplace
    • i
    • memory
    • thinking
    • notetaking

See also:
  1. thinking
  2. identity
  3. notetaking
  4. creativity
  5. life
  6. seeing
  7. perception
  8. making
  9. nature
  10. zen
  11. cities
  12. time
  13. love
  14. melancholy
  15. writing
  16. defiance
  17. silence
  18. commonplace
  19. memory
  20. microsites
  21. indexes
  22. networks
  23. information
  1. Haruki Murakami
  2. Christopher Alexander
  3. T.S. Eliot
  4. Smiljan Radić
  5. Lord Byron
  6. Nicholson Baker
  7. John Ruskin
  8. Murray Silverstein
  9. Sara Ishikawa
  10. Miguel de Cervantes
  11. Thomas Farnaby
  12. Kicks Condor
  13. Charles Broskoski