Less, but better There must be millions less of things, less words, less gestures, less of everything. But every word and every gesture will become more valuable. If we can put it all into perspective we will need less things as a result. Sophie Lovell & Dieter Rams, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Omit needless wordsTo be truly simple makingrestraintproductionwasteminimalism
From consumption to production I see no other solution (political, economic) to the problems of mankind than the formation of small responsible communities involved in permaculture and appropriate technology. I believe that the days of centralised power are numbered, and that a re-tribalisation of society is an inevitable, if sometimes painful, process. The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture societyconsumptionproduction
All-use environments Until the nineteenth century, virtually all cities were “all use” environments. Craft-scale production was typically carried out in a workshop below the home of the craftsperson, which often also served as the site of exchange. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan Small economies productionwork
Biggering I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneed’s I shipped out. I was shipping them forth to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North! I went right on biggering...selling more Thneed’s. And I biggered my money, which everyone needs. Dr. Seuss, The Lorax capitalismproduction
This thing is a Thneed "Look, Lorax," I said. "There's no cause for alarm. I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm. I'm being quite useful. This thing is a Thneed. A Thneed's a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need! It’s a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat. But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that. You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets! Or curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!" The Lorax said, "Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth who would buy that fool Thneed!" Dr. Seuss, The Lorax production
The life-giving continuum In System A, creation and production are organic in character, and are governed by human judgments that emanate from the underlying wholeness of situations, conditions, and surroundings. In System B, the production process is thought of as mechanical. What matters are regulations, procedures, categories, money, efficiency, and profit: all the machinery designed to make society run smoothly, as if society was working as a great machine. The production process is rarely context-sensitive. Wholeness is left out. Identifying these two categories helps us sharpen and clarify the range of differences among ways of creating the environment that exist in different societies. And the two categories serve to identify a dimension of great importance: the dimension that runs from more life-giving to less life-giving. Christopher Alexander, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth lifeproduction
Muda, Muri, Mura An Article mag.toyota.co.uk Eliminating waste is the key to efficiency – in the Toyota Production System, this is termed as: Muda (waste), Muri (overburden), and Mura (irregularity). productionwastemanagementefficiency
Embracing Asymmetrical Design An Article by Ben Nadel www.bennadel.com Humans love symmetry. We find symmetry to be very attractive. Our brains may even be hard-wired through evolution to process symmetrical data more efficiently. So, it's no surprise that, as designers, we try to build symmetry into our product interfaces and layouts. It makes them feel very pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, data is not symmetrical…Once you release a product into "the real world", and users start to enter "real world data" into it, you immediately see that asymmetrical data, shoe-horned into a symmetrical design, can start to look terrible. To fix this, we need to lean into an asymmetric reality. We need to embrace the fact that data is asymmetric and we need to design user interfaces that can expand and contract to work with the asymmetry, not against it. To borrow from Bruce Lee, we need to build user interfaces that act more like water: “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” — Bruce Lee The pernicious issue with pangramsChanging Our Development Mindset datainterfaces