A rain chain in winter; Dresden Kunsthof Passage; Drainage planters near Pike Place Market in Seattle.
If there is a larger takeaway here perhaps it is about paths of least resistance, with regards to both the actual flow of water and design decisions. On the one hand, it is easy to blindly follow regional precedents and traditions with long histories (or grab whatever is handy at the hardware store). On the other hand, sometimes it makes sense to take a step back and decide consciously how to reveal (or conceal) a natural process.
Medusa from A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast by Philip Henry Gosse, 1853.
Philip Henry Gosse’s Stunning 19th-Century Illustrations of Coastal Creatures and Reflections on the Delicate Kinship of Life
“These objects are, it is true, among the humblest of creatures that are endowed with organic life… Here we catch the first kindling of that spark, which glows into so noble a flame in the Aristotles, the Newtons, and the Miltons of our heaven-gazing race.”
Rain chains are a beautiful and functional alternative to traditional, closed gutter downspouts. Guiding rain water visibly down chains or cups from the roof to the ground, rain chains transform a plain gutter downspout into a pleasing water feature. From the soft tinkling of individual droplets to the soothing rush of white water, they are a treat to listen to.
Rain chains (‘kusari doi’ in Japanese) in concept are not a new idea. For hundreds of years, the Japanese have used the roof of their homes to collect water, transporting it downward with chains and finally depositing the rain water into large barrels for household water usage. Japanese temples often incorporate quite ornate and large rain chains into their design.
How do we know what’s the right direction [for computers to take]?
Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done, and then trying to bring those things in to what you’re doing.
Picasso had a saying: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” And we (at Apple) have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. And I think part of what made Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to have been the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hasn’t been for computer science, these people would all be doing amazing things in life in other fields. And they brought with them — we all brought to this effort — a very liberal arts air, a very liberal arts attitude, that we wanted to pull in the best we saw in these other fields into ours.