windows
1º2º3º4º
Frosted and transparent
Irwin's window arrangement at the Dia:Beacon.
In addition to managing the flow of people in the spaces of the museum in order to maximize freedom of movement and choice, Irwin also modified the industrial window grids to create perceptual ambiguity, placing transparent glass in the inner four panes while using frosted glass for the outer panes. With this, Irwin solved the problem of either having the windows become a wall of glaring light, if all transparent glass was used, or having them become a claustrophobic muffling of space, if all frosted glass was used. Irwin's windows catch the eye in a back and forth oscillation between distant and proximal focus.
Of the plainest variety
It is unusual to find such mismatched elements on a single facade as this fine stonework coexisting with these stained and rotting shutters, on a house in the fortified town of Feltre, in the northern Italian province of Belluno.
Where considerable labour lies behind the cutting and fitting of the stone, the timber planks have been left in their raw state, with no paint or carved decoration. Even the iron hinges are of the plainest variety.
180. Window Place
Problem
Everybody loves window seats, bay windows, and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn up to them.
Solution
In every room where you spend any length of time during the day, make at least one window into a "window place".
We have lost our sense of intimate life
A Quote by Luis BarragánTake the use of enormous plate windows...they deprive our buildings of intimacy, the effect of shadow and atmosphere. Architects all over the world have been mistaken in the proportions which they have assigned to large plate windows or spaces opening to the outside. We have lost our sense of intimate life, and have become forced to live public lives, essentially away from home.
Craft and Material in Digital Design
A little bit more about the stone
In the documentary Rivers and Tides, artist Andy Goldsworthy repeatedly struggles to stack stones into a sculptural cairn. Over and over the stones fall. Each time, Andy’s sculpture stands a little taller before the moment of failure. At a penultimate moment in the episode, the ever-patient Goldsworthy begins to look exasperated. He’s just staring at the rocks scattered on the ground, studying them intently. A curious passerby has watched him fail a few times, and Andy tells the man, “Every time, I learn a little bit more about the stone. I’m learning how it works.”
It is how we come to understand our medium
There is such a unique quality to experiential learning, through direct experience with a material. It cannot be substituted through lectures or books. It must be felt. It must be earned through time well spent, through making and failing and re-making. It is how we come to understand our medium.
If you’re a digital designer who doesn’t understand basic principles of computer science, or has never written a bit of code, or has never built a website, what are you doing? What can you say about the material you shape?
The idea that designers in the information age shouldn’t waste their time with this skill baffles me. It is woefully misguided advice.
A digital designer who has not learned the nature of their medium is a designer unprepared to argue for their vision. This is a designer who is unable to push back against the criticism of skeptical engineers. This is a designer who risks offering opinions instead of solutions.
If you are crafting experiences in the digital space, you should know what’s required to implement your ideas. You should try implementing it yourself, (if only to build empathy with your developers!)