It’s so easy now to disseminate ideas on the Internet, and to broadcast your own particular claim to being the originator of an idea. On the other hand, the sheer scale of online textual and pictorial profligacy diminishes the authority of claims to originality. Digital social networks amplify the difficulty we have in identifying the…More
Tag Archives: design
Bauhaus geek
Designed by Walter Gropius and built in 1925-6, the Bauhaus building in Dessau has undergone extensive restoration. Work was completed in 2006 (www.bauhaus-dessau.de). The influence of this design school on architecture, furniture, fashion, photography and education is well documented. No designer is immune from the Bauhaus effect, whether supporting or resisting its respect for the qualities…More
Countercultural values
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak speaks up in favour of countercultural values as contributing factors in Silicon Valley’s commercial successes, and as providing keys to creativity. Thinking for yourself, wearing the clothes you like, dropping out, innovating, and rebelling against conformity go together. Of course, there’s a conflict between the “think different” slogan (promoted by Steve Jobs)…More
De-generation
Occasionally when browsing the Internet I’m struck by the new and unexpected, ie by the sheer quantity of creative production. I’m perhaps of a generation that is still impressed by the volume of newness brought to light by postings on YouTube, Vimeo, TED, music channels, and architectural picture galleries, not to mention presentations of technology…More
Computer-supported collaborative distraction
Communicating with others via laptop, mobile phone or tablet computer while I’m supposed to be listening to a lecture, contributing to a meeting, or socialising face-to-face can be desperately unproductive, and profoundly anti-social. The cure for a wandering mind is to unplug according to recent reports (THE). But social media can nudge the architectural design studio…More
Being practical
The recent raid at Abbottabad has shown President Obama to be a leader capable of decisive action after all, as opposed to just an academic (ie a “dithering nerd-in-chief”), at least according to critical commentators (The Guardian, 7 May 2011, p.21). Having read Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, I’m hard-pressed to think of Obama as an intellectual…More
Wicked problems revisited
The recent book by Evgeny Morozov seeks to deflate the enthusiasm of those who claim that Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools are responsible for social and political transformations of the kind we see in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, and to some extent in Libya. Morozov’s book is entitled The Net Delusion: How Not…More
Design-led research
Design-led research seeks to understand the world through direct intervention by the researcher, rather than detached observation.More