Webdesign as architecture

The history of Western architecture can teach us a lot about the evolution of web design. As forms of art, both are defined by several factors:1. They serve as places where other people go.2. They’re engineered to do this pragmatic job.3. The evolution of technology limits this engineering.4. And yet, they’re definitely still art.

My favorite aspect of websites is their duality: they’re both subject and object at once. In other words, a website creator becomes both author and architect simultaneously. There are endless possibilities as to what a website could be. What kind of room is a website? Or is a website more like a house? A boat? A cloud? A garden? A puddle? Whatever ... See more

This is why websites are so important. They allow the author to create not only works (the “objects”) but also the world (the rooms, the arrangement of rooms, the architecture!). Ideally, the two would inform each other in a virtuous, self-perfecting loop. This can be incredibly nurturing to an artist’s practice.

On the other hand, the notion of the “document” that is intrinsic to web development today is overdetermined by the legacy of print media. The web document is a static, finished artifact that does not bring in dynamic data. This is strange because it lives on a medium that is alive, networked, and dynamic, a medium which we increasingly understand ... See more

What would happen if we stopped treating the web like a blank canvas to paint on, and instead like a material to build with?