We can build software to eat the world, or software to feed it. And if we are going to feed it, it will require a different approach to design, one which optimizes for a different type of growth, and one that draws upon—and rewards—the humility of the designers who participate within it.
It was then I realised architecture is not about creating structures that are aesthetically pleasing or merely functional: it’s about designing spaces that evoke emotion and resonate with the human spirit. The Farnsworth House may have been a triumph of modernist design, but it lacked the warmth and humanity architecture should embody.
To call iBooks a throwaway “feature” of iOS is too dismissive, but the output does not give off the impression of a thing that must exist in the world, and must exist at the highest level of grace.
Figma acquisition shows how hard it is to turn money into software. You'd think for $20B you could build something as good as Figma yourself, but you can't. Software is art.
My father, the late, great Rashmi Thakrar, who passed away too, too soon, believed that “for something to truly succeed, it must have a little poetry at the heart of it.” This idea steers us in perhaps every single one of our endeavours.