("JP")

For one, you get “multiplayer”, Google-docs-style collaboration for free. At Dynamicland computing is social like cooking is social. It’s also physical like cooking is physical. You’re not seated in front of a single-person screen, but walking around an open space, using a range of tools. It’s incredibly natural to walk up to someone “cooking” up... See more

The reason I’ve just made you read a thousand words about trees (bet you didn’t think you were going to do that today) is that it illustrates the problems of taking a complex system and applying a simple process to it in order to optimize a single metric.

Which brings us back to business: there are a huge number of complex systems in a business,... See more

“What it would be like to live in a mental world where one’s reasons for making something functionally, and one’s reasons for making something a certain shape, or in a certain ornamental way are coming from precisely the same place in you?

Precisely the same place.”

— Christopher Alexander

I’m not sure how safe Rocinha would have been if I had wandered there on my own. But from the little that I’ve seen, they are rich in culture and hold strong community values.

Living in New York City, the city is also densely packed, yet we exist independently in our own spaces and spend a lifetime not knowing our immediate neighbors. While in... See more

The flat layout of the building made for constant chance encounters in the hallways. Vertical buildings create rigid boundaries, since floors and stairs are harder barriers, so the horizontal footprint caused people to run into dozens of others throughout a typical day. From the air, it looked like an oblique letter E (with a little extra E), and... See more

Hobie is both anarchist and a punk, and the traits you mentioned of anarchists is likely more applicable to punks, given they are all about counterculture. Ironically, punks and anarchists often are quite caring or collectivist because they recognize the need for human connection and co-operation. They just reject the top-down hierarchical... See more

There's this concept called "vernacular architecture" that refers to a style or design developed from local needs, using local materials, and reflecting local traditions. In contrast to formal architect's academic professionalization, the vernacular architect actually isn't an architect at all , by modern definitions.