("JP")

Alexander is inspired by how design occurs in the natural world. "Things that are good have a certain kind of structure," he told me. "You can't get that structure except dynamically. Period. In nature you've got continuous very-small-feedback-loop adaptation going on, which is why things get to be harmonious. That's why they have the qualities

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The Nobel laureate particle physicist Frank Wilczek once said that beauty exists as a dance between opposite forces. First, he said, beauty benefits from symmetry, which he defined as “change without change.” If you rotate a circle, it remains a circle, just as reversing the sides of an equation still reveals a truth (2+2=4, and 4=2+2). But beauty... See more

Here's why MIT Building 20 could be considered an example of "Nakatomi Space" in real life:●Unconventional Design: Building 20 was a hastily constructed "temporary" structure during World War II, leading to a flexible and adaptable layout that differed from the more rigid designs of traditional academic buildings.1 ●Repurposing and Modification:... See more

Why are rising labor costs expressed as less detail/ornamentation? Some kinds of activities — performing a string quartet is the canonical example — just intrinsically require a certain amount of labor. No amount of economic growth will alter the fact that it takes four musicians about 15 minutes each to play Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. But why does... See more

Applied “framing”: the interface

Most human behavior is strangely path-dependent. It’s significantly affected by strain and heuristics. By the way, if you sent that phone-only response out to my children’s generation, you’d get a 0% response rate because they really, really hate talking on the phone. What you do now is, for anyone under the age of... See more

Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

Thelonious Monk