Date post: | 17-Aug-2014 |
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Design |
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SOCIAL SPACES ONLINE AND OFF
Lessons from Radical Architects
B=f(P+E)
- Lewin’s Equation
Behavior is a function of a Person and his Environment
You can’t control the person, but you can design the environment to change behavior
The New Third Place?
“All great societies provide informal meeting places, like the Forum in ancient Rome or a contemporary English pub. But since World War II, America has ceased doing so. The neighborhood tavern hasn't followed the middle class out to the suburbs...” -- Ray Oldenburg
A SHORT HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
Cave
Hut
Stone Age City
VITRUVIUS
firmitas, utilitas, venustas : : durability, convenience, beauty
Durability
“Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected” Vitruvius
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel, Japan, survived an earthquakeThe reflecting pool provided a source of water for fire-fighting;Cantilevered floors and balconies provided extra support for the floors;A copper roof, cannot fall on people below the way a tile roof can;Seismic separation joints, located about every 20 m along the building;Tapered walls, thicker on lower floors, increasing their strength;Suspended piping and wiring, instead of being encased in concrete, smooth curves, making them more resistant to fracture.
Technical EarthquakesSlow loading javascript fails on low bandwidth, and can cause users to accidently search for the label inside your search box. Is your site designed to be robust when things break (for example, filter out the label from the query. Or don’t place labels in fields; it reduces usage anyhow.)
I’m searching for “my architect, not
“movies, directors, actors”
Social Earthquakes
If people post jobs in discussion areas, any user can
move them to job board
If people use connection invites to spam/market, they
can be reported.
Prepare for
Technical Tremors Execution Maintenance Scale Bandwidth
Social Faultlines Innocents/Idiots Trolls Spammers Criminals
Convenience
“When the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to use, and when each class of building is assigned to its suitable and appropriate exposure” Vitruvius
Sound familiar? We’re talking
usability!
“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.” Frank Lloyd Wright
Usonian houses were beautiful, human scaled.. And didn’t have closet space. Should we choose beauty over usability sometimes?
Human
Human
The Facebook Inbox is chock full of annoying non-human mails, despite the fact they know who is human and who I am connected to. Not convenient.
Bilbao did not leak. I was so proud.
I call it the "Then What?" Okay, you solved all the problems, you did all the stuff, you made nice, you loved your clients, you loved the materials, you loved the city, you're a good guy, you're a good person... and then what? What do you bring to it?
See his great TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/frank_gehry_asks_then_what.html
Beauty (delight)
“when the appearance of the work is pleasing and in good taste, and when its members are in due proportion according to correct principles of symmetry.” Vitrvius
“Less is more.” ~ Mies
SEAGRAM BUILDING (Philip Johnson did interiors, 1957)
This logical and elegant 38-story skyscraper (525' H) has alternating horizontal bands of bronze plating and bronze-tinted glass and decorative bronze I-beams which emphasize its verticality. Placed to the rear of its site and set back from Park Avenue, it incorporates a large plaza in the front as part of the design--thus avoiding the need for set-backs. It uses granite pillars at the base and has a two-story glass-enclosed lobby.
Seagram Building
New York City
1957
Is this Beautiful?
“Less is a bore.” ~ Venturi
Is this Beautiful?
Do we dictate what is beautiful by constraining
user choice?
Or support passionate use that may not meet our
aesthetic standards?
Beautiful
ConvenientDurable
THE LESSON THAT WASN’TNot everyone is as user-centered as Christopher Alexander
205 Structure Follows Social Spaces
ConflictNo building ever feels right to the people in it unless the physical spaces (defined by columns, walls, and ceilings) are congruent with the social spaces (defined by activities and human groups).
ResolutionA first principle of construction; on no account allow the engineering to dictate the building's form. Place the load bearing elements- the columns and the walls and floors- according to the social spaces of the building; never modify the social spaces to conform to the engineering structure of the building.
Applies directly to Linkedin, Facebook, Mysapce, etc
36. Degrees of publicness
Conflict: People are different, and the way they want to place their houses in a neighborhood is one of the most basic kinds of difference.
Resolution: Make a clear distinction between three kinds of homes―those on quiet backwaters, those on busy streets, and those that are more or less in-between. Make sure that those on quiet backwaters are on twisting paths, and that these houses are themselves physically secluded; make sure that the more public houses are on busy streets with many people passing by all day long and that the houses themselves are exposed to the passers-by. The in-between houses may then be located on the paths halfway between the other two. Give every neighborhood about an equal number of these three kinds of homes.Applies directly to Linkedin, Facebook, Mysapce, etc
Most Architects are Artists
Five Principles for a New Architecture:
1. Pilotis elevating the building.2. Free plan
3. Free façade4. Long horizontal windows
5. Roof garden
Le courbusier
What do we do with that?
LESSONSRadical architects and their
Space
You don’t design space, you design objects that then shape the nature of the space
Identity
Activity Relationships
SocialSpace
Sign-
upInvitations
Distribution (Viral)
Humans don’t like empty spaces. Create starter objects – newsfeeds can be good.
Site
Site
Julia Morgan
First Bay Tradition• Natural material
from site• Traditional Craft• Integrate in
surrounds• Each building a
unique work of art
Site=Context
Facebook- Personal LinkedIN - Professional
StructureAnd if you think of Brick, for
instance,and you say to Brick,"What do you want Brick?"And Brick says to you"I like an Arch."And if you say to Brick"Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that?""Brick?"Brick says:"... I like an Arch"”
Email this
Consumer
Broadcaster
Structure of the social network sharing tools affects both reach and relevance. Email is work for user, so value tends to be higher.
Newsfeed, Network Updates
Consumer
Consumer Consumer
Consumer
Consumer
Broadcaster
Sharing with your symetrical network has lower relevance but greater reach
Groups, Asymmetric Follow
spark
Sharing with your asymetrical network is broadcasting; less relevant still but great reach
‘I do not like ducts; I do not like pipes. I hate them really thoroughly, but because I hate them so thoroughly, I feel they have to be given their place. If I just hated them and took no care, I think they would invade the building and completely destroy it.’
The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn, 1962
Servant and Served Spaces
Services (settings, in this case) are
separated from served)
Services intergraded with served is easier to comprehend and
use
Centre Pompidou was designed with services revealed rather than hidden
Revealing things usually only available to employees, such as statistics can provide interest and beauty inherit to the product.
Views
Hey, it’s the Arc de
Triomphe!
Corbu’s surrealist apartment obscured views, rather than framed them to create interest
Views into people’s lives
Views into the service before
you sign up
Proportion
The Key Word is: Proportion. … Relative size, not over-all size, is the factor in determining guidelines which will satisfactorily influence attractive appearance.
Ad out of proportion to content
Ads reflect same sizes and shapes
used in design
Speed
25mph5 mph 60mph
Medieval architecture designed to be walked by, prairie houses to drive by slowly at suburban speeds, and the strip for freeway speeds
Speed
25mph 5 mph60mph
Consider speed of use in design; do not slow interface with details upon sign up, richer interface for where people linger and socialize
Movement
Gehry designed a static building to feel like it’s moving, inspired by dance
Why are our compositions so static? How should the eye move through this?
Games provide hints to new compositions, metaphors for information spaces
Gehry has been inspired recently by fish. What would a website be if it was a fish?
Twistori’s live stream of data reveals and intrigues. Do you need actual movement to engage?
“Modern Systems! Yes indeed! To approach everything in a strictly methodical manner and not to waver a hair’s breath from preconceived patterns, until genius has been strangled to death and joie de vivre stifled by the system– that is the sign of our time.” Camillo Sitte
Page about Christina
Ideas?