Nowadays, it’s just as important for a science building to behave like a skilled party host. Because scientists believe the best ideas originate in casual conversations that occur in hallways and lounges, informal spaces that encourage sociability and serendipitous encounters are crucial.
Inga Saffron: Changing Skyline: Biology central | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/12/2011
Can’t wait to go back and see the inside of this building. Watching it being constructed the past few years, I’m not the biggest fan of the outside, but the concepts behind the whole package are good.
Source: philly.com
While life may imitate art, it’s not necessarily meant to be displayed as such
Conceptual Suburbia: A Design Project Descends on Levittown - Allison Arieff - NYTimes.com
Fascinating failure to work with “users”
Source: The New York Times
Everyone's an Architect - Architect Magazine
via the IAI list…Interesting how “architecture” has been co-opted, and I’m a part of it.
Starting around 6th grade I wanted to grow up to be an architect. I did some freelance drafting and took a couple classes in high school, but ended up switching my focus to computing after attending the (now no longer state funded) Pa. Governor’s School for IT at Drexel. If not for HCI class there, I might have gone back to architecture.
It’s funny now having gone through the technology curriculum that I wish I’d gone to architecture or some sort of design school. As much as I’ve loved the iSchool, particularly library science, I feel like I missed out on the culture of critique and competitiveness that I’ve only started to get a taste of working @messagefirst and participating in design charrettes here at Drexel.
But I do love the path I’ve taken, and the UX/IxD/IA profession, with all of its passion, energy and identity crises. I’ve definitely used this one-liner before.
I do for large websites what architects do for buildings
— Jorge Arango
Though I’m not sure how often it helps more than confuses people. And ironically I feel like less of an architect after the past year and a half @messagefirst…or maybe less of a draftsperson? I love user research and our rapid prototyping approach, but I miss the nitty-gritty detail of wireframing that I used to do at Digitas Health on my first co-op. The tricky thing about communicating design is if you design something well, it should be relatively invisible. If you don’t call out explicitly why and how the pieces were placed in certain ways and the parameters of their operation, a lot can be lost in the implementation if someone else is doing the implementing. There’s always some degree of loss, but we have to do all we can to push for our designs to be fully realized…at least, in the billable time we have.
