my labor day weekend read was john maeda’s incredibly thoughtful the laws of simplicity. the book is quintessential maeda- a very easy, low-key read but extremely provocative and inspiring. maeda uses examples from design, technology, and business to illustrate ten “laws” of simplicity that enable a stronger sense of simplicity in day to day life.

the first law focuses on the removal of clutter and leads into thoughts on organizing to create a sense of order- which makes things feel simpler. the creating a physical space that is simple or minimal is very difficult to do for most people- most either have too small of a space or it’s a space that feels better with lots of objects in it. I strive every day to keep my place clean, simple, and with little clutter, but it’s extremely difficult. while physical space is difficult to keep simple, virtual space is a very easy medium to reduce visual clutter and create order in- you just need to know how to reduce the amount of noise on your screen.

maeda’s third law is oriented towards using efficient organization to create a sense of simplicity in day to day life. this is relatively easy to do in all mediums, but organizing in digital space is very accomplishable- it’s more of finding which programs work well and systematically breaking up information between them. 4 to do list apps can create redundant or missed information, but understanding which information resides where or having the apps communicate can create a simple and efficient system.

here are some programs and sites that I’ve found to help me infuse some simplicity into my digital space:

_browsers
I’ve always gravitated to minimal, white browser themes. if you reduce the amount of visual noise on your screen, the information and designs that you’re looking at are that much more potent. I think smoke for firefox was the first one I found- I love the icons, especially the versions with the white body, but the scroll bar was a little “erratic”. opera had a lot of very elegant, minimal skins but I kept on running into problems with the browser’s functionality with certain sites. what I use most these days is the minimal theme for chrome. chrome is blistering fast, and google labs have been up to a lot of interesting html5 experiments that extend the limits of browsers, like the wilderness downtown. it will be interesting to see what they develop next. there have also been a lot of interesting and useful extensions written for it that integrate your browser with other sites like delicious, tumblr, twitter, and google calendar.

_calendars
calendars are basic- they just organize future events into a recognizable system. some do this better than others, but I’m a huge fan of google calendars. categorizing different events is incredibly easy, inviting people to events works just like outlook, and syncing with an android phone couldn’t be simpler. the integration with google tasks is fantastic, I just wish google tasks was a little stronger…

_to do lists
I am a chronic list maker. my to do lists get fairly massive, and it helps to have a program keep them organized. I’ve used google tasks a lot- it hangs out on your gmail page and coordinates with google calendars nicely. it can have multiple lists- which is great for idea tracking as well as to do lists. gTasks is a helpful little android app that will sync your list on your phone with your main list. I like almost anything google puts out, but in this case I think google task’s graphics fall a little short. it’s difficult to organize items within your lists, and in both gmail and calendars the lists are too small to really understand what you need to get done that day. I think it’s really a problem with the interface, which is really unusual for google.
maeda created a little program that mimics his post-it organizational system he describes in his book. I haven’t played around with it much, but it’s an interesting concept that organizes your lists in to sublists and then creates efficient workflows through them… more to come as I play around with it more.
but recently I’ve been using teuxdeux quite a lot. it’s beautifully designed, you can get a clear idea of what needs to happen that day, and it’s getting more and more adjustable. the iphone app is already out, and I can’t wait for one for android. but it’s definitely worth watching the demo video to see how elegantly simple a to do list app can be.

_email
every time I get an email from someone@yahoo.com or even somebody@hotmail.com I feel bad for them. they must have absolutely no idea how well gmail works.

_splash page
it might seem a little myopic to include a splash page as a time saver, but a lot of people will just go to the same site over and over again when they open up their browser. that works for some, but not all- if you have multiple sites you visit a lot, you should check out myfav.es. myfav.es acts as a launch pad for multiple sites in a similar way some browsers do, but in this case they’ve created juicy icons for most popular sites. it’s a simple, minimal interface that helps direct you to your most visited sites on the web. and there’s a great chrome extension that will pull up your myfav.es page every time you open a new tab.

I’d love to hear about more apps, sites, and extensions that are beautifully functional- if you have some suggestions, go ahead and post them in the comments. thanks!

I’ve always been amazed that for how popular lofts are that there hasn’t been a more rigorous investigation into what lofts are.  at least here in LA, developers were happy to crank out boxy, double high spaces with wire guardrails and call it a day.  my impression was these faux-lofts weren’t nearly as marketable as the more authentic, repurposed variety.

there are two other elements of lofts that work incredibly well with the qualities that developers seemed to identify to create extremely compelling as residential spaces.  one is the unbelievable suppleness of the materials- the rich textures of brick, the aromas of unfinished wood, and the sensuous smoothness of waxed concrete.  with these materials, a true loft space affects all of your senses in a richer, more palpable way than the gyp board and carpet of faux-lofts.

but another aspect of the loft that is inherently missed with a developer-fabricated space is the sense of history that comes with repurposing a space.  I worked for a cinematographer in the bowery who had this amazing ancient elevator that was the primary access for his third floor loft.  watching the floor slabs pass by through a flimsy metal gate, you were very well aware that the spartan design was not intended for residential use.  while a typical house can feel old, there is something about an architectural feature that was clearly built for another purpose that forces an acknowledgement of its history.

though it may not have been their intention, I think that the painters workshop by A31 is fairly successful at manufacturing a space that feels similar to a repurposed one.  the tall ceilings, semi-classical form, heavy window mullions, and the exposed concrete floor slabs all contribute successfully to an industrial feel, but it’s the board-formed concrete that really seems to resonate.  of all architectural materials, there are very few that feel as handmade as board-formed concrete.  the rough imprints of the boards might not be “old” themselves, but they create a connection to the process of building in a way that more historic buildings do.

by highlighting the handcrafted nature of their work, A31 has successfully created a new space that has the similar quality of a repurposed, older one.  the supple material choices and architectural decisions certainly help create the feel of a repurposed loft, but it’s the anachronistic reminder that buildings are hand crafted objects that make this space resonate in a way that other fabricated lofts cannot.

::from kitsune noir

that being said, I was a little skeptical when I saw their post on google’s new android app, open spot. open spot uses google maps technology interactively, in a somewhat similar way to latitude, except instead of getting realtime info on where your friends are, you get info on what parking spaces are available. open spot relies on users to mark a parking spot that’s open, either when they leave it or if they see one available. for every spot a user marks, they get one “karma point”, so they can keep track of how many spots they’ve marked.

at this point I have a mighty “2″ karma points.

typically I loathe anything that makes driving easier or more convenient. but I was still curious about this software- I was interested to see how the hive mind would utilize it and how well it would work. plus, driving is a reality in most places in the country, so if there’s an app that can help minimize unnecessary exhaust from searching for a parking spot, wouldn’t that be a good thing? the people at planet green would say so- they ran an article on how to parallel park, with the intent to make parking more efficient and cut down on emissions. if the seconds saved parking more quickly are a benefit, so are the minutes spent looking for a spot.

so open spot could help with emissions reductions… if people were actually using it. I live in LA which, along with houston, is probably the city in most dire need of open spot- and I still haven’t seen an available parking spot posted by someone else. I’m not sure how many people in LA are on android phones (open spot was created by google labs, and isn’t available for any other platform yet), and the first blog post I saw about it was only three weeks ago, but I wonder if there are other factors at work.

having worked in santa monica for almost 5 years, close to 2 of which I was without company parking, my experience was that your regular parking spots were a coveted, closely guarded secret. the days I did have to drive (most of the time I would ride my bike), I would find myself seeing the same cars cruising around the same areas looking for an empty spot. if I was approaching one of my regular parking zones, I would look around to see if there was anyone around, and wait before actually parking.

the problem with swarm intelligence, is that the swarm needs to want to share that information. in the early days of limewire, you could opt not to share any of your files. people uploading your files would effect your download speeds, so many people chose not to share anything. at one point, there was literally nothing being shared except for viruses- which almost created a collapse of the system.

this phenomenon is similar to something I was talking to my brother rob about last weekend. creating user incentives is something that he’s written about in the past, and is an issue he’s involved with gearburger. gearburger is working really well for the people who use it- too well, so that people don’t want to share the source of their time-sensitive gear deals and increase competition. user incentives work best is situations where popularity is an unequivocal benefit- and where the users don’t feel like their secret stashes, whether they’re deals on equipment, bandwidth, or parking spots, are being compromised.

so, assuming that people using open spot is a good thing, what are ways to incentivize users sharing their parking spots in traffic heavy locations like LA? leave suggestions in the comments.

arianna huffington recently claimed that the BP oil spill is the first environmental crisis where polling shows that the US population hasn’t gotten greener. 3 mile island, exxon valdez, and even hurricane katrina had a correlating public shift towards more environmentally-conscious policies- but there hasn’t been a similar shift after the BP oil spill.

both of these phenomena seem to indicate that sustainability as it relates to design and politics could be at a tipping point- either the tide of public interest has hit its high mark and will recede to a more complacent position towards the environment or this movement will continue where previous ones slowed.

if interest in sustainability is to increase and we are to endeavor to live more harmoniously with our environment, it will be in part by designers who masterfully fold sustainability into their craft so effortlessly it couldn’t have been imagined any other way and excels because of it. chris jamison’s plywood office is one practice that does just that- using sustainability as a catalyst for great design, with everything from the strata of bamboo plywood in the stripes coffee table to tree-less hammock hammy.

wandering through dwell on design, plywood office was a stand out- it was the most compelling work of the show, great design that was spawned by both functionality and an ethos. if we are to become even more sustainable as a nation and as a planet, it will be because of more designers like plywood office.

::from m.ammoth.us

Technorati Tags: architecture

New York Sun Works teamed with Arup and The Vertical Farm Project to create an interesting and architecturally well thought out entry for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge. the Vertically Integrated Greenhouse solves two problems at once: by creating a facade system that incorporates agriculture into the skin food is grown within a building which reduces energy associated with transporting produce and solar heat gain is mitigated by the plants themselves. it’s an interesting idea, and creates a techy third option to the two methods of integrating agriculture into buildings, the rooftop garden and the enclosed agricultural zone.

while it’s a very interesting idea, I think it’s an idea that merits a 30 page essay of explanation as opposed to several paragraphs. some issues, like the crop-curtain wall integration, are very well thought out but the VIG is such a radical concept it almost poses more questions than it answers- while you might be able to put a $50 per square meter per year benefit to human productivity because of cleaner air, wouldn’t that cost be mitigated by the distraction of having agricultural workers maintaining the crops? would you really want farm integrated with your office? how does the energy reduction of the crops compare to energy costs of a hydroponic system of that scale and that inefficient layout?

the Vertically Integrated Greenhouse is a provocative project and an important one in how it could change the typical perception of agriculture and architecture. my suspicion is that farmers, architects, and others more directly involved with these fields are curious about v2.0

from ::cityfarmer.

local code’s entry for the WPA 2.0 competition is an incredible use of grasshopper and ArcGIS to locate publicly owned abandoned sites in major cities across the US and design a landscape intervention that responds to solar, thermal, and water issues that’s specific to each site.

it’s an incredible use of grasshopper as an analysis tool and seems to pose the question- if grasshopper can create a design response for environmental data for multiple sites, could it also create a design response for environmental, programmatic, code, structural, and any other data for one site? could this be the dawn of an MVRDV-esq software that actually works?

more specific analysis:

from ::derivativecontent.

Technorati Tags: grasshopper, ArcGIS, localCode, sustainable, WPA2.0

california does better than the national average with a 66 – 33 split, but new york is planning on diverting more than 50% of their stimulus package to improving transit… the most progressive of all the states to announce their plans so far.

from ::dc.streetsblog.org

Technorati Tags: california, new york, transportation

from ::BLDGBLOG

so if you’re not used to the interface and don’t want to bother learning it- there’s help. whatrevitwants posted a little work around that allows you use the revit 2009 interface in 2010. I actually found this when I was working on a machine in a different office and wanted to get back to the 2010 interface… this post is pretty helpful if you’re trying to do that as well.

from ::whatrevitwants