The Architecture of Ideas

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Richard

I’ve written extensively about how physical spaces influence thinking (e.g. Future Minds, Fast Company etc.), but I didn’t realise until recently just how much research there was on this. For example, Joan Meyers-Levy and Juliet Zhu, two Profs at the University of Minnesota, ran a study that found that high ceilings activated abstract thinking and thoughts of freedom, whereas low ceilings activated concrete thinking and thoughts of confinement. In other words, high ceilings are good for inspiration and big idea generation whereas low ceilings are good for small detail and implementation.

A further twist on this is the idea of cells, hives, dens and clubs espoused by Francis Duffy at DEGW architects. The basic idea here is that hive offices suit routine or low level process work with low levels of social mixing and autonomy, cell offices facilitate focused brain work with little social interaction, den-type offices suit team work and club offices do a little bit of everything.

This possibly explains why my solitary home office is useful for some tasks, my busy boat office for other tasks and the manic café best for something else.

Related.
http://ergo.in/paw_funatwork.html
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/geraldin/Publications/AUIC-final.pdf
http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/offices/facilities4.htm

Future Library

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Richard

I do love this. A Future Library project, created by a Scottish artist called Katie Paterson, has started with the planting of 1,000 trees just outside Oslo in Norway. They will slowly grow and while they do a writer will be invited to contribute a text to the collection each year – for the next 100 years! In the year 2114 the trees will be cut down and will be used to create the paper for the books.

I especially (and obviously) like the idea that someone else thinks that paper will endure another 100 years and also the thought that some of the writers that will contribute works haven’t been born yet.

Some links here with the Clock of the Long Now. Also links with a story (probably untrue) about an New College Oxford planting some oak trees 500 years in advance.

Artist website for future library here.

Article on future library here.

Some great statistics

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Richard

Just playing with some numbers!

Typewriters vs. Computers

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Richard

I like this (from Ryan Adams, the songwriter/musician).

“Your critical mind is an interrupter of your inspired true self. If you are daydreaming and you are in that zone, you have the 300-mile gaze, stuff is coming through, it’s like a scroll. It’s like dictation, it’s an act of faith, it’s like letting myself feel it. On a typewriter, it’s below chest level; you are looking through and beyond the dimension of the page.

On a computer, you will never not look at the screen. You will always follow the cursor. It’s a trap. You are a cat and your computer is a f—ing laser pointer, and you are just following your own trial.”

Daily Telegraph 4 September 2014 (page 25)