the politics of design – the T Character revisited

Topic – how to be interdisciplinary – and more Quick recap. For some time I have been interested in the notion of the “T character” – an attitude or disposition, a skill set, that facilitates the kind of interdisciplinary practice that is the heart of good design, bridging the different expertise and interests in a…

human centered design – the "T" character

This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Real world problems don’t fit into neat disciplinary categories. We hear much about the importance of interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary work. (Multidisciplinary implies keeping the disciplinary distinctions we need to bridge?)…

Applied Archaeology — Applied Humanities

Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University Newsletter 2024 Stanford Archaeology Center Archaeological mission and vision? Ivory tower as lighthouse? In a recent newsletter for Stanford Archaeology Center [Link] I talked of slow archaeology, of the benefits of long-running projects that afford time for unfolding reflection. Three interrelated projects remain ongoing. A kind of archaeological triptych. —…

concepts

page in construction Part of an outline of Research Creation [Link] as methodology. The term concept is often used quite loosely to refer to something conceived in the mind, a thought, an abstract or generic idea. I prefer a pragmatic use of the term as tool or tactic. Concept is here close to the term…

returning

The past comes back to haunt in all sorts of ways. This is a key feature of the archaeological imagination. It may be something like “this happened here”, or “this was the way it was, and still is”. And, as archaeologists, as all of us do – we return, revisit, rehearse, reiterate, repeat. This familiar…