Last Friday Bill Cockayne (Stanford Humanities Lab Assoc. Director) and I (also in my role as co-Director of Stanford Humanities Lab) were at the local office of DaimlerChrysler – RTNA (Research and Technology North America). In response to their request, we were proposing a project to research the future of car culture, with a focus…
design matters
Design – a question of form following function? Or much more?
Trouble at the Design Museum in London. This is how The Telegraph describes it The Design Museum in London has been thrown into crisis by the sudden resignation of its chairman, James Dyson, in protest at what he sees as the museum’s misguided pursuit of empty style over substance. In a terse letter to his…
Why fakes and counterfeit pasts are fascinating
A couple of things last week have got me thinking about an old fascination of mine – fakes and ideas of authenticity. My angle – some notions of authentic reality and truth can be quite mischievous and misleading! And lying can be liberating! It started in the Washington Post – Sure, It’s Real! Real Fake…
needing an archaeological view of innovation
BBC NEWS | Technology | Peering beyond the technology hype Interesting item in the BBC Magazine today on innovation and hype. It is extremely difficult to predict which technologies will become part of everyday life in the future. Some of the best known innovations, like the net, have swiftly become part of the furniture for…
globalization, or what?
Cabo San Lucas, Bahia California Family vacation this week. Some of the concrete building reminds me of southern Europe – the rebar sticking up ready for the second storey when the owners have enough money. But what of the small neighborhood stores here that are the same as those I knew so well in Greece?…
making things makes people
Barry (Katz) is presenting the first lecture in his Design History class for the mechanical engineers (ME110). We are having a running conversation (some two years old now) about design – completely agreeing that things make people as he puts it here this morning. The more subtle point holds too – that this dissolves the…
You must be logged in to post a comment.