Optimism and transformative design

Transformative Design, my class about design thinking that makes a real difference, run with Meghann (Dryer of IDEO) and Bernie (Roth of Stanford Engineering), opens again soon in the d.school. I got thinking seriously about its themes this weekend at a fund-raising event organized by Castilleja School, where Helen teaches and Molly learns, on the…

Durham Miners Gala

Durham City UK The annual celebration of a great industry and labor movement, once a living force, now a memory, nostalgically inspiring at best, after Thatcher’s neo-liberal ideology and political spite closed all the coal mines in the UK and devastated the pit villages. More photos – [Link]

Norham Station

I can’t help but be fascinated with what is slipping from memory and becoming “history”. And the romance of the railway. Just found a wonderful site called “Forgotten relics” – it has a page on a favorite village of mine (the castle straight out of Scott’s “Marmion”) on a branch line in the Scottish borders…

Archaeological project design

Encountering the work of FARO in Flanders (see blog entry – [Link]) prompted me to think about our own project in the Roman borders at the Roman town of Binchester – VINOVIVM.org – and particularly in relation to the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention [Link] I talked about the implementation of broad principles and policies…

elements of a theory of ruin

A wonderful talk this evening from Alain Schnapp in our Archaeology Center. It was about “ruin” as an intellectual artifact. Through a kaleidoscope of quotes and vignettes about ruin from antiquity to modernity, Alain reflected upon broad human experiences at the heart of our sense of history, memory practices, collection, temporality. Goethe among the ruins…