After reading Alexander’s pattern language, I wondered what the pattern was. Patterns are standard solutions to the problems that appear in the context as part of an effort to systematically reveal the ‘how’ or ‘process’ of architectural design – and the pattern of constant interaction with other elements in space follows the order of “situation”…
Space
Compare Work Community to Slack The idea of Work Community is to create positive experiences during work. Since people spend more time in the office than at home, It is very necessary to have workplace function as communities: where it provides opportunities so people are able to exercise, socialize,or relax during breaks. The messaging app…
The Demo to Today’s Technology
The demo from the Visible Language Workshop presents interconnections between visual elements that share a similarity with Christoper Alexander’s Patterns. As Christopher Alexander mentioned in Patterns from a Pattern Language, “work communities will help form boundaries, and then form activity nodes”. In the demo video, it shows virtual building blocks which navigate the viewers in…
Dana Chisnell-Pioneer in Civic Design
When it comes to human politics and design, we have to mention Dana Chisnell. She is a pioneer and thought leader in civic design, bringing deep experience to that space. Dana was named one of the world’s most influential people in digital government by Apolitical in 2019. Shed teaches a field course on design in…
Architectural space rules in digital social platforms
It’s interesting and surprising to connect patterns and spaces in architecture with digital interaction. These two can be cleverly matched in terms of design, as they both serve for human groups, only the space forms are different. Architect Christopher Alexander’s Patterns from A Pattern Language provides lots of design inspiration and rules for interaction designers….
Space and information transmission
Muriel Cooper showed us part of the beginning of interaction design through Visible Language Workshop. It creates a virtual space, which provides for people to transmit and organize information. Christopher Alexander also uses the concept of space to optimize the living environment of human beings. I have to say that there are similarities between the…
Visible Language Workshop – New Way of Communicating Complex Information
Muriel Cooper opened many doors for future interactive media design by pioneering the Visible Language Workshop. It created new methods of organizing, navigating, and communicating information. Christopher Alexander’s patterns and the Visible Language Workshop share some similar elements and concepts. In Alexander’s patterns, he uses categorization to optimize spaces and environment, whereas, in the information…
Xia Peisu
Xia Peisu was a computer scientist born in Chongqing, China. A year after attaining her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1945, she met her husband Yang Liming. She then pursued postgraduate studies at the Telecommunications Research Institute of National Chiao Tung University. In 1947, she began her PhD in electrical engineering at the University…
Father of An Wuxia Fantasy RPG series – Yao Zhuangxian
Yao Zhuangxian is the father of one of the most famous Chinese game series, 仙剑奇侠传 Xianjian Qixia Zhuan / Legend of Sword and Fairy (also known as Chinese Paladin). In a sense, he created the trend of Chinese games in the 1990s. Legend of Sword and Fairy became both a commercial and critical success, and…
Annie Easley: Rocket Scientist
When Easley was little, her mother had encouraged her to study hard, telling her that she could be anything she wanted but she would have to work for it. Easley majored in Pharmacy when she attended Xavier University in New Orleans in 1951 and then left the school for marriage in 1954. Even though Easley didn’t…
Patterns in Information Landscapes and AR/VR
The Visible Landscape Workshop demo defines an information landscape as a “space that allows you to peruse information by navigating in and out”. Here, the conventional mental model of reading as linear processing is challenged, creating a dynamic interface of type. Similarly to Christopher Alexander’s patterns, wherein public areas are at the forefront of a…
The magic of turning 2D to 3D
We all know that the experience of watching the video Information Landscapes is on a 2D Screen, but we have the feeling that we are moving around through the video. I definitely have the feeling that I am in a building filled with content. Think about that! Before getting into the room, the audience is…
From 2D to 3D
Muriel Cooper and her team built the Visual Language Workshop as a typographic landscape that gathered information to get organized in a virtual reality map. In the “identifiable neighborhood” pattern, Alexander suggested that “people need an identifiable spatial unit to belong to.” I think it’s also true in keeping the same identifiable qualities of 2D…
John Maeda: Intersection of Art and Technology
John Maeda (born 1966), is an executive, designer, and technologist, whose work exemplifies the intersection between business, design, and technology. His education began at MIT, where he studied Computer Science, and later received his Ph.D. in design at Tsukuba University’s Institute of Art and Design (Willis 2010). His artwork ranges from explorations in technology producing…
The Visible Language Workshop & Alexander’s Patterns
In the Information Landscapes – from a demo reel from The Visible Language Workshop, I mentioned that all information, diagrams, and texts are displayed outside. But they are divided into several parts and classified based on their attributes, just like what Alexander mentioned in the Small Work Groups: “When more than a half dozen people…
Arata Isozaki
Isozaki is a Japanese postmodernist architect, urban designer, and theorist. He is known as a thinker in the Japanese architecture area. Isozaki was born in Oita on the island of Kyushu. At the age of 14, he witnessed the tragedy of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. After the defeat, Japan was short of sources, and…
Pattern languages in Modern Design
Work community to slack According to #41 Work Community from Christopher Alexander’s patterns, Alexander proposed a theory that workspaces function as communities. He stated five relationships about these work communities which help form activity nodes and still can be seen in modern technology platforms. For the five relationships he mentioned, It reminds me of some…
Xia Peisu
Xia Peisu was born in Jiangjin City, Sichuan Province in 1923. Electronic computer expert, one of the founders of Chinese computer industry. In April 1960, China’s first homegrown electronic digital general purpose computer, the Model 107, went live. Xia Peisu, the machine’s engineer and designer, had just made history. Xia is known as the “The…
Ruth Kedar – a Designer of Google Logo
The playful and simple logo design of one the most profound company is Ruth Kedar. Ruth is an ideator, a hands-on designer, art director, creative director, mentor and speaker whose work has been showcased and recognized both in the United States and abroad. [1] Education Ruth Kedar holds a bachelor degree in Architecture and Town Planning…
Online Collaboration Pattern
Work Community to Teamwork In the Work Community, Christopher Alexander mentions the different jobs can be placed in one workplace community. In teamwork, as the community is transferred from the physical environment, there are no boundaries for staff who play different roles and jobs. Engineers, project managers, and designers can work together. Also, in Teamwork,…