[Sigia-l] seeking rules
Eric Scheid
eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au
Thu May 2 02:17:33 EDT 2002
From: Tanya Rabourn <rabourn at columbia.edu> (2/5/02 14:57)
>I think that these statements that are passed off as rules happen for two
>reasons, a fundamental misunderstanding of the word heuristics, and a need
>to feel secure in the face of too many design options and not enough
>knowledge about who will be using the site.
There's another possible explanation which is best explained by analogy,
and that analogy is well represented by this paper:
Darwinian Processes and Memes in Architecture: A Memetic Theory of
Modernism
http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/2002/vol6/salingaros_na&mikiten_tm.html
The process of design in architecture parallels
analogous generative processes in biology and the
natural sciences. This paper examines how the ideas of
Darwinian selection might apply to architecture. Design
selects from among randomly-generated options in the
mind of the architect. Multiple stages of selection
generate a design that reflects the set of selection
criteria used. The goal of most traditional architecture
is to adapt a design to human physical and psychological
needs. At the same time, however,a particular style of
architecture represents a group of visual memes that are
copied for as long as that style remains in favor.
Darwinian selection also explains why non-adaptive
minimalist forms of the modernist style have been so
successful at proliferating. The reason is because they
act like simple biological entities such as viruses,
which replicate much faster than do more complex life
forms. Simple visual memes thus parasitize the ordered
complexity of the built environment.
A chilling account of how a user-unfriendly architecture fashion has
become globally dominant...
There are obvious stylistic similarities between
military and modernist architectures, since many
modernist buildings look forbidding, ominous, stark,
alien, faceless, and present a generally hostile
appearance. The reason for this impression is that they
utilize some of the same typology from military and
prison architecture. Here we face a paradox: how could
society select an architectural style for human use that
has a similar typology as the military style, which was
developed specifically to make people feel
uncomfortable? Our explanation is that modernist
architecture is a 'parasitic' meme group that is
non-adaptive to human use and sensibilities. At the same
time, however, the group of memes defining the modernist
style of architecture has memetic advantages that helped
it to take over. It is for this reason that modernism
won out over competing styles.
This has kept me awake at night. Are we heading for a similar plague of
Modernism in HCI?
e.
______________________________________________________________________
eric at ironclad.net.au i r o n c l a d n e t w o r k s
information architect http://www.ironclad.net.au/
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