Wednesday March 10, 2010

February 6, 2010

Getting projects built requires strong alliances between the client, engineers, and architect, as well as good collaboration with the city government. Architecture is not a solitary pursuit. I don’t think we’re especially fast or successful at getting things built, at least not by European standards. But we do manage to find clients who share our view of architecture. We have a longing to experiment with space, bring out the site’s potential, and speculate on possibilities for rethinking conventions. It seems risky at first; however, all our projects so far have proved very economically successful.

One strategy we discuss during the design process is the ambiguity of meaning. A project has more presence and impact if there’s some doubt about it, something quite bold yet difficult to describe and hard to grasp. We like to offer more than one potential reading per project, to allow for individual appropriation, but the relationship between nature and technology is always an underlying topic.

Jürgen Mayer H.
Founder of J. Mayer H. Architects

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Source: “Architecture as an Adventure,” I.D. Magazine, March/April 2008

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February 5, 2010

As a designer, one of the things that fascinates me about photography is camera language. In design, we talk a lot about creating visual grammar through choices of color, line, form and typography. These are the building blocks we use to create a grammatical system with which to construct visual communication.

In photography, the same concept is referred to as camera language (although in practice, the term is more frequently used when discussing cinematography and filmmaking). As in design, color, line and form are important elements that help define a visual grammar. But technical and mechanical forces are also at work: lighting and lens choices, film speed, paper choice, aperture settings, shutter speed and camera angles are all mechanical controls you can use to define a signature camera language. …

Through manipulation of equipment, color, lighting and composition, it’s amazing how a photographer can establish a distinct visual language and then, using different mechanicals, add what can best be described as visual linguistic dialects.

Callie Neylan
Senior Interactive Designer at NPR.org

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Source: On Experimentation And Camera Language

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February 4, 2010

Design to me is the embodiment of elegance, it’s trying to use just enough to do/communicate the most. …

It’s not less is more. It’s not simple as possible. It’s just what’s needed, no more, no less.

Noah Brier
Head of Strategic Planning, The Barbarian Group

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Source: Elegance in Design

January 31, 2010

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Source: “Live What You Love” Print by Hijirik Studio

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January 31, 2010

Let it be local: Design is informed by what is intrinsically bound to a culture. We respond to that, respect it, and draw upon it.

Let it be sustainable: We design for the health of humanity. Sustainability is about creating a balance between what we build and what is naturally meant to be and ensuring a project’s longevity and financial integrity.

Let it be appropriate: The components of a design are made compelling by their ability to respond to a community’s needs both technically and emotionally.

Let it be collaborative: Successful projects come from the informational input from all parties involved through the dedication of passionate people.

Minnesota Chapter
Architecture for Humanity

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Source: Minnesota Chapter of Architecture for Humanity’s Mission

Via: blog like you give a damn: The Official Blog of AFH-MN

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January 30, 2010

Multimedia Artist Francesco Jodice on Moving Media

“I usually view the world as a big laboratory. I try to identify with this. I try to move around the world as a voyager, as a sort of a sensor, a sensor device, that can understand where things are really changing.

Some people think of art as an aesthetical issue. I always think about art and about my work as a political issue. Whatever happens in my work is that at the very beginning, there is a political question. I think we’re always moved by something that happened in our childhood, and then we just find a way of…

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Source: The Maurice Lacroix Interviews with Monocle Magazine

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January 29, 2010

Drew Smith on How Blogging Informs Working

“There’s two components to the interaction between my blogging and my work as a design strategist.

Firstly, to be able to blog, as you well know, one needs to be well-informed, particularly when I’m talking about developing trends and how they might apply to the car industry, so I end up doing enormous amounts of reading across many different topics and media types. In that lies the very essence of how blogging informs my design strategy work: to help clients make strategic decisions about future products, I must be able to inform them of emerging social and technological trends and…

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Source: Drew Smith – Designer Q&A by Raph Goldsworthy

Via: undrln

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January 27, 2010

I actually hate the word ‘feature.’ I’m always trying to develop benefits for people, not features. …

I believe people are willing to pay for value and I’ve seen that time and time again. It takes conviction. You better be sure you are offering something of value and sometimes it takes time and testing to understand where the value is in what you offer.

And you know it’s our responsibility to prove our value to our customer base, through service, through developing the product, through a whole bunch of different things—and every month we’re on the hook for that. But, as you know, as long as we deliver against that—and we have a long track record of doing that right now—people are willing to pay for the value.

Mike McDerment
Co-Founder and CEO of FreshBooks

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Source: What Helped FreshBooks Become A Successful Paid Web App

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