Elly Williams’ Weblog

Somewhere around 25 BC Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wrote his “Ten Books on Architecture”. The most enduring quote from this work (one that architecture/architectural history students all learn fairly early on) is that:

“Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight.”

That is to say, good architecture

1. must be strong and durable (firmness)
2. must fulfill a purpose (commodity)
3. must be beautiful (delight)

According to Vitruvius, any structure that does not meet these basic criteria isn’t architecture - it might be sculpture (if it is beautiful but not useful), it might be some form of utilitarian construction (if it is useful but not beautiful), it might be many other things, but it is not architecture.

Of course, in the past 2000 years many building styles and techniques have come and gone and what constitutes “architecture” may look very different, but these three principles stand regardless of the technology.

Web Design hasn’t been around as long as Architecture, and although the technology is moving fast, we often don’t have the critical distance for any kind of historical/theoretical analysis. But, in this case there’s no need to reinvent. Web Design can also make use of these three conditions.

Regardless of the technology that you use to deliver your websites, if it isn’t stable and future proof then it is lacking ‘firmness’. If a website fulfills no purpose then it is essentially just sculpture. And if your website doesn’t have some positive aesthetic qualities, perhaps, as in architecture, we should say that it is not Web Design.

Jeremy Keith has written a post about evolution of web sites/apps and how it doesn’t relate to the frequent “websites as buildings” mental model. After all, he argues, once a building is built that’s it, right? Except that’s not entirely true. If it were then then there would be half as many ‘home improvement’ shows on the TV.

Besides upkeep and refurbishment there’s also extensions - anything from adding a conservatory to the back of your house, through extra teaching space at the local comprehensive to entire wings being added to existing hospitals.Of course, none of these additions would have been added in the original plans - usually because at the time there wouldn’t have been funding for them. But, the possibility of future extension is usually considered at some level.

So, how does this relate back to designing and building web sites/apps? Well, any changes to a building will be a series of incremental changes - and that’s something that’s the same. The most important thing is knowing what you need to build now, while still allowing for the changes that may or may not happen later.

A while ago I wrote ?If Some Web Designs were Shopping Centres“. The post itself was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it had a serious edge. I made the point that in the case of some websites the entrance page was equivalent to walking into a room full of unhelpfully labelled doors.

Obviously in the case of a building this is ludicrous. For a start there would be insufficient space to put hundreds of rooms off one room in the real world. Even if it were possible, it would not be desirable; yet time and again it happens on the web. After all, they’re just files, right? Adding in an extra link is much easier than adding in an extra room - web pages don’t have a 3-dimensional size.

Parts of a building, however, do have a fixed size. In some cases the area will be determined directly by the client (”I need *m² office area”) or by the requirements of the intended use (”how much space do I need to provide for 25 workstations?”). Either way, before you can propose a design, you have to know how big any particular element is.

In many situations early building designs will be created using paper cut outs (or in some cases lego or plasticine) to represent a required area (or volume). Using this method it is less likely that any requirement will be overlooked, included twice, or occupy the same space as something else. Equally, when presented with an architectural plan it becomes much harder for a client to add new requirements when there is obviously no space for them.

So, given the confusion that over complicated website structure can cause, should we treat web pages as if they had a size limitation? The intangibility of web pages within a site structure makes it possible create ‘crowded’ content structure in cyberspace. Real world constraints help make it easier to adopt and promote ’simpler’ content structure in the design of buildings.

The challenge with web content design is to constrain the possibilities provided by a pixel-thin medium, but still take full advantage of the flexible nature of the web.

While reading the Interview with Andy Clarke over at accessify.com, I came across this quote which got me thinking:-

Like the Millenium Bug before it, accessibility has become a new opportunity for people to exploit fears of legal action and it is a practice which I abhore.

In October 2004, Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA 1995) came into force requiring businesses to “take reasonable steps to tackle physical features that act as a barrier to disabled people who want to access their services.” Now, this should be a great thing for disabled access. It should mean more ramps, better signage, wider walkways, and so on. What appears to have happened tho is that any shop, cafe, restaurant etc with a stepped entrance has a sign outside requesting that “Anyone requiring assistance to enter the property please attract the attention of a member of staff”. Hardly a great improvement.

Now, I understand that building things takes time (especially in public places) and I’m hoping that the situation in the ‘physical world’ will improve - but the ‘online world’ changes much faster and I’m worried that all that the increased ‘fear of legal action’ (however much of an abhorrent practice it may be, it’s out there) is going to produce is similar stopgaps (’text only’ options anyone) when the people who need the changes really deserve something better.

As has been noted elsewhere, it’s conference season. And, like last year, Meri and I shall be heading off to Austin for SXSWi. And I’m pretty certain I’m going to end up having this conversation (or something fairly similar) with a number of people:-

Other person: So, Elly, what do you do?
Me: I’m an Architect.
Other person: Information Architecture?
Me: No. Buildings.
…..
Other person: So, why exactly are you here?

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write since March, and kind of follows on from UI Hall of Shame’s “If some Software Developers built houses” found via Slashdot (which I just added to my list of feeds, which I suspect I’m going to regret)

You arrive at the shopping centre and enter through the big doors at the front. The main concourse is a large and full of doors of all shapes and sizes. On each door in large letters (in all sorts of colours, fonts, hey - some are even blinking on and off) is the word “DOOR” or “PUSH”. Each door leads to a shop. Each shop is also full of doors marked “DOOR” or “PUSH”.

Invariably the smaller, more awkward shaped doors lead to shops with vaguely useful things in them - food stores, clothing stores, hardware stores, book shops and so on.

The largest doors either don’t open or lead to shops closed for refurbishment.

The rest of the doors lead to shops run by Nigerian Businessmen, gerbils, People helping you “Make $$$ in your spare time” or they are casinos.

When visiting a shopping centre like this is helps to take drilling equipment or high explosives in order to get out again.

We’ll switch to soft white ones. Oh, and help save the planet while we’re at it!

British Professor Colin Humphreys is working on a novel way to help ease the problem with a new form of lighting.

The Cambridge University scientist is making a material that he and others believe could help to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 15 per cent - by making low-voltage, longer-lasting and more efficient lightbulbs.

“At the moment the white LED is a harsh white -coaches and cars will soon have white LEDs inside but for homes it will not be very acceptable,” he said.

He estimates it could take about five to 10 years before the technology to produce gallium nitride LEDs with a more subtle white will be available but when this happens it could lead to real savings.

Scientist unveils bright idea to fight global warming. 01/05/2005. ABC News Online
via Treehugger

Imagine the Eddie Izzard version. We come in peace, Deputy Prime Minister, and we bring you solar panels… roof insulation and ….er… low energy lightbulbs

Up to 20 Greenpeace campaigners climbed on to the roof of the deputy prime minister’s home in Hull on Tuesday and tried to install solar panels….A Greenpeace spokesman said the panels were being left as a present, along with roof insulation and low-energy light bulbs.

Update - Later on the day of posting
BBC NEWS | Prescott roof activists arrested

[Prescott] called the protest a “deplorable” publicity stunt and said the protesters had terrorised his wife….[The Protesters] were then handcuffed and taken to a waiting police van where they were arrested for “harrassment of a person in a dwelling”.Supt Gavin Collinson said they would be interviewed at a nearby police station. He said “It’s not pleasant to be invaded in the privacy of your own home and it is being treated seriously….She’s very distressed but she’s pleased with the happy outcome.”

A year after they annouce that they’re scrapping one degree Cambridge University are planning on closing down their entire Architecture Department (don’t forget to go to bugmenot first)

This is a scary, scary thing. Cambridge is the top Architecture school in the UK(according to The Times anyway.) Oxford doesn’t have an Architecture course. A number of other architecture schools have closed down recently too.

Basically, the General Board of theUniversity of Cambridge are “recommending closure because the department has failed to meet Cambridge?s high research standards.”

Why? Possibly because there is very little academic research (compared to other departments in Universities) which can be carried out in architecture. Most of it is carried out by specific manufacturers or specialist centres like the Centre for Window and Cladding Technology at Bath Uni.

And if other universities take Cambridge’s lead and close down their schools too who knows where we’ll end up.

Quite a few people have sent me this link (or similar) along with comments like “look, isn’t this great - you’ll never have to build a model again”

Now I’m not denying that it’s cool, or that it has its uses - product manufacture, prototyping and the like ? but I?m not sure I can see it being used for architectural models. Not just yet anyway.

For a start there are a lot of technophobes and technocynics in and around the construction industry. There are also a lot of control freaks. Add the two together and you get people who know exactly what they want, how they want it and aren?t going to trust a machine to give them that. There are also a large number of architecture students who are quite happy to get model making experience (and staying up all night working experience) for very little more than the cost of the materials ? which is generally less than $100.

And just as CAD programmes (AutoCAD, AutoSketch, Microstation, VectorWorks, 3DStudio etc not to mention all the engineering ones that do all your calcs. for you) have changed how buildings are designed and built I think the use of this technology would too. Imagine if you had to design your buildings so that they could be printed in 3D? everything has to be supported from the bottom or the sides (or the top or sides if you print upside down I suppose.) So you can have ceiling fittings or furniture ? but not both. Stairs and balconies are probably quite hard to model too. And heaven forbid if want a model that comes to pieces so that you can look inside it. Very soon, you have to put as much design effort into building the model as you would into the building the real thing. And it?s not worth the time or the money.

If only I’d known about this 6 months ago!!

Meri sent me this link from the NY Times about a new exhibition of concrete at the National Building Museum in Washington. And the big deal is that they’re showcasing a product called LiTraCon, short for Light Transmitting Concrete.

And how’s it done..?… well, a clever Hungarian Architect (?on Losonczi) came up with the idea of making concrete blocks with parallel optical fibres running throught it. Pretty clever… and pretty pretty too…and apparently you don’t lose much in the way of compressive strength.

And given that there’s not much loss in terms of compressive strength, you can do pretty much anything with it that you could do with any other concrete block….Once the price comes down that is…..

Alternative links
Boing Boing: Clear Concrete
optics.org: Concrete casts new light in dull rooms