Listened to The World, Remade from On the Media | WNYC Studios

How the pandemic has shaped our future: from the built environment, to the way we work, to the way we learn.

With vaccinations underway, we’re edging closer and closer to the end of the pandemic. This week, On The Media looks at how the pandemic has shaped what’s possible for the future — from the built environment to the way we work to the way we learn.

1. Sam Kling [@SamKling2], American Council of Learned Societies public fellow, on whether cities like New York were bound to become hubs for disease. Listen.

2. Vanessa Chang [@vxchang], lecturer at California College of the Arts, explains how pandemics of the past have been instrumental in shaping architecture; Mik Scarlet [@MikScarlet] delineates the social model of disability; and Sara Hendren [@ablerism], author of What Can A Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World, describes how the wisdom of people with disabilities can inform the redesign our post-pandemic world. Listen.

3. OTM reporter Micah Loewinger [@micahloewinger] tells the story of how distance learning saved his friend's life. Listen.

Read Cliff May (en.wikipedia.org)
Cliff May (1909–1989) was an architect practicing in California best known and remembered for developing the suburban Post-war "dream home" (California Ranch House), and the Mid-century Modern.
I’ve had a running debate with someone about the style of low slung California homes often done in stucco having a Spanish influence. Turns out I was right and they owe some of their design history with Spanish Colonial Revival architecture of the 17th-19th Centuries!

Incidentally I live in a California ranch home at the moment, so it’s been interesting to dig into some of the history….\

Watched How To Build House, Underground Tunnel, Under Water Well House, Swimming Pool Slide Full Episode from YouTube
In this video, I would like to share everyone How To Build House, Underground Tunnel, Under Water Well House, Swimming Pool Slide with Full Episode without using any advance tool just a sickle knife and available materials in the location of the building such as natural vines, bamboo, mud, dry grasses, fire woods, and some natural color.
Listened to Episode 5: Caring What You're Sharing by Dr Laurie SantosDr Laurie Santos from The Happiness Lab

Sharing a good experience with another human deepens our enjoyment of the moment... but only if we abide by certain rules. Dr Laurie Santos shows us how we often get 'sharing' wrong and explains how we can all derive more happiness from ice cream, sunsets and a night in front of the TV.

Maryellis Bunn’s website

Erica Boothby website

Museum of Ice Cream website

Alix Barash website

There is some interesting discussion about exploring and interacting with the world here both with and without a camera and/or digital phone or other device in one’s hand. 

The research and examples in this episode could be useful  for UX/UI  designers in the social media and IndieWeb spaces. The ideas presented here could help us in designing interactions on the web for people in a much happier and healthier fashion. I particularly likes the concept that a museum specifically redesigned some of it’s exhibits so as to be able to minimize the use of phones and increase the human-to-human interaction.

The questions of whether we’re posting content for ourselves or to share with others is an intriguing one. I tend to post for myself (and my memory via my commonplace book) first in almost all cases. When I’m taking photos or checking in, I almost always do it in a way so as to minimize as much as possible the distraction of doing so to others. It’s exceptionally rare that I spend the time and effort to get the “perfect” photo when I’m with others in public.

The discussion about the museum experience being designed for or against photography and the research relating to memories of the experiences reminds a lot of Matt Maldre’s recent experience with a museum security guard who urged patrons to get their phones out and take close up photos of artworks. [#] She obviously intuitively knew something that the rest of us could have only guessed at. Or perhaps she’s just been reading all the most cutting-edge research and putting it into practice in her own work?

This also reminds me I ought to call Dan Cohen and have a conversation about these sort of design concepts (and particularly those relating to Frances Yates and memory techniques) for his forthcoming library.

Bookmarked Andrea Palladio (Wikipedia)

Andrea Palladio (/pəˈlɑːdi/ pə-LAH-dee-ohItalian: [anˈdrɛːa palˈlaːdjo]; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.

Palladio filtered.jpg

👓 I.M. Pei, Master Architect Whose Buildings Dazzled the World, Dies at 102 | The New York Times

Read I.M. Pei, Master Architect Whose Buildings Dazzled the World, Dies at 102 (New York Times)
Mr. Pei, a committed modernist, was one of the few architects equally attractive to real estate developers, corporate chieftains and art museum boards.
I had the privilege of working in an I.M. Pei office building for about two years. It wasn’t a museum, but had so much modern art on its walls and Roy Lichtenstein’s massive “Bauhaus Stairway” in the lobby that it seemed like a museum.

angle on the lobby of the CAA building designed by IM Pei

👓 Roll-up roll-up: indoor bowls | Economist Espresso

Read Roll-up roll-up: indoor bowls (Economist Espresso)
The eyes of the world probably won’t be on the Norfolk village of Hopton-on-Sea this week.
The idea about stadium design here is an interesting and important one. 

👓 Apple is about to do something their programmers definitely don’t want. | Anil Dash

Read Apple is about to do something their programmers definitely don't want. by Anil Dash (Anil Dash)
Apple spent $5 billion on a beautiful new office, Apple Park. So it’s amazing they’re about to make an extremely costly, avoidable mistake: putting their coders in an open-plan layout. I work at Fog Creek Software, where our cofounder and former CEO Joel Spolsky has been blogging for

👓 Paving the cowpaths: using architecture concepts to improve online user experience | Elezea

Read Paving the cowpaths: using architecture concepts to improve online user experience by Rian Van Der MerweRian Van Der Merwe (Elezea)
In architecture desire lines or cowpaths describe well-worn paths that appear in a landscape over time. I discuss how this relates to web design.
This is interesting/relevant to the idea of “manual until it hurts”. I particularly like the twist idea at the end of looking at activity after-the-fact and then paving over those methods rather than starting at free range and then paving.