Category: Design comment
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Managing creative processes
Found an interesting article by Steven A. Lowe, Project management: A surefire way to kill your software product, which discusses management practices applied to software development. Although Lowe’s focus is software, the discussion can easily be applied to management processes in any creative industry. Much of the narrative will be familiar to anyone who has tried to be creative in…
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How do you draw a circle?
I just stumbled across a great article that analysed how different cultures draw a circle. Give it a try at their page. They found strong arguments that the way you draw circles relates to your cultural context, or to be more precise, to the language and writing system you use. For example, if in your writing…
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Concrete hippos
Milton Keynes eat your heart out – New Town artworks at Killingworth (North Tyneside). Great buildings still – Gas Research Lab and Lion Brush Works (Ryder and Yates) as well as Ralph Erskine houses by the lake.
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Energy and the Environment
Dr Sally Caird recently presented her work on smart city energy programmes and the need for evaluation studies to provide evidence of the value and outcomes of city programme design for cities and citizens at an international Energy and Environment Workshop held at The Open University 25th and 26th May, 2017. This was chaired by…
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On the Fringe
Stephen Peake, a member of the Design and Innovation group at the OU is currently appearing in a two man show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show,”The Hero Who Overslept”, is a dialogue about climate change; a playful piece which sees a dour professor from Bolton with a head full of statistics about climate…
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The Dangers of Design
The terrible fire at Grenfell Tower has provoked discussion among architects. Where does the blame lie? With the architects who drew up the plans for refurbishment, with the council and management company who insisted on costs being cut? With the contractors and subcontractors involved in carrying out the work specified or with the companies producing…
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Citizenship in the smart city
The suite of smart city standards recently published by the British Standards Institute attempts to legitimise smart city developments by placing citizens at the centre of them. Working with Simon Joss and Youri Dayot from the University of Westminster, I analysed the standards to try to figure out how citizenship might evolve in the smart…
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Another tool for checking what you know
In addition to Gil’s great post on How to spot fake news, here’s another toolkit well worth investing in – the (bear with me) Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies poster, freely available in pdf here So, the next you read a newspaper piece or watch anyone debating or presenting anything, see if you play…
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You Never Thought What The Real Value of Critical Thinking Is
Dr. Gil Dekel. What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase ‘critical thinking’? You may think of people who doubt everything? People that can’t stop asking arrogant questions which makes them very uncomfortable to be around? Now, put your preconceptions on hold for a second and see why critical thinking is something entirely…
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Circular economies
I came across the following Greenpeace video which paints a bleak picture of the impact of the smart phone revolution over the past 10 years or so. The constant drive to own the latest and greatest smartphone is having a huge impact on resources and the environment, and this is unsustainable. The video suggests a solution…