Found – Page 134

Taming the backyard jungle

We’d been away from the house for a few weeks, and it rained plenty. The result was a “jungle” in the backyard which required some weed-whacking and high mowing:

Old tile shards from our house

This is a little "home archeology." Our relatively young home was built in 1949 and under the large kitchen add-on we have, there’s (at least) two structures: an old porch that was left there stupidly as a support beam and the remnants of an early kitchen floor – two or three levels of it! This tile is from one of those kitchen floor layers.

When we redid the support under our kitchen we found pieces of this tile. I found these outside the side kitchen door the other day, some how having migrated to there.

In the 20th century, we were focused mostly on the practical, utilitarian side of design, and later we were driven by technological advancements, marketing and business plans. In the 21st century, instead of design just fulfilling the basic needs, doing certain things or resolving particular problems, people will seek deeper, greater and longer lasting product experiences. nonobject benefits from not being constrained, as compared to design practice today, which benefits from being constrained.

Think of that pleasurable, tactile feel of the iPhone, or the way you want your Moleskine with you, or whatever objects you like to keep around you and on your person all the time.

Always love the perspective from across the pond

From here:

Having enjoyed the benefits of their own empire for the last 50 years and pocketed tax cuts during the Iraq war, the 21st-century Tea Party movement is now grumbling about paying for power.

You get what you pay for.