IN CATEGORIES... 
Architecture
Architecture Entries from March 1, 2007 - April 1, 2007
Wednesday
28Mar
Wednesday, March 28 Richard Rogers wins Pritzker Prize
From the Better-Late-Than-Never category, Richard Rogers has won the top award in architecture, the Pritzker Prize. He’s 73 and has been practicing for over 40 years.
There was a quote in the NY Times article that I found interesting where he states that he would like to be known for “buildings which are full of light, which are light in weight, which are flexible, which have low energy, which are what we call legible - you can read how the building is put together.” (Alternate link for same story on IHT.com, avoids subscription time-out.)
I’ve never thought that his buildings were that legible, in the sense that one cannot conceptually grasp them easily. They are not easy to read the way a highway sign is. They take some real work.
One of my favorites is his Lloyd’s building in London. I’ve been to the building on many occasions and have seen numerous pictures of it. A cousin of mine used to work in it so I got to see the building from one of the offices off the atrium. My cousin regularly got vertigo, so had to stay away from the glass rail. So aside from living or working near it, I know the building quite well. Yet if I had to sit down and draw it, I would be stumped. It’s a very rich “text” - not a one-liner Hollywood plot with a predictable shape to it, but a Chekhov novel full of unexpected twists and layers and details.
Exposing all the inner workings doesn’t necessarily make something easier to read or understand, often in fact it gets in the way or is even intimidating. But if done right it also allows an object, whether building or product or digital interface, to reveal themselves over time and bring surprise at every turn. Much more interesting than a design which you get all in one go. I expect and hope this is what Sir Rogers was intending.
Wednesday
28Mar
Wednesday, March 28 Great Pockets. For Real?
Check out this hilarious website for a new bespoke line of tailored clothing for the gear-laden modern gentleman and lady. At first I couldn’t figure out how to take it. Only on a second running of the video did the secret become revealed (you can also click on the “No Thanks” button of the online store). But don’t let me spoil it for you, check it out for yourself. No stone is left unturned.
IN CATEGORIES... Nifty Stuff
Nifty Stuff Tuesday
27Mar
Tuesday, March 27 Apple's Top Flops
Sure, Apple is everyone’s darling these days, but as Newlaunches describes, they’ve had their share of flops too. Read the list.
I’ll quibble with the 20th Anniversary Mac being on the list. It didn’t do well in the market, but it was never intended to. It was a high-priced, snazzy looking limited-edition machine. It was not a flop in another way: it marked the transition from the Bob Brunner reign at Apple to the Jonathon Ive reign. You can see distinct elements of Brunner in there (the crease below the screen has Brunner written all over it), not so much of Ive just yet, but from what I recall reading in Paul Kunkel’s book on Apple Design, it was a collaboration of the two designers. It’s also got to be one of the first instances of Bose licensing its name on another company’s product, a practice that is now commonplace.
I’ll add a couple more flops of a more strategic nature to the list though:
- The decision to stay with Motorola for CPU’s. They had occasional peaks (remember the snail ads mocking Intel? and the G5 was pretty hot stuff for a while), but mostly it was one long valley. Once the transition to Intel happened, we realized just how much Apple had hobbled itself with a subpar processor that no doubt kept it from competing in many high-end applications that have since passed it by.
- The decision to discontinue the clones. The clone makers like PowerPC were putting the hurt on Apple, so it was an understandable call. However, it set back the growth of the overall Mac market and put Apple back into the realm of expensive niche machines again. The problem was compounded by the fact that this was a time when Motorola was delivering particularly slow processors compared to Intel.
Tuesday
20Mar
Tuesday, March 20 The Airbus A380 Lands (Thud?)
Yesterday the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380, flew from Frankfurt and landed in both JFK and LAX. It’s a strange thing: intellectually fascinating but devoid of emotion. As a boy I had a deep interest in the Concorde, arguably one of the most beautiful planes every made, but the A380 won’t be stirring any such emotions: it is one goofy looking plane. Like a regular Airbus that got punched in the eye and developed a swollen shiner.
Still, you can’t help be awed by the engineering feat. The thing is gigantic. CBC News has a little diagram that compares it to a 747 physically.
But it’s also a gigantic risk for Airbus, as well as for the airports that are remodelling to accomodate it (LAX has budgeted $121m to get ready for it, and they are not alone). Coincidentally, I’m reading John Newhouse’s book Boeing vs. Airbus, which is a lively romp through the long and tortuous rivalry between the two airplane manufacturing giants.
This business is about as high stakes as it gets, with massive degrees of uncertainty accompanying any decision. Airbus is betting that a super large plane is the future, while Boeing is betting on a Goldilocks strategy - a large but not so large plane known by the hyper-American name Dreamliner. Newhouse writes:
Its new airplane, Airbus decided, would be just as big as state of the art would allow. The assumption was that no airline would want another 747 if there was a bigger and newer jumbo on offer — that is unless Boeing decided to sell 747’s at giveaway prices. Still, recalled Hanko von Lachner, a longtime Airbus board member, “we didn’t really know at that stage who was right or wrong, ourselves or Boeing. In our business case, we assumed that we wouldn’t be alone in this market fora long time. Boeing, we thought would react with an improved 747. We even prayed they would spend their money on the wrong airplane.”
Boeing and Airbus are going very different routes with their new airplanes (though Boeing has toyed with the Very Large Airplane idea on and off for years). Only time will tell who decided, or lucked into, the right course of action.
Tuesday
20Mar
Tuesday, March 20 CompUSA's Experience
In a follow-up to my previous post on Home Depot, computer and electronics retailer CompUSA is closing half of its stores. David Pogue posts about his experience with shopping at CompUSA and judging by the hundreds of comments, he wasn’t alone.
There’s a CompUSA near me, but I avoid going to it as much as possible. Handily enough there’s an OfficeMax right next door, so it makes it easy enough to comparison shop. Ironically, the last time I went into the CompUSA they had spruced it up with new lighting (much brighter) and new signage (it isn’t on the list of closures). But it was still the same rabbit warren of aisles, seemingly random arrangement of products, and poor service.
There’s a real squeeze going on for these traditional “stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” stores, like CompUSA and Home Depot. They both sell products that are increasing in complexity. In fact much of what they sell are actually systems not products, requiring levels of knowledge on both staff and customers that are much higher, needing deeper customer service if something goes wrong, and taking longer to explain and demonstrate. Finding low-wage staff (to enable low-cost pricing to compete with low overhead internet stores) that are educated enough on the fine points and have the customer service skills required to do these complex sales is very, very difficult. There’s no silver bullet to that problem.
It seems to me there needs to be a new pact between retailers and manufacturers.
Retailers are not doing manufacturers many favors with their aisle-based division of products that belong to holistic systems - this makes it hard to sell systems and make the value clear. Also, retailers are undercutting manufacturers with their own private-label lines.
From the manufacturers side they could provide much better tools to help retailers sell these more complex systems, and support the staff who are not getting adequate training from the retailers themselves. Some of this happens now of course, but judging by the level of staff knowledge at a lot of these stores, it’s not sinking in very much (or the turnover is high enough that chances of you getting someone who’s had the training are diminished.)
There are perfectly logical reasons why all of these things are going on, and why the relationship between retailers and manufacturers is increasingly strained (and why retailers have greater sway than in decades over manufacturers). However, the way the current system has evolved is hurting just about everyone and helping no-one (customer especially).
IN CATEGORIES... Business, User Experience
Business, User Experience