Tag Archives: Mark David Major

Architecture, Press, Space Syntax

Steve Jobs | On the Social Potential of Built Space

Steve Jobs on the Social Potential of Built Space
by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

While reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of the co-founder of Apple and former majority shareholder of Pixar Animations Studios, Steve Jobs (review available here on The Outlaw Urbanist), I came across a fascinating passage. I wanted to share it because the point is so powerful, it bears repetition and celebration. The most important passages are in bold.

Pixar Animation Studios was reaping the creative and financial benefits of a $485 million worldwide gross for Toy Story 2 so…

(Excerpt) …it was time to start building a showcase headquarters. Jobs and the Pixar facilities team found an abandoned Del Monte fruit cannery in Emeryville, an industrial neighborhood between Berkeley and Oakalnd, just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. They tore it down and Jobs commissioned Peter Bohlin, the architect of the Apple Stores, to design a new building for the sixteen-acre plot. Jobs obsessed over every aspect of the new building, from the overall concept to the tiniest detail regarding materials and construction. “Steve had the firm belief that the right kind of building can do great things for a culture,” said Pixar’s president Ed Catmull… (John) Lasseter had originally wanted a traditional Hollywood studio, with separate buildings for various projects and bungalows for development teams. But the Disney folks said they didn’t like their new campus because the teams felt isolated, and Jobs agreed. In fact he decided they should go to the other extreme: one huge building around a central atrium designed to encourage random encounters. Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings.

“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,” he said. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow.” and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.” So he had the Pixar building designed to promote encounters and unplanned collaborations. “If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see…” “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” Lasseter recalled. “I kept running into people I hadn’t seen in months. I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.”

For those who don’t believe architects such as New Urbanist Andres Duany or Space Syntax people such as Alan Penn, Tim Stonor and Kerstin Sailer about the social potential of built space, then believe the words of a genius like Steve Jobs. Design matters, space matters, and architecture matters to innovation.

Share the knowledge!
Share
Art, Books, Editorial, Mark David Major, Press, Review

BOOK REVIEW | Think Different, Be “Insanely Great” | Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson

Think Different, Be “Insanely Great”
BOOK REVIEW of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
by Mark David Major, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am writing this review on my MacBook Pro with Retina Display with my iPhone and iPad Mini sitting near at hand while I listen to a shuffle of classical music in my iTunes Library. When I started writing this disclosure paragraph, I noticed my apps were syncing to all of my devices via iCloud, which finished well before I had completed this paragraph. I have been an unapologetic member of the Apple Cult since 1993.

A few times in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the biographer and his subject admit there will be a lot that Jobs won’t like in this authorized biography. Once again, Steve Jobs was right. Isaacson’s biography is not a great product. The writing is often repetitive, even diverging into triviality on occasion, with the biographer/interviewees (except Jobs himself) all too eager to engage in ‘Dime Store’ Freudian psychoanalysis about the book’s subject. At 656 pages, Isaacson’s biography would have benefited from the same zeal for simplicity and minimalism (in terms of editing) that characterized so many of Apple’s products during Jobs’ two tenures at the company. In fact, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson reads like Simon & Schuster rushed the book to market months ahead of schedule so it could financially capitalize on Jobs’ death in late 2011. The release date is a mere two weeks after Jobs death on October 5, 2011. This is something Jobs would have never tolerated while he was alive. Isaacson’s biography is not a bad book but it could have been “insanely great” like its subject. There are many useful, some wonderful insights (usually originating from Jobs himself) contained within, so it is well worth your time to read. In the end, what shines through in the book, despite its problems, is the genius and greatness of Steve Jobs.

Isaacson’s fairly ridiculous thesis is Jobs was driven to greatness by a desire to prove his natural parents were wrong to put him up for adoption, which begs the question why there aren’t more industry leaders with adoptive parents. Jobs is fairly dismissive of this line of thought. Isaacson’s equally ridiculous aim is to get his subject to admit, “He is an asshole.” We are all angels and assholes (some, more one than other). It is called being human so it’s unclear why this is important. Jobs was a perfectionist but he never (thankfully) claimed he was perfect. Many of Jobs management techniques are tried, tested and effective even if Jobs’ form of brutal honesty lacked a ‘politeness’ filter. Anyone successful, who has been in a leadership position, will recognize these techniques.

Isaacson devotes a considerable amount of words to Jobs’ tendency to construct a “reality distortion field”, an ability to weld or ignore reality to his wishes but also compel designers and engineers to do the seemingly impossible. We all construct “reality distortion fields” in an attempt to warp reality to our wishes. Some are more successful and ambitious at it than others. It is unclear why Isaacson finds this distinctive human trait so compelling other than the fact Jobs changed the reality of the way things work in this world. The fact is there are many people in the world, who simply cannot abide greatness in their presence. They seek to bring genius down to their level, a sort of “stupidity distortion field.” Jobs would describe this as Grade C people bringing down the Grade A people around them to the average, “the ugly”, or the “totally shit”. Isaacson could easily devote an entire book to how otherwise seemingly intelligent people (like Bill Gates, who comes across as a decent and pleasant schmuck but a schmuck nonetheless) adopt stupid arguments, decisions, and positions to distort the greatness or genius of individuals around them. The fact is there are more like Steve Jobs out there but the herd is too busy trampling them under foot to recognize them. In the end, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is best when all aspects of Jobs (the good and the bad) filter through the biographer’s gaze. Was Steve Jobs perfect? No, he was human. Personally, I never asked for Apple products to be perfect. I only asked that Apple products be the best in the world and, usually, they were. I never asked Steve Jobs to be anything than what he was: a brilliant businessman, an insight artist, and a (sometimes) source and (often) shepherd of technological innovation. In the end, what was remarkable about Steve Jobs was not that he changed the world but he changed the world in the face of the ‘conventional wisdom’, which is often polite code for the stupidity of the consensus. Frankly, I prefer to live in Jobs’ reality. Along the way, he lived a remarkable life. Surely, that is enough. The world seems smaller without Steve Jobs in it. We have Jobs’ Apple to thank for it but it is also a testament to the legacy of Steve Jobs. He will be missed.

I’m attaching video links to a couple of seminal moments in the life of Steve Jobs. First, the famous 1984 MacIntosh commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, which aired during the Super Bowl (above in the body of the review). Many in the trade (including TV Guide) say it is the greatest commercial ever. Second, is the famous commencement address Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005 (see below). Remember: think different.

 

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover, 656 pages
Available from Amazon here.

 

Share the knowledge!
Share
Mark David Major, On Space, Phenomenology, Philosophy

On Space | A Sensory City of Theory

On Space | A Sensory City of Theory
by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A

Building transmutes the ideal into the selectively practical. Architecture asserts the hypothetical into creative sensation – of space, of light, of form, of transformation, of shapes frozen and in motion – and the city is born. The architect and planner re-assert the sensory into the theoretical, and the organism of the city is invigorated and renewed. The genesis of this association lies in the imagination of human intellect and the practicality of the human hand. It is not a mysterious alchemy, revealed to only a privileged few. It is a delightful synthesis of the human condition in which we are all are invited to participate. Space is both the medium and crucible of this association. Space surrounds and embeds the condition with meaning – within and extraneous – simultaneously internal and external to the object whilst also being native and foreign to its subject. It is future prologue and past epilogue of the same problem. In the city, this paradox is played on a grid of streets, geometrical in nature, intrinsically to the street itself and extrinsically in the relation of one to all others. This nature exists in a continuum, an axis drawn between the extremes of conserved chaos and radical order. Our errors in comprehending this ordered chaos, what Jane Jacobs once referred to as “organized complexity”, lies within the self-imposed boundaries of our own descriptions. We become limited in describing that which we wish to see instead of observing that which we wish to understand and, in doing so, we become trapped within the tired dogmas of an imagined past and a condemned future.

Dogma selects us. We do not choose the doctrine. This often (preferably) occurs independently of curiosity or wisdom and we youthfully mistake its favors as a proclamation that, indeed, we are the anointed one. It is a false image of oneself. Once a single step is taken along this path, we derive words inadequate to the object but sufficient for dogmatic pursuit in a hollow attempt to describe the nature of the city and make the understandable, the objective, into the incomprehensible, the subjective. We move backward and abnegate the hypothetical for the fanciful, the sensory for the material, and theoretical for the dogmatic. In doing so, we attempt to surround ourselves in meaning at the expense of the spatial and the urban. Theory suffocates in the vacuüm of this confrontation, embracing a void that fails the essential, instinctive construction of the city, in service to the super-ego of the individual. The urban loses balance. The real nature of the city hides behind a mask, a voice without a face, raising objections to the elementary urbane on shallow grounds of methodological peculiarities, historical reinterpretations, and narrow understandings of the relation between form and function. We must not fear to finally unmask the charlatan to unveil the bodily and mentally sensual to the masses, and declare the sensory city as a subject that is worthy of investigation and a thing demanding objective theory. In this way, the investigative and the theoretical form a synthesis to reveal the functional significance of space. Our words must have the precision and structure of whispers so that our theories carry meaning beyond the lone voice screaming to be heard above the crowd. We are the crowd, and it is our voices that matter.

On Space is a regular series of philosophical posts from The Outlaw Urbanist. These short articles (usually about 500 words) are in draft form so ideas, suggestions, thoughts and constructive criticism are welcome.

Share the knowledge!
Share
Architecture, Editorial, Mark David Major, Poor Richard, Urban Planning

More Poor Richard | Part 1

More Poor Richard, Part 1
by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A, The Outlaw Urbanist contributor

Courteous Reader,

I attempted to win your favor when I wrote my first Almanac for Architects and Planners, in the name of the public good and professional betterment, by way of earning some profit and a wife. I am gratified by your expression of encouragement for my tireless efforts dedicated to these aims. Alas, my circumstances still find me exceedingly poor and, unluckily, exceedingly wifeless. I am required to earn some profit to address both problems whilst now addressing a third, namely testing the proposition that insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” To satisfy my own particular brand of insanity, I have written more proverbs and whimsical sayings for your benefit and, hopefully, my own.

As before on The Outlaw Urbanist, I write this new Almanac in increments of ten, according to the dictates of Moses and the Almighty. However, once published as an Almanac for Architects and Planners, the proverbs and witticisms were gathered into a number equal to the days of the week, after being reliably informed that both seven and ten are sacred numbers. My desired requirement for a wife is sufficient motive to write this new Almanac in the hope it will find your favor and retweets as a means of demonstrating the usefulness of my continued efforts but also your charity to this sane Friend and poor Servant,

Richard

On Cities

1.    As big as the road, so will the car be.

2.    When American urban designers and planners developed an allergic reaction to straight lines and right angles, our cities started sneezing phlegm all over the place.

3.    A ‘road to nowhere’ is much less important than all the ‘somewheres’ it will eventually lead.

4.    Suburban sprawl breeds idiotic driving behaviors.

5.    Interruptus en extremis isn’t any good for urban life… or your sex life.

6.     Pursuing (politically palatable) green spaces to the exclusion of (hard choice) urbanity is a self-defeating proposition. We have that, it’s called suburban sprawl.

7.     Observe the world around you before daring to create anew.

8.     Every city should have at least one Electric Avenue we gonna rock down and then take it higher… perhaps even two.

9.     The pattern of great cities is at once sensuous and logical; elegant with the past, restless in the present, and pregnant with future potential.

10.    Part is to whole as whole is to part in the city.

Issue 2 of More Poor Richard for Architects and Planners cometh soon!

Share the knowledge!
Share
Art, Essay, The City in Art

Algorithmic Space | The City in Art

Don Relyea’s Cityscape with Helipads and Ladders (2011), www.donrelyea.com.

“They don’t know what you’re doing, Babe, it must be art.”
– Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, U2

Algorithmic Space | The City in Art
by Dr. Mark David Major, AICP, CNU-A

Don Relyea’s Cityscape with Helipads and Ladders (2011) uses an algorithm based on the Hilbert space filling curve, discovered by mathematician David Hilbert. The version of Relyea’s program subdivides spaces within the total space to be filled and runs the algorithm to fill the smaller spaces separately. Each smaller space is centered on a point on the curve causing the smaller renderings to intersect the larger one in interesting ways. The program recursively draws rectangles along the curve. At certain times during the execution, it draws larger concentric rectangles and connects special points with trailed concentric rectangles (Source: www.donrelyea.com).

I am not even going to pretend to understand the mathematics of what Relyea is describing, except in only the vaguest sense. I’m sure Dr. Nick “Sheep” Dalton and Dr. Ruth Conroy Dalton would understand the mathematics of Relyea’s generative algorithm, and I will get them to explain it to me the next time I see them. For those interested in the mathematics of the algorithm, there is more information available here. However, purely in terms of art, Relyea’s generative algorithm appears to capture something of the “organized complexity” of the city, which is, no doubt, why Relyea decided to appropriately title his computer-generated art series as “cityscapes”. In addition to this generative complexity, Relyea’s prints also capture something of the repetitiveness of city space, which Relyea varies through his use of color (see the entire series to date here). It is suggestive there are more practical applications for his generative algorithm in urban modeling and science, beyond that of generating complex shapes for artistic reasons. However, based purely on artistic terms, the result is a compelling abstract image of repetitive complexity.

About Don Relyea
Don Relyea graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1992, where he was a print making major and information systems major and a merit scholarship student. He lives and works in Dallas Texas USA with his wife and three kids. Upon graduation, Relyea immersed himself in the multimedia software industry producing video and interactive CD content and eventually games for publishers and clients. In the multimedia industry, he developed a love for programming graphics on computers and now produces art in several media both traditional and digital. Relyea focuses in the area of computational art. He writes his own custom art software in C++ and Open GL. Many of the programming techniques Relyea learned in game development he now employs with his art, primarily producing prints and video art. He often weaves cultural, social and political dimensions into his work. Nature and mathematical forms are also common subjects. His print and video work have been in exhibited in galleries and juried exhibitions all over the United States. Recently, Relyea’s video art has been installed outdoors in curated/juried shows in Oslo, Norway, The Hague, the Digital Graffiti Festival at Alys Beach Florida, W hotel in Seoul Korea and International Free Exchange Zone in Incheon Korea (Source: www.donrelyea.com).

The City in Art is a series by The Outlaw Urbanist. The purpose is to present and discuss artistic depictions of the city that can help us, as professionals, learn to better see the city in ways that are invisible to others. Before the 20th century, most artistic representations of the city broadly fell into, more or less, three categories: literalism, pastoral romanticism, and impressionism, or some variation thereof. Generally, these artistic representations of the city lack a certain amount of substantive interest for the modern world. The City in Art series places particular emphasis on art and photography from the dawn of the 20th century to the present day.

Share the knowledge!
Share