Core & Shell In an earlier post, I wondered: How does one determine what to spend one’s time on, in…
Herb Simon on maintenance
Stewart Brand asks a great question: Did Herbert Simon explore the maintenance of systems? I haven’t found Simon discuss maintenance…
Plans for an infrastructure conference
A listening dialogue on infrastructure Like any good art project, this idea has been percolating in my mind for a…
A short description of maintenance
My understanding of maintenance: More: capable to continue to evolve Less: contain at status quo / steady state Related to…
What can a Building Technologist do about Climate Change?
Title inspired by Bret Victor’s piece “What can a Technologist do about Climate Change?“ Something that has been swirling in…
Fragmentation in the building industry
An excellent framing of the fragmentation in the building industry can be found in Dana A Sheffer’s 2010 dissertation on…
The kind of problem a building is
Concluding her famous book, Jane Jacobs writes: “Cities happen to be problems in organized complexity.” From sidewalks of access to…
New ways of distributed work: By the senses
Attention “We rarely attend to what we know.” That’s what urban geographer Yi-Fu Tuan writes in his book Space and Place.…
Org Design, Part 1: Nearly decomposable systems, with Serendipity & Slack
PART 1. “Organizations are systems of behavior designed to enable humans to accomplish their goals” –Herb Simon, The Shape of Automation…
My 2018 reading list
Books (with sprinkling of articles & podcasts) that have stuck with me throughout 2018 Scale by G West Engineering Systems by…