How Buildings Learn – Shearing Layers

by roydbrayshay on March 9, 2010

Last post in the six part series on Stuart Brand 1998 BBC documentary about architectural design. In this final episode Brand examines the differing rates of change applied to the: site, structure, skin, services, space plan, and stuff of any building. The insight Brand offers could apply to any long lived construction where people interact. I can think of several enterprise applications I’ve known where remarkable metamorphosis has taken place over the years. Maybe one day the journey taken by Google, Ebay or Facebook will be documented in a similar way; though perhaps we need a hundred years or more for that to be truly fascinating.

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The Romance of Maintenance – Really?

by roydbrayshay on March 4, 2010

The penultimate part of Stuart Brands 1997 six part series for the BBC documenting buildings and the way they behave over time. Many Amazon reviewers of the accompanying book note the parallels with many aspects of software or system design which is my reason for including it here. Part five deals with maintenance and decay – unquestionably also a software problem. The solutions for buildings is not the same for software but the concepts are; and Brands commentary is as interesting as ever.

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More on Architecture and System Design from Stuart Brand

February 26, 2010

Part four of the six part “How Buildings Learn” BBC series. Concentrating on urban planning this episode felt less relevant to software than some of the others. I still found it interesting and found myself comparing Brands point of view to certain kinds of Enterprise Architecture I’ve encountered. I’d love to know what you think [...]

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Built For Change – A Definite Software Aspiration

February 19, 2010

Adopting software change right from the start of the software development lifecycle is the chief reason the agile movement came about. In the third of the six part BBC TV series entitled “How Buildings Learn” first screen in 1998, Stuart Brand why building for change has been such an important ingredient of successful architecture over [...]

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The Low Road – Creative Change as a Lifestyle

February 12, 2010

Part two of Stuart Brands six part BBC series (and book) entitled “How Buildings Learn” points out how cheap “low road” buildings house creative people all over the world. They attract creative inhabitants purely because they are cheap and adaptable. Brand offers an alternate view of modern architecture that can be applied to other fields [...]

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How Buildings Learn and Can They Teach Developers

February 2, 2010

Can buildings teach us anything about software development? They’ve been around a lot longer, they come in every shape and size, and some last longer than others. All traits shared by software. Stuart Brand wrote a book and TV series called “How Building Learn”. Whatever you think of his observations they make excellent viewing for [...]

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The Pyramid of Software Principles – Part Two

January 26, 2010

I recently wrote about the list of design principles I’d compiled. The observation and point I tried to make was the absence of inspirational design values within the software industry. Software products are a big part of our industry so why should we not take inspiration from mainstream product design. My nomination is Dieter Rams [...]

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The Pyramid of Software Principles – Part One

January 20, 2010

I’ve read a lot of software development books over the years, many of them dealing specifically with software design. As part of writing something else, I recently had cause to compile a list of some of the design principles published within them. In doing so I realised just how many principles and guidelines are out [...]

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How to Record a Meeting or Training Session

January 15, 2010

I mentioned in a previous post I like to capture the audio for certain events, like training, when delivered by an industry expert. They’re always well practiced and concise communicators. They’re evangelism pitch worth studying. Selling ideas and influencing people is an important part of any design role. I’ve found it very useful to refer [...]

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I’m Now a Certified Scrum Master

January 13, 2010

In December I did some training and I’m now a badge holding Certified SCRUM Master. Would I recommend it – yes. After spending the past four years within a large SCRUM department, I felt I had a good understanding of it. I did. However the experience with Mike Cohn, a true master of all things [...]

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