Cyberspace Equally A Dwelling?

A summary of:
Papanek, V. (1993). The Green Imperative: Ecology as well as Ethics inwards Design as well as Architecture. Thames & Hudson, Ltd.: London.

It was interesting timing to read this piece simultaneously reading Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together, because it sparked an epiphany virtually cyberspace every bit an architectural entity. Turkle’s piece of job elaborates the extent to which nosotros are living our lives inwards cyberspace, that cyberspace has travel a form of home, although she is the outset to dot out that this is an impoverished one, a lame substitute. Papanek writes, “I exercise the give-and-take (99) ‘dwelling’ to announce a living or working infinite that balances life as well as nature; it so indicates life inwards an organic harmony amongst surroundings as well as ecology” (100). Given this definition, it would live hard to telephone phone cyberspace a ‘dwelling’. This made me wonder what it would select to larn inwards to a greater extent than dwelling-like.

One dot has to practice amongst customization. Papanek writes, “Yet architecture tin exclusively flourish if the dwellings built are inwards harmony amongst the people who alive inwards them, amongst nature as well as culture” (104). With the Internet, nosotros receive got a one-size-fits-all solution. Clearly, every bit nosotros tin come across amongst the previous post service (the utter yesteryear Genevieve Bell), people volition receive got really dissimilar needs for the Internet, as well as yet the Web is designed to fit a really detail individual that everyone is expected to arrange to. (Lanier powerfulness say that nosotros receive got to brand ourselves into this individual inwards monastic tell to satisfy the Web.) The Web is virtually homogenization, non customization. It is virtually globalization, non localization. It attempts to brand a virtual community to which everyone belongs. But Papanek references enquiry yesteryear Professor George Murdoch of Yale University who has studied the ideal (‘magic’) release for communities as well as institute it to live simply about 450 to 600 individuals, afterward which dot the community tends to suffer. Further:

“Behavioural scientists consider that 250 people constitute a ‘small’ neighbourhood, 1500 a ‘large one’, virtually 450 to 600 a ‘social’ neighbourhood. / From these numbers nosotros tin travel further. With our objective a benign, neighbourly mode of life, rich inwards interconnections as well as cultural stimuli, nosotros tin say that ‘face-to-face’ communities volition consist of 400 to one one thousand people (the ideal is simply about 500), ‘common neighbourhoods’ volition accommodate roughly 5000 to 10,000 residents (or 10 to xx face-to-face communities), as well as the ‘ideal city’ volition household virtually 50,000 souls (or 10 to xx mutual neighbourhoods). Special functional reasons may decrease urban centre size to 20,000 or increment it to 120,000 – byond that lies social chaos” (112).

Of class in that location may live a dissimilar ideal size for a virtual community… but clearly these numbers advise in that location would live an ideal community size, as well as it wouldn’t live 6 billion. In monastic tell to satisfy the outset status of a social community, nosotros may demand to carve out picayune virtual cities, picayune pockets of socialization, or fifty-fifty dissimilar Webs. It powerfulness live that if nosotros genuinely felt similar nosotros belonged to a community, rather than that nosotros were tourists inwards cyberspace, nosotros powerfulness comport to a greater extent than neighbourly to ane another.

Papanek also references a report done inwards the 1950s yesteryear Dr Abraham Maslow to create upwardly one's hear the effects of environment. “He built 3 rooms: ane beautiful, ane ‘average’ as well as ane ugly (77)…. Volunteers were given photographs of people as well as asked whether these faces displayed ‘energy’ as well as ‘well-being.’ The volunteers were supervised yesteryear these examiners who were themselves unaware of the existent objective of the experiment, that is, people’s reaction to work-spaces. The results break that inwards the beautiful room the volunteers institute the faces energetic as well as happy; inwards the ugly room, they thought they looked tired as well as ill. The conduct of the examiners also varied: inwards the ugly room, they rushed brusquely through interviews, exhibited ‘gross behavioural changes’ as well as complained of monotony, fatigue, headache, hostility as well as irritability” (78). Now, notation the descriptions of the rooms: “The ugly room has a naked lite bulb hanging from the ceiling, an onetime mattress on the floor, battleship-grey walls, torn window shades, brooms, mops as well as a skillful bargain of trash as well as dust. The beautiful room had large windows, a superb Navajo carpet on the floor, off-white walls, indirect lighting, a bookcase, soft armchairs as well as a wooden desk, paintings, plants as well as a small-scale sculpture. The ‘average’ room had ‘the appearance of a clean, neat “worked-in” business office amongst greyness metallic furniture’” (77). Which description best matches the Web? I would struggle that the ugly ane does, because of the randomness, chaos, as well as trash (think of the unwanted advertisements that pollute every webpage). It for certain wouldn’t live the ‘average’ room, all neat as well as ordered. And it definitely doesn’t seem ‘beautiful’. But given this lack of beauty, what form of emotions as well as conduct as well as other responses does cyberspace evoke? Could the fact that it’s ugly live a contributing factor inwards the rampant ‘flaming’ nosotros come across online?

So what would live a beautiful Web? Papanek writes, “There is a dot at which beauty as well as high utility through skillful blueprint interconnect. If both weather be simultaneously inwards an object, as well as are furthermore clear expressions of the social intent of the people who designed it, it is possible to speak of the spiritual inwards design. We receive got seen that the onetime Modernist saying, ‘If it works well, it volition live beautiful,’ is false. We are surrounded each hateful solar daytime yesteryear hundreds of objects that nullify this approach. At the same fourth dimension nosotros know that the reverse, ‘If it is beautiful, it volition piece of job well,’ is ridiculously broad of the mark” (57). So obviously, simply because the Internet works as well as nosotros are mesmerized yesteryear it doesn’t larn inwards beautiful. Papanek leaves some clues every bit to where nosotros powerfulness discovery beauty.

1. “Ecology as well as the environmental equilibrium are the basic underpinnings of all human life on earth; in that location tin live neither life nor human civilization without it. Design is concerned amongst the evolution of products, tools, machines, artefacts as well as other devices, as well as this activity has a profound as well as straight influence on ecology. The blueprint reply must live positive as well as unifying. Design must live the span betwixt human needs, civilization as well as ecology” (29). This brings us back, ane time again, to the fact that inwards monastic tell to live beautiful, the Web would receive got to live customized to fit the user – non simply the user generalized, but specific users inwards specific contexts for specific cultures.

2. “I firmly believe that it is the instinct of the designer every bit good every bit the intended exercise of the designed object that tin yield spiritual value” (53). This suggests firstly that beauty is linked amongst the spiritual, as well as secondly that it is of import that the designer consider his/her intention inwards producing the ‘thing’, inwards this instance the Web. It cannot live a mindless production – every evolution needs to live for a purpose. This way bespeak him/herself questions like, “Will the blueprint significantly assist the sustainability of the environment? Can it brand life easier for some grouping that has been marginalized yesteryear society? Can it ease pain? Will it assist those who are poor, disenfranchised or suffering? Will it salve release energy or – improve silent – assist to gain renewable energies? Can it salve irreplaceable resources?” (54). This is also captured inwards this handy list:

• When nosotros travel the hired guns of greed-driven corporations, nosotros are driving to conform.
• If nosotros generate status kitsch for a jaded élite, as well as let ourselves to travel media celebrities, nosotros perform.
• When nosotros twist products to reverberate the navel-gazing of marketplace research, nosotros deform.
• If our products divorce appearance as well as other functions – a telephone that looks similar a duck as well as quacks instead of ringing, a clock-radio that looks similar a woman individual leg – nosotros misinform.
• When our designs are succinct statements of purpose, piece of cake to understand, use, keep as well as repair, long-lasting, recyclable as well as benign to the environment, nosotros inform.
• If nosotros blueprint amongst harmony as well as residue inwards mind, working for the skillful of the weaker members of our society, nosotros reform.
• Being willing to human face upwardly the consequences of our blueprint interventions, as well as accepting our social as well as moral responsibilities, nosotros give degree (53).

3. This also way that beauty is non to live institute inwards appealing to the “fun”. Yes, the Web tin live fun, but is it the beautiful form of fun? Papanek writes: “When I exercise the give-and-take ‘fun’ inwards an almost pejorative feel here, it speaks to a passive experience, the dissever of fun that has been pre-designed, pre-chewed as well as pre-digested yesteryear designers as well as corporate directors. The childlike inwards us is grounded inwards populace as well as unopen to nature. It responds to beauty, to activities that assist us exercise our torso as well as hear yesteryear extending as well as challenging physical as well as mental powers, or that outcome inwards spontaneous laughter. It is when nosotros receive got to rely on manufactured fun (theme parks similar Disney World or Disneyland) or the specious entertainment nosotros powerfulness derive from a banana-shaped telephone that the hubris of the mistaken is breathing downward our backs” (155).

4. Something that’s beautiful ‘fits’ its user as well as its use. Papanek bemoans blueprint fashions that add together nada to the design, for instance the ‘streamlining’ of objects similar CD players, which hardly demand to wing through the air at neat speed (153). You powerfulness say that the Web also does this unhelpful ‘streamlining’, inwards that it forces us to displace at breakneck speed, non because our brains really piece of job similar this as well as demand the Web to displace us simply about this quickly, but because it is fashionable, i.e. it suits our electrical current civilization of needing to practice things every bit fast every bit possible, to multitask, etc.

Now, dorsum to this thought of cyberspace every bit an architectural space. Papanek writes: “Architecture has been called ‘frozen music’ since it brings this same feel of beat into play yesteryear the repetition as well as spacing of windows, floorboards, wall spaces. Frank Lloyd Wright would manipulate these signifiers of rhythm, every bit good every bit room heights, to ‘tune’ the blueprint of his houses to his clients’ eye-height as well as supply a wholly novel feel of psychic comfort from such visual modulations, best experienced inwards his Meyer May house” (90). What form of music would the Internet be? When I retrieve virtually this, it’s an incredibly rapid, monotonous, synthesized, high-pitched vocal that never ends. How powerfulness nosotros travel virtually changing the music of cyberspace? Yet again, constituent of this powerfulness live helped yesteryear varying it more, making it less homogenized. My favorite website is this. Notice that this infinite would live a totally dissimilar song? It would live a peaceful, cheery picayune ditty, costless of annoying beeps.

Papanek makes the instance throughout his majority that it is the designer’s responsibleness to pay attending to things that would brand people happier as well as healthier inwards their spaces. For example, architects are familiar amongst this phenomenon as well as blueprint for it (or at to the lowest degree should): “Behavioural scientists receive got institute that a room amongst daylight flooding inwards from windows laid upwardly at correct angles to each other volition increment serotonin levels as well as – inwards many cases – supply its inhabitants or users amongst a to a greater extent than positive attitude” (80). We don’t really know yet what the equivalent Web blueprint elements would live that receive got a similar effect. Sherry Turkle shows that existence “connected” increases dopamine levels, which effectively makes us addicted to it. This is NOT what nosotros want. But how tin nosotros blueprint the infinite of cyberspace so that it increases serotonin?

Similarly, Papanek mentions Japanese stepping stones: “The architect Gunter Nitschke has this to add: ‘We tin discovery a presentation of infinite every bit a fourth dimension as well as mood-structured procedure inwards the layout of traditional Japanese stroll gardens and, on a smaller scale, inwards the placement of tobi-ishi, [skipping stones] used to brand garden paths. By a sophisticated placing of the stones, our pes movements tin live slowed down, speeded up, halted or turned inwards diverse directions. And amongst our legs, our eyes are manipulated, as well as our visual input from spatial phenomena is structured over time” (84). Where are Web developers every tasked amongst this form of thoughtful structuring of the infinite as well as the pathways that users take? And yet, every bit Carr as well as others would speedily dot out, these pathways are structuring our brains over fourth dimension inwards a really specific way.

I also liked the description of a traditional Japanese garden: “In the placidity of traditional Japanese gardens, ane is startled virtually every xv minutes, yesteryear a loud clack, similar the audio made yesteryear hitting ii wooden blocks together. The sozu consists of a bamboo tube, closed at ane halt as well as balanced on legs so that it tin tip. It is constantly filled yesteryear a current of H2O trickling from a bamboo water-pipe. When the subway scheme is full, it tips forward, empties as well as falls dorsum to tits master copy position, loudly striking a rock. Originally these sozu or shishi-o-doshi were used to frighten away birds, deer as well as fifty-fifty wild boar that invaded farmland as well as gardens. Zen Buddhists, however, volition explicate that they were outset introduced yesteryear the Zen mentor Rikkyu some 6 hundred years agone ‘to give a precipitous “clack” a few times during each lx minutes so that ane tin hear the quiet to a greater extent than clearly’” (89). This really highlights the ways inwards which quiet is non valued as well as thus non cultivated (or fifty-fifty accommodated) inwards cyberspace. How would we, for example, fifty-fifty hear the clack over the other beeps as well as whistles as well as constant dissonance of life inwards cyberspace?

I desire to halt amongst this thought. Papanek quotes Eugene Raskin: “We are born indoors, live, love, convey upwardly our families, worship, work, grow old, sick as well as decease indoors. Architecture mirrors every aspect of our lives – social, economical, spiritual” (75). We are living online to some extent. What does it say virtually our culture, our values, that the Web is arguably devoid of beauty, as well as treated so carelessly? And what volition travel on to our Internet if nosotros don’t get down to approach it from an ethical perspective? As John Vassos was quoted saying, “Design tin exclusively succeed if guided yesteryear an ethical view” (7).