Thread by @berkun

Another favorite book find while researching #designmtw is Are We Human: Notes on an Archaeology of Design.

It's wonderfully written - explores the nature of humanity through the lens of design.

It's also beautiful - print only, but worth it.

amazon.com/Are-Human-Note…

"Design is what you are standing on. It is what holds you up. And every layer of design rests on another and another and another. To think about design demands an archaeological approach. You have to dig." - Colomina/Wigley

"Design capacity: when other species have figured out a way to do something, they repeat it forever until changes in the context reinforce a different direction. Humans continually imagine different ways even in the same context, to the point of malfunction." - Colomina/Wigley

A surprise was how old style in #design is:

"(Behne) primitive man is not simply utilitarian... [had an] instinct for play even in his tools, [made] smooth & beautiful beyond demands of necessity, painting them or decorating them with ornaments."

Darwin observed this too.

Do you worry about the term "user/human-centered-design" in the context of our climate crisis?

They offer: " 'Human- centered' means 'market-centered' ... when the reach of the market is so massive.. human-centered design is ultimately not so interested in human well-being"

Lastly, I learned from this book a surprise about origin of proportion. In the West we refer to DaVinci/Vitruvius/Greece. But the Egyptians had a #design proportion system too, centuries earlier (and Indian Vastu Shastra is even older):