Week 04: Is design essentially idealistic and neglectful of reality?

Prompt: The readings argue that design focuses too much on processes and not enough on outcomes, and is essentially idealistic and neglectful of the messiness of reality. Do you agree or disagree with this…

Week 03: Affordance

Task: Define what an affordance is. Then find a specific affordance and write about it in great detail.

Week 02: Autonomous Car, A Movable Space

Task: Choose one (or more) models to think through how a person might relate to something…

Week 06: Plans, situated actions, and seams

Task: Lucy Suchman distinguishes between plans and situated actions. In your post, first note that distinction — define both. How does it play out in Vertesi’s characterization of “seamfulness” in the work of NASA’s scientists? And how do you see plans…

Week 02: Personal Reading Reviews/Memos

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They’re Built, Ch. 1–2 (“Flow” and “Shearing Layers”)

“Buildings rule us via their time layering at least as much as we rule them.”