A Tiny House on Wheels
We all love beautiful things, and beauty — as beauty in the eye of the beholder — can be found not only in the pieces of art, but in any artifacts that make us hold our breath in the same way as art does. When we see a piece, painted, crafted, built, or designed beautifully, we somehow know, on a gut level, that we’ve been let in to … a particular brand of heaven on Earth, of which I wrote in my previous article.
And, when I stumbled upon this video the other day, I knew the same instant that this tiny house has more to it than your average living place.
As I managed to put my dropped jaw back to its default position, after watching the video, my first question was: why? Why does this house look and feel so beautiful? The more I reflected on the considerations that Tagami Haruhiko, the house designer and builder, took into account, the more the answers shifted from the domain of art to practicality. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, indeed, and I find some special charm in the objects and artifacts that combine the scale of abstract intelligence — human intelligence, not an artificial one — with the intended practical purpose. The purpose which is clear not only to a community of artists or craftsmen who create such objects, but to everyone! There are buildings that have been primarily designed to look impressive, e.g. Gaudi edifices in Barcelona, and this is probably just me but… when looking at these structures, I can’t help but think that this abstract beauty brings little to the table in terms of helping people live a better life in the present times. With >7 bln people on the planet, do we need more of Gaudi, or more of Tagami Haruhiko? The answer is, well, obvious.
What I’m circling on might be just as obvious to those who have read my earlier articles. This is about the software craftsmanship ethos, wherein they regard software as a work of craft. On one hand, it’s quite common that developers lack professional fulfillment because business wants them to maintain crappy software. On the other hand, the beauty of software as a craft is accessible only to so many. The laypeople don’t care what’s under the hood, they just need the software to work smoothly. Software craftsmanship, as a movement, emerged in response to the prevailing attitudes of underappreciation, back at the time. The momentum has since swayed here and there, and one of the undisputed positive outcomes of this movement has been the raised awareness of the developers’ needs. The work unseen needs acknowledgement, too, and — in software development especially — the work unseen is the work seen, when the software just works and serves its practical purpose. As swiftly, effectively and unpretentiously as this amazing tiny house on wheels does.
Related articles:
Why Self-Organization is a Luxury
How Technical Debt Trumps Chief Culture Officers
Further reading:
