Bites of Reading – Design and Society

Review: Alexandra Lange’s Meet Me by the Fountain

Lange highlights the many lessons the design history of malls offers when it comes to designing for a thriving public realm.

About once a year I ask friends to meet by the fountain – the one in front of the railway station near the city I grew up in, in the north of France. This is what the title first brought to mind, and I wasn’t too far off. Lange examines the mall as an American form of architecture that provided a form of privately-owned public space for a wide range of people to meet and congregate. She points that, all of us in their thirties or older probably “has” a mall, its shape and structure living in our brain rent free. A form of architecture developing in the 1940s and expanding after World War 2, it peaks in the 1980s in the US, and I’d say a little later (1990-2000s) in France. The mall was the public realm of the suburbs, however tightly and privately controlled. The book shows how it came to be, and its cultural significance.

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Review: From Savage Minds to Savage Machines

From Savage Minds to Savage Machines critiques designers’ depoliticizing social issues by trying to design for frictionless use.

In “From Savage Minds to Savage Machines” (2021), Nolan traces a history of primitivism in architecture and design from 19th century education in industrial arts to the design of technologies for Global South children. She argues this is central (1) to reflect critically on design’s goal to support or drive social integration at the expense of political dissensus and organised social movements; and (2) to reconsider the assumptions behind what is considered good design i.e., objects and structures intuitive to use, a “natural” fit. This is the academic version of ForScale’s request that everyone stop using the word primitive in design.

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Listening to the city

Soundscape refers to how we perceive our acoustic environment, with and without instruments other than our ears. City soundscapes are of interest to Science and Technology or Sound Studies scholars, historians, geographers and sociologists; a matter of public health and road safety; regulated by laws; shaped by urban planners and architects.

What can we hear? When should we listen? How do we sound? A selection of open tabs.

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Our Lives and the Design of the Kitchen

Exploring how kitchen design shapes women’s and the family life (and how men strategically avoided to be expected to spend time there).

There are a number of topics I don’t research systematically but that come up regularly during my readings. I am trying a new post category, for now called Bites of Reading. These posts collects quotes or excerpts from different sources about a particular topic.

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