Spectacle \ Spectacles
New for January 2022: SI658 at the University of Michigan School of Information: the information architecture of spectacle
Writing
5 Years→
Research and descriptive bibliography focused on 5 years in the life and work of Richard Saul Wurman circa 1969-1974. Some of my work in progress is available through a blog I update intermittently.
Architecture And Lou Are One
Long-form interview with Richard Saul Wurman — appears as the first chapter of the Reader’s Guide to the forthcoming facsimile edition of The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn. Publishes in Fall 2021
In Search of: Masterworks of Information Architecture→
Book chapter I contributed to an edited volume from Springer in 2021 called Advances in Information Architecture.
Afterword: In Conversation With Richard Saul Wurman →
Closing piece from the 2021 Springer book on IA. An edited excerpt from a conversation I conducted with RSW.
Information Architecture and Sacred Space→
A writeup of what happened in Winter Term 2021 in the IA course I teach at the University of Michigan School of Information.
Einmal Ist Keinmal→
A long essay on the work of Christopher Alexander, and the pole-shift in my teaching and in my practice that came about through visits I fanaggled to see his projects in Tokyo, Seattle, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Jose, Lake Travis, West Dean, and West Sussex.
An Opposite Truth→
In UX design, the first principle we teach students is you are not your user. It’s a ripe axiom, and I’ve found that its opposite is also true.
In Search Of The Architecture Part of Information Architecture→
I was invited to give the closing keynote talk at the Information Architecture Summit in Vancouver in 2017, and instead I read this piece of writing into a microphone. It was a bad speech, but it’s a good essay.
Abstract and Excerpt from Dutch Uncles, Ducks and Decorated Sheds
Please feel free to purchase the chapter I wrote for Reframing Information Architecture. I assure you I receive exactly zero dollars for each $40 PDF.
Abstract: On what basis can and ought one assess the relative merits of a given work of information architecture? In 2009, Jesse James Garrett pointed to the non- existence of such a normative theory and the community of practice’s consequent inability to indicate “what good means” as evidence that information architecture is not a proper discipline. Garrett’s rallying cry was for a wholesale reframing of that community in terms of User Experience Design, with human engagement as its center. In this chapter, I draw from the work of architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi to counter-propose a co-occurring reframing of the mostly-digital sense- and place-making work of information architecture in the normative terms of architecture, where the appropriate interplay of meaning and structural form com- prises the basis of what good means.
Why Ducks are often less good than Decorated Sheds in brick-and-mortar contexts (excerpt) http://t.co/t70xtJ4vP7 pic.twitter.com/5YZjAK8m8s
— dan klyn (@danklyn) August 6, 2014
Now Available: Reframing Information Architecture Book
I just ordered a copy of Reframing Information Architecture, a new academic textbook style publication from Springer edited by Andrea Resmini. The book compiles work originally presented in a pre-conference workshop in Baltimore for the IA Summit. It features chapters written by yours truly, Andrew Hinton, Flavia Lacerda, Terence Fenn (et al.), Duane Degler, Sally Burford, David Fiorito, Roberto Maggi, David Peter Simon and Luca Rosati (et al.).
Louis Kahn and Alan Watts On Wonder
@RonaldOnTheRoad… “@danklyn: quite possibly the most important human question, ever: how am I doing, wonder? pic.twitter.com/3ebrNG04”
— D▲N▼l▲E▼L (@AhSinistrah) January 19, 2013
The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder, let him be content.
— Alan Watts (@AlanWattsDaily) June 16, 2014
I love Alan Watts. Stay in awe of the world around you✶ pic.twitter.com/ovMiSWAqHX
— the trippy hippy❁ (@psychedeliaaa) June 15, 2014
New Short Nonfiction: Landing Clean
Landing Clean is a new write-up of a story I’ve told a few times but never before thought to capture in any particular words.