Book Description
* Adapted from the successful German edition, which has sold over 2,000 copies
* Offers comprehensive guidance for professionals who wish to install photovoltaic technology; in full color throughout!
* Includes checklists for project managers, a review of relevant simulation tools plus data on selected regional, national, and international renewable energy support programs
Growth in photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing worldwide continues to increase. In parallel, appropriate standards and certification schemes are being developed. During this transition period, clear guidance is crucial for integrating this technology into working practices of professionals in the building sector. This book offers such guidance, detailing every subject necessary for successful project implementation, from the technical design to the legal and market issues of PV installation. Beginning with resource assessment and an outline of the core components, this guide comprehensively covers system design, economic analysis, installation, operation, and maintenance of PV systems. Translated and adapted by Ecofys, an international consultancy, specializing in sustainable energy and energy efficiency, and developed with funding from the EC’s Altener program.
Customer Reviews:
Planning and Installing Photovoltaic Systems.......2006-07-10
When you are searching for that one book that will tell you what you need, stop and run your fingers through this book. Packed with all the information you need, not only will it tell you how but also why you should move up to solar. start with this book first before you begin installing.
Book Description
American artist and design legend Tony Duquette (1914-1999) was known for his over-the-top style in interiors, jewelry, costumes, and set design. His clients included Elizabeth Arden, the Duchess of Windsor, and Herb Albert.
The multi-talented Duquette designed sets for MGM musicals with Arthur Freed and Vincente Minnelli, and designed Tony Award-winning costumes for the original Broadway production of “Camelot.” Duquette was the first American to exhibit a one-man show at the Louvre in Paris.
Tony Duquette is a lavishly illustrated book with many lost and never-before published photographs from the Duquette archives, including portraits and pictures taken by Man Ray, John Engstead, Fredrich Dapriche, Andre Ostier, George Platt Lynnes, as well as original sketches, designs, and texts by Duquette himself. With commentary, interviews, stories, and contributions from Liza Minnelli, Arlene Dahl, Steven Meisel, Bruce Weber, and others.
Average customer rating:
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Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies)
Tim Barringer
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Reading the Pre-Raphaelites
ASIN: 0300103808 |
Book Description
For artists of the increasingly mechanized Victorian age, questions about the meaning and value of labour presented a series of urgent problems: Is work a moral obligation or a religious duty? Must labour be the preserve of men alone? Does the amount of work bestowed on a painting affect its value? Should art celebrate wholesome rural work or reveal the degradations of the industrial workplace? In this highly original book, Tim Barringer considers how artists and theorists addressed these questions and what their solutions reveal about Victorian society and culture.
Based on extensive new research, Men at Work offers a compelling study of the image as a means of exploring the relationship between labour and art in Victorian Britain. Barringer arrives at a major reinterpretation of the art and culture of nineteenth-century Britain and its empire as well as new readings of such key figures as Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin.
Book Description
Shelter, like many other elements of human existence, comes at an extraordinary cost to our planet and its inhabitants. In the U.S. alone, construction of 1.2 million new homes a year results in a massive drain on Earth's natural resource base. Today, nearly 60 percent of all timber cut in the U.S. is used in building houses, not to mention construction wastes and the huge amounts of resources used in the day-to-day operation of the "modern" household. In addition to environmental costs, there are the personal economic costs--the thousands of dollars each homeowner spends each year to heat, cool, and power our homes. Today, a new generation of architects and builders is emerging, intent on creating homes that meet human needs for shelter while causing only a fraction of the environmental impact of conventional housing. The New Ecological Home provides an overview of green building techniques, materials, products, and technologies that are either currently available or will be in the near future. Author Daniel Chiras provides a wealth of up-to-date, practical information for home buyers, owner-builders, and anyone interested in building for a sustainable future. Included are chapters on: * The Healthy House; * Green Building Materials; * Wood-Wise Construction; * Energy Efficiency; * Earth-Sheltered Architecture; * Passive Solar Heating and Passive Cooling; * Green Power: Electricity from the Sun and Wind; * Water and Waste: Sustainable Approaches;* Environmental Landscaping.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent introduction to wide array of green building options.......2006-12-11
During the planning phase of building our first home, this book was very helpful. We liked the emphasis right at the start on site selection -- what to look for in everything from the overall community to aspects of the land itself and how to environmentally protect that land during construction. A comparison checklist for assessing lots is included. Even though ours will not be a "natural House" (rammed earth, straw bale, etc.) and though those types of construction are covered, there was plenty of solid information on building a more energy efficient, and less wasteful, home of wood and concrete. Also included are chapters on design, using green and non- or less toxic materials, sustainable approaches to water and waste, environmental landscaping, and enery-efficient design, heating, and cooling. As this will be a retirement home, we especially appreciated the chapter on accessiblilty and ergonomic design.
An Excellent Overview of Green Building...Superb!.......2004-11-05
Author Dan Chiras has produced a series of amazing books on green building, including The Natural House, The Solar House, Superbia!, and The Natural Plaster Book. His books are extremely well written, well organized, comprehensive, and extremely well illustrated. He's truly one of the best, if not the best, writer in the green building field.
The New Ecological Home is no exception. In fact, I think it is one of the best books he has written. Although the cover is pretty drab, the book is a beauty inside. The book is engaging, easy to read, and full of interesting and helpful information that will assist those who want to explore the many options for building homes that are good for people, the planet, and the economy. This book should be read by all who are considering building a new home as well as those who are thinking about remodeling their homes. It is also a valuable resource for architects, builders, and students of architecture. Adding to its value, this book has a detailed resource guide that adds considerably to its value.
Ok, but not great.......2004-10-29
This book was a little bit hard to understand, especially if you are not knowledgable on the subject. I would recommend something more clear and easier to read.
Book Description
The best visual design work is about emotion as much as appearance. Powerful, brilliant pictures presented in just the right layout can make us experience a whole range of emotions, from fear to attraction, anger to happiness.
The Society of Publication Designers' (SPD) annual competition seeks the very best in editorial design work. Judged by a worldwide panel of top designers, the 41st edition of Rockport's best-selling SPD series celebrates the journalists, editorial directors, photographers, and other talented individuals who brought events of the year 2005 with all its triumphs and disasters to our doorsteps and computer screens.
Stunning full-page layouts present everything from products to people, and objects to events, in ways that make each palpable and unforgettable. Featuring work published in a wide range of mediums and created by journalistic, design, and publishing talent from around the world, this stunning volume celebrates the people and firms who represent editorial design at its best.
Customer Reviews:
Always a pleaser.......2007-06-07
Every year this book makes me stoked. All the best publication design for that year. Can't go wrong ordering this sight unseen year afetr year.
Book Description
"Shaping Things is about created objects and the environment, which is to say, it's about everything," writes Bruce Sterling in this addition to the Mediawork Pamphlet series. He adds, "Seen from sufficient distance, this is a small topic."
Sterling offers a brilliant, often hilarious history of shaped things. We have moved from an age of artifacts, made by hand, through complex machines, to the current era of "gizmos." New forms of design and manufacture are appearing that lack historical precedent, he writes; but the production methods, using archaic forms of energy and materials that are finite and toxic, are not sustainable. The future will see a new kind of object -- we have the primitive forms of them now in our pockets and briefcases: user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable -- that will be sustainable, enhanceable, and uniquely identifiable. Sterling coins the term "spime" for them, these future manufactured objects with informational support so extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time. They are made of substances that can be folded back into the production stream of future spimes, challenging all of us to become involved in their production. Spimes are coming, says Sterling. We will need these objects in order to live; we won't be able to surrender their advantages without awful consequences.
The vision of Shaping Things is given material form by the intricate design of Lorraine Wild. Shaping Things is for designers and thinkers, engineers and scientists, entrepreneurs and financiers -- and anyone who wants to understand and be part of the process of technosocial transformation.
Customer Reviews:
Techno-futuristic ruminations on "spimes" and sustainability.......2007-08-31
Type a few words into Google and you can find a sushi restaurant, a movie theater, concert tickets or a new car. But if you misplace your car keys in your house, you still have to search the old-fashioned way: room by room, cushion by cushion, coat pocket by coat pocket. If Bruce Sterling is correct, though, one day you'll Google your keys. And your shoes. And your dog. This is the nascent "Internet of things" made possible by technology, including such items as radio frequency ID tags and traceable product life cycle management. That is where technology is going: to the interactive "spime," Sterling's term for objects that will arrive with data attached. In this visually arresting novella-sized essay, Sterling riffs on a number of scenarios, from customized-to-order cell phones to products that "know" how much carbon their construction required. His aphoristic prose seems at times like madness, but there's method in it: Sterling urges designers to make beautifully sustainable products rather than more proto-trash. We believe his book could reform your ideas about design and provide a stock of carbon-neutral insights you can deliver to your colleagues over a recyclable cup filled with shade-grown coffee.
This book is a little too short. .......2007-08-08
This book is 'wafer thin', I would recommend John ThakorsIn the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World instead, it is goes into a lot more depth, but is still a sci-fi.
A tool, in a way..........2007-07-19
This is such a short read, and such a good read - it really is a tool, more of a reminder. The way some people put a model of their dream car on their desk, to remind them their goal, this book should be kept around, read once or twice a year to remind oneself to put purpose, intelligence, and diligence into what you create. I think I'll start giving copies of this to new employees...
Setting the agenda.........2006-12-15
If you're looking for a book on sustainable design, the intertwining of the informational and the material, and RFID, look no further.
Sterling's account is more than a book for designers. Though some angles tend to originate from design-related topics, the implications and responsibilities pertaining to design cannot belong to a community of designers per se.
That's a pretty self-evident idea of course, but allow me to elucidate.
When Sterling argues that "we need a designed metahistory", this pertains to the idea that the information that is related to objects / spimes / shaping things needs to be designed. Given the fact that more and more objects are tagged, and thereby enrolled in a global information architecture, this implies that 'design' has the ability to influence the way we relate to object-data.
And this is by no means a scenario that is sci-fi: take the EPCglobal architecture as an example. Sterling is perfectly aware of this.
For me, the book provided a framework in which many more things can be deployed.. But I suppose the book's effects will depend on the mindset of the reader. The capacity of the book to create new concepts and new levels of thought is obviously there. To me, the ability of a written work to do this is what makes a book great.
important work for more than just designers..........2006-06-05
...or perhaps it's just that "design" is an extremely broad category. Sterling presents a futurity that is at once realistic and utopian, frightening and hopeful.
This book would be useful for not just anyone designing anything, but anyone concerned with the future, how to achieve real sustainability, or how all that geeky stuff (you occasionally read about in the Wired you pick up at the airport) will really effect you.
I agree with another reviewer that the actual print design of the book is a hindrance, which is ironic; my distaste for it was only made worse by having already heard Sterling brag on it during a talk. But even with this beef, I have to give it a full five stars based on the content alone.
Book Description
From the academy to pop culture, our society is in the throes of change rivaling the birth of modernity out of the decay of the Middle Ages. We are now moving from the modern to the postmodern era.But what is postmodernism? How did it arise? What characterizes the postmodern ethos? What is the postmodern mind and how does it differ from the modern mind? Who are its leading advocates? Most important of all, what challenges does this cultural shift present to the church, which must proclaim the gospel to the emerging postmodern generation?
Stanley Grenz here charts the postmodern landscape. He shows the threads that link art and architecture, philosophy and fiction, literary theory and television. He shows how the postmodern phenomenon has actually been in the making for a century and then introduces readers to the gurus of the postmodern mind-set. What he offers here is truly an indispensable guide for understanding today's culture.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent summary of Postmodernism.......2007-06-08
Grenz book is written in a very scholarly tone, but not so much as to render it useless to a person more accustomed to lay-speak. He omits nothing to make the read easier, but definitely write concisely, never diverging into redundant blabber.
The only thing I would note about this book is that Grenz is a Christian Minister who openly rejects Postmodernism. The first chapter of the book and the last chapter focus on how Christians can minister and spread the gospel in the Postmodern era. Given this, he is amazingly neutral throughout the chapters between the first and the last. Essentially, if you are a Christian who is interested in spreading the gospel, you will find the entire book useful. If not, the middle chapters will be more interesting than the first and last.
Nonetheless, Grenz's writing is phenomenal. If you want to know what Postmodernism is all about, this is the book for you.
A final note: Grenz recommends that those completely unfamiliar with Postmodernism read the first chapter, then the last chapter, then go back to chapter 2 and read straight through from there. I would disagree extremely strongly. Just read the book from cover to cover, you will understand everything fine.
Good intro to postmodernism.......2006-11-03
This book is a great introduction to a subject that can be hard to understand - postmodernism. Grenz writes from a Christian perspective as he highlights key points and the thinkers who paved the way for this emerging view of life.
Toward the end of the book Grenz contemplates some similarities between the Christian faith and postmodernism. I recommend it.
Nice intro.......2006-09-08
I feel this is one of the better introductions to Postmodernism. It is a little clearer than say "Teach Yourself Postmodernism", which is also a very good introduction. If you want to understand the Postmodern idea, get both these books, they compliment each other very well IMHO.
Excellent history and analysis.......2005-10-01
This was an excellent study in the philosophical foundations of the actual movement of postmodernity, contrasted with the pop images of that movement which don't represent the shift in the history of human thought.
Grenz cleverly takes us into the movement (c. 1) by contrasting images of the old Star Trek, in which Mr. Spock represented the peak of intelligence, pure logic. He is presented as an image of modernity. In the newer Star Trek(s), there is ethnic diversity, a diversity of skills and stories, and a new emphasis on emotion. This is a taste of postmodernity.
Chapter 2 gives an account of the rise of postmodernity into the public eye and the U.S. culture, but this largely reflects the art and architecture of the post-1960's cultural revolution. The real foundations of postmodernity consist of a more sophisticated critique of earlier philosophy. Chapter 3 gives a more detailed look at a shifting worldview or vantage point, away from the monolithic empiricist view of the Enlightenment. As Descartes split the subjective self from the objective world, Bacon's creation of empirical method to bridge the two, and Newton's mechanistic description of an ordered universe created the pursuit of a universal worldview, the God's eye perspective. Modernity sought that one perspective and believed that humanity could attain an objective, rational grasp on it. Unfortunately, reasonable people in power seem to find ways to rationalize their use of it. This cast doubt on reason and objectivity themselves. This culminated (c. 4) in the Kantian analysis of reason. Reason creates categories through which the world is filtered. It is thus limited by its filter (leaving room for the noumenous or the metaphysical), but it is still rational and objective.
Chapters 5 and 6 are worth their weight in gold. This is a beginner's survey of the philosophical influences leading up to the present day. Without summarizing them all here, it suffices to say that Nietzsche announced the conclusion of modernity (both descriptively and prophetically). Godamer attempted a last grab at modernity by positing "a fusion of horizons" (Robert Nozik has more recently called it "invariances"). Schleiermacher and Wittgenstien turned modern philosophy from strict epistemology to linguistics, grounding meaning (if it can be had) in shared vocabulary. Foucault then accused language itself of bearing Nietzche's will-to-power, particularly language concerning sexuality; Derrida deconstructed the correspondence theory of knowledge and suggested that meaning coheres only within the context of a given vocabulary; Rorty affirms a coherence theory as well, denying there is a fundamental essence in anything.
Grenz fails to make note of the consequent shift of philosophy towards cognitive science after the perceived failure of epistemology. The contemporaries: Searle, Putman, and Nozik, are now operating under an assumed pragmatic realism and talking about whether or not computers can create minds.
I like that Grenz leaves us with very little prescriptions in the end. He closes on a fairly mild assertion that we need neither fully reject or embrace postmodernity, but we have to deal with it. Excellent book.
Great Christian Foundation for Postmodernism.......2005-09-08
Grenz does a great job at providing a background leading up to and a readable exposition of current postmodern thought. His book is written in such a way that those with little to no previous background knowledge of philosophy won't be lost. However, for those that do remember something from philosophy class, Grenz spends perhaps too much time tracing the precursors to postmodernism.
Postmodernism in itself probably takes up about half of the book. The rest is devoted to providing historical background information and setting the postmodern stage.
Grenz's treatment of postmodernism is highly fair, unbiased, and insightful. He is willing to allow postmodernism to help Christians get past some of the hindrances we face when we rely completely on modern theological techniques, but he isn't afraid to reject tenants of postmodernism that are antithetical to Christian orthodoxy.
I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I felt like it was mildly repetitive at times and said the same thing over and over in places. It's almost as if it was written in a way that you could read independent chapters out of order and it would still make sense. If that's the kind of book you are looking for, then it's worth 5 stars!
This book is a must-read for Christians wanting a fair treatment of Postmodernism. It should be required reading for anyone ministering on university campuses or in large metropolitan areas that are directly influenced by postmodernism.
Book Description
For more than a generation, critics and scholars have been revising and expanding the customary definition of American art. A tradition once assumed to be mainly European and oriented toward painting and sculpture has been enriched by the inclusion of other media such as ceramics, needlework, and illustration, and the work of previously marginalized groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Now, in a brilliant combination of original scholarship and synthesis, Frances Pohl's Framing America provides the first comprehensive survey of this new, enlarged vision of American art.
Here are the many strands of North America's history and visual culture: the first contacts of the Spanish with the Aztecs and other Native Americans; the post-Revolutionary definition of nationhood; the visionary feeling for landscape and nature; the images of social and military conflict of the nineteenth century; and the tempering of the twentieth century's heady plunge into modernism by the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the culture wars.
Pohl's account is an adroitly inclusive fusion of many themes. Her discussion of the early definition of nationhood includes the traditional painters of the grand manner: West, Copley, Trumbull, and Stuart. But Stuart's portraits of George Washington, for instance, are also discussed in relation to portrayals of Washington in wood, marble, and embroidery, and the vogue for "mourning pictures" after Washington's death, which create a domestic counterpoint to the more institutional portrayals. Pohl's description of the great landscape tradition of Cole, Durand, and Church shows how the optimistic assertion of a sublime sense of the American nation was accompanied by a sense of loss as the nation expanded westward.
As our appreciation of the rich cultural diversity of American life has grown, our sense of American art—its sources, its motives, its possibilities—has also become more varied. Fresh and contemporary, Framing America embraces what our history can tell us about our art and what our art can tell us about our past and present. 665 illustrations, 337 in color.
Customer Reviews:
Good overview.......2007-02-28
This is a great book for a survey course in American art or for someone who wants to get into American art and just wants a general overview. The text is written in a very approachable manner, and the images that are included are of excellent quality and represent some good instances of characteristically American works. I used this book for an art history course in American art that was of a very limited time period, but the book is essentially written to cover everything in American art fairly broadly, from colonial times to the late twentieth century. A good read, and a good deal.
Book Description
The complete, fully illustrated guide to natural and chemical-free gardening. Whether an experienced gardener looking to go organic or a beginner wanting to create a healthy, eco-friendly garden, Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening contains the tips and techniques needed to produce beautiful flowers, top-quality herbs, and appetizing, wholesome fruits and vegetables. Explore the latest methods for cultivation without chemicals, discover the benefits of composting, and learn how to maintain an organic garden year-round.
Customer Reviews:
Poorly researched.......2007-09-27
This book is poorly researched. One section of the book talks about fungi being plants that do not undergo photosynthesis. This idea has not been accepted by the science community since the mid 50s. It goes on to mention potato blight as common pathogenic fungi....potato blight is not casued by a fungi. The causative pathogen (an oomycete) was once in the kingdom fungi but later moved to a different kingdom in the late 70's. This leads me to beleive that the authors have taken a lot of updated information for granted. I could go on and on about this book. If you are new to gardening and and want something to ready this is an OK book. If you want or need a book that give real uptdate advice this is not the book. In my opinonin this book falls into the catagory of books that are ment to be on a coffe table and not really used. A good name was used to sell a poor product.
Gardening made easy........2007-08-27
I find this book very user friendly. I find the format helpful and it's contents very informative. I especially find the care and pruning guides helpful and the variety of topics inspiring.
Brilliant! Buy this book........2007-07-26
I've been gardening for a few years, and this book really broadened my knowledge. Also made me feel less like a cheapskate for not running out to buy all the latest garden gizmos - they point out that you can reuse pruned shoots, for example, to stake up your garden plants. Highly recommended.
excellent resource.......2007-03-18
If you are interested in organic gardening, this is the book to have. I have not had one question that it couldn't answer yet!
Awsome reference book.......2006-12-01
If I could only have one book it would be this one. It is what is says...an Encyclopedia. Luckily I'm not limited to only one book as it does not cover some topics as well as other books. But that's the point of an encyclopedia..touch on all topics as best as can be done for the space available.
The first 30 pages are dedicated to the history of the organic movement and the basic design recommendations for an organic garden.
The next 70 pages cover the basics of soil care, watering, weed control, plant health and raising plants.
The next 100 pages cover various garden aspects like lawn care, woody plants, garden flowers, container gardening, gardening for wildlife and the use of greenhouses and covers.
Another 100 pages cover growing fruit, herbs and vegetables. This section alone is larger than 90% of most gardening book and well worth the price of the book alone.
It has the standard appendix and reference sections you would expect for a gardening book but a surprising extra is the H.D.R.A Organic Guidelines for Gardeners that is included as an appendix. I didn't even know such a thing existed until I read this book. Absolutely wonderful!
Book Description
We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World.
These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives.
Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how?
In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now -- not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology -- ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles -- above all, lightness -- inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.
Customer Reviews:
Shoulda/Coulda/Woulda.......2005-12-10
This book has lots of interesting little tidbits, but it falls way short of its promise. In a nutshell, Thackara rushes WAY too quickly to grind a variety of axes, and as a result skips over the basic drivers of the world's situations.
At best he's clever, but at worst he's completely clueless about some of the subjects he uses as "proof" of his claims. For example, consider the passage (p70) "proving" that the world does not need additional fiber optic bandwidth:
"Only a tiny fraction of these costly fibers are currently 'lit'--as little as 3 percent by some estimates."
This kind of thing is famous within the fiber optic industry as a flag flown by the clueless. Even though many fibers are unlit, this does nothing to alleviate the very real problems of fiber exhaust on the main long-haul routes. Moreover, where high wavelength-count Wavelength Division Multiplexing is available, it is much more economic to run traffic over a single pair of fibers in the form of additional wavelengths (rather than mutliple separate fibers), to fully leverage optical amplification.
After you've seen enough ramrods like this in the book, you tend to doubt some of his more basic points.
Come to think of it, what is that point? That growth is "bad" and should stop? OK, agreed. But unless the real impact and long-term costs are somehow "felt" by designers, merely attempting to shame the world into designing better and getting his message "into our heads" is going to be like pissing in the wind.
This is why Bruce Sterling's "Shaping Things" is a far better book. Sterling "gets" that most designers are not in a position to arbitrarily add costs to their own projects, no matter how important the consequences to world may be. Rather, he points to the notion of a "Spime" which may ultimately be a key towards "closing the loop" on the complete lifecycle of a product or design.
But, there are a number of epigrammatic phrases and interesting points that are made. So if you're interested in this book wait for the trade paperback to come out.
Technology or people?.......2005-08-03
In the Bubble
This is a very intelligent book written by a remarkable designer who is fascinated by the impact of technology on our lives. The author is neither a technophobe, nor a technophile. Techno wise would be a better description. The title of the book comes from an expression used by air traffic controllers when there are in the flow and in control of all the surrounding instruments.
Throughout the 10 chapters which cover as many aspects of, or approaches to technology, John Thackara shows a constant capacity to think "out of the box" about our complex artefacts and technical prosthesis. He never looses sight of what should be the centre of progress, namely the user.
His concern is clearly expressed in every angle from which he develops his observation. Using both the microscope and the macroscope, under criteria such as lightness, conviviality, smartness or flow, he maintains the interest of the reader through a fascinating journey of increased awareness into our everyday experiences.
If all designers and producers where able to listen to people as he does, we would indeed feel the full benefits of a more humane technology. It is not surprising that "Doors of Perception" where John gets people to share many intuitions reflected in the book, is a yearly conference held at the crossroad of different cultures.
This book is an absolute must for all of us who are deeply frustrated by an ever more complex world which so often fails to bring this feeling of being "in the Bubble" and yet who cannot put our fingers on how to change it for the better.
Perhaps the most important lesson learned is that most of those frustrations are not so much caused by the perversity of our fellow citizen, experts and leaders, than by initial flaws in the design of those systems and processes which we accept as normal and unavoidable.
The good news of this very positive book is that, if we put ourselves in trouble by bad design, the damage can be easily repaired by better design. This is of course a lot easier than to expect people to abandon their legitimate desire to obtain maximum benefits from our social tools.
This is the most challenging, thought-provoking and convincing of all the recent publications and "best sellers" about our technological civilization that this reviewer has read.
Books:
- Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship
- Point and Line to Plane (Dover Books on Art History)
- "Primitivism" in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern
- Private Lives: Do Not Disturb (Methuen Modern Plays)
- Race in the Making: Cognition, Culture, and the Child's Construction of Human Kinds (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change)
- Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe's Great Art - America and Her Allies Recovered It
- Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe's Great Art - America and Her Allies Recovered It
- Romare Bearden
- Screaming to be Heard, Revised and Updated: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect, and Doctors Ignore
- Stamp Artistry: Combining Stamps with Beadwork, Carving, Collage, Etching, Fabric, Metalwork, Painting, Polymer Clay, Repousse, and More
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Recommended Books
- Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web
- Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Childr
- A Brief Guide to Biology with Physiology
- Art in China
- Botanical Illustration Course: With the Eden Project
- Diseases of Trees and Shrubs
- Bouvier Des Flanders: The Dogs of Flandres
- Land & Light Workshop: Painting Mood & Atmosphere In Oils
- Architecture of Zaha Hadid in Photographs by Helene Binet
- Michigan Wildflowers in Color, Revised Edition with Wildflower Walks
Planning and Installing Solar Thermal Systems: A Guide for Installers, Architects and Engineers (Planning and Installing)
Photovoltaics Design And Installation Manual: Renewable Energy Education for a Sustainable Future
Designing With Solar Power (Designing with)
Photovoltaic Systems Engineering, Second Edition
2007 Solar Energy: Complete Guide to Solar Power and Photovoltaics, Practical Information on Heating, Lighting, and Concentrating, Energy Department Research (Two CD-ROM Set)
