Sketch Problem: Collaboration 3D to 2D

By taking the model and tracing and weaving the paths it made it clear that each piece of the model was intimately connected to every other piece of the model. Each separate piece is held in its place very delicately by the other pieces, and without each it would be a very different model.
I think that while traced on the model they still appear to be 3D representations, when taken out of context and overlapped they take on a very different connotation.

My next steps will be to add scale and program to the model, to look at the interconnectedness of the spaces and programmatic elements.

Sketch Problem Revised 2: Collaboration

Sketch Problem Revised: Collaboration

By extending the previous diagrams into a cube, a much more complex diagram came about. With the more dense center I think the idea of connected zones without division becomes clearer. The resulting diagram begins to take on a sort of "technological" look to it. I think my next step is to trace the interconnectedness of the pieces, kind of like a maze through the cube to study the relationships and adjacencies created.
I think my next step is to trace the interconnectedness of the pieces, kind of like a maze through the cube to study the relationships and adjacencies created.


Another thing I looked at is the idea of a mobius strip: no beginning, no end, only one side and one boundary.

Sketch Problem: Collaboration

Google Inc. has taken elaborate steps in their corporate offices to ensure that they remain the leader in internet technology. Their office is organized with clear cubicles, playrooms with video games, and free breakfast, lunch and dinner, all to encourage collaboration among their employees. Employees are instructed to used 80% of their work time for work, and the other 20%, or at least one work day per week, on whatever they want. By encouraging the employees to pursue other interests, Google manages to harness that creativity brought about from those ideas and a large majority of their applications such as Google Earth and Gmail have come from this 20%. Everyone at Google Inc. is exceptional at and passionate about something, whether technology related or not. Hierarchies do not exist within the Corporation, and the chief officers regularly take salaries of just $1 and stock options, as an incentive to continue innovating.

Looking at collaboration with a lack of hierarchy: A seemingly static 2D form.


When rotated begins to show the differences:

Which then all but disappear:
This is unfinished and I plan to do two more takes on it.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

In reading about collaborative communities I came across the Kibbutz communes of Israel. They began with the ideas of planting trees and draining swamps to make the land of Israel productive, "making the desert bloom." A combination of socialism and Zionism, it really takes the idea of "it takes a community to raise a child" to the extreme.

Kibbutzim believed that parents were amateur and children could be better raised by nurses and teachers, and mothers would be better served to spend their time working or on leisure activities. Therefore, children were not raised in their families but were instead raised in similar age groups. Even children were viewed as communal property.

Dining halls consisted of benches for seating instead of chairs, because chairs are individualized and benches are shared. Some Kibbutz communes discouraged the use of teakettles, because if people could make their own tea, they could spend more time in their homes and not with the community.

In many ways, Kibbutz is similar to the present-day Amish lifestyle. The Amish discourage technologies such as telephones, cars, televisions and computers not because of the use of electricity or because of their dislike of modern life, but because they have a very strong desire to keep the family and community together. Telephones mean you can contact anyone from anywhere, and take away from together time. Cars allow you to travel great distances in a short amount of time, which then allows you to leave the community. Televisions and computers are a distraction from communicating with family.

All of this reading today, along with other readings about mass collaboration in internet technologies, brought to mind a quilt: An art project that is collaborated on for the specific purpose of comfort and warmth.

More tomorrow.