Stewart Brand Quotes Brian Eno On Evolved Things
This is a great Brian Eno quote from Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn, originally from “a computer teleconference on design” (The WELL, perhaps?):
We are convinced by things that show internal complexity, that show the traces of an interesting evolution. Those signs tell us that we might be rewarded if we accord it our trust. An important aspect of design is the degree to which the object involves you in its own completion. Some work invites you into itself by not offering a finished, glossy, one-reading-only surface. This is what makes old buildings interesting to me. I think that humans have a taste for things that not only show that they have been through a process of evolution, but which also show they are still part of one. They are not dead yet.
(There are so many things from How Buildings… I want to get written down here. I hope I’ll have the time… See also my posts “Low Road Software,” and “Art, Craft, and Design in Software Development.”)